The Hunger Games Franchise: What went so right (THG, CF) and then so wrong (MJ1, MJ2)

[DlAMONDZ]

4 hours ago, grim22 said:

The Variety "buzz meter" is hilarious in hindsight, it joins the pantheon of "Ultron tracking for a 235M OW" from Variety as well : http://variety.com/2015/film/news/star-wars-the-force-awakens-hunger-games-mockingjay-box-office-1201600785/

 

The consumer tracking company polled 3,000 people about upcoming fall movies and found that “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” were the most hotly anticipated upcoming releases. In fact, both films scored some of the highest ratings Piedmont has recorded since it began polling audiences five years ago. The company rates consumer engagement on a scale of zero to 1,000, and the fourth and final “Hunger Games” had a 514 rating, beating last summer’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and its score of 509, as the best overall number it has ever recorded.

The “Star Wars” sequel posted a 495 rating, the third best figure since Piedmont began its surveys. It also had the best score among males that Piedmont has seen with 553. Females also are looking forward to the film, with their interest level hitting 383.

 

"Best overall number it has ever recorded"

 

[BadAtGender]

6 hours ago, Jay Salahi said:

4 years in a row is too much to ask, if LOTR happened to be 4 books I'm not sure the 3rd would have gone up. 

 

Twilight disagrees. After the bump up from the first to second film, the franchise had amazing staying power, even with a book split.

 

5 hours ago, Telemachos said:

 

HP1 did $317

HP2 did $262

 

That's fairly substantial. Then HP3 fell to $250.

 

Then the series stabilized in the 290-305 range.

 

So, there's two things interesting about the HP run.

 

The first is that, at least for the first few films, the gross seemed to be dictated by the quality of the preceding film. The first two were pretty pedestrian adaptations, so the grosses for two and three tailed off some. But the third was very well regarded, and that boosted the fourth up again. But then it seemed to hit that stabilization point.

 

Arguably, for films 4-7, the audience had probably reduced to the point that there were few casuals left. (The final film had 3D, right? So the audience numbers may have been in the same range.) Anyone watching was in it for the long haul. Same thing which happened with Twilight, which hit a similar stabilization level.

 

So, if MJ2 looks to end up in that same area around the 300m mark, could it indicate that for big YA, that's the true market potential for the audience? Yeah, you might get some casuals to come in, but anything long-haul is going to hit around that mark.

 

So, again. THG and CF were punching above expectations. We just didn't know it.

 

3 hours ago, Telemachos said:

 

Are you actually suggesting that WWI is a sanitized war compared to some VFX-y futuristic thing?

 

 

Mmm. Mustard gas.

[Sam]

WWW threads always delivered. But wow, this one is really something else. 

 

I love water. Never change. 

[Elessar]

On ‎24‎.‎11‎.‎2015‎ ‎11‎:‎43‎:‎55, Goffe said:

And no, it wasn't because it didn't have the games. In fact, I think rehashing the first two movies would have damaged P1 even more, we would get been there done that feel.

 

Already got that feel with CF. I seem to be in the minority, though.

 

As a non book reader, the first one was surprisingly well done. The sequel felt like a rehash. At that point, the franchise lost me.

[Lordmandeep]

7 hours ago, Telemachos said:

 

 

 

Are you actually suggesting that WWI is a sanitized war compared to some VFX-y futuristic thing?

 

 

You have to remember to many Young people people like Winston Churchill are seen as a myth then a real person lol. 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1577511/Winston-Churchill-didnt-really-exist-say-teens.html

[Ethan Hunt]

8 hours ago, Sam said:

WWW threads always delivered. But wow, this one is really something else. 

 

I love water. Never change. 

I prefer milk

[angeldelmito]

14 hours ago, Telemachos said:

 

 

 

Are you actually suggesting that WWI is a sanitized war compared to some VFX-y futuristic thing?

 

No, dude. When did that come out of my mouth? I was NOT suggesting that at all. Smh.

I was saying it was harder for them to put THIS type of war into a PG-13 movie, because, since of all the advanced technology, they have hundreds of awful other horrendous ways to kill people. A lot of stuff happens in the book. That purple beam thing was just one of them. 

 

Interesting article to prove my point: http://www.ew.com/article/2015/11/24/mockingjay-part-2-book-movie?hootPostID=babb0d8266800d76b3ff4b0584194920

 

Edited November 25, 2015 by angeldelmito

[Ethan Hunt]

Oh Jesus... 

[Plain Old Tele]

32 minutes ago, angeldelmito said:

No, dude. When did that come out of my mouth? Smh.

 

I was saying it was harder for them to put THIS type of war into a PG-13 movie, because, since of all the advanced technology, they have hundreds of awful other horrendous ways to kill people. That purple beam thing was just one of them. 

