Visitors Vandalizing ‘Hunger Games’ Filming Location

Earlier this month, news anchor Russ Bowen tweeted about some property being vandalized at Henry River Mill Village, the location used for the Seam in The Hunger Games movie. The local newspaper, the Hickory Daily Record, has some more information from the property’s owner.

Wade Shepherd, owner of the 72-acre village, is just about fed up with the vandalism and the trash being left at the village.

The village stood in as District 12 in the movie, which was the home district of heroine Katniss Everdeen and other characters such as Peeta Mellark and his family’s bakery, Gale Hawthorne and Haymitch Abernathy. The old mill village had a general store and it was used in the movie as the Mellark bakery. The words “pastries” and “cakes” were painted on the wood on either side of the main door for the movie. The words were left when filming wrapped at the location.

The Hunger Games Moves up the Box Office Charts

The Hunger Games continues to earn money at the box office across the US and has now taken another leap up the  All Time Domestic Chart, moving into the #13 spot ahead of Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen.

It is closing in on Spider Man  with less than $1.4 million to go before it jumps into  #12 place.

Source: Box Office Mojo

The Hunger Games nominated for five Total Film Hotlist Awards

The Hunger Games has been nominated in five categories for the UK’s  Total Film Hotlist 2012

The list includes:

Jennifer Lawrence – Hottest Actress

Farewell Rue – Hottest Scene

Liam Hemsworth  – Hottest Newcomer – Male

Catching Fire – Hottest Book

The Hunger Games – Hottest Film

The future’s bleak in this gripping adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ popular young adult page-turner.

Perfectly cast as feisty 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, Jennifer Lawrence plays a blinder, bringing just the right amount of sensitivity and severity to a tricky, multi-faceted role. She really comes into her own when Katniss is selected to participate in the annual Hunger Games, where it’s kill or be killed for entertainment’s sake.

Delivering a breakneck actioner as colourful as it is caustic, director Gary Ross doesn’t shy away from the novel’s barbed social commentary.

You can head here to vote!

The Hunger Games in China

In a huge coup for Lionsgate, The Hunger Games has opened in China, a move that could see the film  break even more box office records.

And so far it seems to have played to audiences fairly well.

According to The Epoch Times, it’s been given some high profile support including one prominent Chinese television personality who described it as “the most moving and thoughtful of recent films”.

Here’s some of the other praise The Hunger Games received:

Several others praised the film and sympathized with the plight of the teens: “It has been a long time since I last cried at a movie. When Katniss shows the hand sign of farewell to the people of District 12, I took it as the poor people’s cry for injustice and unfair treatment. It was shocking to see.”

A more somber tone was taken by “colin:” “Too bad that the teens did not die, sparking a revolt against the dictatorship. Perhaps that’s also a regret existing in reality.”

According to “light blue jade:” “Having to struggle against a bloody and treacherous web of intrigue is similar to our own country, so I feel that this was no mere teen flick.”

The film makes clear the contrast between the well-off residents of the “Capitol” and the subsistence standard in the “Districts.”

“Icy leaves,” in Guangdong, remarking on this, wrote: “Go see it and afterwards you’ll know that everything is controlled by politics, just like society today where those with the bucks get the respect!”

Source: The Epoch Times

Simon Beaufoy Says He’s Done with ‘Catching Fire’ Script

Last month The Hollywood Reporter reported that Michael Arndt was in talks to re-work the initial Catching Fire script that was drafted by Simon Beaufoy.

So it’s not particularly surprising to hear Simon tell the LA Times in a new interview that he’s finished with his part of the script-writing process.

You might not think there’s much left for a Hollywood screenwriter to accomplish after penning a sequel to “The Hunger Games.” But for Simon Beaufoy, the Oscar-winning scribe behind “Slumdog Millionaire,” there’s plenty of work ahead now that he’s  finished adapting Suzanne Collins’ novel “Catching Fire.”

“I’m done [with ‘Catching Fire’] and getting back to several different projects,” Beaufoy told 24 Frames from his home in London on Thursday.

There still hasn’t been any official confirmation from Lionsgate that Michael Arndt is working on the next iteration of the script.

The Hunger Games tops $400 Million at the US Box Office

The Hunger Games managed to pass the $400 million mark in the US this weekend.  In fact according to Box Office Mojo it’s made $400,250,000!  That puts The Hunger Games in 14th place for all-time domestic grosses – that’s ahead of  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and Star Wars: Episode III.

According to Deadline:

That Lionsgate blockbuster The Hunger Gamescame into this weekend with a domestic theatrical gross of $399.5M. Sometime today the bestselling book-turned-movie is crossing the $400M mark at the U.S. and Canadian box office. Adding The Avengers and assuming The Dark Knight Rises is a sure thing, this will be the first year where 3 movies end up with over $400 million in North American grosses. Its global cume is near $650M.

Video: From the Red Carpet – Josh Hutcherson

The Hunger Games star, Josh Hutcherson was a popular winner at the MTV Movie Awards, taking out the Best Male Performance Award.

E! Online caught up with Josh on the Red Carpet on hisway in, to ask him who he was looking forward to catching up with, who his idols are and getting ready for Catching Fire.

In another interview with E! Josh talked about meeting with director Francis Lawrence…

“I sat down with him a couple of days ago,” Hutcherson told me at the MTV Movie Awards. “He’s fantastic. He’s such a smart guy. He has some great ideas for the movie.

“I just really like where his head is at,” he continued. “I really like him a lot.”

Photo: Katniss in the Arena

Panic begins to set in. I can’t stay here. Flight is essential… but I can’t let my fear show.

Hunger Games Producer Nina Jacobson on Finnick Rumors

The LA Times spoke with Nina Jacobson, one of the producers of the Hunger Games films, at the MTV Movie Awards and asked her about the many rumors surrounding Finnick casting.

According to E! News, other actors still up for the part include Garrett Hedlund and Armie Hammer. But a producer of the sequel says even those whispers are “so not true.”

“That’s the thing that’s crazy — people are like way ahead of where we are,” Nina Jacobson told us on the red carpet at the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday. “We’ve not narrowed things down by any means. It’s funny to see how things can take on a life of their own.”

But are the filmmakers taking fan input into account while seeking out their Finnick? Not entirely, says Jacobson.

“It means something that people can see [an actor] in that light, so you know [the actor] will be accepted by a lot of people, on the one hand,” she said. “On the other hand, you have to kind of ignore it. You have to just sort of act like you’re sitting in a room and you want to just pick the person who gives the best audition and looks and feels most like the part.”

If The Hunger Games Characters had to join Hogwarts Houses

As the Huffington Post points out, the MTV Movie Awards put two fandoms right up against each other – those of us that love The Hunger Games and wanted them to do well in their nominations, and the legions of fans supporting Harry Potter.  Then there’s a bunch of fans that love BOTH.

The Huffington Post decided to do a bit of a mashup and ask the question  – what would happen if  the characters from The Hunger Games were sorted into Hogwarts houses?

You can click here to see what they decided, but at least for Katniss, Peeta and Gale, this is how they see it:

Katniss: Slytherin

Slytherin might get a bad rap, but hear us out on this one — it’s not always a bad thing. As a tribute, she’s ultra-focused on survival, a classic Slytherin trait. If she were a Gryffindor, she might sacrifice herself in the Games so that another tribute could survive (the way Harry was willing to die for the good of others in the final scenes of Deathly Hallows). Instead, she’s a fierce competitor with a deep instinct to survive.