The Hunger Games: Catching Fire made around $222 million domestically opening weekend, which means that Catching Fire has the fifth largest opening weekend of all time! Isn't this exciting?
Did anybody else love the paining of Rue or the graffiti work in Catching Fire? If so, you should check out Joanna Bush, the artist behind the art in Catching Fire.
Posted on Friday, November 29, 2013 by Editor
The score for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is now available to be purchased from Amazon. Click Here to purchase.
Posted on Friday, November 29, 2013 by Editor
I honestly have no idea what to say, other than Catching Fire was phenomenal. To be honest I was not expecting much at all. I was not a big fan of the first movie, and I did not think anybody could pick off from that and make Catching Fire good. I was wrong. Kudos to Francis Lawrence for making this movie not only true to the book, but entertaining in it's own right.
One thing I complained about last year was that the "vibe" of the movie was off. It's was too shiny for my taste. However this movie was filmed in a certain way that made you feel the pain, the gore, etc. without really seeing anything too gory. The flash of a dead rabbit or the victors gutting fish added a realistic effect to scenes.
Overall, the movie was an exceptional adaption of the books.
Posted on Friday, November 22, 2013 by Editor
You can read the full interview here.
When I read people writing about the Hunger Games, there seems to be a split between people who read it as an allegory of the emotional experience of being an adolescent, and there are people who read it more literally as an exploration of the moral issues surrounding war and political oppression. Is it both? Are you comfortable with both?
Suzanne Collins: I have read so many interpretations. There’s a whole Christian allegory. There’s you know, I’ve seen people talk about it like Plato’s cave, which is really fun. I’ve seen an indictment of big government. I’ve seen, you know, the 99 percent kind of thing. I think people bring a lot of themselves to the book. When Hunger Games first came out, I could tell people were having very different experiences. It’s a war story. It’s a romance. Other people are like, it’s an action-adventure story.
You know, for me it was always first and foremost a war story, but whatever brings you into the story is fine with me. And then, of course, if a person interprets it as an adolescent experience or a Christian allegory, you can’t tell them they didn’t. That was their genuine response to it, and they’re going to have it, and that’s fine. You can’t both write and then sit on the other side and interpret it for people.
I can tell you that for me it was a war story. But it also has so many ethical issues because you’re dealing with war, and there’s all these other ethical issues surrounding with, you know, there’s violence, there’s war, there’s hunger, there’s the propaganda, there’s the environment’s been destroyed, there’s a ruthless government, misuse of power and all these other elements that come into play with it, and people may respond to ones that are most important to them, and you know other people came for the love story. That’s fine. Come for the love story, stay for the war.…There’s a remarkable scene where Katniss, she’s just heard about the Quarter Quell and she runs into the forest and just feels everything all at once. Tell me about that scene
FL: Well we shot it very, very quickly. We actually shot two days just outside of the city here in the Ramapo Mountains in New Jersey. In January, when Jen was on her tour for Silver Linings, you know, the Oscar campaign, we caught up with her and shot two days in the mountains. And it was about 9 degrees. It was freezing, freezing cold. Because it was so cold and because in that scene she’s not wearing a coat, I could only ask her to do it three or four times, and she had done a few takes where she had been screaming out, “No, no, no, no, no.” Then I asked her to do that silently, and that ended up being the take that we used.…Have you been surprised by what a big adult audience that book’s built?
SC: Oh yes. I didn’t anticipate that. I thought that I would maybe have my Gregor audience because they’d grown up into that YA audience, and then you know that handful of people who will read anything about dystopia, so it was a very pleasant surprise. I didn’t anticipate it.
Did you know when you were writing it that this was something very new and big?
SC: No.
Really?
SC: No. It’s just like writing everything else. I think of the early months, which was a lot of me sitting there reading survival books. None of which I can practice, but that I know academically now. And just, I worked on it just as I had worked on the Gregor books. I used the exact same process. And no, I didn’t have any sense of it being different.Now you’ve spawned an entire subgenre.
SC: I don’t think I can take credit for that.
You can! Go ahead, take it.
SC: Well, I just think the dystopian stories are striking a nerve with people right now, and the Hunger Games contributed somewhat to that, but that can’t be the whole explanation for it. It’s something that’s going on within the culture. I think people respond to dystopian stories because they’re ways of acting out anxieties that we have and fears that we have about the future. And so much media’s coming at you and so much stuff comes at you over the Internet, your brain gets overloaded, you don’t know what to do with it. And one thing you can do with it is to spend a story or read a story. I mean I think of dystopian literature as being cautionary tales, and it’s a way you can kind of frame it and try to make sense and kind of set it outside yourself but look at the issues involved.…What are you working on now, now that you’re free to work on things without financial concerns?
