Film Studies - Film Exploration – The Hunger Games
Film: The Hunger Games
The film was released in 2012.
Production Details:
The film was based on the trilogy that was written by Suzanne Collins. The production company that brought the rights to the film was Color Force. The people that wrote the screenplay were Gary Ross, Billy Ray and Suzanne Collins (the author of The Hunger Games trilogy). The director who directed the film was Gary Ross who also was apart of the screenplay. Some other films he has been involved with were Big, Mr. Baseball, Dave, Pleasantville and etc. The main characters in this film include Jennifer Lawrence who plays Katniss Everdeen, Josh Hutcherson who plays Peeta Mellark, Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne, Donald Sutherland as President Snow Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket and Willow Shields as Primrose Everdeen the sister of Katniss Everdeen. I think that that Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth were cast because they are young and had been in other movies in the past so they had experience in acting. Jennifer Lawrence was also chosen because she started in X-Men: First Class and Winter’s Bone. By her starring in Winter’s Bone she got nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. She started building a popular fan base. However for Liam Hemsworth he starred in The Last Song with Miley Cyrus who was a very popular person in Disney. For The Last Song he won a Teen Choice Award for Male Breakout because he won this award it meant that he made a fan base from the film and the majority were teens. Josh Hutcherson starred in Bridge To Terabithia as the main role because he stared in that film was awarded two Young Artist Awards. The film The Hunger Games budget was $78 million. This film was filmed in a number of locations across the USA – mainly in Carolina. The movie was shot on film opposed to digital due to the tightness of the schedule. Gary Ross said in an interview with The New York Times, “I didn’t want to run the risk of the technical issues that often come with shooting digitally- we simply couldn’t afford any delays.” The cameras used were Arrican LT/ST, Zeiss Ultra Prime, Angenieux Opiton and Canon Lenses.
Distribution Details:
The company that was in charge of The Hunger Games distribution was Lionsgate. The Hunger Games was the first now is the second highest-grossing film that Lionsgate has distributed. There were several other countries involved with the distribution however Lionsgate was the main company. The film was distributed to TV, Blu-ray, DVD, cinemas and etc. The targeted audience for this film was the fans/readers of the book also the film was targeted at young adults/ teens (mainly girls). The trailers and posters were designed to attract those audiences because on the posters it had a dark black background with fire and a strong fierce looking girl in the middle. The posters looked very similar to the book covers so if a fan of the book saw this poster they would immediately would know that it links to the book and a film of it would come out very soon. If a young adult/teen girl saw this poster they would definitely be interested to see what the girl in the poster does in the movie and why she looks so different compared to a typical girl. The trailer would make the audience interested because it shows that there’s some romance – which young girls like to see in a movie. However the trailer also shows that it would be a fast movie with action and death in it. This would make the person that watched the trailer want to see what type of action may happen and how many people are going to die and how many are going to survive.
There was a viral/online marketing campaign used to promote The Hunger Games and it was Lionsgate’s use of pre-existing social networks like Twitter and Facebook that was reflected on how viral marketing depended on consumers to share information and content to other internet users on social media platforms. At the end of The Hunger Games trailer the hashtag '#HeadForTheSquare' appeared, by having this hashtag at the end of the trailer it made the viewers of the trailer use it which made it become trending on social networks such as Twitter. There was also a poster puzzle hunt in anticipation of the film's debut which was just under 100 days until The Hunger Games hit theaters. 100 different websites were given 100 different puzzle pieces for fans to collect, in order to unveil a new Hunger Games poster. Fans competed to be the first person to put the puzzle pieces together and then posted it to Facebook and @tag The Hunger Games Official Movie Page, so that the post would be revealed! The #HungerGames100 trended on Twitter because people were so excited for the poster to be revealed. Another way fans of The Hunger Games were able to connect to the film before it came out was by having a district citizen registration which took a place online (on the social media platforms Facebook and Twitter) where fans could be placed in one of the twelve districts.
Exhibition Details:
The film received positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an 84% approval rating, based on 275 reviews, and a rating average of 7.2 out of 10. On Metacritic the film has a 67 out of 100 score that’s based on reviews from 44 critics. Several critics reviewed this film favourably and compared it with other film adaptations such as Harry Potter and Twilight. Simon Reynolds of Digital Spy gave the film four starts out of five. However David Thomson the magazine The New Republic called it a “terrible movie”. The film received some criticism for its shaky camera style. The majority of the people that watched The Hunger Games because they read the book and some people watched it because of the actors/actresses staring in it. Another reason why people could have watched is because it was a popular action/sci-fi movie. The audience watched the film on TV, DVD’s, cinemas, etc. The film was not available in 3D because Garry Ross didn’t want it in 3D as long as he was in charge. The UK, Ireland and Malta grossed $7.78 million the first weekend. The film was successful internationally The Hunger Games was the highest grossing film distributed by Lionsgate. The Hunger Games earned $408,010,692 in North America and $283,237,076 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $691,247,768. It made the largest worldwide opening weekend for a film not released during summer or the holiday time, earning $211.8 billion, which was just ahead of Alice in Wonderland’s previous record.
