MONICA CORCORAN

NYT SYNDICATE

IT made me laugh. It made me cry. It made me buy lip gloss. Such is the hope of Hollywood cross-promoters these days, as movie tie-ins go beyond lunch boxes and action figures and move into beauty products like perfumes, hair gel, curling irons and lipsticks.

Moviegoers, it seems, want more than just merchandise; they want to embody the characters. “Our readers want to know how to get their look,” said Rosie Amodio, the editor of InStyle.com.

The latest push is by The Hunger Games, the action movie based on the bestselling young adult novel by Suzanne Collins. In the film, which opened recently, teenagers in a dystopian society are conscripted to fight to the death in an ultrachic enclave known as the Capitol.

Lionsgate, the studio behind the film, worked with the nail-polish company China Glaze to introduce the Capitol Colours line.

Because the film’s characters are too busy murdering each other to get manicures, the nail polishes are sold as products worn by the extras.

A bottle is $7, and colours include a sparkling moss green called Agro.

“Having a nail polish for the rabid young girl fan base to relate to our movie on a personal level feels smart,” said Tim Palen, the studio’s chief marketing officer.

It doesn’t end with nail polish. The Twilight movie franchise has an entire line of beauty products that includes mascara, eye liner, lip gloss, blush, body glitter and shower cream, everything needed for a Bella makeover.

Summit Entertainment, the studio that produces the Twilight films, created two different collections, which it sells on a dedicated website, TwilightBeauty.com.

One line, Volturi Twilight, skews to teenagers with trendy items like hot pink eye shadow ($9). A slightly more upscale line, Luna Twilight, is geared to older fans and has more sophisticated packaging and subdued shades. An eye shadow is $20.

“We wanted to create something for our 21-plus Twilight fans,” said Nancy Kirkpatrick, president for worldwide marketing at Summit. The studio also worked with PRO Beauty Tools, which makes hairstyling products, to sell round brushes and flat irons that allow fans to recreate the “natural-looking waves and loose curls” of Bella and other Twilight characters.

Beauty product tie-ins are not new. In 2010, Eat Pray Love inspired a grapefruitmelon lip gloss from Perlier, an Italian maker of bath products, and a limited-edition group of three fragrances by Fresh, a luxury beauty line. The release of The Muppets last year saw a line of nail polish by OPI, a nail-care company in Los Angeles, that included a bright bronze shade called Warm and Fozzie.

“Movies set the cultural agenda,” said Peter Sealey, an adjunct professor of marketing at the Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, Calif. “It’s a reference point for who people want to be or what they want to look like.” Expect more movie references at the beauty counter.

In May, OPI will release nail polish tied to The Amazing Spider-Man. The tie-in may confound comic geeks, but shades will include a bright pink called Your Web or Mine. “We bring a whole new audience to a movie,” said Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, the artistic director at OPI.