SC: Well, I probably have a few more rounds of notes on the last script, and the picture book has just come out, but it’s done. I have a new piece I’m playing around with, and it’s very new so I can’t give you the specifics of it, and we’ll just see where it goes. It may go nowhere. Right now it’s extremely complicated, and it would have to simplified a good deal to make it into a narrative. The world is complex. We’ll see.
Posted on Friday, November 22, 2013 by Editor
Elisabeth Banks read passages from 'The Hunger Games' and posted it to Facebook. Isn't this just adorable? You can watch the video here.
Posted on Thursday, November 14, 2013 by Editor
Lionsgate has announced a new Hunger Games/Catching Fire themed mobile game called 'Panem Run'.
LOS ANGELES, CA, and SANTA MONICA, CA, Nov. 12, 2013 – Reliance Games, a leading international mobile game studio, and Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF), a leading global entertainment company, are bringing the next chapter in The Hunger Games saga to mobile devices.Based on the upcoming film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which opens in theaters worldwide on November 22, 2013, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – Panem Run mobile game puts the movie’s action in the palms of players’ hands. The game will employ both competitive and social elements, allowing players to challenge fellow Hunger Games fans to see who can bring glory to their District, achieve the greatest distance, and attain the highest score.“With its epic story of struggling for survival, The Hunger Games franchise lets us recreate the competitive world of Panem in a social mobile game,” said Manish Agarwal, CEO of Reliance Games. “In partnering with Lionsgate, we’ll build a community of Hunger Games fans, teaming up to face unique challenges together as they run through the Districts of Panem.”“The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – Panem Run mobile game is a fun and exciting complement to the film’s spectacular action and story,” said Danielle De Palma, Lionsgate Senior Vice President of Digital Marketing.The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – Panem Run will be available this November on smartphones and tablets.
Posted on Wednesday, November 13, 2013 by Editor
Lenny Kravitz, our very own Cinna, was on Ellen where he released a exclusive Katniss and Cinna scene from Catching Fire. You can watch it Here.
Posted on Wednesday, November 13, 2013 by Editor
If you are a citizen of Panem and have your DIP card you can get a special offer from Entertainment Weekly for a digital copy of their Catching Fire special edition HERE.
Posted on Sunday, November 10, 2013 by Editor
StyleList sat down with Trish Summerville, the costume designer for Catching Fire, to talk about her experience working on the film.
StyleList (SL): We’re dying to know about your inspirations for Catching Fire. Coming in to the second film, was there anything in the first that you wanted to bring through to the second? Or did you just want to start over?Trish Summerville (TS): It was a conversation we had with Francis [Lawrence, director] and the producers, to decide what did we think was really important to keep from the first film and bring to the second film? One of the elements we did keep was Katniss’s hunting jacket. We just did a little bit of modifying to it, aging it down a little more. We wanted to keep her jacket and her boots because the fans so identify with them. I tried to keep the elements of Districts 11 and 12 because we saw them in the first film, so we wanted to keep that feel — the depression era feel — and then just integrate some more contemporary, timeless pieces into it. But other than that, we had a lot of liberty to make changes, because the Capitol changes so quickly and they’re constantly looking for new things, having new things designed for them, so we had a lot of liberty there.SL: So for the Districts that we’re now getting to see in Catching Fire, what were your inspirations for the colors/themes/meanings behind each one of those?TS: For the Districts, I tried to incorporate what the District actually does. So for the Luxury District, we had them more lavish, they’re able to have stones and embellishment on their clothes because they provide all of this for the Capitol and they’re closer to the Capitol, so they’re more wealthy. For the Fishing District, we incorporated fish skins and sea shells, kept the colors of the oceans and the sky. The Transportation District’s clothes incorporated grays, blacks, oil cloth. They didn’t have a “steam punk” vibe, there’s no Victorian to it, but there’s gears and gadgets on their clothes. In the Textile District there’s a lot of textiles, a lot of color, a bit of an ethnic vibe. Some of the workers have stained hands because they’re the ones dying the fabrics — we wanted to put the little details in.SL: So how many extras did you work with?TS: It’s somewhere between 5500-5800, just under 6,000.SL: Wow! And how did your team handle that?TS: We dressed everybody! We did a lot of rentals, some shopping, a lot of altering. You re-purpose a lot of things to fit every person in the film. Because for a contemporary film, you can send out wardrobe specs and you can say “in this scene, bring these type of things” but since this is kinda a timeless, futuristic film, you pretty much have to dress everyone. I think the only thing people brought were their shoes!SL: Well that’s helpful! Were there any modern trends that you wanted to work into your designs? Anything you were seeing today that you wanted to bring to the movie?TS: We just tried to do certain things within the Capitol to create little trends. There’s this milliner I found that does these Origami hats, and we did that as a trend. And I found another milliner that does hats that are like a molded felt in non-tradition shapes. We did