In a move that ironically mirrors the vindictive Quarter Quell callbacks, it seems that studio, Lionsgate will not quite be done with The Hunger Games franchise after Katniss Everdeen’s televised revolution is said and done with this fall’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2. Nope, just like the manipulative President Snow and armed with theme park ambitions, they’ve found a loophole to bring the property back to the box-office arena for more movies with prequels and sequels. —Did you actually think they were going to let things go?
According to a report from Deadline, the super-lucrative film franchise, based off Suzanne Collins’ trilogy of novels, have huge plans for the future. As Lionsgate CEO, Jon Feltheimer explains, he is:
actively looking at some development and thinking about prequel and sequel possibilities.
That, is pretty much the extent of the prequel/sequel talk in the report. However, the weight behind Feltheimer’s intentions are undoubtedly magnified when taking into account the other news that the production company has in store for this relatively new cinematic cashcow of a franchise.
This fall’s Mockingjay Part 2 is currently being remastered for an IMAX 3D release, tempting you to pay an even more exorbitant ticket price to have the privilege of swatting at ultra-high definition tracker jackers flying in your face, forcing you to instinctively drop the contents heaping at the top of your popcorn bag. Yet, on that technological front, it seems that the increasingly lucrative Chinese audience will be the first to experience all of that when an IMAX 3D remastered Mockingjay Part 1 hits on February 8.—Where, the controversy over the three-finger-salute will surely be welcomed in three dimensions. (And by "surely," I mean "not.")
Additionally, the studio intends to begin the interactive phase of the Hunger Games franchise with plans on July 1 to unveil an interactive gallery and exhibit over in Discovery Times Square in New York City for 6 months. That, however, may provide the litmus test for vastly more ambitious plans to bring Hunger Games to the level of some the best known action/fantasy franchises to join the theme park attraction club. The move would reportedly provide Lionsgate with an "upfront guarantee of the proceeds." According to Felthiemer:
We are in significant conversations with at least one theme park. Once we built it once we can actually have one, two or three running at the same time. …It’s kind of a no-brainer.
What does it all mean? Well, it means that once Mockingjay Part 2, the epic film quartet’s denouement reaches its revolutionary wrap-up, the fans probably won’t get to lament the passing of this era for too long. While it’s doubtful that Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen comes back, Mockingjay Part 2 is probably just the tip of the Hunger Games iceberg, as Lionsgate’s own cinematic reaping will undoubtedly continue with all of these ambitious footholds set to go into place. Oh yeah, more Hunger Games movies are definitely on the horizon.— Deal with it.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 hits theaters with an egalitarian arrow of awesomeness (in IMAX 3D!) on November 20, 2015.
