The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes | November 17, 2023 | Prequel about President Snow | Francis Lawrence to direct | Given a SAG interim agreement

[Speedorito]

24 minutes ago, Bob Train said:

Twitter has almost 400 million monthly users lol. There's no denying that social media is the kingmaker at the box office, after the success of Barbenheimer, Minions 2, and the floppage of movies that left no social media imprint.

 

Musk is, in my opinion, worsening the site with his baffling decisions but the addicts are too deep into their addiction for it to really matter. Twitter will not die anytime soon.

It (along with other social media) is literally an echo chamber that allows people to live in their own bubbles, is riddled with bots, and is specifically designed to feed you content you’ve already interested in to keep you glued to the apps to push other content onto you. And now it has dumb stuff like paid blue checkmarks getting higher engagement and monetizing engagement even more.
 

I’m not saying this will be a billion dollar hit (I personally don’t expect it to gross as much as either Mockingjay movie), but it’s way too easy to say “Oh this did well because it was so over social media, this did poorly because it wasn’t and everyone obviously should’ve seen this coming” after the fact. If social media was king, Avatar 2 would’ve flopped because Avatar had “no cultural impact” like everyone online said for months, The Flash and Mission Impossible would be the highest grossing movies of the year, Elemental would’ve made even less than Lightyear, and any movie with Timothee Chalamet or Zendaya would automatically make bank. Is Challengers going to be a giant hit too?

 

(Also Minions 2 didn’t do well because of the Gentleminions trend, Despicable Me 3 and Minions both made more than a billion dollars).

Edited September 20, 2023 by Speedorito

[Morieris]

39 minutes ago, ThomasNicole said:

Rachel is the type of actor nobody cares about enough to watch something, and despite doesn’t having fans she does have a lot of haters 

 

That's 99% of actors in 2023, and most of her haters are a bunch of chronically online people who don't think and take the clickbait rage and run with it. I'm not even an uberfan, but it's obvious what people are doing toward her, and it stinks.

[Eric Prime]

If anybody here knows me, they know there are few people I hate more in this world than Elon Musk and right-wing scum in general. But I have a bad case of Twitter addiction and check it whenever I can. And I know that even with that capitalist asshole ruining things that are still tons of people, especially in fandom circles, who still actively use the platform, especially since it's still the easiest to talk about geek culture/Film Twitter stuff with mutuals and friends.

 

As somebody here already said, geek stuff, especially stuff that is huge with millenials and older Gen Z, like Marvel or Star Wars or Percy Jackson, always at least hit the Top 30 Trending page. I definitely remember the Avatar trailers and marketing landed the movie on the Trending page rather consistently, and people say that it's totally not a social media-friendly franchise with no online fanbase (which is a stretch lmao but whatever). Doesn't necessarily mean it's 1:1 with how audiences work, and there's still a "Twitter bubble" problem, but social media is arguably the most important tool when it comes to advertising and hype for movies these days. It's the only reason Oppenheimer even got to 900M+. And if a movie based on an iconic property's not connecting, that's still a problem. Maybe I'm totally wrong here, because maybe it is huge on TikTok. I'm not on there, so I can't confirm. But nobody on here's confirming it, so...I dunno.

[ChipDerby]

16 minutes ago, Bob Train said:

He's not going to do that. The source of that article was tenuous at best. There were also articles on how he was going to remove the block feature, which didn't happen lol.

 

The source of the person saying that was... Elon Musk.

[ChipDerby]

Also, a reminder, only 23% of the US are active twitter users, if that. This not trending on twitter isn't great, sure. But also it could mean literally nothing. Tom Hanks was trending on twitter for literally no reason yesterday.

[ZeroHour]

6 minutes ago, ChipDerby said:

 

The source of the person saying that was... Elon Musk.

In fairness, a pretty unreliable source!

[Eric Prime]

I will also say that I do strongly disagree with Rachel Zegler being the problem. Most of the "backlash" against her still seems, hopefully seems, like Brie Larson-style alt-right nonsense that doesn't translate to the normies who don't even know she exists (not an invitation for debate, don't even think about opening that can of worms). I don't even fully buy the "Hunger Games isn't Hunger Games without J-Law" stuff, though I kind of get it.

 

Really, I think the biggest problem is just that the concept and idea feels too dated. The whole YA dystopia trend crashed and burned hard once we got to 2016, and it makes sense. When our world actually became a hellish dystopia with climate change destroying everything and evil right-wingers like Trump and Bolsonaro rising into power, it ruined their escapist appeal instantly. It's really hard to really embrace these movies as fun, populist blockbusters when the evil dictators and settings where the 1% live high and mighty and the 99% are struggling to survive hit a little too close to home. These movies frankly feel too much like the evils of the real world and don't work as escapist adventures. At least something like Star Wars has fun sci-fi locales and aliens and space battles. Hunger Games really only worked in the Obama years and became instantly dated once those years were over.

