The marketing people at Lionsgate are no dummies. They clearly recognize that celebrity culture has been reduced to "What are you wearing" questions on the red carpet, and are ramping up their marketing efforts for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire with the movie poster equivalent: seven character portrait images that depict Katniss & Compay in fancy freaky fashions before the next round of adolescent-on-adolescent bloodshed begins. more »
Well, it looks like Lionsgate has picked their pony in the Catching Fire directing race; I Am Legend director Francis Lawrence has reportedly been offered the job to helm the Hunger Games sequel, which is set to start filming on a tight schedule this August. Lawrence has three features under his belt, in addition to music videos for the likes of J. Lo and Britney Spears; he most recently directed Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon in Water for Elephants (but also made 2005's Constantine).
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Mattel has unveiled the first look at their Hunger Games-themed Katniss Everdeen Barbie doll ($29.95), available for pre-order today and on shelves in August, and the result is... kinda close to what I envisioned when I read Suzanne Collins' novels. Not that District 12's underfed hunter gal ever hewed that close to Barbie's usual unattainably bosomy dimensions in most readers' minds, but something in Katniss-Barbie's face is appropriately feline, with just the merest hint of the full-lipped pout that Jennifer Lawrence brought to the screen.
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This just in from CheapOair, offering travel deals to the Charlotte, NC area that played host to the Hunger Games production. "Visit the DuPont State Recreational Forest (also known as the arena in the movie) where you can find a dramatic landscape of waterfalls, hideaway lakes, streams and pines, as well as the spot where Peeta camouflaged himself in the movie, and traces of the pyrotechnics from the fireball sequence." While you're at it, how's about a lovely spring picnic on the site where children lost their lives fighting to the death in the movie? Sign me up!
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Movie events have become deadly little things, highly mechanized gadgets thrown by studio marketing departments into an audience’s midst in advance; then we just stand around and wait for them to explode. The Hunger Games, adapted from the first of Suzanne Collins’ hugely successful trio of young adult novels, was decreed an event long before it became anything close to a movie: More than a year ago its studio, Lionsgate, launched a not-so-stealthy advertising campaign that made extensive use of social media to coax potential fans into convincing one another that they had to see this movie. The marketing was so nervily persuasive that you had to wonder: How could any movie – especially one that, as it turns out, is largely and surprisingly naturalistic, as opposed to the usual toppling tower of special effects – possibly hope to measure up?
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Now here's an image that could inspire a rebellion: Jennifer Lawrence hit the premiere of The Hunger Games in shiny, glowing gold, joining cast mates Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson, and more to celebrate the upcoming YA event movie. Well, OK -- that number's not quite bow and arrow, running-through-the-woods killing people-friendly, but JenLaw destroyed everyone else on that black carpet, including guest (and... secret Hunger Games fan?) Sylvester Stallone. Photos after the jump!
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Lana Del Rey's 15 minutes may be nearing their end (she did just postpone her tour after tanking on SNL), but she's got one last charge towards relevance up her sleeve; just check out her new jam inspired by The Hunger Games called, simply, "Hunger Games." So Lana. So Katniss. "This District smells like rat piss/My name is Katniss/I play the Hunger Gaaaaames..."
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Need poetic inspiration for the Hunger Games haiku you're composing for tickets to the premiere? Look no further than the newly unveiled Hunger Games Super Bowl trailer, which will air this weekend and features new footage of special moments with Prim, Gale (Liam Hemsworth), Cinna (Lenny Kravitz), and Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci), the all-important mockingjay pin, and the deadly goings-on in the Games.
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Make like Katniss and sharpen those hunting skills, Hunger Games fans, because Lionsgate's launching a scavenger hunt with a worthy payoff to count down the mere 100 days that remain until Suzanne Collins' dystopian teen battle royale tale hits screens on March 23: Collect all 100 pieces in the Hunger Games 100 Poster Puzzle Hunt and be the first to get a peek at the full official first poster for the March flick. You can start with golden-flecked puzzle piece #78 (of 100), which Movieline hosts exclusively after the jump. (Hint: It's a corner piece! Get to puzzling already!)
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When EW debuted the first look at Jennifer Lawrence as heroine Katniss Everdeen in Lionsgate's The Hunger Games, it looked pretty damn good. But will Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson fare as well when it comes to embodying the well-loved characters of Gale and Peeta in Gary Ross's 2012 adaptation? Get your first full look at the men of The Hunger Games after the jump!
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If you thought Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket was great casting, wait 'til you find out which character Stanley Tucci has signed on to play in Gary Ross's 2012 adaptation of The Hunger Games. First hint: It's pretty much perfect casting. Second hint: No, it's not Haymitch.
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The Hunger Games roll call continues with today's casting bit: Irish actress Paula Malcomson will play the mother of Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Primrose (Willow Shields) in Lionsgate's upcoming novel adaptation. TV watchers may know Malcolmson from her extensive small screen work (Trixie from Deadwood! Amanda from Caprica! The lady that Sun shot on the boat on LOST!); she's a character actress who leaves memorable marks even in small parts, which sounds perfect for the role of Mama Everdeen -- a woman left despondent and emotionally crippled after the death of her husband. [Press release]
With Lionsgate milking its casting announcement roll-out as much as possible (today's news: All My Children's Leven Rambin and Meg Ryan/Dennis Quaid progeny Jack Quaid are your new District 1 tributes, Glimmer and Marvel!) it's time to play the speculation game with one of the series' most important supporting characters: Haymitch. Which veteran actors could fill the Hunger Games winner-turned-alcoholic mentor's shoes?
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Chris Hemsworth, the Norse god Thor himself, revealed recently that he helped brother Liam rehearse for his Hunger Games auditions by reading the part of Katniss aloud. Liam eventually landed the part of Gale, one of two young men in love with Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) in Lionsgate's 2012 adaptation of Suzanne Collins's YA novels, but lest you assume that means the elder Hemsworth is unequivocally on Team Gale, think again. Talking with Movieline he explains his ties to Liam's future on-screen rival, Josh Hutcherson, and how they've landed him firmly in the middle of the Peeta-Gale conflict.
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As the YA-addicted world awaits the conclusion of The Twilight Saga, internet storms are a-brewin' over the next teen franchise with Twilight-level potential: Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. But with casting speculation at a fever pitch (director Gary Ross should anoint his chosen ones any week now), it's time for some real talk: Most of your favorite young thespians aren't going to make the cut.
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