The Hunger Games is a 2012 American dystopian film directed by Gary Ross, who co-wrote the screenplay with Suzanne Collins and Billy Ray, based on the 2008 novel of the same name by Collins. It is the first installment in The Hunger Games film series. The film stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, and Donald Sutherland. In the film, Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Hutcherson) are forced to compete in the Hunger Games, an elaborate televised fight to the death consisting of adolescent contestants.
Development of a film adaptation of Collins's original novel began in March 2009 when Lionsgate entered into a co-production agreement with Color Force, which had acquired the rights a few weeks earlier. As the novel is written in Katniss's first-person point of view, its screenplay develops ancillary characters and locations for the film. Ross was confirmed as director in November 2010 and the rest of the main cast was rounded out by May 2011. Principal photography began that month and ended that September, with filming primarily taking place in North Carolina.
The Hunger Games premiered at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on March 12, 2012, and was released in the United States on March 23, by Lionsgate. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for its themes and messages, Jennifer Lawrence's performance, and faithfulness to the source material, although there was some criticism for its use of shaky cam and editing. It grossed $695.2 million, setting the then-records for both the opening day and opening weekend gross for a non-sequel, becoming the ninth-highest-grossing film of 2012.
Among its accolades, the song "Safe & Sound" from the soundtrack, performed by Taylor Swift and The Civil Wars, won a Grammy Award and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. For her performance, Lawrence won the Saturn Award for Best Actress, the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress in an Action Movie, the Empire Award for Best Actress, and was also nominated for the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. The sequel, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, was released in 2013.
Plot
Panem is a dystopian, post-apocalyptic nation divided into twelve districts ruled by the Capitol. As punishment for a failed rebellion 74 years earlier, each district must annually select two tributes, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18, to fight to the death in the Hunger Games until only one survivor remains. The event is televised nationwide.
Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12 with her younger sister Primrose and her mother. When Primrose is selected for the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her fellow district tribute, Peeta Mellark, are escorted to the Capitol, accompanied by mentor Haymitch Abernathy, the only living victor from their district. Haymitch stresses the importance of gaining sponsors, as they can provide resources during the Games. During a televised interview, Peeta confesses he loves Katniss, which she initially sees as an attempt to attract sponsors; she later learns his feelings are genuine.
When the Games start, half of the tributes are killed in the initial brawl for supplies around a central structure called the Cornucopia. Katniss grabs a small utility bag and acquires a knife that was thrown at her, then flees into the forest. The career tributes (volunteers from the wealthier Districts 1 and 2 who trained for years for the Games) — Marvel, Glimmer, Cato, and Clove — track her down. Katniss climbs a tree to evade them. Peeta, seemingly allied with the Careers, suggests waiting her out. Hiding in the next tree, Rue, the District 11 girl, draws Katniss's attention to a nest of venomous tracker jackers (genetically modified wasps) above her. Katniss cuts a branch, dropping the nest on the sleeping Careers. Glimmer is killed, but the others escape. Katniss retrieves Glimmer's bow and arrows but stung with tracker-jacker venom, is hallucinatory, and witnesses Peeta telling her to flee.
Later, Rue finds Katniss, helps her recover, and they become friends. Rue distracts the Careers while Katniss destroys their stockpile of supplies. Marvel finds and fatally wounds Rue before Katniss shoots him dead. She comforts Rue with song and, after Rue's death, decorates her body with flowers, before giving a three-finger salute. These actions trigger a riot in District 11, greatly displeasing Panem's president, Coriolanus Snow — the Games are designed to dissipate dissent, not focus it — and he warns Seneca Crane, the lead game master of the Hunger Games, to "be careful". Haymitch persuades Crane to allow two victors if they are from the same district, suggesting it would appease the audience.
Katniss finds Peeta severely wounded and hides him in a cave. An announcement is made that one item each survivor needs most will be provided at the Cornucopia. Katniss leaves despite Peeta's protests. She retrieves her item, medicine for Peeta, but is ambushed and pinned by Clove, who gloats about Rue's death. Thresh, District 11's male tribute, appears and kills Clove but spares Katniss just once for having helped Rue. The medicine Katniss brings back heals Peeta's wound overnight.
While hunting, Katniss hears a cannon blast signalling a tribute death. She rushes back to find Peeta, who unknowingly collected deadly nightlock berries. They find the District 5 girl dead from eating the berries after secretly watching Peeta. With only four tributes remaining, Crane unleashes genetically engineered dog-like Mutts, which kill Thresh.
Katniss, Peeta, and Cato, the last survivors, flee to the top of the Cornucopia. Cato holds Peeta as a human shield until Katniss shoots his hand with an arrow, enabling Peeta to push Cato down to the Mutts. Katniss then shoots Cato dead in a coup de grâce. Suddenly, Crane revokes the two-victor rule change. Peeta urges Katniss to shoot him, but to deprive the Capitol a winner, she convinces Peeta that they both eat the nightlock berries. Just before they can, they are declared co-victors.
