Family-friendly movie year in review

It also successfully positioned itself to become a major franchise down the line — something more than a few films, including “John Carter” and “Battleship,” tried but failed to do at other points in the year.

Of course, now that the “Twilight” series has come to an end with the November release of “Breaking Dawn — Part 2,” which has already earned nearly $800 million worldwide, adaptations of other young adult novels are queuing up to take the place of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire romance series next year. Given the critical and commercial success of the first installment in "The Hunger Games" movies, though, Katniss should have no problem defending her box-office position against newcomers.

A native of Utah Valley and a devoted cinephile, Jeff Peterson is currently studying humanities and history at Brigham Young University.