[ChipDerby]

Bad Title + No Lead "Star" + Prequel 

 

I think it will do fine, but honestly have no clue. It looks good, I'm sure it will be good. 

[Bob Train]

20 minutes ago, Speedorito said:

It (along with other social media) is literally an echo chamber that allows people to live in their own bubbles, is riddled with bots, and is specifically designed to feed you content you’ve already interested in to keep you glued to the apps to push other content onto you. And now it has dumb stuff like paid blue checkmarks getting higher engagement and monetizing engagement even more.
 

I’m not saying this will be a billion dollar hit (I personally don’t expect it to gross as much as either Mockingjay movie), but it’s way too easy to say “Oh this did well because it was so over social media, this did poorly because it wasn’t and everyone obviously should’ve seen this coming” after the fact. If social media was king, Avatar 2 would’ve flopped because Avatar had “no cultural impact” like everyone online said for months, The Flash and Mission Impossible would be the highest grossing movies of the year, Elemental would’ve made even less than Lightyear, and any movie with Timothee Chalamet or Zendaya would automatically make bank. Is Challengers going to be s as giant hit too?

 

(Also Minions 2 didn’t do well because of the Gentleminions trend, Despicable Me 3 and Minions both made more than a billion dollars).

Lol at ignoring social media. Like it or not, TikTok is the new box office kingmaker. It's 2023, not 2003. Also, Avatar 2 had very good social media metrics contrary to popular belief. If you look at Google search trends it easily destroyed movies in the same year like Dominion, which was reflected in box office. It is particularly huge in markets outside of the USA which was also reflected on social media. I know it's huge on Chinese social media sites for one. No cultural impact was also always cope. It won a ton of Oscars and sold a bunch of physical media. There are a decent amount of memes about it. It's just that Avatar has a 13-year gap between sequels with no TV shows and such to keep it in public consciousness, but that ended up not mattering.

 

The Flash had toxic WOM, lower-than-expected reviews, negative brand hype, and the star was a child predator. MI7 was eaten alive by Barbenheimer, as it opened on par with recent MI movies. Also, bringing up original movies like Elemental or Challengers is disingenuous, I will admit social media buzz is irrelevant for movies not based on IP.

 

Minions 2 was saved by TikTok and pretending otherwise is untrue. It was tracking to make $60-$70m on OW then TikTok teens latched onto it and it opened to $110m. 34% of the audience was 13-17, which is unheard of for family animated movies. The reason it didn't match it's predecessors was because of exchange rates and China, it became highest highest-grossing Illumination movie domestically. It easily beat Despicable Me 3 even after adjusting for inflation and reversed the downward domestic trend the series was on prior.

 

Barbie was pulling insane social media metrics from day one, and guess what, it's the highest-grossing movie of the year. Christopher Nolan's previous movies excluding Tenet both fell in the $190m domestic range, around $230m adjusted for inflation. Oppenheimer is making an extra $100m domestic partially because awareness was raised massively due to Barbenheimer's meme. That made Barbenheimer easily become the biggest event of the Summer.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Bob Train

[Bob Train]

I don't know how you can look at Minions 2 tracking for $60-$70m OW, being latched onto by TikTok teens and opening to $110m, and having 34% of the audience be 13-17 year-olds (per Deadline) and then argue that social media has no impact on box office.

 

But then I remember that I'm on the internet where people argue just for the sake of it, even if they are arguing for something they know isn't true.

[Speedorito]

2 minutes ago, Bob Train said:

Lol at ignoring social media. Like it or not, TikTok is the new box office kingmaker. It's 2023, not 2003. 

 

Also, Avatar 2 had very good social media metrics contrary to popular belief. If you look at Google search trends it easily destroyed movies in the same year like Dominion, which was reflected in box office. It is particularly huge in markets outside of the USA which was also reflected on social media. I know it's huge on Chinese social media sites for one.

 

No cultural impact was also always cope. It won a ton of Oscars and sold a bunch of physical media. There are a decent amount of memes about it. It's just that Avatar has a 13-year gap between sequels with no TV shows and such to keep it in public consciousness, but that ended up not mattering.

 

The Flash had toxic WOM, lower-than-expected reviews, negative brand hype, and the star was a child predator. MI7 was eaten alive by Barbenheimer, as it opened on par with recent MI movies. Also, bringing up original movies like Elemental or Challengers is disingenuous, I will admit social media buzz is irrelevant for movies not based on IP.

 

Minions 2 was saved by TikTok and pretending otherwise is blatant ignorance. It was tracking to make $60-$70m on OW then TikTok teens latched onto it and it opened to $110m. 34% of the audience was 13-17, which is unheard of for family animated movies.

 

The reason it didn't match it's predecessors was because of exchange rates and China, it became highest highest-grossing Illumination movie domestically. It easily beat Despicable Me 3 even after adjusting for inflation and reversed the downward domestic trend the series was on prior.

