Movie Moguls are hoping that Hunger Games is the next Twilight or Harry Potter YA title to become giant film franchise. Or so at least says the LA Times. (H/T to Nicholas out in California!)
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Films are such a mixed blessing. Here’s hoping it results in lots more HG readers!
Mixed blessing is very accurate, Travis. As long as Lindsey Lohan isn’t cast as Katniss, perhaps it will fall more in the “blessing” category. I would love to see Appalachian actors as the District 12 characters, since I love the “Katniss voice” with its very familiar mountain cadences that Collins uses when she reads aloud. I’m also looking forward to the depiction of the Capitol lifestyle and wondering how hard Hollywood will come down on itself.
Do you think they will make Rue older to lessen the impact of her fate? I remember all the hullaballo over Cedric Diggory in Goblet, but even, then, Pattinson looked closer to 20 than to 17. Little birdlike Rue, truly a child, may be a different story. I can’t see a PG rating, not with that tracker-jacker scene, but I guess it can be done with less gore than my mind has filled in! I will be very interested to see how it goes!
It will take a very skilled director to do justice to the violence of the book without resorting to the gore that will earn an R rating.
Perhaps an Alfred Hitchcock-like treatment would be in order here?!? Don’t show the act, rather the shadow/inference of it….or the result. Works for me.
Well, they can certainly have fun with the tracker jacker hallucinations. And I’m glad Collins is writing the screenplay, to protect her work from being twisted to affirm what she criticizes in the books.
I suspect that these films will generate different discussion than HP and Twilight. HP films are magic, friendship, and adventure, Twilight is about romance. Rather than a a heavy romantic Team_____ emphasis about THG (although there will always be shipping fans), I think general discussion will revolve more more around the book’s social and cultural critiques, and violence as entertainment. At least one can hope.
As I’ve been rereading the books, I’m hoping there might be a “sum-up” post on speculations before Mockingjay comes out. I’ve settled on ideas as to who I think is and isn’t part of the Pearl Plot, but am not sure which of the previous posts I should put them at, as ideas now sprawl all over them.
Hold that thought, Arabella. I’m cooking up a couple of posts as I prep to Teach Hunger Games this fall, so we’ll have teh best place for your speculations, which I know will be wonderful!
Elizabeth, I just learned from our librarian that Mockingjay’s release has been postponed until September, in case you want to wait on those posts.
Amazon’s page for the book still says 24 August 2010 is the book’s release date and none of the Hunger Games fan sites have said anything about the possibility of a postponement. As the book is #4 at Amazon — at less than half-price, no wonder! — I’m very skeptical about this librarian’s information.
Arabella, I pre-ordered my copy from Amazon, partly because I usually get a big deal book on the release day anyhow (Deathly Hallows turned up right on time) without the midnight release hoopla that I just can’t handle anymore. Amazon always lets folks know if a pre-ordered item is delayed, so if I hear anything, I’ll get the word out. Maybe your librarian meant that it won’t be on the shelf until then. I know our local library has a lengthy processing lag that keeps the hot new book from hitting the shelf day one. I hope it’s on time; I’m already being threatened by the people I’ve gotten addicted to HG who are now on hot ashes until next month.
I apologize for the false alert, without checking first. May I claim a bad headache?
I pre-ordered with Amazon, too. I checked online and spoke with another librarian. The 24th is still on (although with standard shipping, I will get it a few days later). That’s the same release date for the Lost Complete Set and the Lost Encyclopedia. I’m going to be very happily occupied for some time to come! 🙂