Interview | Francis Lawrence on the Inherent Irony of ‘The Hunger Games’

If there is a problem with The Hunger Games, it’s probably the “Hunger Games” themselves. In the blockbuster adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ best-selling novels, teenagers are forced to fight each other to the death to placate the masses. As the director of the final three films in the series, director Francis Lawrence had to strike a difficult balance between entertaining the real-life masses and arguing that all of the action sequences that were designed to entertain them are morally reprehensible.

We sat down with Francis Lawrence to talk about the conclusion of the series, which finally arrives this week on home video in The Hunger Games: The Complete 4-Film Collection. And we finally got to grill him on the inherent irony of the series, which is so popular that it constantly risks turning into the very thing the story argues against. We spoke about the weird development that turned a sad song about death into a platinum-selling dance record, and why the prospect of The Hunger Games prequels is probably problematic.

Exclusive: Inside the Zombie Fight from ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2’

We finally got to ask the questions we really wanted to ask about The Hunger Games movies. We hope you enjoy the following interview.

Lionsgate

Also: ‘Allegiant’ and Violence Solving All Problems

Crave: I want to talk to you about The Hunger Games and their place in the pop culture firmament, and I think I want to start here: Why do you think we spend so much money on fantasies about children becoming soldiers? That seems to be a pervasive theme in a lot of films, everything from Divergent to Hunger Games and so on. Why do you think that is connecting right now?

Francis Lawrence: I don’t know. I don’t really know. I think that people like The Hunger Games because of the relevance. I think that when Suzanne started the books it was all based in theme and idea, this idea of telling stories about the consequence of war, and I think by starting with a relevant, rock solid theme as a foundation it helped add a complexity and a richness to the world that I think broadened the range of the people of its demographic. And I think that’s part of what the draw was. I think she also just told a great story with great characters.

So it’s hard for me to talk about some of those other movies, because I think a lot of those other movies don’t necessarily compare to The Hunger Games other than they’re in dystopic worlds but…

They’re not directed by Francis Lawrence, so…

No, not even that. I’m just talking about going back to the base of the books and the stories themselves, I just think that Suzanne created something really relevant and strongly thematic.

“I was always into it for the ideas behind it and if you look at it, people just really wanted the arenas!”

But let’s go back to “why” it’s relevant. Obviously it connects to a lot of things that are going on right now, in terms of our anxieties about wars overseas and our lingering anxieties about fascism. Do you think there’s a particular reason why those are connecting, and they connect in specifically the way The Hunger Games portrays them?

I think about, for example, here is a story about a children who are basically sent off to fight each other as soon as they possibly can, you can make a parallel to that with any war in history…

Sure.

And then they come back and they start a civil war against the government that sent them there.

Mm-hmm.

That’s not happening yet. Do you think this is a call to arms? We should all be like this and take down the government? Or is that too knee-jerk?

I think that you can definitely call it a call to arms. I know that’s one of the things that Donald Sutherland would say about it and that I think was appealing to him. I think for me the thing that’s interesting about the stories is that Suzanne is telling stories about the consequence of all of that, right? So that even if it is a call to arms, and even if revolution is necessary and rebellion is necessary, right? It’s not going to be easy, right? There will be death, there will be destruction. Even if you survive you’re going to be changed, you’re going to be damaged, right? I think that’s all part of what makes this interesting, right? Because it’s not candy-floss.

But here we are, six months after the movies are out and done, and I look back at the way people have perceived the various movies… what’s hard for me is, the draw for me were the thematics and the idea behind the stories and the characters and the stories. But it’s clear if you look at the amount of money that the movies have made – right? – that the people actually thought that the first two movies were really fun. And there’s actually something really kind of disturbing to me about that.

Because I was always into it for the ideas behind it and if you look at it, people just really wanted the arenas! People really want the arenas where there’s traps or kids are killing each other, and there was fun in that, and that really disturbs me! [Laughs.]

Lionsgate

They floated the idea of doing a prequel, maybe set during the first Hunger Games. I’m like, “Isn’t that evil?” There’s no way that it leads to a revolution that saves everyone. It would just be like a snuff film. What are your thoughts on that concept?

I mean, in theory I have the same issues that you have with it. I don’t know what there is that’s new about that story. I think you know what the end is, right? If you’re going to tell the Haymitch story you know how it ends, so I don’t know what’s exciting about that and it’s kind of sad and grim. So to turn that into entertainment, and to turn that violence into fun, to me is the opposite of what the original Hunger Games series was trying to do.

So again, this is theoretically because I don’t know what the plans are, what the story would be. Maybe somebody’s got some genius idea. I have no idea. In theory I don’t get it.

“You want it to be as gripping as possible, but as soon as you make it a little too entertaining you’re becoming The Capitol.”

It raises a similar issue that you had to deal with in your films, which is that this is a series of films about the consequences of war and how negative that is, and yet on some level they need to operate as action movie entertainment. You’ve got zombies in the sewers and kickass planes shooting stuff. Is it tricky to play both sides at the same time?

No because I think that there’s ways of making an exciting, visceral, emotional story without it being just pure entertainment and fun. That’s the tricky thing about movies that are about ideas like this, right? You want to create a compelling story and make it emotional, and you want it to be as gripping as possible, but as soon as you make it a little too entertaining you’re becoming The Capitol. You’re constantly trying to ride that line.

And what’s really interesting is when you look at these back two movies and you look at [how] they become a little more political, become a little darker, they’re more grim, they’re a little less entertaining in a sort of classic sense. You can see how they audience reacted. They were sort of hoping to go back to the entertainment, you know?

Lionsgate

Well they still made a TON of money…

They did but the reaction’s a little different. People thought those first couple movies were fun.

