Darkness At The Box Office

As I watched "Hunger Games" with my daughter, nephew, and brother-in-law last weekend, I couldn't help but think about the alignment of the dark theme of the movie with the contracting cycle that we're in.  It's so fascinating that a book about teens murdering each other in a game is required reading for class in some schools.  Yes, the storyline is interesting, but the darkness of the story and the dark imagery throughout the movie is telling.  I had the same revelation sitting through the first Twilight movie. Darkness reigns for sure.  First, "Harry Potter", then "Twilight" and now "Hunger Games".  If I remember correctly, there's not a ray of sunshine in any of the movies....both literally and figuratively.  Yes, "Hunger Games" presents a message about a potential future for our country.  Some could argue that the movie depicts the 1% and the 99% very well.  My fascination is more with the fact that these dark themes are the mega-movies of the current and past decade.  As I've mentioned many times, Robert Prechter with Elliott Wave International has done significant research regarding movie and music themes and how they align with mass social mood. It would be hard to argue after watching thirty minutes of the world news at night that the world isn't in a "dark" mood.  The chart below places each movie along my "mass social mood barometer", the Dow/Gold Ratio.  Interesting alignment of the mega-movie release dates and their place along the "Great Contraction" cycle.  The real concerning point is that we're a long ways from the bottom of the contraction. Many more dark films to watch I'm afraid.

The Mass Social Mood Barometer (Dow/Gold Ratio)

Fear In The Film

Robert Prechter presents a case of the alignment of mass social mood with numerous cultural trends. One of his examples is the alignment of movie themes with the current mood. Here's an article of his on the subject.
http://www.socionomics.com/archive/negative-mood-themed-films.aspx

Recently, we went to see the box office phenomenom "Twilight". The movie is a love story about a girl and her love for a vampire. It wasn't my kind of movie, but while sitting in the theatre I couldn't help from noticing the darkness of the film. The scenes were dark (vamps don't like light) and the vampire theme, by it's nature, was dark.

The Batman sequel, "The Dark Knight", is smashing box office records. It's been categorized as a psychological thriller. The word "dark" is even in the title. Ironically, Heath Ledger, who played the Joker committed suicide and Christian Bale, Batman, has been charged with assault on his mother and sister. Were they impacted by the darkness of their film?

A quick review of box office sales reveals that at the inflection point from expansion to contraction, the top films in 2001 were Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings, and Monsters Inc. While the scenes in Potter and Rings were very dark, at least the Monsters were cute in Monsters Inc. Ironically in 2000, the year of the dotcom crash, Mission Impossible II was the top grossing film.

So what's the point? Keep your radars on for clues regarding changes around you. How will they impact us? What influence will these films have on our children?