Hunger Games producer says "a lot of people" rejected the first movie
The Hunger Games is one of the biggest movie franchises around, but it wasn't the easiest series to get off the ground.
Ahead of the release of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, producer Nina Jacobson – who has produced every Hunger Games movie with her company Color Force – explained how they weren't willing to compromise on the book, leading to challenges.
"I think what I wanted to carry from the first one is that we took a lot of risks. There was nothing really that obvious about the original series and the original movie. Lots of people passed on it originally," she told Digital Spy.
"There were some studios that really wanted it, but we took risks. We chose to go with Lionsgate because they gave us the freedom to take those risks, to do a faithful adaptation, and not to soften it."
This approach also meant that while doing a movie adaptation of Suzanne Collins' prequel novel seemed a no-brainer, Jacobson was cautious to make sure that they could make the new movie work.
"These movies and books have always meant a lot to me, and one of the most incredible things about making them is to see how much they mean to other people, too," she reflected.
"If there's a franchise that has been meaningful, I think you're better off doing nothing than messing it up. As much as that might frustrate people, there's nothing more frustrating than seeing something that you really care about diminished or cheapened.
"Even then, when we loved the book, Francis [Lawrence] and I were like, 'Unless we get the script right, we still shouldn't do it'. We did not want to go into preproduction until we had a draft that we felt really proud of, and really confident about."
Jacobson also spoke to Digital Spy about Rachel Zegler's "jaw-dropping" performance, while Tom Blyth explained how he approached playing a younger Coriolanus Snow and what he took from set with Josh Andrés Rivera.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is released in cinemas on November 17.
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