“Oh, I didn’t know this was supposed to be GOOD for me…”

Yes! Now it’s not as interesting anymore.

What about when stuff gets taken away from you? Like for example, I think about the song “The Hanging Tree.”

Yeah.

Which is a nice song, a nice sentiment about mourning and death and sadness, and then I go into a 7/11 and they’re playing a dance club remix. That’s a device you used to tell your story and now it’s becoming “fun.” What does that feel like?

I don’t know. The only thing for me, I thought it was very strange. I got an odd kind of kick out of it, in a sense, that I would never in a million years when we were shooting… because it was our first week of our shoot on the two movies back to back, when we shot her singing “The Hanging Tree,” and Jen hates to sing and was crying all day and she was mad at me because I was making her sing this thing over and over and over, all day long.

You know, in the movie it’s this idea that it’s this really kind of sad, almost Appalachian folk song. A kind of gothic folk song that she sings that was then going to get manipulated by Plutarch and turned into this battle anthem of the rebels, right? Of these rebels marching to their death singing the song. And it was designed for that and Suzanne had written the lyrics, and to think that somehow then there’s these producers that are going to go do these remixes of the song, and that it was going to get radio play and become a top ten hit and go platinum… that was just insane to me.

So part of me got a giant kick out of it and the other side of me is thinking, that’s just weird. There’s just a beat thrown under this. It just felt sort of strange.

Did you talk to Jennifer Lawrence about it after you went platinum? Did she say, “Well, you were right?”

No, because she still hated it. That meant I had to make her sing another song, the lullaby for the end of Mockingjay – Part 2, and she still didn’t want to do it. But she’s got her platinum album! I’ve got a platinum album. She’s got a platinum album.

Nicely done. Nicely done.

Yeah.

You didn’t direct the first film in the series…

Correct.

And in many respects it’s a very different entity, stylistically and dramatically different. When you look back on that film is there a part of you that wishes you could have done something or added something in your own way? If you had been able to do that film, do you think it would have turned out dramatically different?

Well yeah, I think it would have, just purely – without any judgment – because I’m a different filmmaker. I think the way I look at world building, costumes, photography, all of that… we’re different people. So I’d say “yes” just because we’re different. My guess is it would probably feel much closer to Catching Fire, stylistically, but again it’s hard to say because I had some elements to start with when I started Catching Fire. I had part of my cast, which was inherited, and the ideas underneath The Capitol and District 12.

Lionsgate

I guess it’s an idea that might be more interesting to people looking from the outside, because you had so many of those decisions that were handed to you. But then ultimately the majority of this franchise was you, and you got to make a lot of creative decisions.

Yeah, it was one of the reasons that I chose to do Catching Fire, because I had never done a sequel to somebody’s original before. I’ve also never done an episode of TV that I haven’t done the pilot for. So I had never done something without having done the world building, so I wanted to make sure there was plenty of room to grow. I knew there was. We were going into a completely different arena. Because it was a special time in The Capitol and we were going to be doing new things, we could build entirely new parts of The Capitol. She was moving in District 12 so there was a whole new area of District 12. So basically there were some underlying choices, at least in the world-building, that I could kind of build from and move on from, quite honestly.

So the one thing that… I won’t say that I was “stuck with,” I was really given, it was a gift… was the incredible cast. They were the one thing. Kind of everything else from there was malleable.

Well, sort of, because you’re following the books. When you’re adapting a book that is contemporary, and this popular, you’re expected to have a certain rigidity.

Mm-hmm.

Like, you can change Hamlet all you want but god help you if you change The Hunger Games.

Sure.

Did that create any difficulties for you in terms of structure, for example, and the way the movies would end on particular cliffhangers?

No. You know, again, when they approached me about Catching Fire I had read the books and really loved them but I wanted to re-read it having just seen the original film a few weeks earlier. So I re-read the book and when I decided yeah, I can do it, there’s enough for me to do here, I went in and one of the first things I said was, “I don’t want to revise this book. I want to tell the story in the book. I want to do the book.” Which Nina [Jacobson, producer] also really appreciated and wanted to do.

So the first thing I did was sit down with Suzanne, and we created the beat sheet together. I wanted to make the book. It was really about figuring out how to best adapt the book.

Lionsgate

Were you initially told that they were going to take the last book and turn it into two movies? Was that part of the original plan?

Well, I signed on originally for just Catching Fire. So when I got hired I was hired for Catching Fire and because they had already decided to split the book, that was a decision that had already been made with the studio and with Suzanne. They already had release dates for those movies so I never thought that I would do it, because that meant that those movies would have to be prepped while I was in post on Catching Fire and I figured, “Well, they’re going to want to see Catching Fire before they hire me.”

No, they’re not going to want to do that. They’re just want to get you on board, man!

That was what I thought: if I was an exec I wouldn’t want to hire the guy for all three until I’ve seen one. No, but they asked me to stay while we were in prep and we looked at the calendar and went for it.

Is this the sort of undertaking you would want to do again? Spearhead a huge franchise like this?

I would, absolutely. If it was the right stories and the right people I would do it again in a second.

You don’t hear that a lot. You hear a lot of people get exhausted.

I was exhausted for sure, but because it was the combination of stories I really believed in and cared about… so it was, for a filmmaker, the kind of world-building and visual storytelling I could do, mixed with the thematics and the relevance, mixed with the amazing cast and crew, that were talented but also just became so close… that combination is really fulfilling.

Is there something you have your eye on? What is next for you?

The thing that I’m closest on right now is a spy thriller at Fox called Red Sparrow.

Okay, so that will be a huge, five-film franchise, and you’ll do every single film in it?

If the first one works, who knows? If the first one works. But it’s a fun one.

William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.

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