 

Interesting article to prove my point: http://www.ew.com/article/2015/11/24/mockingjay-part-2-book-movie?hootPostID=babb0d8266800d76b3ff4b0584194920

 

 

You said "It's really different with this. This is futuristic gory war shit, not WW1." That certainly seems to imply one of two things: either that futuristic wars are gorier than WWI, or that WWI wasn't that gory.

 

I disagree with either option. And in terms of depicting the horrors of war within a non-R context, I think cinema history backs me up that it's entirely possible -- certainly within the context of giving the audience a sense of how horrific a battle or massacre could be. You don't need to show plentiful gore in order to be effective.

 

Just to give a few examples:

- Lawrence of Arabia

- Gone with the Wind

- Spartacus

- Glory

- Empire of the Sun

- Grave of the Fireflies

- Henry V

- Gallipoli

- Unbroken

etc

[angeldelmito]

2 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

 

You said "It's really different with this. This is futuristic gory war shit, not WW1." That certainly seems to imply one of two things: either that futuristic wars are gorier than WWI, or that WWI wasn't that gory.

 

I completely disagree with either option. And in terms of depicting the horrors of war within a non-R context, I think cinema history backs me up that it's entirely possible -- certainly within the context of giving the audience a sense of how horrific a battle or massacre could be. You don't need to show plentiful gore in order to be effective.

 

Just to give a few examples:

- Lawrence of Arabia

- Gone with the Wind

- Spartacus

- Glory

- Empire of the Sun

- Grave of the Fireflies

- Henry V

- Gallipoli

- Unbroken

etc

I mean it would be obvious that futuristic wars are gorier, right? Would you expect them to be less gory? That wouldn't make sense. Especially with the technology depicted in the films and novels, it would be a way scarier war with the technology they have in 2567? vs a war in the 1900s. Come on, now. Plus, in the book, it shows.

 

Then again, you haven't read Mockingjay. But also, I haven't seen any of those movies. So it's evident that on both sides of the argument, we both have insufficient knowledge of the opposing side's point. I suggest we stop arguing on this topic, since it would be ignorant to continue. 

[misafeco]

Unbroken was PG-13? Wow.

[grim22]

2 minutes ago, angeldelmito said:

I mean it would be obvious that futuristic wars are gorier, right? Would you expect them to be less gory? That wouldn't make sense. Especially with the technology depicted in the films and novels, it would be a way scarier war with the technology they have in 2567? vs a war in the 1900s. Come on, now. Plus, in the book, it shows.

 

Then again, you haven't read Mockingjay. But also, I haven't seen any of those movies. So it's evident that on both sides of the argument, we both have insufficient knowledge of the opposing side's point. I suggest we stop arguing on this topic, since it would be ignorant to continue. 

 

 

I would expect futuristic wars to be much less gory since you will have stuff like disintegrating rays which vaporize people and leave no trace and so on as opposed to the brute force way of old wars. Or even a bomb which can take out a whole city and so on.

 

[angeldelmito]

Just now, grim22 said:

 

 

I would expect futuristic wars to be much less gory since you will have stuff like disintegrating rays which vaporize people and leave no trace and so on as opposed to the brute force way of old wars. Or even a bomb which can take out a whole city and so on.

 

Sadly, that isn't shown in Mockingjay. All those disintegrating lights shown in the movie? They actually were supposed to melt off flesh and leave the skeleton hanging there. Whoops, spoiler alert. 

[Plain Old Tele]

4 minutes ago, angeldelmito said:

I mean it would be obvious that futuristic wars are gorier, right? Would you expect them to be less gory? That wouldn't make sense.

 

I suggest we stop arguing on this topic, since it would be ignorant to continue. 

 

Yes, almost certainly the more futuristic, efficient and instantly-killing technology, the less gory and less brutal the war -- perhaps not in total deaths, but in quickness and ease of killing.

 

Spoilered just for gruesomeness, I guess:

The farther back you go in history, the harder and harder it is to easily kill your opponents (whether civilian or soldiers). You had to get up close and hack them to pieces. Or shoot them at relatively close range with either an inaccurate gun or arrow, and then have them slowly die over a few hours or days. You didn't have mass transportation, so you had horses and mules and other animals, all of whom would be slaughtered in the chaos of action.

 

So, far from being a death ray that bleeds people out through their orifices, you'd essentially have a battlefield of bits of bodies; people hacked to pieces; brains, intestines, eyes, internal organs all strewn around and piled on each other; combined with dead horses, cattle, pigs; and amidst all this death, you'd have hundreds or thousands of mortally wounded people slowly bleeding out; and the contents of bladders and stomachs spilled across the mud and flesh and carnage. Even in relatively "recent" wars like WWI or WWII, not only are the death counts appalling, but the sheer brutality and gore of it all is stunning. Killing a lot of people quickly is hard, ugly, messy work, and technology's made it easier and cleaner, not the opposite.

