Case Study

The Hunger Games – Gary Ross (2012)

In this case study we will be examining the Hunger Games closely on the production and distribution of this film. The reason I picked this movie was because of the technology and simulation aspect that is used for the contestants in the games. They play in a simulation orchestrated by the capitol.

Director & Producer

The director of this film is Gary Ross. His major films were The Hunger Games Series and Oceans 8. The executive producer is Suzanne Collins, which was the author of the book and scriptwriter for the film. She took on many roles in the production of the film.

Budget, Production, Distribution

The budget of this film was considered a mid-budget of $78 million. And the film gross or box office was $694.4 million. So it overly exceeded it’s budget.

The production of movie was filmed. I think this was to give the movie a realistic feel. It showed how America would look in a dystonia society without it being filmed in a studio or on digital. This effected production because the movie was able to connect with the audience. Having the movie being filmed in the countryside and rural society makes the movie more inviting. The film was mostly on location in North Carolina, since it had both urban and rural settings. The running time of the movie was 142 minutes. The complications that were faced during production was the idea of children killing one another for entertainment in the movie. Making a movie with this principle and still make it appealing for the audience was a challenge for movie producers and the directors of production. Violence and brutality was going to be main themes, since the movie mimicked the plot of the book, in the film but they still had to make the film meet the criteria of the overall rating of PG-13. This film was produced in an leading independent film company called Lionsgate they took a chance at making this film, since it was not big five produced movie. Another producer that has a hand in making this film was Color Force . It helped to produce the Hunger Games series, and the children’s book series Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and recent big box office movie Crazy Rich Asians, This company doesn’t specify in a genre, although they make movies that appeal to younger audiences. Lionsgate, also distributed this film. The company has produced the Twilight Saga Series, the Divergent Series, the horror film series Saw, musical La La Land, and many other big films. They make many different films from science fiction, horror, mystery, action, fantasy, and romance. So they do not specialize in a certain type of film.

Marketing and Exhibition

Some marketing techniques this company used was merchandising, and using a campaign with fast food franchise Subway “Win Your Victory Tour”. Also social network sites such as Tumblr, having a blog on Capital Couture, and a interactive contest on Twitter. They gave away 80,000 papers and promoted the movie on 50 magazine covers. In addition they had a Capitol Collection with Covergirl. However, the film did make money from it’s promotional strategies, it didn’t have any big-ticket promotion that are seen with other movies.

Exhibition Methods:

The movie could be seen in theaters (theatrical). Later they used non-theatrical platforms such as DVD/BluRay, television, PrimeVideo, Google Playu, Youtube TV, and iTunes. If someone was wanting to view the film today, they could watch it from these streaming services or watch it on disk.