I’d like to say the news that Lionsgate is considering turning the Hunger Games series into four movies is shocking but it’s not. It is curious though. Milking a series for an extra movie is starting to be a fairly common trend with epic film franchises. First we saw Harry Potter’s final chapter in two parts, then came Twilight’s double feature, and most recently we have The Hobbit split in two. Usually, this is beneficial to both the consumer and the studios behind the film. The audience gets more movie and less stuff removed from the source material, while the studios basically double their profits. Of course, there is the risk that the movies will tank and the studios will lose twice their investments, but these sagas are established brands and that’s not likely to happen.
But what about The Hunger Games? Unlike the other three examples up top, I’m not so sure this is a good idea. Harry Potter 7 and The Hobbit are both long enough and “epic” enough to have the capacity to be split into two good movies. Twilight’s Breaking Dawn is practically split in the middle, almost begging to be made into two movies. But Mockingjay? Not so much. The plot is fairly thin (don’t get me wrong, it’s still exciting, there’s just not that much) and there’s not a clear halfway point. They could be attempting to split the three books into four whole movies, but I highly doubt that since there are clear endings to each book and trying to make that cohesive would be a screenwriting nightmare. It looks to me like this is a simple money-grabbing attempt and not an artistic choice, which is a shame for Lionsgate. There’s nothing wrong with leaving them as three movies. It worked for Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Back to the Future, after all. And really Lionsgate, the better you make these movies the more people will see them. Wouldn’t you rather have a billion dollar solid final film than say two mediocre ones that only manage to pull in $300 million? It’s pretty simple math, Lionsgate.
Source: Deadline
