The Hunger Games
Background and Introduction to The Hunger Games
Based on one of the bestselling novels of 2008, the film adaptation of The Hunger Games swept the world four years later in 2012. The author Suzanne Collins collaborated on the screenplay with Billy Ray and director Gary Ross, and it is largely faithful to the original work with minor enhancements and slight detractions. For example, the screenplay expands the characters of President Coriolanus Snow and Gamemaster Seneca Crane to heighten suspense and display what is happening behind the Hunger Games.
In the novel, however, readers are limited to Katniss’ first person narration. In the film adaptation, parallel action depicts Panem’s reactions to the Games while hosts Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith comment on the games and act as narrators to viewers who haven’t read the work.
With a budget of $78 million, the film became a massive box-office success for Lionsgate by grossing over $691 million and being a tent pole franchise for the studio. The studio had not made a profit for five years, and it did whatever was necessary (including stripping the budgets of other productions) to secure the largest budget in the studio’s history. The gamble paid off and Mockingjay – Parts 1 and 2, the latest and final installments in the trilogy, prove to be just as successful, especially with now A-list, Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence playing the role of protagonist Katniss Everdeen. Lawrence even earned the endorsement of Collins, who said that Lawrence was the “only one who truly captured the character I wrote in the book” and had “every essential quality necessary to play Katniss.” Because the entire trilogy had been planned with a PG-13 rating in mind, the film reaches a broad market despite its macabre subject matter.
The work, which Collins claims she drew inspiration from the myth of Theseus, Roman gladiatorial games, reality television, and the desensitization of viewers to media coverage of real-life tragedy and war, is one of the richest allegories and most successful dystopian fiction or science fiction works this century. While this packet can be completed by a viewer who hasn’t read the novel, many of the questions assess the film adaptation in similarity and comparison to the source novel. Enjoy and may the odds be ever in your favor!
