News of Gary Ross‘ unexpected departure from the Hunger Games sequel, Catching Fire, was enough to inspire plenty of reactions and, most importantly, plenty of speculation as to who would take the director’s chair — but we may have jumped the gun. While we can’t confirm this story as 100% factual, Deadline reports that Ross hasn’t actually left Fire just yet, and that stories purporting otherwise “are simply not accurate.”

It was indicated that he left next year’s follow-up on account of salary (you could have guessed) and a personal desire to tackle something different on the next outing. But it’s said that Ross “knows the benefit of riding in a winner and not switching horses midstream” (this could be construed as funny when you know he directed Seabiscuit); on top of that, all the work he’s been doing for Catching Fire thus far — he only hired Simon Beaufoy when work on the first precluded him from further script development — wouldn’t fit behavior of this nature.

Should you ask me, such a murky and unsure state of things only makes it erroneous to go any further with speculation. A fall shoot and, hopefully, the need for a good deal of preparation on the director’s part — be it Ross or someone else — means we should get a man (or woman) in soon. In the meantime, you can catch the first film if you, like I, are one of fifteen interested parties who still haven’t.

What do you think will happen here? Would you like for Ross to come back?