Hunger Games film has biggest debut of the year so far

Jennifer Lawrence stars as the face of the rebellion in a dystopian post-apocalyptic society

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 has scored the biggest debut of the year at the UK and US box office.

The third instalment of the franchise, made £12.6m in the UK, accounting for two out of every three tickets sold, its distributor Lionsgate said.

It just beats The Inbetweeners 2 which made £12.5m when it came out in August.

In the US, Mockingjay made $123m (£79m), a significant drop from last year's instalment, Catching Fire, which took $152m (£100m) on its debut.

The movie adaptations of The Hunger Games, based on the best-selling teen books by Suzanne Collins, have taken more than $1.5bn (£946m) at the worldwide box office.

In the North American box office rundown, Walt Disney's animated action film Big Hero 6 was in second place this weekend, with ticket sales of $20.1m (£12.7m)

Director Christopher Nolan's space adventure Interstellar, which has taken $121m (£77m) since its release at the beginning of November, took $15m (£9.6m) this weekend and was at number three.

Former number ones, comedy Dumb and Dumber To and thriller Gone Girl, rounded out the top five.

Figures for the rest of the UK box office are not due to be released until later this week.

Film company Lionsgate, which has split the final Hunger Games book into two parts, will release the final instalment in 2015.

It was announced earlier this month the best-selling franchise would be made into an "immersive" stage show in summer 2016 to bring Collins' writing "to life".