Fandango accounts for 22% of ticket sales for “Hunger Games”, selling 17 tickets per second

All signs point to a killer opening weekend for the movie “Hunger Games“, based on a series of books. The online hype has been impossible to miss, and I even went to see the film last night.

According to Fandango, its online ticket selling service played a big part of the monster weekend for the movie by accounting for 22% of its ticket sales over the weekend. Overall, the movie took in a whopping $155M in just three days.

The share of ticket sales was a record for Fandango, which just announced a partnership with Yahoo! Movies. I wouldn’t be surprised if the movie promotion by Yahoo! had something to do with the lift for Fandango. Here are the top five films by Fandango sales percentage:

1.”The Hunger Games” (2012) – 22%
2. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2″ (2011) – 19%
3. “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” (2009) – 18%
4. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1” (2010) – 17%
5. “Sex and the City” (2008) – 16%

A lot of these movies had big openings, including younger crowds who stood in line to catch a midnight showing. It looks like buying your tickets at the theater is becoming a thing of the past thanks to sites like Fandango.

The movie is so popular that it accounted for 90% of all ticket sales on the site over the weekend.

Here’s what Fandango’s General Manager Rick Butler had to say about it:

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Fandango’s record- breaking percentage of the film’s opening weekend is a testament to the growing popularity of online and mobile ticketing as the way to go to the movies. It’s rare to see the first film in a franchise performing like an established sequel, but ‘The Hunger Games’ is a true phenomenon. Fans have given it our highest ‘Must Go!” rating, with Web and mobile ticket sales still going strong on Sunday.

It’s usually a sign of a rebounding economy in the United States when movies start having these blockbuster opening weekends, so it seems like people are ready to spend their money on tickets again. They’re not getting cheaper, since a lot of these films are opening in 3D and IMAX format which costs more than a regular ticket.

We haven’t seen anything yet though when it comes to records, as Titanic will be re-released on April 4th in 3D. That movie broke worldwide records and with a new format and younger crowd who missed it the first time around, the “Hunger Games” numbers are going to look like child’s play.