10 Top-Searched Movies on Yahoo! in 2012

1. "The Hunger Games"
The Suzanne Collins series had the makings of a crossover juggernaut like "Twilight" and "Harry Potter" before it. Its premise, however, involved a 16-year-old archer in post-apocalyptic America, sacrificing herself to fight in a killing field. Oh, and Katniss Everdeen was a girl, one of a growing cadre of underaged onscreen killing femmes. That kind of bloodlust shouldn't have been been surprising, given the female penchant ... more 

1. "The Hunger Games"
The Suzanne Collins series had the makings of a crossover juggernaut like "Twilight" and "Harry Potter" before it. Its premise, however, involved a 16-year-old archer in post-apocalyptic America, sacrificing herself to fight in a killing field. Oh, and Katniss Everdeen was a girl, one of a growing cadre of underaged onscreen killing femmes. That kind of bloodlust shouldn't have been been surprising, given the female penchant for mysteries, true crime, and Lifetime women-in-peril-who-fight-back lineups. Hollywood also calculated, from "Twilight" figures, that ladies actually went to the movies, and judging from Yahoo! Searches (which ran 63% female), they would show up for this adaptation. The film had a massive opening weekend (in March), the third-biggest grosser in 2012, outperformed "Harry Potter" (in domestic grosses), and the best debut for a film that wasn't a sequel. Its influence didn't stop in the movie theaters: The impulse to shoot some arrows helped fill archery classes across the nation. All this will surely up the ante for sequel "Catching Fire," due out November 2013. less