How Will Catching Fire differ from Hunger Games?

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The countdown begins for Catching Fire. Well I’m sure it began a long time ago but we’re now in the final seven days for The Hunger Games premiere. Film number one hasn’t yet been released and Hollywood is already talking about the next installment.

Director Gary Ross’s adaptation of The Hunger Games opens next week much to the glee of fans everywhere. Early tracking numbers have the film poised to surpass The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1’s opening weekend. This first film is actually tracking like a sequel, so naturally the follow-up Catching Fire is all but guaranteed to go into production. With the red carpet premiere of The Hunger Games came early buzz that has proved very positive for the film. The excitement in Hollywood is soon to trickle down and hype the rest of the world for the film’s premiere this March.

Many are noting that Ross’s atypical approach to camera use has given the film an overall fresh and exciting feel. There are apparently a lot of close-ups and handheld shots, bringing a grounded, realistic and an almost documentary look to the tentpole picture. With The Hunger Games being a surefire hit, Catching Fire will see the director return should the project get the green light – which I’m sure it will.

In a recent interview with MTV, Ross has said that he’s only just begun to develop his plans for filming Suzanne Collins’ second book Catching Fire. Plans are still preliminary but there is one thing Ross has already made his mind up about: neither the sequel nor any future Hunger Games movies will be shot in or “conceived for” 3D. In the interview Ross said, “No, absolutely not, no [I wouldn’t consider 3D for Catching Fire]. I don’t think it’s appropriate for this film. I think that if we shoot this movie in 3D, we become the Capitol; we start making spectacle out of something that I don’t think is really appropriate here. There needs to be an aesthetic distance because of the nature of the material, the premise, what they’re doing. I think that cinematic techniques designed to intensify the experience if you feel them that way, aren’t really appropriate. I mean I love 3D, I really do and I think it’s a wonderful tool, I just don’t think it’s the right tool for this.”

Sounds as though Ross has the right idea here, keeping true to the story without making it a clean, stylized version of the book which happens so often when adaptations take place. Simon Beaufoy, a twelve year veteran of adapting novels to film is already working on the script for Catching Fire. Though he is partial to adapting strange and quirky novels he admits that working on Catching Fire was more difficult than most stating that it’s “more difficult because one has to be very loyal to a fan base that is rigorous beyond anything I’ve ever come across. And yet, you still have to do the kind of brutal process of turning it into a film.” Beaufoy went on to say that transposing the book to the screen won’t do any good because Catching Fire is “the brother or the sister of a book, it’s not its twin, it’s different,” and directly transposing won’t do it any justice.

There is no confirmation as to whether Catching Fire is a go but executives have already announced a release date of November 22, 2013 which is a pretty good indicator. Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss Everdeen) has previously stated that filming on Catching Fire is expected to start this fall with a lot of the production taking place on location in Hawaii. Looks like a new franchise has been born!

One Comment

1. 

   Suua P.

   March 17, 2012 at 6:31 pm

   Well in my opinion, Catching Fire is like Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith where there’s a horrible slaughter of innocents accused of rebels and the lovers are removed from one another. The Hunger Games is like Star Wars IV: A New Hope where an ultimate weapon of the enemy is taken by the hero and lost hope arises.
   That’s gererally what I think of the two books.

   Reply