Filmmaker Francis Lawrence says he regrets the decision to split the last of “The Hunger Games” books into a two-film adaptation.
The “Constantine” and “Red Sparrow” helmer directed both the franchise’s most lauded entry with the second film “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” and the least well-regard with both parts of “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay”.
Though generally positive reviews came in overall, criticism about the ‘Mockingjay’ films often centers on the decision to split the final book of the trilogy into a two-parter.
It wasn’t seen as a decision borne out of creative necessity, rather Lionsgate tried to milk its franchise and follow in the footsteps of “Harry Potter” which also split its final book into a (more justifiable) two films.
Speaking with People magazine in an interview published yesterday, Lawrence says if he did it again he wouldn’t split Mockingjay:
“I totally regret it. I totally do. I’m not sure everybody does, but I definitely do. What I realized in retrospect – and after hearing all the reactions and feeling the kind of wrath of fans, critics and people at the split – is that I realized it was frustrating, and I can understand it.
In an episode of television, if you have a cliffhanger, you have to wait a week or you could just binge it and then you can see the next episode. But making people wait a year, I think, came across as disingenuous, even though it wasn’t. Our intentions were not to be disingenuous.
In truth, we got more on the screen out of the book than we would’ve in any of the other movies because you’re getting close to four hours of screen time for the final book.”
The upcoming prequel “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” faces no such problems – it’s a single film and designed only as a single film. Lawrence says:
“I would never let them split the book in two. There was never a real conversation about it. It’s a long book, but we got so much s— for splitting Mockingjay into two – from fans, from critics, from everybody – that I was like, ‘No way. I’ll just make a longer movie.'”
The result is a 157-minute film that arrives in theaters on November 17th.
