New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

In a list of the top young adult book franchises to come out in the last 15 years, The Hunger Games falls somewhere between Harry Potter and Twilight. If you haven’t read Hunger Games, know that it errs more on the side of Harry Potter, which, of course, is a splendid place to be. It’s twisted, dark and – hey! – was written by an author who can actually turn a phrase.

I’m two books deep into the Hunger Games trilogy, and what’s become unmistakably clear to me is this: Book one is good, book two is great and, though I’ll get to Mockingjay when I get to it, I certainly feel more invested in the series than, say, where I felt I was at the conclusion of The Girl Who Played with Fire.

Hunger Games surprised me. I went into it without a strong sense of what to expect, and the mystery of what the book might be about worked in its favor. And after reading a string of biography and historical fiction books on my end, The Hunger Games proved to be a mostly right cocktail of adventure and sci-fi to ease me back into reading straight-up fiction again. The Hunger Games is a bit popcorny, but a compelling read nonetheless.

For those of you who haven’t jumped on the series yet, a brief synopsis of the first book would be the following: The Hunger Games, as it were, is a yearly battle in a future North America named Panem in which one male and one female representative from each of the country’s 12 districts enter into a Truman Show-sized arena in a literal fight to the death. The whole thing is broadcast on television, and the rest of the country is forced to watch it (and not always begrudgingly). It’s put on for a few reasons, but mainly to recognize the power of the Capitol in its efforts to stave off another rebellion.

Next March, Lionsgate will distribute the first of three movie adaptations, and we’re at about the point where casting for the first movie is just about over. What I’d like to do here is discuss where Hollywood went with its picks of some of the book’s lead characters, and how those choices relate to the actors I pictured in my head while reading The Hunger Games.

Katniss Everdeen

After dabbling in television work for a couple of years, Jennifer Lawrence caught her big break as Ree Dolly in Winter’s Bone. In case you missed it, you can also catch her in The Beaver, which, finally, combines an estranged Mel Gibson with, you know, hand puppets. Tom Cruise was the studio’s second choice.

Jennifer Lawrence should be good, I mean a) the whole franchise rests on her shoulders and b) she did embark on a super trek after her father in Winter’s Bone, but I couldn’t help but picture Emma Stone while reading the books.

Stone has been busy lately – at least four movies to be released this year, and then on deck is her turn as Gwen Stacy – and maybe it was a question of availability if she was even in the running.


We’re so used to Emma Stone as the good girl, but Zombieland proved she can play tough. She’s also got the right kind of poker face that would’ve been great in the adaptation; she can say so much by doing so little.

Continued:       1       2