 

Barbie was pulling insane social media metrics from day one, and guess what, it's the highest-grossing movie of the year. Christopher Nolan's previous movies excluding Tenet both fell in the $190m domestic range, around $230m adjusted for inflation. Oppenheimer is making an extra $100m domestic partially because awareness was raised massively due to Barbenheimer's meme. That made Barbenheimer easily become the biggest event of the Summer.

You’re literally doing exactly what I said: justifying the importance of social media after the fact. It’s also disingenuous to say social media is king, but not for original movies because…reasons.

 
You’re also contradicting yourself by showing that social media is not the end-all be-all. 

[ChipDerby]

2 minutes ago, Bob Train said:

I don't know how you can look at Minions 2 tracking for $60-$70m OW, being latched onto by TikTok teens and opening to $110m, and having 34% of the audience be 13-17 year-olds (per Deadline) and then argue that social media has no impact on box office.

 

But then I remember that I'm on the internet where people argue just for the sake of it, even if they are arguing for something they know isn't true.

 

Please see the Marvels thread and how you're ignoring literal years of MCU proof that it's not going to bomb. But instead in this thread use tiktok as a reason for a film breaking out with literally no possible way of proving it.

 

And then remember that you're on the internet where you argue just for the sake of it.

[Speedorito]

3 minutes ago, Bob Train said:

I don't know how you can look at Minions 2 tracking for $60-$70m OW, being latched onto by TikTok teens and opening to $110m, and having 34% of the audience be 13-17 year-olds (per Deadline) and then argue that social media has no impact on box office.

 

But then I remember that I'm on the internet where people argue just for the sake of it, even if they are arguing for something they know isn't true.

“If someone doesn’t agree with me they’re just arguing for the sake of it because I’m never wrong.”

[Eric Prime]

Moderation

 

@Bob Train You can disagree with others on social media’s impacts on movies without condescending to them with some “lol people just love to argue even if they know they are wrong”. Please treat your fellow BOT members with respect or you will see more warning points heading your way.

[dudalb]

22 hours ago, SpiderByte said:

That...doesn't seem to have stopped any movie with a dystopia. Including this one?

Point is there is a difference between "1984" and "The Handmaid's Tale" which are serious books about dictatroships and something like Hunger Games, which uses them as a excuse for action/adventure. 

[SpiderByte]

1 minute ago, dudalb said:

Point is there is a difference between "1984" and "The Handmaid's Tale" which are serious books about dictatroships and something like Hunger Games, which uses them as a excuse for action/adventure. 

I dunno I really don't think fictional dystopias are ever going away 

[dudalb]

5 hours ago, Arlborn said:

 

Trailers are looking great, it actually seems worth watching from the trailers. But this movie is precisely the type of movie that would have benefited a lot from having the cast promoting it, specially on social media. It's kinda baffling it wasn't delayed until after the strike.

 

This young cast, and the cast of the last movies in the series, should be out there creating hype for it on social media and TV! And yet, there's nothing, and so there's no hype, pity.

 

 

This is also true, twitter is becoming more and more of a hostile place in general, the change in management is slowly corroding a lot of what it was once upon a time.

Slowly corroding, hell, Twitter has been driven off the cliff. It is no  longer the dominent thing it once was. I guess it will take peopple a long time to adjust to this.

[eddyxx]

3 hours ago, ChipDerby said:

Also, a reminder, only 23% of the US are active twitter users, if that. This not trending on twitter isn't great, sure. But also it could mean literally nothing. Tom Hanks was trending on twitter for literally no reason yesterday.

Probably right wingers posting conspiracy theories about him and Oprah.

[Noctis]

This looks absolutely amazing. I loved the first trailer, but this trailer is absolutely mesmerizing. Unreal. I hope this breaks out.

[PlatnumRoyce]

3 hours ago, Eric Poirot said:

it ruined their escapist appeal

I don't think so. Ironically I think you're being too directly political instead of looking or more structural appeals (which are, you know, just an alternative political explanation).

 

Quote

From Harry Potter onward, the speculative YA novelist has been enthralled by dreams and nightmares of the clandestine. Under the surface of normal life exists a hidden world more vital, dazzling, and dangerous than most people ever realize. The YA heroine may enter this society as a stranger, but eventually discovers that she (more often, the hero is female) is the fulcrum upon which this new world turns—and becomes aware of the many powerful individuals in this world plotting to use her to turn it. This is the defining feature of the YA fictional society: powerful, inscrutable authorities with a mysterious and obsessive interest in the protagonist. Sometimes the hidden hands of this hidden world are benign. More often, they do evil. But the intentions behind these spying eyes do not much matter. Be they vile or kind, they inevitably create the kind of protagonist about whom twenty-first century America loves to read: a young hero defined by her frustration with, or outright hostility toward, every system of authority that she encounters.

 

I just think this stuff is a fundamentally correct read on the appeal of YA fiction and that hasn't changed. The film adaptations burnt out from mediocre quality on weak IP but my sense is that underlying churn of such content remains pretty constant and I suspect we'll get another breakout hit soon.