Much like its predecessors in terms of book to film adaptations, The Hunger Games followed a route in which it divided its source material in order to monopolize the franchise. A few worked well with this method in recent years, with The Hobbit, Twilight and Harry Potter to name just a few examples.
Of course this is not always the case with every film, and sometimes just one should be enough to conclude a story. Despite being the last entry to the Hunger Games saga, Mockingjay Part 2 did not live up to its box office expectations. The film grossed over $625 million dollars worldwide, which was significantly less than Part 1 ($100 million dollars). According to reports by Deadline and The Hollywood reporter, Lionsgate has blamed this disappointment on a number of reasons.
Co-chairman Rob Friedman has been recorded as saying “I think it the combination of circumstances was unique between the terrorist attack in Europe and Star Wars” before claiming that “Star Wars hit our numbers somewhere between $50 and $100 million”. Another suggestion they made regarding its failure points to the growing cinematic market in China, in which they blamed the number of competitions being set against their own.
Though it could be true that audiences panned Mockingjay Part 2 in favour of Star Wars, the stark reality is that the quality of the former just didn’t live up to the hype. Perhaps it would have been better to keep Mockingjay as a singular film; it would have kept much of its suspense and action in a steady tempo.
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