The Hunger Games Forum

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Hey, you know all that money we made? These District 12 dicks ain't getting a penny of it.

There's little enough to say about The Hunger Games' $154 million dollar opening weekend that hasn't already been said a million times around the internet in the last day or so. It's the third-biggest opening weekend ever, behind The Dark Knight ($158.5m) and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part II ($169.2m), beating out all of the Twilight movies as well as the "holy shit we should be ashamed of ourselves as a country" opening of Spider-Man 3, now relegated to fourth place on the all-time list.

I wish I could've spent more time on the review of The Hunger Games, as I struggled mightily with it on Friday. It's a movie that made me think quite a bit, but that's mostly because I had taken the time to read the book beforehand. It's a weird thing; as a film it's not quite enough to stand on its own, but taken as a single entity with the movie, it's enough to make you think quite a bit about the irony of its own existence. I'm not cogent enough to think about it now (I'm in my cups), but for the moment, let's congratulate the marketing team at Lions Gate for making a shitload of money.

	1. The Hunger Games $153.6 million / New My madcap plan to make millions now goes something like this: write hugely popular young adult novels, wait for Hollywood to call, take their money, win.
	2. 21 Jump Street $20.4 million / $70.2m Total This will wind up being a weird kind of lacuna in Screened's review history. Is it good? Is it bad? I don't know. Do you know? Who knows?
	3. Dr. Seuss' The Lorax $13.0 million / $177.3m Total Want to make sure your kids know that trees are good and you shouldn't chop them all down? Hey, maybe you should take them aside and tell them that rather than taking them to a movie that got marketing dollars from a company selling an SUV.
	4. John Carter $5.0 million / $62.4m Total Andrew Stanton, you've made the biggest bomb in movie history! What are you going to do next? Oh, and before you answer, you've been banned from Disneyland.
	5. Act of Valor $2.0 million / $65.9m Total I saw a poster for this at a military recruiting place. Says all you need to know, I guess.
	6. A Thousand Words $1.9 million / $14.9m Total This will not wind up being a lacuna in Screened's review history, because we never intended to subject ourselves to it.
	7. Project X $1.9 million / $51.7m Total The latest made-for-nothing film that makes a lot of money. Hollywood will never run away from stuff like John Carter and The Hunger Games, but let's hope that there's some room for more low-budget films in the mainstream releases in the future.
	8. October Baby $1.7 million / New This pro-life film is about not getting abortions because your daughters might grow up and wonder about who you are. Or something. I don't know. I don't want to think about it. Or write about it.
	9. Safe House $1.4 million / $122.5m Total This has an outside shot at beating American Gangster ($130.1 million) as Denzel's biggest-grossing domestic film ever, but it seems unlikely to do so. Still, an impressive number for a movie that came out almost two months ago.
	10. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island $1.3 million / $97.1m Total This'll get to $100 million, come hell or high water, which is a decent match with what its predecessor did. I don't want to think about these movies either, though.

I personally thought 21 Jump Street was excellent. I went in thinking it was going to be a decent comedy but it really impressed me and kept me laughing throughout most of the movie.

Of course they love it: its the next directly marketed to tweens but adults love it product. I read the first book and merely thought it was OK...I'd take Running Man any day of the week.

@smithz2: I agree, I thought it was absolutely hilarious. I too was laughing the entire time and there are some moments in that movie that are way out of left field.

Rorie, I thought The Hunger Games review was the best piece you've written for the site. Keep up the good work.

Saw 21 Jump Street over the weekend and I would highly recommend it. It was pretty damn funny.

I'd also recommend 21 Jump Street.

Damn it Screened, I'm not supposed to be interested in movies for tweens or Channing Tatum! I am a film connoisseur!

Screened is starting to come back alive again!

I haven't had a chance to see The Hunger Games yet, though I'll get to it on Wednesday (and probably be done the first book by then as well). I like Lawrence and have since seeing her in Winter's Bone, but I'm about half way through the book now and if the Katniss character is anything like she is in the novel I am not incredibly interested because so far she's an absolutely terrible character. But perhaps she gets better. One thing that I'm almost certain of is that the writing does not, and that's a shame because Collins's prose is absolutely terrible.

