"Catching Fire" Is The First Film With A Female Lead To Top The Annual Box Office In 40 Years

"Catching Fire" Is The First Film With A Female Lead To Top The Annual Box Office In 40 Years:

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire made history on Thursday, surpassing Iron Man 3 as the top domestic grossing film released in 2013, with $409.4 million at the box office. It’s a remarkable achievement for the sequel, especially since, as Lionsgate crowed in a release on Friday, it is the first time two films in a franchise have both grossed more than $400 million in the U.S. (The first Hunger Games made $408 million domestically in 2012.)

But Catching Fire reached an even bigger milestone on Thursday, and it is a doozy. As entertainment journalist Mark Harris first pointed out on Twitter:

Remarkable stat: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is the first movie with a solo female lead to be the year's #1 film since The Exorcist.

Insane.