The Hunger Games (film)
The Hunger Games is a 2012 American dystopian action 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 from the 12 Districts of Panem.
The Hunger Games
- Gary Ross
- Suzanne Collins
- Billy Ray
The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins
- March 12, 2012 (Nokia Theatre)[1]
- March 23, 2012 (United States)[2]
142 minutes[3]
United States
English
$78 million[4]
$695.2 million[5]
Development of a film adaptation of Collins' 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' 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.[6] The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for its themes and messages, Lawrence's performance, and faithfulness to the source material, although there was some criticism for its use of shaky cam and editing. It grossed over $695 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 film was followed by The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in 2013.
Plot[edit]
Panem is a dystopian nation divided into twelve districts and ruled by the Capitol. As punishment for a failed rebellion many years before, each district must annually choose two tributes, one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen, to fight to the death in the annual Hunger Games, until one victor remains. The event is televised across the Capitol and all districts, who are forced to watch.
After her twelve-year-old sister, Primrose, is selected, sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen of District 12 volunteers to take her place in the 74th Hunger Games. She and fellow male tribute, Peeta Mellark, are escorted to the Capitol by their chaperone, Effie Trinket, and mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, who was the only living victor from District 12. Haymitch stresses the importance of gaining sponsors, as they can provide potentially life-saving gifts during the Games. During a televised interview with Caesar Flickerman, Peeta confesses his feelings for Katniss, which she initially sees as an attempt to attract sponsors; she later learns his feelings are genuine.
At the start of the Games, Katniss grabs supplies scattered around the Cornucopia, the Games' starting point, before fleeing into the surrounding forests and narrowly escaping death. She tries to distance herself from other tributes, but Seneca Crane, the Head Gamemaker, triggers a forest fire to drive her back towards them. She runs into the Careers – composed of District 1's tributes, Marvel and Glimmer, and District 2's tributes, Cato and Clove – and climbs a tree. Peeta, seemingly allied with the Careers, suggests they wait her out. Rue, District 11's female tribute, signals Katniss towards a nest of genetically modified venomous wasps named Tracker Jackers, which Katniss cuts to fall onto the sleeping Careers below; Glimmer is killed, while Peeta and the others escape. Katniss retrieves Glimmer's bow but falls ill from being stung several times and has hallucinations. Peeta returns and urges her to flee before making his own escape from the Careers.
Rue helps Katniss recover, and the two become friends and allies. Rue distracts the Careers while Katniss destroys a stockpile of their supplies by triggering the mines guarding it. However, Marvel fatally impales Rue with his spear just as Katniss shoots him. She comforts Rue by singing, and after she dies, adorns her body with flowers, an act which incites a riot in District 11. Panem President Coriolanus Snow warns Crane he is displeased about the unrest, stating the Games' purpose is to instill fear to prevent future uprisings.
Haymitch persuades Crane to alter the rules of the Games, allowing for two victors if they are from the same district, suggesting that it would appease the audience. Katniss finds Peeta severely injured, and the two take shelter in a cave. Despite Peeta's protests, Katniss leaves to get medicine at the Cornucopia. She is ambushed and overpowered by Clove, who gloats about Rue's death before preparing the killing blow. Thresh, District 11's male tribute, intervenes and kills Clove. He spares Katniss in memory of Rue. Katniss returns to the cave with the medicine and tends to Peeta, whose wounds heal overnight.
While out hunting for food, Katniss hears a cannon blast, signaling a death. She rushes to Peeta, who has unwittingly collected deadly nightlock berries. The two find Foxface's body, District 5's female tribute, poisoned by the nightlock berries she had gathered while watching Peeta. As the Games draw to a close, Crane unleashes genetically modified beasts called Mutts that kill Thresh and force Katniss, Peeta, and Cato – the final tributes – to climb onto the Cornucopia's roof. Cato grabs Peeta in a headlock; Katniss shoots his hand, allowing Peeta to throw him into the beasts below. Katniss then shoots Cato to end his suffering.
Suddenly, Crane revokes the rule change allowing for two victors. Peeta implores Katniss to shoot him, but she convinces him to consume nightlock berries with her. Just as they are about to eat the berries, however, Crane declares them co-victors. After the Games, Haymitch warns Katniss of the enemies she has made through her rebellious acts. Snow orders for Crane to be locked in a room with a bowl of nightlock berries, before contemplating his next course of action.
