Official Theatrical Trailer
Trailer · Lionsgate Movies · 14 November 2011
The film
Film 1 of 6 · Original quadrilogy Australia first
The Hunger Games
“The world will be watching.”
- Australian release
- 22 March 2012
- US release
- 23 March 2012
- Classification (AU)
- M
- Runtime
- 142 min
- Director
- Gary Ross
- AU distributor
- Roadshow Films
§ 01
In Panem, a nation carved out of a ruined North America, the Capitol keeps its twelve districts in line with an annual televised blood sport: two children from each district, one arena, one survivor. When twelve-year-old Primrose Everdeen is reaped from District 12, her older sister Katniss volunteers in her place and is shipped to the Capitol alongside baker's son Peeta Mellark. Guided by a perpetually drunk former victor and a stylist who understands that survival is a marketing problem, Katniss learns that staying alive means being watched, and being watched means being liked. Gary Ross's adaptation keeps Suzanne Collins's first-person claustrophobia intact while opening a window on the Gamemakers pulling the levers.
§ 02
The Hunger Games news The Australian angle
On the ground here
- Australia saw it first. Roadshow Films opened the film here on Thursday 22 March 2012, a day ahead of the United States — the start of a pattern that has held across every film in the franchise since.
- Australia delivered one of the largest opening weekends anywhere outside North America: US$9.48 million across 22–25 March 2012, behind only China and ahead of the UK and Ireland combined.
- It opened at number one on 471 Australian screens and finished 2012 as the fifth highest-grossing release in the market — the only film in that top five handled by Roadshow.
- Liam Hemsworth is the franchise's Australian anchor: born in Melbourne on 13 January 1990, raised on Phillip Island, with Neighbours, Home and Away, McLeod's Daughters and The Elephant Princess behind him before Lionsgate announced his casting on 4 April 2011.
- Event Cinemas ran 12.01am launch sessions on Thursday 22 March and pushed the film hard through its Vmax screens.
- The Australian Classification Board passed it M for mature themes and violence at the full 142-minute cut. The UK, by contrast, digitally removed blood to secure a 12A.
§ 03
Who's in it
Cast
20 principal roles · 1 Australian, marked
Katniss Everdeen
Jennifer Lawrence
Twenty during filming, and already an Oscar nominee for Winter's Bone
Peeta Mellark
Josh Hutcherson
Gale Hawthorne
Liam Hemsworth
Australian — born in Melbourne, raised on Phillip Island
Haymitch Abernathy
Woody Harrelson
Turned the part down before Ross talked him into it
Effie Trinket
Elizabeth Banks
Cinna
Lenny Kravitz
Caesar Flickerman
Stanley Tucci
President Coriolanus Snow
Donald Sutherland
Was never offered the role — he wrote Ross an unsolicited letter to get it
Seneca Crane
Wes Bentley
Role expanded from the novel so the film could show the Gamemakers at work
Claudius Templesmith
Toby Jones
Cato
Alexander Ludwig
Clove
Isabelle Fuhrman
Rue
Amandla Stenberg
Thresh
Dayo Okeniyi
Glimmer
Leven Rambin
Marvel
Jack Quaid
Feature debut
Foxface
Jacqueline Emerson
Primrose Everdeen
Willow Shields
Mrs Everdeen
Paula Malcomson
Portia
Latarsha Rose
§ 04
Behind it
Crew and credits
- Directed by
- Gary Ross
- Screenplay
- Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins, Billy Ray
- Based on
- The Hunger Games (2008) by Suzanne Collins
- Music
- James Newton Howard
- Cinematography
- Tom Stern
- Editing
- Stephen Mirrione, Juliette Welfling, Christopher S. Capp
- Production design
- Philip Messina
- Costume design
- Judianna Makovsky
- Produced by
- Nina Jacobson, Jon Kilik
- Studio
- Lionsgate
- Australian distributor
- Roadshow Films
- Budget
- US$78 million (net of North Carolina incentives)
§ 05
How it performed
The numbers
- Australian box office
- US$9.48 million opening weekend 5th highest-grossing release in Australia in 2012
- Worldwide
- US$695.2 million
- North America
- US$408.0 million
- Rotten Tomatoes
- 84%
- Metacritic
- 68/100
§ 06
The gallery
Official stills
20 images · Lionsgate / Roadshow Films
Lionsgate / Roadshow Films
§ 07
Watch
Official videos
6 uploads, each verified against its official channel
§ 08
How it was made
Production notes
- Lionsgate had not posted a profit in five years when it committed to the film, assembling the budget by re-allocating money from other productions and selling assets. Net of North Carolina tax breaks, the cost came in around US$78 million.
- Nina Jacobson's Color Force acquired the rights for roughly US$200,000, weeks before Lionsgate came aboard in March 2009 — one of the great bargain rights buys of the modern studio era.
- Donald Sutherland was never offered President Snow. He read the script unprompted, wrote Gary Ross a letter laying out how he saw the character, and the letter won him the part and prompted script revisions.
- Steven Soderbergh worked as second unit director, shooting much of the District 11 riot sequence.
- District 12 was never built. Production designer Philip Messina found Henry River Mill Village, an abandoned North Carolina mill town, and shot it largely as-is.
- Jennifer Lawrence trained for six weeks — archery under Olympic bronze medallist Khatuna Lorig, plus climbing, combat, running and parkour — and refused producers' requests that she lose weight.
- Ross shot on film rather than digital purely as schedule insurance, with Tom Stern, Clint Eastwood's long-time cinematographer, lensing it.
- Arcade Fire wrote 'Horn of Plenty', Panem's national anthem, which recurs through James Newton Howard's score as a leitmotif.
§ 09
The record
Key dates
-
Lionsgate enters a co-production deal with Color Force, which had acquired the novel's rights weeks earlier.
-
Gary Ross confirmed as director.
-
Jennifer Lawrence announced as Katniss Everdeen.
-
Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth announced as Peeta and Gale.
-
Principal photography begins near Brevard, North Carolina.
-
Principal photography wraps.
-
World premiere at the Nokia Theatre, Los Angeles.
-
Australian release via Roadshow Films, with 12.01am sessions at Event Cinemas.
-
US release; opens to US$152.5 million, at the time the biggest opening ever for a non-sequel.
Sources
- Box Office Mojo
- Australian Classification Board
- Rotten Tomatoes
- Screen Daily — Australian box office 2012
- Wikipedia
Stills and key art © Lionsgate / Roadshow Films, reproduced editorially with credit. Image data sourced via TMDB; THGAustralia uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB. Spotted an error? Tell us.
