Is there too much hype behind The Hunger Games, which hits theaters on March 23?
It may in fact be the most anticipated movie of the year right behind The Dark Knight Rises, and there’s a big built in (book) audience waiting for it that doesn’t need to be sold on the film, unlike newcomers like me, who know little about it, but obviously get the general idea.
Yet on NPR, Linda Holmes wrote, “it seems like every time you turnaround, there’s another teaser of some sort of The Hunger games… cast shots, posters, trailers, product tie-ins… not even The Dark Knight Rises pops up in my RSS feed quite so often.”
And of course, the closer Hunger Games gets to its release date, the more the hype machine is going to keep grinding out.
Holmes continued that “the frustrated worrywart in me believes it might all be too much. The desire to build a genuine frenzy is understandable… But driving up the even aspect of your film to a ridiculous level.”
Personally, I don’t think you can compare this to Holmes’s examples of Wolverine, Watchmen, and Snakes On A Plane, which always felt like a title without a movie.
True hype can turn a lot of people off, and set up unrealistic expectations, and of course, in the case of Hunger Games and the last Dark Knight, who isn’t aware the movies aren’t coming out?
How much are Warner Brothers and Lion’s Gate going to spend on hyping these movies, when they’re pretty much don’t need promotion? A little bit can go a long way with both, but of course, even with seemingly sure things, the studios are going to put up as much as they can behind a franchise that could keep them rich for years.
Holmes says she believes the Games trailer “looks about as good as you could ask it to, given the casting decisions,” but wonders “whether it’s smart to feed the obsession on a near-daily basis if your hope is that they will walk away feeling like it lived up to their expectations.”
Although Holmes also mentions that Dark Knight brings “the entire weight of Batman to bear on the proceedings,” both films will surely have a lot of fans scrutinizing it up to their own expectations, no matter the hype.
