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Edwin Davies: I think the only thing that will hold Catching Fire back will be the fact that it is shot in 2D, so won't benefit from the inflated pricing so much. Otherwise, I think it has a legitimate shot at coming very close to Iron Man 3's total thanks to the cultural ubiquity of the books, Jennifer's Lawrence's newly minted superstar status thanks to her Oscar win, and the still strong residual goodwill from the first film. Considering that The Hunger Games opened to $152 million and didn't completely alienate or anger the audience, I see no reason why it shouldn't improve on that the second time out.

Star Wars will almost certainly be huge, the question of how huge depends on how well Disney manage the franchise. Most of the best decisions relating to Marvel films came before Disney got involved, so all we know from The Avengers and Iron Man 3 is that they can get out of the way of a good thing and promote the hell out of it. If they can make a damn good film, then Episode VII could legitimately rival The Avengers 2 as the biggest film of 2015. If they don't, well, we know that quality has never stood in the way of making a successful Star Wars film, so it becomes a matter of how much money Disney end up leaving on the table in that scenario.

Tim Briody: The day after The Hunger Games opened, I predicted that both Catching Fire and Mockingjay would beat whatever the opening weekend record was at the time of their release. Of course, that was a pre-Avengers world we were living in at the time. I think the bar's a little too high for Catching Fire to jump over that at this point, but it will still show an improvement on The Hunger Games performance.

David Mumpower: My current expectation for Catching Fire is a moderate jump from The Hunger Games' already astonishing opening weekend of $152.5 million. $175-$180 million sounds about right, which means I slot it as a push with Iron Men 3, possibly slightly edging that total. As release week approaches, I will be curious to see if the marketing team can create buzz for the sequel the way they did for the original, a title I consider to be the best advertised movie of the past few years, at least on a blockbuster scale. Paranormal Activity's midnight screenings are not advertising inasmuch as fostering word-of-mouth buzz, a different conversation in my opinion. I believe that the audience for The Hunger Games has increased due to the impeccable quality of the movie. My concern about the sequels has always been that the selling point of the first film grows more derivative with each installment. Catching Fire is my favorite book in the series, though. I for one am more excited about this outing than the last one.

With regards to Star Wars, I believe this is key aspect of the conversation. What we have witnessed over the past 12 months is the power of the Disney marketing machine. They do a masterful job of indoctrinating children into loving franchises. Independent of the age of anyone replying in this thread, we have all been susceptible to it. For me, it was The Apple Dumpling Gang, Herbie the Love Bug and Gus. For the millennial crowd, it's Pixar.

Now consider that George Lucas always targeted children with his vision of Star Wars. He was in fact primarily concerned with kids, which is why the Star Wars movies don't hold up well, something we have discussed here several times before. They are garbage but when we were kids, we didn't see them as a cheap knockoff the Star Trek series that had been canceled a few years before. When the prequels were unveiled, this is the explanation for all of the shock and betrayal by adults no longer seeing the movies through the eyes of a child. Jar Jar Binks is no different from an Ewok, but it's hard for people who were children in the 70s and 80s to accept this.

With Disney calling the shots and J.J. Abrams helming the project, Star Wars 7 has the potential to become the first truly great Star Wars movie. And even if it doesn't, I fully expect it to *shatter* opening weekend box office records. It already had a massive built-in fanbase. Now, Disney is taking the lead on promoting the franchise. Disney plus Star Wars is the ultimate box office combination. This is the box office equivalent of infinity plus infinity leading to a ton more infinity.

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