No, this title is not a typo. A new survey out yesterday has revealed that movie going audiences rate Star Wars: The Force Awakens as their second most anticipated film of the fall behind the fourth and final Hunger Games film.

Variety has the results of a Piedmont Media Research survey that asked movie goers what film they were most excited for this upcoming fall season.

The consumer tracking company polled 3,000 people about upcoming fall movies and found that “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” were the most hotly anticipated upcoming releases. In fact, both films scored some of the highest ratings Piedmont has recorded since it began polling audiences five years ago. The company rates consumer engagement on a scale of zero to 1,000, and the fourth and final “Hunger Games” had a 514 rating, beating last summer’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and its score of 509, as the best overall number it has ever recorded. The “Star Wars” sequel posted a 495 rating, the third best figure since Piedmont began its surveys. It also had the best score among males that Piedmont has seen with 553. Females also are looking forward to the film, with their interest level hitting 383.

Clearly, both films are highly anticipated with each scoring a rating in the top 3 in the history of the survey. Additionally, it is a very small sample size measuring two very different movies. But it is somewhat telling as to the type of marketing push that will be necessary as we approach the stretch run before the release of the new film.

While Hunger Games is already in its final marketing push and has the benefit of being the finale to a successful series, it is also significantly closer to release than The Force Awakens, giving it more presence in the eye of the casual film fan.

On the flip side, you can make an argument that Star Wars may be lagging behind Hunger Games at this point based purely on the lack of marketing thus far. We still have yet to enter the season of theatrical trailers, TV commercials, and fast food tie-ins that will significantly increase awareness amongst casual movie goers. At the same time, you can also take the approach that Star Wars is in the stronger position of the two films having reached #3 all time in anticipation on name alone, before the marketing has even begun in earnest. If this is where Star Wars sits now on an anticipation scale, where will it be in 2 months when the marketing machine becomes inescapable?

It is interesting to note that the survey also introduced variables to see if there would be any impact to anticipation for a specific movie. Whereas on some other films the star power of the cast or director might increase anticipation, the needle on Star Wars did not move when mentioning returning or new cast members. This would indicate that the existing level of excitement is based on the Star Wars brand alone and not on any particular cast member.

Still, even given the survey’s results favoring Mockingjay, it seems highly unlikely that a new Star Wars film will not get the crown for biggest film of the fall when all is said and done. Most early attempts at an early read on the Star Wars box office have projected something significantly higher than the finale of the Hunger Games franchise, but only time will tell. Is Disney’s cautious marketing plan going to turn out to be a genius move or will this game of marketing chicken with their own release date backfire*? We will find out in December.

*in this case backfire would refer to slightly smaller but still gigantic mounds of cash for Disney executives to swim in Scrooge McDuck style.