Later, Haymitch warns Katniss that she has made powerful enemies. Snow has Crane locked in a room containing only nightlock berries, as Katniss and Peeta return to District 12.
Cast
Production Development In March 2009, Lions Gate Entertainment (known as Lionsgate) entered into a co-production agreement for The Hunger Games with Nina Jacobson's production company Color Force, which had acquired worldwide distribution rights to the novel a few weeks earlier, reportedly for $200,000. Alli Shearmur and Jim Miller, president and senior vice president of motion picture production at Lionsgate, took charge of overseeing the production of the film, which they described as "an incredible property ... a thrill to bring home to Lionsgate".
The studio, which had not made a profit for five years, raided the budgets of other productions and sold assets to secure a budget of $88,000,000 for the film. Suzanne Collins' agent Jason Dravis remarked that "they [Lionsgate] had everyone but the valet call us" to help secure the franchise. Lionsgate subsequently acquired tax breaks of $8 million for shooting the film in North Carolina. Gary Ross, Sam Mendes, David Slade, Andrew Adamson, Susanna White, Rupert Sanders, and Francis Lawrence (who would later direct the remainder of the film series) were listed as possible directing candidates, but in the end, Ross was announced as the film's director in November 2010. Ross became interested in directing the film after his agent notified him that a film adaptation of The Hunger Games was in development. He knew of the book because his children had read it; he read it quickly and told his agent that he wanted the job.
Ross had many conversations with Collins about how to adapt the story, and was fascinated by how Ancient Roman culture inspired the books. Collins adapted the novel for film herself, in collaboration with screenwriter Billy Ray and Ross. The screenplay remains extremely faithful to the original novel, with Ross saying he "felt the only way to make the film really successful was to be totally subjective", echoing Collins's presentation of the novel in the first person present. Ross felt that, to preserve the novel's first person point of view, the audience could know little more than what protagonist Katniss Everdeen knows about the story's developments. Instead of presenting Katniss's internal monologues about the Capitol's machinations through actual monologues or voice-over narrations, the screenplay expanded on the character of Seneca Crane, the Head Gamemaker, to allow several developments for which Katniss is not present to be shown directly to the audience. Ross explained, "In the book, Katniss speculates about the game-makers' manipulations ... in the film, we can't get inside Katniss's head, but we do have the ability to cut away and actually show the machinations of the Capitol behind the scenes. I created the game centre and also expanded the role of Seneca Crane for those reasons. I thought it was totally important." Ross also added several scenes between Crane and Coriolanus Snow, the elderly President of Panem, noting that "I thought that it was very interesting that there would be one generation [of Panem citizens] who knew that [the Games] were actually an instrument of political control, and there would be a successive generation who was so enamoured with the ratings and the showbiz and the sensations and the spectacle that was subsuming the actual political intention, and that's really where the tension is".
The Gamemakers' control center, about which Katniss can only speculate in the novel, was also developed as a location, helping to remind the audience of the artificial nature of the arena. Ross commented, "so much of the film happens in the woods that it's easy to forget this is a futuristic society, manipulating these events for the sake of an audience. The look of the control center, the antiseptic feeling of it and the use of holograms were all intended to make the arena feel 'constructed' even when you weren't seeing the control room." Ross and visual effects supervisor Sheena Duggal were keen to use the omniscient view that the setting provided to justify the literal dei ex machina Katniss experiences in the arena; Duggal explained that "we really didn't want to have to explain things ... how do you get compelled by these [animals] that just appear at the end of the movie? We wanted to find a way to introduce them without having to explain specifically and exactly what they were and the game room was a really great opportunity for us to be able to do that."
Casting
Ross had a general idea of who he wanted to cast in some roles, but the studio insisted on holding auditions for the roles, which he accepted. He found the castings of Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark and Gale Hawthorne "honestly easy". Lionsgate confirmed in March 2011 that about 30 actresses auditioned or read for the role of Katniss Everdeen, including Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin, Emma Roberts, Alyson Stoner, Saoirse Ronan, Chloë Grace Moretz, Jodelle Ferland, Lyndsy Fonseca, Emily Browning, Shailene Woodley, Kaya Scodelario and Troian Bellisario. On March 16, 2011, it was announced that Jennifer Lawrence (who was at the time filming for X-Men: First Class) had landed the role. Feeling that Lawrence "blew the doors off the place", Ross described Lawrence as having "an incredible amount of self-assuredness, you got the sense that this girl knew exactly who she was. And then she came in and read for me and just knocked me out; I'd never seen an audition like that before in my life. It was one of those things where you just glimpse your whole movie in front of you."