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Max Braden: I agree with Ben, I think the math justifies two movies in any case. Deathly Hallows, Breaking Dawn, Mockingjay, Divergent: Allegiant/Ascendant - the split approach seems to be particular to the young adult genre. I blame the rise of Peter Jackson's kitchen-sink approach to moviemaking for a tendency to stick everything in and string everything out. I wonder if there's a psychological impact on audiences when they know the source material has been split into two film segments. There's no real reason why a film series needs to be a trilogy or even stick to the chapter boundaries of a book. Even if the producers felt compelled to split the finale into two for financial and content reasons, I don't think that decision will be the primary focus of a summary assessment on the series as a whole. The Hunger Games series should at least come out smelling better than Divergent, and I think that the failure of Mockingjay 2 to meet expectations is an even more unfortunate omen for Allegiant coming next.

Edwin Davies: I struggle to imagine a scenario where a single Mockingjay even gets close to what the split version will ultimately manage. We saw with the almost identical domestic ticket sales for the first two films that the series found its ceiling pretty early on, and while a single finale may have seen an uptick, particularly over opening weekend, we're talking about moving from $425 million to $450 million. Those are still massive numbers, of course, but Mockingjay (single) would have had to move up into Jurassic World money to equal what Mockingjay (split) will end up with, and I don't think that enough time had elapsed for the audiences to grow to that extent. As others have said, this was the right call from a business standpoint.

However, a single Mockingjay would have probably made for a better movie, and assuming that it made over $400 million (which I think it absolutely would have), then the trilogy would have the prestige of having three installments earn more than that threshold, an achievement which almost no franchise has managed. Lord of the Rings and Star Wars both would qualify if we take inflation into account, which would put the trilogy in rarefied air. Instead, its legacy is undercut somewhat by the fact that it petered out after the second film. Even if "petered out" in this instance represents totals that most YA film series can only dream of.

David Mumpower: Edwin touches on the aspect that interests me the most. The math is undeniable that two movies earn more than one, no matter how quickly Mockingjay Part 2 flames out...and I think we all agree it's facing a free fall. The larger issue, however, is that the damage to the brand will cause people to remember the four films less fondly than would have occurred with three tight, high-quality outings. I still think the story arc of Mockingjay would've been a tough sell even as one film. It wouldn't have been the functional impossibility that Part 2 faced in light of the tragic events in Paris the previous week, though. The moment in the final film where they reference refugees needing sanctuary, well, it felt like my entire audience gasped at the timing of that.

The financing supports the shameless commercialism in the short term. I question its viability over the long term, though. I feel like a fondly remembered franchise such as The Lord of the Rings sustains value over time. Conversely, a project like The Hobbit ruins the reputation of everything that precedes it. That's precisely what has transpired with Mockingjay.

Reagen Sulewski: While I think it's clear that one Mockingjay film would be better quality-wise than either one of the ones we got, it's also abundantly clear that there's no way it could earn the close to $2 billion that both of them will together. Whether the added production costs of two films makes the difference there is probably a decision for the bean counters, but another aspect that hasn't been covered very much is that it extends Lionsgate's time with a franchise through one more year of financial disclosures, and keeps the stock price pumped for longer. That's a sad aspect when we're discussing the artistic merits of a decision, but it's one that was likely removed completely from the hands of anyone making the film.

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