Fittingly, given the epic fights waged by their protagonists, only one can triumph. But will it be Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of Mockingjay Part 2, the final instalment of the Hunger Games series, or Princess Leia, who returns with Han Solo and Luke Skywalker in the latest Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, who wins the battle of the global box office in the runup to the Christmas holidays?
And, in the case of the United Kingdom, will either be able to see off a certain secret agent in what could prove to be a record year for ticket sales?
The hype surrounding the release of both films is almost unprecedented and has seen the share prices of leading global cinema chains rise as analysts predict they are heading for bumper revenues.
Advance tickets for Mockingjay, which stars Hollywood’s highest-paid female star, Jennifer Lawrence, as the teenage archer and hunter turned rebel leader Everdeen, started selling online as far back as the start of October.
Given that the previous three Hunger Games films have grossed more than £1.5bn, Lionsgate, the company behind Mockingjay, has spent heavily to ensure that few people on the planet are unaware that the final instalment of the franchise comes out in the UK on 19 November.
A poll conducted by Piedmont Media Research found that Mockingjay shades Disney’s The Force Awakens as the most eagerly awaited film among cinema-goers since the company started its polling five years ago.
But The Force Awakens, which comes out in the UK on 18 December, has already broken previous opening day advance sales records. Cinema chain Imax collected $6.5m from ticket sales in a single day.
Imax has never previously sold more than $1m in advance ticket sales in a single day. Many chains are screening a midnight viewing on 17 December, so that fans can see the film as soon it is released.
“We’re seeing sellouts across the board – from Hollywood to London, to Sparks, Nevada, and everywhere in between,” Greg Foster, CEO of Imax Entertainment, said recently.
Some analysts believe that The Force Awakens may become the highest-grossing film of all time, eclipsing Avatar, which banked $2.8bn around the world.But Katniss could still be victorious. The Force Awakens has failed to secure a release date for this year in China, where it is not as well known as the Hunger Games franchise, which is enjoying a surge in popularity.
The first instalment of Mockingjay brought in $31.4m in its first eight days of showing in China. In contrast, 2012’s The Hunger Games and its 2013 sequel, Catching Fire, both brought in about $28m in China in total.
Analysts suggested that it was a three-horse race for box-office supremacy in the UK. “I’d question whether the Hunger Games will be as big as Star Wars or Spectre at the UK box office,” said Michael Oliver, senior leisure and media analyst at Mintel market research.
“Skyfall [the last James Bond film] in 2012 took £102.8m at the UK box office, whereas the most recent Hunger Games, Catching Fire, took £34.1m. Spectre is a known quantity – it’s had pretty good reviews. Star Wars is a bit more of an unknown quantity. It really depends on the reviews and word of mouth as to how it will be.”
David Hancock, the director of cinema at IHS Technology, said that it was rare to see three massive franchise films coming out at the same time. He suggested you would have to go back to 2002, when Die Another Day was competing against the Harry Potter franchise and The Lord of the Rings, to make a similar comparison.
“Franchise films are all about getting an audience hooked,” Hancock said. “Once you are committed to the first one, you are committed for the long haul. That’s the differences between franchises and sequels. Sequels in the 90s meant just sticking out another film with a 2 on the end – it wasn’t bringing you into the whole idea of it.
“Each time, sequels went down around 10% in box-office terms, so they dropped the budget 10% each time and so each film got worse and you ended up with Police Academy 7.
“A franchise builds an audience. Each one is conceived as strongly as the previous one; it’s not a pale imitation of the first.”
The march of the franchise is good news for Britain’s cinemas. Film admissions dipped to 157.5 million in 2014, compared with a high of 175 million in 2002, due to the World Cup effect and a dearth of big-budget films.
Last year’s highest-grossing film, The Lego Movie, took only £34m at the box office – a figure likely to be eclipsed by each of the Bond, Hunger Games and Star Wars offerings. “If all three of those films perform as we expect them to, I can’t see why you wouldn’t have a record year,” Hancock said.
“My local Epsom Odeon is showing Spectre on every one of its 10 screens ,” Hancock said. ”There are 4,000 cinema screens in the UK, and I bet you about 2,500 of those are playing Spectre; it’s almost unheard of.”
Next year will see more battles royal between the franchise blockbusters. Prepare for another Star Wars film, Batman versus Superman: Dawn of Justice and Ghostbusters 3.
But does it seem possible that the market could become a bit too crowded? “Can you be committed to three franchises in the space of two months?” Hancock asked.
“Maybe intellectually human beings can’t do that,” he said. “Emotionally you can engage with Bond or the Hunger Games, but maybe you can’t do both.”
