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Four Films for 'The Hunger Games'

Posted by Tristan Sinns | Wed, June 01 2011

Lionsgate has announced that they intend to break math and release four films based on the trilogy of The Hunger Games, written by Suzanne Collins.

The Hunger Games stories revolve around a futuristic dystopian society wherein the oppressive fascist government forces the sub-states under its control to offer up each a boy and a girl, and then force this collection of youth to fight each other to the death in a brutal and widely broadcast series of "games".

The first film is well underway, casting Jennifer Lawrence in the much coveted role of Katniss Everdeen, with Gary Ross directing. Renowned actor Donald Sutherland has also been attached to the project as President Snow.

Having read the first of the trilogy, I find myself looking forward to this film. While seemingly borrowing heavily from Battle Royale and utilizing rather heavy-handed teen angst dipped in romantic cheese, the story still carries a lot of energy and suspense that should easily be adaptable to film. The idea of kids being forced to battle to the death in various ways (a notion which also echoes Stephen King's great novelette The Long Walk) is, well, "fun"; though, casting someone more age appropriate for the role of Katniss might have made the film stronger. Lawrence is a wonderful actress and looks great in the early screenshots, but is quite a bit more physically mature than the teenage Katniss described in the first tale. Can't we have our characters as written?

The first film of this new series, The Hunger Games, is planned to hit theaters on March 23 in 2012. Share your thoughts on the plan to create four of them with a comment below!

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Wed, 06/01/2011 - 16:19

Cash Bailey

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Joined: 04/23/2010

Posts: 1734

Sounds like they're going the HARRY POTTER and TWILIGHT route of splitting the last film into two films for no reason other than to milk another chunk of money out of the series.

And Tristan, nice shout-out to THE LONG WALK. That story is astounding. And even moreso when you find out that King was only about 19-20 when he wrote it!

Apparently Darabont (not surprisingly) is lined up to make a movie of it at some point.

Wed, 06/01/2011 - 19:30

acaseofyou12581

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Joined: 03/26/2010

Posts: 8

I feel good about Jennifer Lawrence. I suppose she isn't quite as age-appropriate, but she was astounding in Winter's Bone, and I would rather have a talented woman than an untalented girl. Another good choice might have been Mia Wasikowska. Though, I suppose she might be getting up there in age as well.

As far as breaking the last Harry Potter book into two films... I guess it's possible it was done to make money, but I think the story is benefited by this choice. It's simply too expansive for (even a long) single film. I've heard a lot of complaints about the last one seeming sort of empty, but I think it's fine when you take it in context of the entire series.

It's interesting, though, when you think about the fact that Scholastic is the US publisher of both book series. I wonder if their deals with the production companies have stipulated anything in particular. I used to work for Scholastic, but I heard nothing of the sort (likely because I worked in educational books). I wonder also how much of this is the doing of JK Rowling and Suzanne Collins. Though, it'd be unlikely that any US publisher would allow an author to make those kinds of decisions--even ones as popular as Rowling and Collins... especially since they weren't nearly as popular when they signed their contracts.