The Hunger Games: Official Illustrated Movie Companion (3 page)

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.”

Director Gary Ross views the action on set.

Jacobson was in London, making another movie, when Ross arrived in town and made reservations for dinner. “We sat down and we had a two-hour meal in which his understanding of the themes and the characters — the way that Katniss’s point of view is the heart and soul of the story — was so spot-on,” she says. “He just felt it so deeply. He understood the epic nature of the story and the intimate nature of the story. He was clear that he didn’t want to make a sentimental movie, but it was important to him that the action comes from the characters, it doesn’t just happen to the characters. Gary had great ideas for the movie visually, but we always knew he would come from a character place.”

“Katniss understands the truth so clearly,” Ross says. “That’s why she can’t tolerate tyrants, and that’s what ultimately gives her the ability to rebel. She lives her own truth and she’s very clear about who she is, about what is right and what is wrong. Kids hook into this character not just because she’s kick-ass — though she is. They hook into this character because she’s complicated, too. She’s wrestling with a lot of things that a girl her age would wrestle with, just under incredibly urgent circumstances.”

Alli Shearmur will never forget her first meeting with Gary Ross about
The Hunger Games
. “After Gary met with Nina in London, he came to Lionsgate to convince us he was the right director for the film. Many directors were interested, but he blew us away with his presentation. He’d made a documentary to show us — interviews with friends of his teenage children, talking about what
The Hunger Games
meant to them. He showed examples of the filmmaking style he’d want to use to tell Katniss’s story. He even brought artwork to show what he imagined the film could look like. It was an electric presentation.”

Suzanne Collins tells what happened next. “As part of Gary’s creative process, he wrote a subsequent draft which incorporated his incredible directorial vision of the film. And then he very generously invited me in to work with him on it. We had an immediate and exhilarating creative connection that brought the script to the first day of shooting.”

“I’ve had great relationships with all the authors I’ve adapted,” Ross says. “But with Suzanne it was very special because we ended up actual collaborators. It wasn’t just that she was involved — it’s that we became a writing team. We were always talking, we had a good relationship, but then she came to LA in person. I got her thoughts on the script, and her thoughts were so good that we began writing together before we even realized it. It was important to me that she be involved, and it felt so natural and spontaneous that it was a wonderful thing.”

Meanwhile, the cast of the movie was beginning to come together.