Film director Francis Lawrence (53) doesn’t have it easy. The pressure was on his shoulders to bring the books for “The Hunger Games” flawlessly to the screen. The volumes are among the most popular around the world. Not only were over 100 million book copies sold, the movies also almost broke the three billion US dollar mark with “Mockingjay – Part 2”. But the filmmaker admits he made a mistake when adapting “Mockingjay.”
In an interview with People reveals Francis about the “Mockingjay” films: “I deeply regret making two films.” The installments were released in November 2014 and November 2015. “Making people wait a year came off as disingenuous to me, even though it wasn’t,” he adds. According to the director, splitting the book up had a positive effect because it allowed the film crew to bring more of the book’s content to the screen.
That’s why the “Mockingjay” films were each two hours long. The prequel “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” broke the record in 2023 with two hours and 36 minutes. Here, too, Francis faced a similar decision about whether there should be multiple parts: “I didn’t want to let them split the book into two parts. We got so much criticism for splitting ‘Mockingjay’.” For the director, sharing the book was never an option: “I’ll just make a longer film!”
