Hunger Games Ranked 7th of All Time on Midnight Box Office Performance

Piper Jaffray has published a research report on Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE: LGF) commenting on the "Hunger Games" movie release.In the report, Piper Jaffray writes, "The midnight box office performance for the Hunger Games set a record for a nonsequel and ranked 7th all time. While difficult to extrapolate midnight numbers, a rough estimate would suggest $325M domestic box office, well above our current forecast of $225M. We will plan to update forecasts on Monday once box office results for the weekend are known. We see a good chance this film will be the highest grossing March release ever (the record is held by Alice in Wonderland - $116M). We continue to be bullish on the broader exhibitor space as the odds are high that Hunger Games will deliver a record March box office opening and move bias to estimates higher. In our order of preference we would be long LGF, IMAX, CNK, RGC and CKEC."Piper Jaffray maintains its Overweight rating and $20 price target on Lions Gate Entertainment, which is currently trading down $0.18 from yesterday's $14.55 closing price.