Hunger Games 101

Are you behind on your Hunger Games reading? But you don’t want to let on how much you don’t know about Suzanne Collins’ three-book franchise. Still, everyone is talking about it at work.

If any of that sounds familiar,  CNN provides  your first line of defense. It’s a sort of Hunger Games 101: a breezily written piece -- complete with one of those irritating slide shows -- that will bring you right up to speed. Here, for instance, is a comment on the HG’ love triangles:

So there's this girl Katniss and she's a total badass, and she's basically best buds with the male version of her, Gale (Liam Hemsworth), but she gets sent off to the Hunger Games with Peeta, saves his life a million times and now all the viewers want them to be an item. So they sort of are. Besides fighting for basic survival, the Quarter Quell gives them more time together to explore their relationship, for real and for the cameras. The love triangle is what grounds the entire series in reality, and it ain't over until it's over, so don't expect anything to be decided halfway through the series' four-movie run.

With rundowns like that, you won’t flounder long. Meanwhile, the second film in the series, Hunger Games: Catching Fire, opened this past weekend to numbers that exceeded even optimistic expectations. From Entertainment Weekly:

Only three films have ever opened higher than Catching Fire: The Avengers ($207.4 million), Iron Man 3 ($174.1 million), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($169.2 million). Many prognosticators (this one included) thought Catching Fire might surpass Iron Man 3‘s opening earlier this year, but the superhero sequel had the notable advantage of 3-D ticket sales, and Catching Fire fell short. Still, if estimates hold up when final grosses are released tomorrow, Catching Fire will have bested The Dark Knight Rises as the highest 2-D opener of all time. Rises pulled in $160.9 million during its opening weekend in 2012. Even without 3-D appeal, Catching Fire played very well on IMAX screens. The large-screen format accounted for $12.6 million of its domestic debut.