The new film is based on Suzanne Collins's 2025 prequel novel, which follows a younger version of key character Haymitch after he is selected as one of the District 12 tributes and forced to take part in the brutal games.
Radio Times recently sat down for an exclusive interview with long-term franchise director Francis Lawrence and producer Nina Jacobson to preview the film – and you can find that full chat below.
Scroll down to find out everything from their first reactions to Collins's novel to those persistent rumours of a Jennifer Lawrence cameo.
Francis Lawrence: She never tells anybody that she's actually writing, so usually by the time she reaches out to us, she's written the book. The book is usually almost finished and she has shared it with people she works with at her publishing company. Usually we'll just get a call going, hey, guess what? I've written this book.
FL: And then she also likes to sort of surprise us and say, 'I don't want to tell you what it is', because she wants us to be really fresh when we read the manuscript for the first time. So she kind of hints at some things at that point.
And then from there we get together with her in New York because she lives nearby, and then we work for about a week or so, starting to break the book down and start the adaptation process.
NJ: Well, the most rewarding part of working with Suzanne is that she does write from theme, and she has a very strong sense of the bigger ideas that she wants to explore. And so, many of those early conversations are about David Hume and George Orwell and these bigger ideas of implicit submission, the role of propaganda. It's so mission critical for her that we are as immersed in some of the underlying philosophical historical texts. And I love that part of it because I always learn a lot about whomever she has been inspired by, and it really infuses the whole process from there.
And she goes into it with such humility. But this book was such an incredibly rich and rewarding reading experience. It is an unusual circumstance where you have a sitting with the book, and you can come and do however many sittings you need, but you read it all at once, no distraction, just you and the book.
And I cried my eyes out reading the book. I was a wreck. I couldn't stop thinking about it. And yet we had an NDA because we were so early. This time, we read the book much earlier on the timeline of when it would be published.
So it was probably the most secretive we've had to be. I think one of the big takeaways was this is my fifth movie in the series and there are now six, and I love all the stories. But for me, my favourite had always been Catching Fire, which was my favourite book, and one of my favourite movies that we've done so far.
The last film, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, was a bit more structurally different to what had come before. Are you saying this is more in keeping with the earlier films?
But I think as time has gone on, and the various books have come out, the various movies have come out, you see responses and see how people look and feel at these movies and stories. There are elements about those first two movies that people really, really, really loved, and some of that is the extravagance of the Capitol, some of it is the humour. Some of it is the spectacle within the games.
A huge part is really having a love for and empathy for the lead protagonist of the story, and a certain structure to the series. And I think it was just a return to form in that sense to something that I think people really craved.
View Green Video on the source websiteFL: One of the things that we try to do, and I think we've done well, is that each movie we make, we try to make it work within a vacuum. You want it to work on its own, so that when some 13-year-old comes in, they could start with this – and so you want it to stand on its own. You don't have to know any history or mythology or background on anything else.
And if you know the original series, there's characters and things in this that exist that are going to call back to that in a big way. So there is definitely an element of beautiful nostalgia that this movie has for everything that's come before it, but you can still come in fresh and just meet these characters and have this experience that completely works.
FL: I think we were happy for them to meet at one point. The thing that we encouraged everybody to do was to not imitate. We wanted people to embody an element and a spirit of the characters.
I think that was really the key. But really, for everybody, it was: this is your interpretation of the role. Like talking to Ralph Fiennes, you do not have to sound like Donald Sutherland. And the same with Elle [Fanning]. You don't have to be Elizabeth Banks. This is your take on Effie, 25 years earlier. So I think it was really fun. I think the actors all had a lot of fun.
We always wanted to move away from impersonation more towards like inhabiting the essence of the character, but really finding your own way into it as an actor. And also allowing for the fact that time changes all of us, and experiences change all of us.
Are you interested in seeing Woody Harrelson's reaction to the film? How much have you spoken to him about it?
And I guess that goes for the other original cast members too?
The reaction to most of the casting announcements was really positive. Was that very reassuring for you to see how much the fans took those announcements on board?
We operate very much as fans ourselves too. We don't feel such a distance of 'them' and 'us'. We're really thinking like, 'How do we imagine it? Who do we hope to see?' And so, of course, it's incredibly rewarding when people celebrate and feel like you got it right.
FL: I feel like we always end up aligning with the fans' hopes. It may not always be exact in some circumstances, but I think in general we end up aligning.
FL: I just think people need to see the movie and see whether or not they make an appearance!
Joseph Zada has said he was a bit starstruck to meet Ralph Fiennes. What was their first interaction?
Ralph Fiennes was coming in quite late in our shooting schedule, probably two thirds, if not three quarters, of the way through our shooting schedule. So we were a real machine by then and Joe had already been put through the ringer and done all of the games and all of District 12, and lots of things have happened.
I think that was really the most intimidating part. It's just the intensity which he brings to a part when he's in the scene. So even with Joseph being off camera and having Ralph look him dead in the eyes... it was intimidating.
NJ: For sure. Sometimes we have actors who come in who already know the books or the world, either from the movies or they have kids or nieces or nephews who've read it. This one was very special because a lot of our young cast grew up with the original franchise.
But with somebody like Ralph, I just appreciate that he didn't shoot for that long in our schedule – we were only together for about a week – but the depth of his reading and the connections that he found to Shakespearean character work and characters that he has explored
And so he even has some lines that are in the movie that he improvised that are all entirely from his experience of Coriolanus now mixing with our version of Coriolanus, and so that was kind of fun to see him start to kind of put the puzzle pieces together
Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
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