Are audiences getting tired of the two-part tease that ends Hollywood blockbuster series? Did they just lose some of their hunger for The Hunger Games as the movies became darker? Or was it just that Katniss was no long catnip for young fans as they grew up and moved onto other young adult movies?

Those were all very relevant questions after The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II opened less successfully than expected on the weekend.

In Australia, it was easily the biggest movie in cinemas, taking $9.8 million for a solid average of $15,700 per cinema.

But that was $2 million - or 17 per cent - less than the previous instalment, Mockingjay Part I, last November. And a hefty 21 per cent drop from the $12.5 million taken by the second instalment, Catching Fire, the previous November.

It was only just better than the $9 million taken by the original Hunger Games, which had a much better average of $19,200 per cinema when tickets were cheaper three-and-a-half years ago.

For a movie with expectations of being one of the year's biggest hits, Part II had a surprisingly low-key opening weekend compared to other blockbusters this year.

Jurassic World took $16 million, The Avengers: Age Of Ultron $15.7 million, Fast and Furious 7 $14.6 million, Spectre $11.3 million and Fifty Shades of Grey $10.4 million.

While there has never been more interest in Jennifer Lawrence, who plays teenage warrior Katniss Everdeen in the series based on Suzanne Collins' trilogy of novels, the takings for the movie were similarly down in the US.

Yes, it took a not-to-be-sneezed at US102 million but, according to Box Office Guru, this was 17 per cent down on Part I and 36 per cent down Catching Fire.

That means that in both countries, many viewers who watched Catching Fire lost interest in the series as it wrapped up over two instalments.

Both the Harry Potter and Twilight movies managed to maintain their audiences when they finished in this teasing two-part fashion.

The Los Angeles Times has suggested that part of the reason for the movie's failure was that Lawrence had outgrown the role.

"Lawrence is, to be sure, a very strong actress and a very popular presence, two commodities you want if you're mounting a mega-franchise (especially if other aspects of the work can be a little wobbly)," wrote Steven Zeitchik.

"But in the past two films and particularly in this one, she also comes with a certain kind of baggage - namely, she seems significantly older than the part, substantially bigger than it, in a way that is distracting at best and at times even directly counter to the movies' aims of portraying a hardened youth."

While Lawrence was 20 when she first played 16-year-old Katniss in the original Hunger Games, she was 25 by the time she played her as a 17-year-old.

While Part II will still sell a lot of tickets around the world, the results show the perils of dragging out a finish to a blockbuster series, which was reflected in many of the reviews.

Fairfax reviewer Craig Mathieson noted that the series became more awkward as it progressed.

"The seams are showing in this fourth instalment, which is as ungainly as its elongated title," he wrote. "Splitting the screen adaptation of Suzanne Collins' third and final young adult novel into two movies is undeniably profitable but there's enough excess and repetition in Mockingjay's dual parts to make you wish for a single, sterner conclusion."

Fellow Fairfax reviewer Jake Wilson was more impressed, saying for for a film aimed at a young audience it was "impressively bleak, complex stuff, and a strong argument against the claim that fantasy blockbusters invariably present moral issues in simplistic black and white terms."

But after all four movies, most fans would agree: the last two Hunger Games instalments did not live up to the promise of the first two.