Oh Deadline. Today while reporting that Gary Ross’ adaptation of The Hunger Games, the latest wildly popular YA book series to pull in tween, teen and fully grown fans, is bound to make bank for Lionsgate, they ever-so-nonchalantly threw out this:
“Lionsgate executives told Wall Street analysts this morning to expect big things from The Hunger Games, a series of four action films that the studio will release from the trilogy written by Suzanne Collins.” [Emphasis mine.]
Yep. Four movies. The article goes on to hem and haw over whether 3D will touch the franchise, and CEO Jon Feltheimer’s view on streaming movies (he’s a reluctant fan), without ever acknowledging they had breaking news in line one: the trilogy will be split into four movies!
/Film has confirmed via word from Lionsgate that their production deal “encompasses 4 movies,” though there’s no word yet on how the books will be broken down. Will they go the Harry Potter route and bisect the final book in the series, Mockingjay? Or will they go the way of Lord of the Rings and splitting more on plot lines than final chapters? Of course it’s too soon to say, and any sequel would depend on the first book’s adaptation doing blockbuster business. (Lest not forget the failed YA franchise The Golden Compass.) Though with Harry Potter wrapping up this summer, and Twilight drawing its final curtain in the fall of 2012, it’s likely audiences will be thirsting for the next cross-demo tale of teen angst and good vs. evil battling.
With the first film just beginning production, hopes are high as Ross has pulled together a cast of Oscar nominees like Jennifer Lawrence, Stanley Tucci, and Woody Harrelson, and golden supporting players including: Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Banks, Wes Bentley, Paula Malcomson and Donald Sutherland.
As far as whether a fourth film is merited or just a cash-grab – it’s hard to say — but I’m going with a little bit of both. While it’s undeniable Lionsgate would hope to squeeze as many blockbusters as they can out of the fan-adored trilogy, the third book holds a lot of action, much of which Katniss is not present for. These sections are told is expansive exposition but would be far more compelling if shown rather than explained to the heroine as they are in the book. It might be possible that such a major divergence from the source material might require a fourth film. But this will all have to wait…
The Games begin March 23, 2012.
What do you think of the three books becoming four films? Where do you think the stories should split?