 

But you're right, it's kinda pointless to continue, since we disagree with each other.

[Lordmandeep]

Well if you want to know the true horror of wars, here are some examples of note.

 

There is the Battle of Cannae where Rome and Hannibal fought (216 BC) where about 130 to 140 thousand men fought in the  area the size of Central Park in NYC. Hannibals forces surrounded the  Roman Forces in one of the devastating Tactical military moves in history and killed 50 to 75 thousand Roman Soldiers. The aftermath of such a battle would be unimaginable. 

 

Another example was Napelons fighting the Russians deep in Russia at the Battle Borodino in 1812. 

" Historian Gwynne Dyer compared the carnage at Borodino to "a fully-loaded 747 crashing, with no survivors, every 5 minutes for eight hours."^[80] "

 

Anyone heard of the Bone Fields of Stalingrad. Anyone who knows history that in WW2, that Stalingrad is the most lethal and of the one the biggest battles in human history. So many were killed that bone fields of tens of thousands would go as far you can see.

[angeldelmito]

5 hours ago, Lordmandeep said:

Well if you want to know the true horror of wars, here are some examples of note.

 

There is the Battle of Cannae where Rome and Hannibal fought (216 BC) where about 130 to 140 thousand men fought in the  area the size of Central Park in NYC. Hannibals forces surrounded the  Roman Forces in one of the devastating Tactical military moves in history and killed 50 to 75 thousand Roman Soldiers. The aftermath of such a battle would be unimaginable. 

 

Another example was Napelons fighting the Russians deep in Russia at the Battle Borodino in 1812. 

" Historian Gwynne Dyer compared the carnage at Borodino to "a fully-loaded 747 crashing, with no survivors, every 5 minutes for eight hours."^[80] "

 

Anyone heard of the Bone Fields of Stalingrad. Anyone who knows history that in WW2, that Stalingrad is the most lethal and of the one the biggest battles in human history. So many were killed that bone fields of tens of thousands would go as far you can see.

Damn. "We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self destruction." -Plutarch Heavensbee

Edited November 26, 2015 by angeldelmito

[Jandrew]

Once the games went, the franchise went. That's what people really wanted. You could get rebellions from any movie. The split didn't help matters either. After MJ1, do people even care? I don't.

 

Marketing was also very poor. I forgot this thing was even coming out and I'm not GA. LG didn't make this feel like an event and didn't highlight the finale factor nor did they highlight the action. Didn't really see any advertising on TV, social media, internet, or outdoor. I think LG got cocky and figured "lets save our money, it's the last one, it'll sell itself." That never works. I saw better marketing with Pixels honestly.

 

I know it's hindsight, but honestly I think the games was the real draw. If CF didn't have any games it probably wouldve suffered the same fate, but LG also didn't try so whatever.

 

$425 to $2-something is a huge fall from grace. 

Edited November 26, 2015 by jandrew

[angeldelmito]

6 minutes ago, jandrew said:

Once the games went, the franchise went. That's what people really wanted. You could get rebellions from any movie. The split didn't help matters either. After MJ1, do people even care? I don't.

 

Marketing was also very poor. I forgot this thing was even coming out and I'm not GA. LG didn't make this feel like an event and didn't highlight the finale factor nor did they highlight the action. Didn't really see any advertising on TV, social media, internet, or outdoor. I think LG got cocky and figured "lets save our money, it's the last one, it'll sell itself." That never works. I saw better marketing with Pixels honestly.

 

I know it's hindsight, but honestly I think the games was the real draw. If CF didn't have any games it probably wouldve suffered the same fate, but LG also didn't try so whatever.

 

$425 to $2-something is a huge fall from grace. 

I think it's more of the split's part than the games' part. I mean the ending of Catching Fire was fucking mesmerizing. It promised blood. If Mockingjay remained one film, then it would have most definitely delivered. I mean war can easily substitute for the Games, especially now that Prezy Snow was a player. When the GA found out it was split, and WOM went around saying that Mockingjay was the least well-received book, some of the GA bailed. And the reviews for MJ1 didn't help in that case, either. 

 

But yeah, I most definitely blame LG for MJP2 not increasing from P1's sales. They fucked up with the marketing, and especially with no soundtrack this time around.

[Jandrew]

Well CF was still 100% games though. There was talk of a rebellion, but no focus on it. So yeah, I agree, CF was very good, but it still didn't deviate from what the Hunger Games was about. It was THG with a new hook and bigger budget.

 

If we get World War Hulk and Planet Hulk it'll probably be the same thing. Planet Hulk could be solidly received, but the GA will friggin eat up the heroes being forced to fight each other in the arena.

[John Marston]

I think the title should be " why did it decrease" instead of  "what went wrong" as it is still making a solid amount of bank