Francis Lawrence is hard at work making the Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire, but it turns out he's going to be keeping busy-- and telling stories in the world of Panem-- for even longer. Lawrence has reportedly just signed a deal to direct Mockingjay, which will be the two-film finale to what's already a blockbuster franchise.
Reporting the news, Collider points out that Lawrence will be working on a really compressed timeline to make all of these movies happen. Catching Fire, currently in production, is set for release November 22 next year, and part one of Mockingjay is due just a year later, on November 21, 2014. The entire series will close up on November 20, 2015, which is when the second part of Mockingjay will be release. That year-long gap is the same strategy employed by the Twilight series, which unleashes Breaking Dawn: Part Two this month, a full year after the release of the first part. I still think I prefer the way that the Harry Potter franchise did it, releasing Deathly Hallows: Part One in November of 2010, and brought out the second part just 7 months later in July.
Given this incredibly fast production schedule, though, it makes sense that they'll keep Lawrence on board for the duration, meaning he'll have made three giant movies in just three years, and then freeing himself up to make other projects-- with the benefit of a serious Hunger Games paycheck to help him out.
