The impact of new and digital media:

Modern film companies today face challenges from the impact of new and digital media. As the internet progresses even further and audiences are starting to access films in different ways, the institutions of major films such as The Hunger Games and Twilight must ensure that they are keeping up with the changes to media, in order to keep their films current and at the top of the box office.

The Hunger Games (2012), which was produced by Lionsgate, have changed their marketing campaigns in order to keep up with new and digital media and in order to attract new and wider audiences. The Hunger Games had a social media marketing campaign, and produced advert for YouTube and Yahoo movies. These adverts were used as themes for the two website on days surrounding the release of the film, in order to attract new audiences. YouTube receive around 5 billion hits a day, which means that in order to keep up with new and digital media, using popular websites such as YouTube and Facebook for advertising and promotion, modern audiences are likely to increase, as they use these kinds of websites daily.

With the release of the first Twilight film in 2008, the franchise has become enormous, due to the use of new and digital media. Twilight has used social media throughout the release of all 5 films. The producers, Summit Entertainment, has especially used Facebook as a way of interacting with the audience, with constant updates surrounding the films, the cast and have games and competitions in order to keep fans interested in the films, even though there are none left to produce. Facebook is used by a lot of teenagers, which is Twilight’s predominant audience. By creating and updating pages on this website, the producers are keeping up with new and digital media, as well as providing information for the fans on a new platform that they use regularly.

Sucker Punch has not kept up with the impact of new and digital media as well as big box office films like The Hunger Games and Twilight. Sucker Punch only has one Facebook page which has around 100,000 likes, which is rarely updated, and no Twitter pages. As the audience of this film cannot interact with other fans of the film, and they cannot find out extra information about the film, the film no longer has an active fanbase, like films such as Twilight.  No advertising for the film was done through social media and online around the release of the film. This means that it was harder for the producers to attract a wider audience, as there was nowhere for modern audience to research and find out more information about the film, unlike the YouTube adverts for The Hunger Games which linked the audience to the official Hunger Games website.

Overall, major film companies such as Lionsgate have adapted the way the films they produce are marketed, in order to keep up with the changes of new and digital media, and in order to keep their audiences interested, and wider.