Jennifer Lawrence and director Gary Ross recently sat down with Entertainment Weekly and spoke about ‘The Hunger Games.’ Even though the film has yet to be released (less than 2 months away!), Lionsgate has already greenlit the second installment in the franchise, ‘Catching Fire’
Take a look to see what Gary Ross had to say about Jennifer Lawrence’s award worthy performance and why he will return to direct the sequel, but beware, spoilers included:
The range in this performance, the emotional terrain that she investigates, the demands of what this role are. It’s such an intensely physical role and an emotional one. She carries the entire movie. To be able to do that at that age is so kind of incredible that I was in a little bit of awe. Do I think she should be nominated? Absolutely…I love the title Catching Fire because from the moment Katniss was willing to eat the berries, the moment she was willing to give her life for something larger than herself, she set off a chain reaction that was at once bigger than her and also because of her. That’s a very exciting movie to make because you’re seeing the emergence of a leader. It’s the birth of a revolution so it has context that’s larger than just the Games themselves.
And how does Lawrence feel about signing on for the whole series:
Signing onto the movies I was like, ‘Well, I’ll probably love the first one and then I’ll just want to get the rest of them out of the way. But I can’t wait to start training. As soon as they were like ‘We need to start training in July,’ I was like ‘Woohoo!’ I can’t wait to get back. Though I don’t know if that’s because I think we might shoot in Hawaii.
Looks like we’ve got some official confirmation on our hands huh? It seems ‘Catching Fire’ will begin shooting as early as this July! And possibly in Hawaii? I think those who have read the books would agree that definitely fits the setting of the 2nd book.
This is one of my most anticipated films of the year and if the confidence in Gary Ross and Jennifer Lawrence’s statements are any consolation, it looks like it won’t disappoint!
‘The Hunger Games’ explodes into theaters March 23rd of this year.
