Yes, “films.” There’s going to be two of them.
As is now traditional for big-budget book adaptations, Lionsgate is splitting the movie based on the final installment of the Hunger Games trilogy into two parts. Both parts of Mockingjay, which explore grouchy protagonist, Katniss Everdeen’s, role as a propaganda figure and revolutionary, are being written by writer and actor, Danny Strong.
Strong recently won two Emmys for writing and co-producing the HOBO TV-movie Game Change, but he started his Hollywood career as an actor. Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans will recognize him as the guy who played Jonathan Levinson in all of the show’s seven seasons. He’s also appeared in Seinfeld, 3rd Rock from the Sun and Mad Men
I admit, I kind of expected The Hunger Games movie to go the way of the unfortunate Northern Lights adaptation, The Golden Compass. Instead the mix of violence and teen drama did incredibly well, grossing some $685 million worldwide since its release in March. While Hunger Games managed to squeeze itself into a PG-13 rating, it’ll be interesting to see how Strong handles the violence in Mockingjay. While hardly a sci-fi classic, the book does handle some pretty heavy themes for a teen thriller. While the first two installments in the series lend themselves well to the “who should she choose” shipping contests that hypnotize teenage girls into buying lunchboxes, Mockingjay is a morally gray horrors-of-war affair. Whether it’s hefty enough to warrant two films is up for debate.
The second movie, Catching Fire is due for release this next November, with the two final films to follow in 2014 and 2015 respectively.
Source: Variety