I also was able to see 21 Jump Street last week, and was conflicted. When the directors were able to add in their own visual sensibilities it was enjoyable to look at (and damn if that meltdown scene as the school wasn't hysterical), but after leaving the theater I was troubled by the inconsistent comedic styling. It was meta, except when it decided it didn't want to be. It was crude, until it shifted to slapstick. Kind of exists in a realm where it was self aware, but used that to no ends and made the film seem worse because it was open with this self awareness before casting it aside. Wasn't a huge fan of Hill either, he was even much better in The Sitter I thought, and wished that Tatum's character had a more fleshed out arc. Tatum was hysterical, but it seemed like the film had ideas of things to do with him, but then just gave a bunch of screen time to Hill's character.

But it was funny, so I guess if it is actually not a 'good' film that doesn't really matter. I'm still waiting for another great comedy though. It's been too long since In The Loop.

I was also troubled by the sexual politics going on in 21 Jump Street. Again, for a film that is so self aware it kind of interestingly skirted the line between a 23 year old undercover cop potentially hooking up with an 18 year old (the movie was explicit about stating this, as if it makes it easier to swallow) high school student. The age range isn't troubling, in fact it's quite normal, but how he met her was super creepy to me. Then it just undercuts everything without any care. Ellie Kemper's teacher trying to come on to Tatum's character was less weird because neither could be construed as underage, but even that was a student-teacher relationship joke that was highly troubling. All around super icky in that sense and handled really poorly. Just swept to the sides, really. A far cry from the great way a film like 17 Again handled incest and other similar ideas with comedic prowess.

remember that box office feature in which Rorie, Ryan, and Norm would wager on the box office earning of new releases..... :sadface:

Anyway, I kind of expected (as most of us did) The Hunger Games would be massive, I never thought (and still don't) think the films will ever reach the level of fandom that the Twilight films have got though, but hey they're still making more money...so, you go, gurl! and all that.

I've yet to see any of these movies, but I'm more inclined to see 21 Jump Street at least now than I was before.

And for the first time, and not once but fucking twice in one article, I've seen the word "lacuna" used on the internet. (properly even!)

Keepin' it classy, Rorie.

Also, it's pretty damn creepy that 3 out of the top 10 grossing films were made to further their really specific agendas. I guess it's a really great week if you hate CEOs and abortions, but just looove Navy SEALS. (Unfortunately, I am not that person)

I LOLed for real at the John Carter snark, and learned what the word "lacuna" means. Thanks, Rorie!

Hunger Games was pretty good I never read the books or anything. The damn shaky cam though

After seeing the movie, I discussed The Hunger Games with my friends. We all came to the conclusion that it would be really hard to know what the hell was going on if you hadn't read the books. However, all of us had read the books, so I can't really say if that's true. I thought that the movie was serviceable in spots, good in others, but never reached the level of great that the Harry Potter movies did.

My takeaway is that they're going to have to work a lot harder on describing the political situation in Panem for both sequels. The dynamic between the Capitol and the various districts becomes a lot more important and will need sufficient screen time for the non-indoctrinated audience to understand why events unfold as they do.

@FLYmeatwad said:

I haven't had a chance to see The Hunger Games yet, though I'll get to it on Wednesday (and probably be done the first book by then as well). I like Lawrence and have since seeing her in Winter's Bone, but I'm about half way through the book now and if the Katniss character is anything like she is in the novel I am not incredibly interested because so far she's an absolutely terrible character. But perhaps she gets better. One thing that I'm almost certain of is that the writing does not, and that's a shame because Collins's prose is absolutely terrible.

I'm about halfway through the last book, and Katniss' character only gets worse and worse.

I always wondered how the audience who didn't read the books was able to enjoy the Harry Potter series, especially the latter half of them. I will soon find this out when I see The Hunger Games eventually!

Goddammit, people!!! I know it's your fault, ladies! Okay, testicle-bearers, we need to rally around Avengers and, well, avenge this atrocity!