color blocking, prints, all florals — because I thought that some of those people could have been past victors from other Districts. We had one guy from the Masonry District, so he wore a Moschino suit that was an all-brick pattern. When I found it I was like, “this is amazing!” it has to be the Masonry District! So it’s just incorporating different themes throughout society. For example, in Japan there are all these sub-cultures. They’re all Japanese, but there’s the Rockabillies, Sunflower Girls, there’s the Harajuku Girls: so I tried to do something similar in the Capitol. People are quite different, no one looks like they shop at the same store.SL: Did the performers that you were working with have any influence on the wardrobe, or was it mostly just focused on the characters?TS: You mainly go about it for the character, and then you bring in specifics for the actors’ body types, comfort level — thinking about the silhouette that works best on someone. But you mainly go the direction of the character, and have that discussion with the director and with the actor. For example, “Here’s what I feel would work for Katniss and here’s why,” and of course they’ll have their input, which is such a great help — the little things they may be holding on to for the character. And for me, I was new to this, so it was really important to me to know how they all felt when it came to these characters, because they’ve lived it for so long.SL: This MAY be the hardest question, but could you choose a favorite look from the film? Even a couple!TS: I’m going to give everyone that asks me this question a different look, because then it’ll cover all my favorites!SL: That’s perfect!TS: There are so many looks that I love. One of the things that I really loved was Finnick’s interview costume, because it’s so simple but — his skirt — well, he’s in a skirt, which I love! I love Sam [Finnick] for letting me put him in a skirt. A lot of the male characters wound up wearing them, but they’re like gladiator skirts, almost kilt-like. So he’s in this long skirt that has real fish pelts down the front and a gauze top, which is belted, and these big boots. And a mother of pearl necklace, which he wears because Annie gave it to him before he left. So that’s the sensitive side of him that nobody knows, but he knows it. And there’s a moment where he looks into the camera to say who he loves, and he knows it’s Annie. All of the Capitol girls he’s slept with think it’s them, but it’s Annie! It’s a sweet side of him. And the look is effortless. It has a bit of a Jesus vibe to it with the shroud and the skirt, but he’s an unsung hero.SL: What do you think was the biggest turning point in your career?TS: I think The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It’s a project that I’m extremely, extremely proud of, and I am forever grateful to David Fincher for trusting me and handing me Lisbeth Salander to help create. It’s a project that’s really close to my heart. Rooney [Mara] is really incredible, and I feel so fortunate because the two major films that I’ve done, I’ve been able to work with these extremely talented directors, and these extremely talented young female actors that have such a range, could take on really any part. And to me, it’s super hopeful because they’re this era of Hollywood that I think we had years ago, like how we look at Meryl Street and see the longevity of her career, she could do anything. I think these two women [Rooney Mara and Jennifer Lawrence] have that same capacity. I feel so honored and privileged to have worked with women like that, actors who take their craft so seriously but in the same sense are the funniest, most down to earth women you could meet, are gracious, and lovely to everyone. In my personal view, no matter what anyone else regards it as, Dragon was a massive undertaking and turning point. If I had to do it all over again the same way, I would.
Posted on Friday, November 08, 2013 by Editor
Lionsgate has been approached about creating a Hunger Games theme park according to Deadline. I'm trying not to laugh thinking about the possible rides... it kind of diminishes the meaning of the books. I mean, let's all have fun on the "Bloodbath Experience" or something?
The studio’s been “approached in two territories about potential theme park opportunities” for the action film franchise, he says. “We’re pursuing them.” The company has no additional info.
Posted on Friday, November 08, 2013 by Editor
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)
Popular Posts
-
According to the Hollywood Reporter Danny Strong has completed the script for Mockingjay Part 1. Lionsgate has exercised its option fo... -
In the Hunger Games series and movie White Roses play a symbolic part of President Snow's persona. President Snow is known for smelling... -
Lionsgate executives talked with Variety about the Hunger Games. With “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire ” having grossed $860 million wo...
-
A new still of Finnick Odair from The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was released by Lionsgate via. Capitol Couture. -
Elisabeth Banks will be on Conan tonight! You can watch her at 11:00 PM on September 24th.
-
Did anybody else love the paining of Rue or the graffiti work in Catching Fire? If so, you should check out Joanna Bush , the artist behind... -
Sam Clafin talked about the pressures of filling the role of Finnick Odair on The Hunger Games: Catching Fire DVD bonus video. -
The Hunger Games will be coming to Netflix Latin America and Brazil on 8/18/12. According to Press Release: BEVERLY HILLS Calif., Jun... -
In an interview with USA Today Josh spoke about getting into shape for Catching Fire. “I’m getting in even better shape this time around,...
-
Entertainment Weekly posted a video of the Cookie Monster in a Katniss wig! This parody is extremely funny! Watch it here .
