Lions Gate Entertainment's The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part I has crossed $500 million at the global box office as of yesterday. To wit, the $125m production has earned $233m domestic and $271m overseas for a grand total of $504m worldwide. Despite some concern after the film's opening weekend, it is a huge smash hit. Despite initial proclamations of worry after its opening weekend, Interstellar has crossed $557m worldwide, including $407m overseas alone after an allegedly disappointing debut. So yeah, there may have been smoke, but there was no fire whatsoever for either blockbuster release. Both films are turning out to be pretty big hits after all.

The Jennifer Lawrence action drama has been slightly on the defensive since it opened at $121 million mostly because The Hunger Games opened with $152m in March of 2012 while The Hunger Games: Catching Fire debuted with $158m last November. As I mentioned several times before and after it debuted, this third film was never going to scale the heights of the first two films, at least not domestically. It was merely the build-up to the finale, the penultimate episode that saved most of its best material for part II. So even though the first film ended its domestic run with $408m (an obscene number for a franchise starter) and the sequel actually improved on that figure with $423m domestic, there really was nowhere to go but down, especially for a film that lacked actual "hunger games" and spent most of its running time in a dark and grim enclosed fortress.

The film is still giving Catching Fire's $440 million overseas total a run for its money. It won't debut in China until early next year, so there is still some box office bounty yet to come. Mockingjay part I will surpass the $283m overseas total of The Hunger Games in a moment or two. We can already presume that Mockingjay part I will end its domestic run with around $300m-$330m, with an extra nudge if it is required to get the Lionsgate release past the $331.5m domestic (and counting) cume of Walt Disney's Guardians of the Galaxy. The big open question is how fly over/under $440 million overseas the film ends up. We're presumably looking at a worst-case scenario of around $700m worldwide, as opposed to the $691m cume of The Hunger Games and the $864m cume of Catching Fire. The $771m worldwide cume of Guardians of the Galaxy is probably out of the question, although we'll know when we know. But even a $700m worldwide cume puts it at 5.7x its production budget in worldwide theatrical alone.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part I is just one of two pretty big movies go on the defensive over November, after posting smaller-than-expected opening weekends, only to grow into blockbusters anyway. Chris Nolan's Interstellar was the victim of "Why didn't it open higher?" posts after it earned $49 million over its debut frame, only to have the film roar to life overseas and have steady space legs domestically.

As of now, the $165 million Viacom Inc. /Time Warner Inc. release just crossed $150m domestic as of yesterday while it soared past $100m in China alone. The Matthew McConaughey/Jessica Chastain/Anne Hathaway/Michael Caine adventure has earned a whopping $557m worldwide and counting (Warner was nice enough to supply updated overseas grosses) with plenty of gas left in the tank. I assume Chris Nolan and IMAX will be exchanging big holiday gifts this year, as IMAX has been a huge player in the film's leggy success, with the film earning 37% of its daily domestic take in IMAX theaters as it nears $100m worldwide in the most premium of premium large format theaters.

Barring variables, the film should end its domestic run with around $180 million, which would be a rock-solid 3.67x weekend-to-final multiplier. It's performing overseas like Life of Pi, which earned $124m domestic and $484m overseas for an eye-popping $609m worldwide in late 2012. Interstellar looks like it may-well end its run with around $650 million worldwide, although $700m worldwide wouldn't surprise me with these overseas space legs. But even $650m worldwide would be very nearly 4x its $165m production budget. Yes, the film will earn less than Inception ($292m US/$825m worldwide) on a relatively similar $160m production budget back in 2010. But the less inherently commercial (grim and somber drama in outer-space with Matthew McConaughey < action-packed adventure in your dreams with Leonardo DiCaprio) and frankly somewhat less well-received Chris Nolan film is still a pretty big hit.

This is "important" (to the extent that the profits and losses of a major studio multiplex release are "important" in any societal sense) on two fronts. First of all, it gets to the root of frankly much of my box office punditry, which is that films don't necessarily solely live or die based on opening weekend alone and that "record-breaking" should never be a bar for success. Movies, even really big movies that aim for really big opening weekends, don't necessarily have their fates set in stone by the end of that first Sunday. Secondly, we cannot complain about the lack of ambitious and/or high-quality blockbusters (warts and all, both The Hunger Games and Interstellar are shooting for a deeper experience than Transformers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and then create an immediate impression of failure right out of the gate. We can’t complain about the lack of original Hollywood blockbusters and then proclaim Interstellar as a box office failure because it doesn't open as big as a well-known property.

Both Interstellar and The Hunger Games have crossed $500 million worldwide and both will likely end up well-over $600m worldwide by the time they are done. They will not break records, they will not reach career peaks for Jennifer Lawrence or Chris Nolan. But they are indeed box office hits, films that will earn many times their production budget on worldwide theatrical alone. I just thought we ought to remind ourselves of that.