In a recent poll that was conducted by Variety, it appears that people are more excited to see Katniss Everdeen than Luke Skywalker. Initially I thought that was ludicrous statement. Not just because I’m a big Star Wars fan, but because I thought the hype surrounding The Force Awakens was too much to for any other film to handle. So I thought we should have a battle between the upcoming Star Wars and Hunger Games sequels. IT’S ON! Check out who comes out after 3 rounds after the jump.
So to grade these two upcoming sequels I’m going to be comparing them in three categories. Advertising, potential box office numbers and hype. Ready? FIGHT!
The first comparison I’ll use is advertising. Not marketing, advertising. I’m going to start with Mockingjay Part 2. The film has a variety of artwork, a theatrical poster and a full trailer. On top of that, the fact that the film that came before it was titled with “Part 1″ also confirmed that another film was coming. Mockingjay isn’t being kept secret to the degree of The Force Awakens, but I feel that they are giving the public a very good taste of this new film. For the most part we know the plot and overall the film looks good.
Compare that to The Force Awakens. A film that we know just as much about now as we did last November, unless you read rumors and other unverified bits of information. I’m honestly struggling with how to grade Disney’s advertising campaign for this film because there have been a few times where I’ve been let down. The fact that we don’t have a theatrical poster at this point is just weird. And that there is no official word of an actual full trailer coming leaves me wondering why Disney spent $4 billion on a franchise that has been all about the toys so far rather than the film itself. Don’t get me wrong I am very pumped about The Force Awakens, and I love that some of these bits that are being kept secret, but their advertising, or lack there of at times leaves me scratching my head. No doubt The Force Awakens will clean house. Star Wars comes with a built in audience. But this campaign is pretty stagnant. That might change over time, but right now Katniss wins.
POINT GOES TO MOCKINGJAY
Next we move on to potential box office numbers. The Hollywood Reporter boasts that The Force Awakens could end up grossing over $2 billion globally. That’s a massive number. Compare that to Mockingjay Part 2. Even though the first two films set records for opening weekends in U.S and sit in the top 20 highest-grossing movies ever in the U.S. it’s still not predicted to make half of what The Force Awakens will do (according to MoviePilot).
On top of that the previous Star Wars film, Revenge Of The Sith, has a better overall grade than Mockingjay Part 1. Mockingjay holds a 6.5 on IMDB and currently sits at 65% fresh on RT. Compare that to Revenge Of The Sith which has a 7.7 on IMDB and has a 80% fresh rating on RT. It’s been over 10 years since we’ve seen a Star Wars film in the theaters, but based on these ratings and the box office predictions it’s clear who the winner is.
POINT GOES TO STAR WARS
The last comparison I’m using is the hype. Hype is everything. There’s no questioning that people are excited for both films. The Hunger Games has been a thrill ride that has kept us on since 2012, releasing a movie every year since. It’s hard to stop a train like that when people know another film is coming every year. But is that a good thing? Sure we all knew Mockingjay Part 2 was coming since it was announced that the Mockingjay novel would be split in two. To me splitting a book into two films is a terrible idea. The fact that it is so easy to find out what is going to happen next through other forms of media kills it.
The Star Wars hype machine has often times been gigantic. Last November iTunes briefly crashed due to the amount of people trying to watch the first Force Awakens teaser. In April StarWars.com had live YouTube feeds from their Star Wars Celebration which lasted for 4 days. Then on September 4th we had a 18 hour broadcast that traveled around the world simply to reveal Star Wars toys for Force Friday. There was even a toy reveal on Good Morning America. Not trying to be a douche, but The Hunger Games hasn’t come even close to matching the hype that surrounds The Force Awakens.
POINT AND VICTORY TO THE FORCE AWAKENS
Do You Think People Are More Excited To See The Hunger Games?
Follow Josh on Twitter: @jwingface
Source:
http://ift.tt/1MGRs8O