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Fandango, Amazon gorging on 'Hunger Games' presales

Virtual box office Fandango is already anticipating a record March for presales of the wildly popular story, opening in theaters at midnight.

Jessica Dolcourt Senior Director, Commerce & Content Operations
Jessica Dolcourt is a passionate content strategist and veteran leader of CNET coverage. As Senior Director of Commerce & Content Operations, she leads a number of teams, including Commerce, How-To and Performance Optimization. Her CNET career began in 2006, testing desktop and mobile software for Download.com and CNET, including the first iPhone and Android apps and operating systems. She continued to review, report on and write a wide range of commentary and analysis on all things phones, with an emphasis on iPhone and Samsung. Jessica was one of the first people in the world to test, review and report on foldable phones and 5G wireless speeds. Jessica began leading CNET's How-To section for tips and FAQs in 2019, guiding coverage of topics ranging from personal finance to phones and home. She holds an MA with Distinction from the University of Warwick (UK).
Expertise Content strategy, team leadership, audience engagement, iPhone, Samsung, Android, iOS, tips and FAQs.
Jessica Dolcourt
2 min read
The Hunger Games movie poster
The movie 'The Hunger Games' is already a bull's-eye for Fandango's virtual box office. Lionsgate

Internet-savvy moviegoers are already gorging themselves on "The Hunger Games," the first cinematic installment of a young-adult fiction trilogy making its debut at 12:01 a.m. Friday at theaters across the country.

And that means fat financial gains for e-tailers like Fandango.

Online ticket sales are sky-high, according to Fandango, a dominant e-tailer of movie tickets -- to the tune of over 2,500 show times sold out across the United States. Fandango is already forecasting its strongest March ever for its virtual box office.

The flick is proving to be the third most popular title in advance ticket sales in Fandango's history, according to the service, behind "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2" in second place and "Twilight: New Moon" as the highest-grossing seller before the movie's opening scenes ever rolled on the silver screen.

Those presale numbers make "The Hunger Games" the top franchise opener in Fandango's history.

"We don't usually see this kind of excitement or enthusiasm or anticipation for a film that's a first in the series," Fandango's director of public relations, Harry Medved, told CNET. "We usually see this type of ticket build-up for a sequel or a remake."

Medved added that theater managers are scrambling to add new showings, like 3 a.m. show times.

Fandango isn't the only Web merchant already cashing in on the pre-show anticipation. Stock market insight company Kapitall also points to Amazon as a chief beneficiary, especially in sales of the original series by Suzanne Collins.

Amazon is on track to sell more digital and physical copies of the three books in the first four months of 2012 than it did in all of 2011, a spokesperson told CNET.

Watch this: 'The Hunger Games' plays social media

Beyond books, Amazon and other online stores like eBay will also see related profits with the sales of action figures and other merchandise. Take, for instance, the "Hunger Games" Barbie doll that Mattel is releasing inspired by Katniss, the story's protagonist.

On Amazon, "Hunger Games" T-shirts currently are two of the top five bestsellers for clothing, and the mockingjay brooch that characters wear on their clothing is currently the site's top seller in the Toys & Games category.

In the meantime, Fandango can look forward to feeding off the film for some time. In a survey of more than 1,000 respondents, 62 percent said they were planning to watch "The Hunger Games" more than once on the big screen.

Repeat viewing may be icing on the cake for all involved, but for Fandango in particular it's proof that its online business model is becoming more popular than ever.