It’s strange to think just a year ago The Hunger Games was yet another YA adaptation hoping to hit it big among audiences in its spring debut. Little did we know the Jennifer Lawrence-led film would go on to not only strike a chord with the teen demographic, but also gross nearly $700 million worldwide. If that wasn’t enough of an indication of its success, Lionsgate has gone the Harry Potter and Twilight route and split the trilogy of novels into a quadrilogy. With the next in the series hitting this November, we’ve now got a minor update on the final film.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Game Change writer Danny Strong did not screw up his script for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 and has been hired to to pen the final film in the series, aptly titled The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2. There’s no telling where exactly this final story will be split, but barring any major surprises, Catching Fire director Francis Lawrence is set to return.
In other tangentially Hunger Games-related news, Universal Pictures is trying its hardest to spit out another take on The Mummy for the sole reason that the series thus far has taken in $1.4 billion worldwide. They’ve already hired Len Wiseman (reboot king after last year’s Total Recall) to direct, but now are trying to decide on a script — these sorts of decisions usually come last in Hollywood’s mind.
Prometheus co-writer Jon Spaihts is already penning a version, but in case anything goes wrong, Vulture reports the studio has also hired Hunger Games scribe Billy Ray to craft another draft set in “contemporary society.” The goal is to have one of these ready by at least the early fall in order to shoot the project then get it in front of audiences by summer 2014. There’s some talk of these scripts being combined, but honestly — does anyone actually care about this Mummy reboot? The same audiences that went to the previous ones will go again, eat it up, and Universal will be happy. And the cycle will, sadly, continue.
Which Hunger Games writer got the shorter end of the stick?