How Lionsgate punches above its Hollywood weight

Santa Monica, California

WITH its cutting-edge social media campaigns for The Hunger Games, the tiny 27-person marketing department at Lionsgate has become a model for Hollywood's legacy studios: scrappy, thrifty, forward-thinking. But is the "Lionsgate way" even possible for the old guard to replicate?

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, the third movie in the postapocalyptic series, sold an estimated US$123 million in tickets at North American cinemas over the weekend. It was by far the biggest opening since last November, when Lionsgate released The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, taking in US$158.1 million on the way to a global total of US$864.9 million.