Any publicity is good publicity, the old saying goes, and that certainly has been the case for the new <i>Hunger Games</i> movie in Thailand.
First-day ticket sales of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 in Thailand were 13.6 million baht, an increase of 20% from the last episode, Catching Fire, a year ago, according to Bloomberg News. It said the information came from a knowledgeable source who asked not to be identified.
The early results suggest local box-office receipts for the movie won't suffer, and may even benefit, from the association with anti-coup protests. Activists have adopted the three-finger salute used by the young protagonists in the movie as their symbol.
Two students were briefly detained on Thursday outside the Apex Group's Scala cinema in Bangkok for giving media interviews, and a third outside Major Cineplex Group's Siam Paragon theatre for flashing the three-finger salute. They were released without charges.
Apex pulled the film from its Scala and Lido theatres in Siam Square after learning about a bulk buy of tickets, which it believed was linked to a planned protest.
"Banning the film will only heighten interest in Mockingjay in Thailand," said Jeff Gomez, chief executive of Starlight Runner Entertainment, a movie marketing consultancy. "Whether it's pulled from one theater or all, it's too late, because social media has already galvanized a deep connection with the picture."
In South Korea, sales surged 41% on opening day from the previous one, according to Lions Gate, the studio responsible for the Hunger Games franchise.
The film opened on Thursday in Hong Kong, where students are protesting against election rules, and is planned for an early 2015 release in mainland China, though a date is not set. Mockingjay - Part 1 has cleared censors in China, the world’s fastest-growing movie market, the person said, despite its themes of rebellion against military rule.
Mockingjay - Part 1 is the third of four films planned in the series. It opened on Friday in North American theatres. The first two movies generated $1.56 billion in global ticket sales.