Lines of excited students filled Celebration Cinema, 4935 E. Pickard Road, on Thursday night, anticipating the midnight release of “The Hunger Games.”

Around 1,450 tickets sold prior to the night of the showings and took up several sold-out screens. According to BoxOfficeMojo, Thursday's opening night was the fifth-largest box office success ever, and the film had raked in about $155 million nationally, as of Sunday. The excitement and number of preordered tickets surpassed the expectations of the theater, said Operations Manager Greg Howell.

“We originally thought the attendance would be about half of the crowd we got for the ‘Twilight’ and ‘Harry Potter’ films,” Howell said. “Once we started selling tickets early on Feb. 22 and saw a ton of tickets being sold out, we began to see it was going to be bigger.”

“The Hunger Games,” based on a 2008 novel written by Suzanne Collins, takes place in a post-apocalyptic North America where the nation of Panem holds an annual survival competition between 24 young adults. The main character of the novel, Katniss Everdeen, becomes one of the participants after volunteering to take the place of her younger sister in the competition.

Howell said some of the eagerness for the film was probably because of its similarities to “Twilight” and “Harry Potter” in being part of a recent, popular book series.

“It has that rabid fanbase that we love,” Howell said. “It also really helps these films that they’re strongly marketed to females — you didn’t see this kind of marketing toward a female audience 20 years ago.”

While waiting in the theater lobby, Big Rapids resident Corbin Hammond said the book’s popularity was partially because of its appeal across many genres.

“It’s got stuff for everybody,” Hammond said. “There’s romance, gore and fighting and a great story.”

White Lake senior Michelle Vermilya said she read the book in December and liked its attention to detail.

“It’s a very graphic and fun read,” Vermilya said. “My favorite character is Peeta, because he seems very genuine.”

Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature Joseph Sommers, who has taught about “The Hunger Games” in ENG 482: Fantasy for Youth classes and also went to a midnight showing, said the novel appeals to young adults because much of it is a reflection of America today.

“The author Suzanne Collins makes astute points about the decline of America through stuff like reality TV,” Sommers said. “It hits young adults as they go to college and start wondering why they’re here when there seems to be so little opportunity out there right now.”

As Constantine freshman Salina Bosworth left the theater after the film, she said she found it true to the book and planned on coming to the midnight showing for the sequel next year.

“It was the best book-to-movie I’ve seen in a long time,” Bosworth said.

Sommers said he thought the movie could have done more to express the book’s themes.

“There were all these things that really resonated in the book that just aren’t there (in the movie),” he said. “The actors and actresses were good; it was the script and directing that was the problem. I would say the movie’s not a must-see, but the book is a must-read.”

In the theater lobby, members of the Harry Potter Alliance collected canned goods and donations for the Isabella Community Soup Kitchen as part of their “Hunger Is Not a Game” campaign.

“We want to take all the energy and hype from the movie release and use it to make the world a better place,” said Mason senior and Harry Potter Alliance PR Chair Dylan Clauson.

Some of the excitement during the movie screenings wasn’t all from the movie alone. Sanford senior Bethany Juen said an intense part of the movie was disrupted in one of the screenings when one of the padded sections of a wall fell down.

“There was a noise in the back of the theater,” Juen said. “When I looked over, there were three people with their arms over their heads holding up this piece of padding. Nobody was hurt, though, so it was pretty funny.”