In prior conversations about the next pop culture phenomenon, The Hunger Games inevitably rose to the top of the list&ellips; but I remained skeptical. After all, these things have a way of appealing to a certain fan base and then disappearing into the Twilight. (See what I did there?)

It's amazing how quickly someone can be proven wrong.

Grossing an incredible $152.5 million in its opening weekend, The Hunger Games has already shattered numerous box-office records:

• Highest grossing weekend for a non-sequel.
• Third highest opening weekend of all-time.
• In fact, it is already the highest grossing film in Lionsgate's history, easily overtaking Fahrenheit 9/11 (which amassed a mere $119.2 million in it's entire run).

Nevertheless, what impresses me more than the final total is the manner in which The Hunger Games made that much money. According to Box Office Mojo, the movie held up incredibly well on the Saturday of its release, suggesting that the demand "exists across a wide array of moviegoers, and isn't just rooted in the type of rabid fans that drove the front-loaded openings for recent Harry Potter and Twilight movies." With this in mind, reports also suggest that an incredible 51% of the audience held an average age of over 25, further revealing that the film's appeal was not limited to pre-teens. In fact, the Chicago Tribune even went so far as to call the series a"uniting force" in our culture.

In other words, The Hunger Games has become a full-blown pop culture phenomenon.

The question that I have is "Why?"

I think that the obvious first response to a question such as this is the film's well-planned marketing strategy. Rather than taking the more traditional route of focusing on the book's legions of fans, Lionsgate opted to take a much broader approach in its marketing. By emphasizing the intensity of the tournament, Lionsgate was able to help the film seem more accessible to a wider audience. All of a sudden, The Hunger Games wasn't merely the latest must-see event for 'tweens. Instead, the film also started to gain interest to the average ticket-buyer. (Although, to be fair, the plan was far from perfect. For example, a major misstep appeared to occur with the release of the film's first footage. Releasing a teaser with a tone akin to Twilight in late August of last year, the early buzz was decidedly negative and actually appeared to work against the film. Still, it's also possible that this error inadvertently aided the film in that it slowed the hype machine temporarily, ensuring that the general public were not experiencing Hunger Games fatigue by the time of the actual film's release.)

To be honest though, I am not one to simply buy the excuse that the marketing paid off. I've seen tonnes of examples of films that tried all the same strategies and failed to catch fire with audiences. People don't rush out to the movies in numbers like this simply because a promotional campaign tells them to do so.

Continue: 1 2