Alli Shearmur, president of production at Lionsgate, recalls, “When Nina Jacobson got the opportunity to produce The
Hunger Games, she called me and I read the book right away. I knew it would be worthwhile because it was from Nina — I
have known her for a long time and always admired her. I read the book soon after it was published, before it was so
well-known, so I was responding to the central story of Katniss, not to the cultural phenomenon that it has become. Of
course I loved it, from beginning to end.”
She shared the book with Joe Drake, president of Lionsgate’s motion picture group, and Tim Palen, the company’s
president of marketing. They had questions about how the book would translate into film, but by the time they spoke to
Suzanne Collins, they shared a clear vision.
Drake, who runs the motion picture group at the studio, explains that “Lionsgate is known for fearlessness — we have
never shied away from bold projects that stir up conversation. But we don’t make projects simply because they’re edgy
— whatever the genre, first and foremost we are always looking for quality stories that are character driven. So it
wasn’t anything controversial that drew us to The Hunger Games — it was the irresistible character of Katniss. Early
on, we had a clear sense of what our priorities would be when telling the story . . . it was about her character and our
connection to her story.”
While Collins was finishing her first draft of Mockingjay, Jacobson met with many studios — including Lionsgate — and
eventually came to feel that Lionsgate was the best choice for The Hunger Games.
Jacobson says, “I felt that Lionsgate really understood the material and that they would let us make a faithful
adaptation; that they wouldn’t soften it, they wouldn’t age up the characters, to make them older so that it would be
more palatable. I felt that the power of the book was in the youth of these protagonists and that you couldn’t cheat on
that in terms of their age in the story. Lionsgate was on board for, of course, the PG-13 version of the movie, not
something full of blood and guts, but something more thematically driven.”
The intense interest in her book still felt slightly unreal to Collins, and she had some practical reasons for feeling
comfortable with Lionsgate. “Everyone we needed to get the movie going was right there on the phone,” she remembers.
“The studio was small enough for that to be possible. I agreed with Nina that this was probably the best home for the
story, our best chance of seeing it made into a film.”
At that point — with Mockingjay finished but not yet published — Collins began to develop the first draft of a script.
She’d been writing scripts since she was twenty years old, and making a living as a writer since she was twenty-eight,
so in some respects adapting her own work brought her back into familar territory. It also meant making some difficult
choices.
Collins says, “There were several significant differences from writing the book. Time, for starters. When you’re
adapting a novel into a two-hour movie you can’t bring everything with you. So a lot of compression is needed. Not all
the characters are going to make it to the screen. For example, we gave up Madge, cut the Avox girl’s backstory, and
reduced the Career pack. It was hard to let them go but I don’t think that the choices damaged the emotional arc of the
story.
“Then there’s the question of how best to take a book told in the first person and transform it into a satisfying
dramatic experience. In the novel, you never leave Katniss for a second and are privy to all of her thoughts. We needed
to find ways to dramatize her inner world and to make it possible for other characters to exist outside of her company
without letting the audience get ahead of her.
“Finally, there’s the challenge of how to present the violence while still maintaining a PG-13 rating so that your
core audience can view it. A lot of things that are acceptable on a page have to be handled very carefully on a screen.
But that’s ultimately the director’s job.”
Soon veteran screenwriter Billy Ray, director and writer of acclaimed films like Breach and Shattered Glass, came on
board to further develop the script. Lionsgate’s Alli Shearmur says, “We thought that the bridge to the movie could be
explored even further by someone who’d done this many times,” and Collins adds, “He was a complete pleasure to work
with. Amazingly talented, collaborative, and always respectful of the book.” Then, off the strength of this revised
script, Lionsgate went to directors.
There was no shortage of interested directors reading the script, people with great talent and experience. Once a
director was chosen, Collins knew that person’s vision would be the guiding force behind the project. Color Force and
Lionsgate interviewed potential directors, hoping to find one with a vision that would complement Collins’s. Before
long, the team found that person in Gary Ross, the Oscar?-nominated writer and director known for movies like Big, Dave,
Pleasantville, and Seabiscuit.
Ross’s teenage twins had read the book first, and they raved about it. “I mentioned The Hunger Games to my kids, and
they exploded, went on and on, and I had to actually stop them from telling me the entire story,” Ross says. “So I
went upstairs, started reading around ten o’clock at night, and finished around one-thirty in the morning. I literally
put the book down and said, ‘I have to make this movie. I just have to.’ I got on a plane Monday morning and flew to
England to see Nina Jacobson.”