The Next Big Movie Franchise: The Hunger Games

Now that the cast is set for the American version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy (Daniel Craig and newcomer Rooney Mara), Hollywood has turned its collective attention to the next big book adaptation: The Hunger Games.

The three book series by author Suzanne Collins tells the story of a future dystopia where teens are forced to fight to the death. The third book, Mockingjay, went on sale last month and sold 450,000 copies in its first week. There are 6.2 million copies of the books in print in the U.S. The books have been licensed to 40 other countries. The first book, The Hunger Games, was on the New York Times bestseller list for 100 weeks straight.

Granted those aren’t Twilight numbers. Those four books have sold a total 100 million copies. But The Hunger Games series is still a major hit.

Lionsgate nabbed the worldwide movie rights to the books last March. The first movie is scheduled to hit theaters in 2013. The studio has had a hit franchise with the Saw movies but The Hunger Games could do for Lionsgate what the Twilight movies did for Summit Entertainment, provide a ton of cash to help offset other failures (and maybe eventually get Carl Icahn off of their backs).

Franchises are now crucial to studios’ fortunes. Harry Potter has brought in $5.4 billion at the global box office so far with two movies still to go. The Twilight movies have earned $1.7 billion.

But young adult books, even best selling ones, aren’t always guaranteed to be hits. Just look at the His Dark Materials trilogy. The first film, The Golden Compass earned only $70 million at the domestic box office. Even though it did better abroad ending its run with a total $372 million globally, plans for sequels were quietly scrapped.

So Hollywood is all abuzz about the choices Lionsgate is making for the film. Deadline Hollywood is reporting that director Gary Ross is the front-runner to helm the film. Ross is best known for movies like Pleasantville and Seabiscuit but according to Internet Movie Database, Ross hasn’t directed anything since 2003.

The choice worries some fans. Perri Nemiroff at Cinematical says she was pulling for director David Slade who has experience with darker material, like 30 Days of Night, and teen-friendly franchises. He directed the most recent Twilight film, Eclipse.

Speculation over the cast is also heating up. Entertainment Weekly recently held an online poll to see who fans thought should play heroine Katniss and her friends Peeta and Gale. The top choices, I’ll admit, were actors I’ve never heard of. Kaya Scodelario earned 39% of the vote to play Katniss. The actress was also in Clash of the Titans.

But of course no one had ever heard of Daniel Radcliffe before he was cast as Harry Potter. Now he is one of the top-earning actors on our Celebrity 100.

source: forbes.com