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
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,[8][9] reportedly for $200,000.[10] 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".[11] 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.[12][10][13] Suzanne Collins' agent Jason Dravis remarked that "they [Lionsgate] had everyone but the valet call us" to help secure the franchise.[13] Lionsgate subsequently acquired tax breaks of $8 million for shooting the film in North Carolina.[13] Gary Ross, Sam Mendes, David Slade, Andrew Adamson, Susanna White, Rupert Sanders and Francis Lawrence were listed as possible directing candidates, but in the end, Ross was announced as the film's director in November 2010.[14][15] Ross became interested in directing the film after his agent notified him about that a film adaptation of The Hunger Games was in development; having heard about the book due to his children reading it, Ross read the book quickly and called his agent to tell her that he wanted the job.[16]
Ross had many conversations with Collins about how to adapt the story, and was fascinated by how Ancient Roman culture inspired the books.[16] Collins adapted the novel for film herself,[8] in collaboration with screenwriter Billy Ray and Ross.[17][18] The screenplay remains extremely faithful to the original novel,[19] with Ross saying he "felt the only way to make the film really successful was to be totally subjective", echoing Collins' presentation of the novel in the first person present.[20] 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.[16] Instead of presenting Katniss' 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."[20] 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".[21]
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."[20] 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."[22]
Release[edit]
Home media[edit]
The film was released in North America and the Netherlands on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on August 18, 2012.[58] Extras include The World is Watching: Making The Hunger Games, numerous featurettes, the propaganda video in its entire form, a talk with the director Gary Ross and also Elvis Mitchell and a marketing archive.[59]
In its first weekend on sale, Lionsgate reported that 3.8 million DVD/Blu-ray Disc copies of the movie were sold, with more than one-third in the Blu-ray Disc format.[60] Three weeks after the release of the movie to home media formats in the US, over 5 million DVD units and 3.7 million Blu-ray Disc units have been sold.[61][62] With 10,336,637 units sold by the end of the year, it became the top-selling video of 2012.[63] The entire Hunger Games series was released on 4K UHD Blu-Ray on November 8, 2016.[64]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The Hunger Games earned $408 million in the United States and Canada, and $286.4 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $694.4 million.[5]
In North America, The Hunger Games is the 22nd-highest-grossing film, the highest-grossing film released outside the summer or holiday period,[65] and the highest-grossing film distributed by Lionsgate.[66] Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold more than 50 million tickets in the US.[67] At the time of its release, the film set a midnight-gross record for a non-sequel ($19.7 million), the tenth-highest midnight gross overall.[68] On its opening day, it topped the box office at $67.3 million (including midnight showings), setting opening-day and single-day records for a non-sequel. The film also achieved the sixteenth-highest opening-day and nineteenth-highest single-day grosses of all time.[69][70][71] For its opening weekend, the film earned the No. 1 spot and grossed $152.5 million, breaking Alice in Wonderland's opening-weekend records for a film released in March, for any spring release, and for a non-sequel at the time of its release.[66][72][73][74] On its second day of release, the film had surpassed Fahrenheit 9/11 to become Lionsgate's highest-grossing film worldwide, a record that would later be surpassed by its sequel The Hunger Games: Catching Fire a year later.[75] Its opening weekend gross was the third highest of 2012 behind The Avengers ($207.4 million) and The Dark Knight Rises ($160.8 million) as well as the largest for any film released outside the summer season and the eighth-largest overall.[76] The film held the March and spring opening weekend records for four years until they were broken by Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.[77] It remained in first place at the North American box office for four consecutive weekends, becoming the first film since Avatar to achieve this.[78][79][80] On June 10, 2012 (its 80th day in theaters), it became the 14th movie to pass the $400-million-mark.[81] On April 20, 2012, Lionsgate and IMAX Corporation announced that due to "overwhelming demand", The Hunger Games would return to North American IMAX cinemas on April 27 for a further one-week engagement.[82]
Outside North America, the film was released in most countries during March and April 2012,[83] with the exception of China, where it was released in June 2012.[84] On its first weekend (March 23–25, 2012), the film topped the box office outside North America with $59.25 million from 67 markets, finishing at first place in most of them.[85] The largest opening weekends were recorded in China ($9.6 million),[84] Australia ($9.48 million), and the UK, Ireland and Malta ($7.78 million).[83][86] In total earnings, its highest-grossing markets after North America are the UK ($37.3 million), Australia ($31.1 million) and China ($27.0 million).[83]
Also in its release, The Hunger Games broke the record for first-day advance ticket sales on Fandango on February 22, 2012, topping the previous record of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. The sales were reported to be 83 percent of the site's totals for the day.[87] According to first tracking, unaided awareness for The Hunger Games was 11%, definite interest was 54%, first choice was 23% and total awareness was 74%.[88] In the week leading up to its release, the film sold-out over 4,300 showings via Fandango and MovieTickets.com[89] On Fandango alone, it ranks as the third-highest advance ticket seller ever, behind The Twilight Saga: New Moon and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.[90] According to Fandango, it broke the site's single-day sales record (March 23), the mobile sales record for a weekend ( March 23–25, 2012) and the site's highest share of a film's opening weekend (Fandango sold 22% of the film's opening weekend tickets).[91]
Critical response[edit]
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 84% with an average score of 7.3/10, based on 315 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Thrilling and superbly acted, The Hunger Games captures the dramatic violence, raw emotion, and ambitious scope of its source novel."[92] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 68 out of 100 based on 49 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[93] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[94]