Film: The Hunger Games
The film was released in 2012.
Production Details:
The film was based on the trilogy that was written by Suzanne Collins. The production company that brought the rights to the film was Color Force. The people that wrote the screenplay were Gary Ross, Billy Ray and Suzanne Collins (the author of The Hunger Games trilogy). The director who directed the film was Gary Ross who also was apart of the screenplay. Some other films he has been involved with were Big, Mr. Baseball, Dave, Pleasantville and etc. The main characters in this film include Jennifer Lawrence who plays Katniss Everdeen, Josh Hutcherson who plays Peeta Mellark, Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne, Donald Sutherland as President Snow Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket and Willow Shields as Primrose Everdeen the sister of Katniss Everdeen. I think that that Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth were cast because they are young and had been in other movies in the past so they had experience in acting. Jennifer Lawrence was also chosen because she started in X-Men: First Class and Winter’s Bone. By her starring in Winter’s Bone she got nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. She started building a popular fan base. However for Liam Hemsworth he starred in The Last Song with Miley Cyrus who was a very popular person in Disney. For The Last Song he won a Teen Choice Award for Male Breakout because he won this award it meant that he made a fan base from the film and the majority were teens. Josh Hutcherson starred in Bridge To Terabithia as the main role because he stared in that film was awarded two Young Artist Awards. The film The Hunger Games budget was $78 million. This film was filmed in a number of locations across the USA – mainly in Carolina. The movie was shot on film opposed to digital due to the tightness of the schedule. Gary Ross said in an interview with The New York Times, “I didn’t want to run the risk of the technical issues that often come with shooting digitally- we simply couldn’t afford any delays.” The cameras used were Arrican LT/ST, Zeiss Ultra Prime, Angenieux Opiton and Canon Lenses.
Distribution Details:
The company that was in charge of The Hunger Games distribution was Lionsgate. The Hunger Games was the first now is the second highest-grossing film that Lionsgate has distributed. There were several other countries involved with the distribution however Lionsgate was the main company. The film was distributed to TV, Blu-ray, DVD, cinemas and etc. The targeted audience for this film was the fans/readers of the book also the film was targeted at young adults/ teens (mainly girls). The trailers and posters were designed to attract those audiences because on the posters it had a dark black background with fire and a strong fierce looking girl in the middle. The posters looked very similar to the book covers so if a fan of the book saw this poster they would immediately would know that it links to the book and a film of it would come out very soon. If a young adult/teen girl saw this poster they would definitely be interested to see what the girl in the poster does in the movie and why she looks so different compared to a typical girl. The trailer would make the audience interested because it shows that there’s some romance – which young girls like to see in a movie. However the trailer also shows that it would be a fast movie with action and death in it. This would make the person that watched the trailer want to see what type of action may happen and how many people are going to die and how many are going to survive.
There was a viral/online marketing campaign used to promote The Hunger Games and it was Lionsgate’s use of pre-existing social networks like Twitter and Facebook that was reflected on how viral marketing depended on consumers to share information and content to other internet users on social media platforms. At the end of The Hunger Games trailer the hashtag '#HeadForTheSquare' appeared, by having this hashtag at the end of the trailer it made the viewers of the trailer use it which made it become trending on social networks such as Twitter. There was also a poster puzzle hunt in anticipation of the film's debut which was just under 100 days until The Hunger Games hit theaters. 100 different websites were given 100 different puzzle pieces for fans to collect, in order to unveil a new Hunger Games poster. Fans competed to be the first person to put the puzzle pieces together and then posted it to Facebook and @tag The Hunger Games Official Movie Page, so that the post would be revealed! The #HungerGames100 trended on Twitter because people were so excited for the poster to be revealed. Another way fans of The Hunger Games were able to connect to the film before it came out was by having a district citizen registration which took a place online (on the social media platforms Facebook and Twitter) where fans could be placed in one of the twelve districts.
Exhibition Details:
The film received positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an 84% approval rating, based on 275 reviews, and a rating average of 7.2 out of 10. On Metacritic the film has a 67 out of 100 score that’s based on reviews from 44 critics. Several critics reviewed this film favourably and compared it with other film adaptations such as Harry Potter and Twilight. Simon Reynolds of Digital Spy gave the film four starts out of five. However David Thomson the magazine The New Republic called it a “terrible movie”. The film received some criticism for its shaky camera style. The majority of the people that watched The Hunger Games because they read the book and some people watched it because of the actors/actresses staring in it. Another reason why people could have watched is because it was a popular action/sci-fi movie. The audience watched the film on TV, DVD’s, cinemas, etc. The film was not available in 3D because Garry Ross didn’t want it in 3D as long as he was in charge. The UK, Ireland and Malta grossed $7.78 million the first weekend. The film was successful internationally The Hunger Games was the highest grossing film distributed by Lionsgate. The Hunger Games earned $408,010,692 in North America and $283,237,076 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $691,247,768. It made the largest worldwide opening weekend for a film not released during summer or the holiday time, earning $211.8 billion, which was just ahead of Alice in Wonderland’s previous record.