Several critics have reviewed the film favorably and compared it with other young adult fiction adaptations such as Harry Potter and Twilight, while praising Jennifer Lawrence for her portrayal as Katniss Everdeen, as well as most of the main cast. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lawrence embodies Katniss, "just as one might imagine her from the novel".[95] Empire magazine said "Lawrence is perfect as Katniss, there's very little softness about her, more a melancholy determination that good must be done even if that requires bad things."[95] Justin Craig of Fox News rated the film as "[e]xcellent" and stated: "Move over Harry Potter. A darker, more mature franchise has come to claim your throne."[96] Rafer Guzman of Newsday referred to The Hunger Games as being "darker than 'Harry Potter,' more sophisticated than 'Twilight'."[97] David Sexton of The Evening Standard stated that The Hunger Games "is well cast and pretty well acted, certainly when compared with Harry Potter's juvenile leads".[98]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, praising the movie as "effective entertainment" and Lawrence's performance. Despite a largely positive review, he criticized the film for being too long and noted that the film misses opportunities for social criticism.[99] Simon Reynolds of Digital Spy gave the film four stars out of five, calling it "enthralling from beginning to end, science fiction that has depth and intelligence to match its pulse-racing entertainment value". Reynolds also spoke highly of Lawrence's performance and director Gary Ross, whose "rough and ready handheld camerawork" meant that viewers were "with Katniss for every blood-flecked moment of her ordeal in the combat arena".[100] However, film critic David Thomson of the magazine The New Republic called it a "terrible movie", criticizing it for a lack of character development and unclear presentation of the violence, describing the latter as "un-American".[101]
Eric Goldman of IGN awarded the film four out of five stars, stating that director Gary Ross "gets the tone of The Hunger Games right. This is a grounded, thoughtful and sometimes quite emotional film, with its dark scenario given due weight. Ross doesn't give the film a glossy, romanticized 'Hollywood' feel, but rather plays everything very realistically and stark, as Katniss must endure these outrageous and horrible scenarios."[102] The film received some criticism for its shaky camera style, but it was said to "add to the film in certain ways".[102] The violence drew commentary as well. Time critic Mary Pols considered that the film was too violent for young children, even though the violence had been toned down compared with the novel,[103] while critic Théoden Janes of The Charlotte Observer found that "[...] the violence is so bland it dilutes the message".[104] Also writing in Time, psychologist Christopher J. Ferguson argued that parents' fears of the effect of the film's violent content on their children were unnecessary, and that children are capable of viewing violent content without being psychologically harmed.[105]
Themes[edit]
Interpretations of the film's themes and messages have been widely discussed among critics and general commentators. In his review for The Washington Times, Peter Suderman expressed that "[m]aybe it's a liberal story about inequality and the class divide. Maybe it's a libertarian epic about the evils of authoritarian government. Maybe it's a feminist revision on the sci-fi action blockbuster. Maybe it's a bloody satire of reality television", but concludes the film only proposes these theories and brings none of them to a reasonable conclusion.[106]
Reviewers and critics have differing views on whether the film represents feminist issues. Historically, among the "top 200 worldwide box-office hits ever ($350 million and up), not one has been built around a female action star".[107] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times sees Katniss Everdeen as a female hero following in the lineage of "archetypal figures in the literature of the American West" such as Natty Bumppo, as well as characters portrayed by American actors such as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.[108] Katniss is also seen as defying normative gender roles: she exhibits both "masculine" and "feminine" traits equally.[108] Dargis also notes that Katniss is a female character with significant agency: "Katniss is a fantasy figure, but partly what makes her powerful—and, I suspect, what makes her so important to a lot of girls and women—is that she's one of the truest feeling, most complex female characters to hit American movies in a while. She isn't passive, she isn't weak, and she isn't some random girl. She's active, she's strong and she's the girl who motivates the story."[108] Similarly, Shelley Bridgeman of The New Zealand Herald wrote that because the characteristics of "athleticism, strength, courageousness and prowess at hunting" are not given to a male protagonist, but to Katniss, her character is an abrupt departure from the stereotypical depiction of women as being innately passive or helpless.[109] Mahvesh Murad of The Express Tribune said that the film's triumph is "a young female protagonist with agency", comparing her with Joss Whedon's Buffy Summers.[110]
The film has drawn varying interpretations for its political overtones, including arguments in favor of left-wing, right-wing, and libertarian viewpoints. Bob Burnett of The Huffington Post observed the film displays a general distrust of government, regardless of the audience's political party affiliation.[111] Steven Zeitchik and Emily Rome, in the Dallas Morning News, also stated that some viewers formed an opinion about The Hunger Games as a parable of the Occupy Wall Street activity.[112] The Huffington Post reported that Penn Badgley, a supporter of Occupy Wall Street, saw the film as a social commentary on the movement.[113] Burnett also states that "Collins doesn't use the terms 1 percent and 99 percent, but it's clear that those in the Capitol are members of the 1 percent and everyone in the Panem districts is part of the 99 percent".[111]
Steven Zeitchik and Emily Rome, in the Los Angeles Times and the Dallas Morning News reported that, among other disparate interpretations, some viewers saw The Hunger Games as a Christian allegory.[114][115] Jeffrey Weiss of Real Clear Religion, published in the Star Tribune, has remarked on what he saw as the intentional absence of religion in The Hunger Games universe, and has commented that, while the stories contain no actual religion, people are "find[ing] aspects that represent their own religious values" within it.[116]