Back in November, we told you that Gary Ross (Pleasantville) who was vying to helm the big-screen adaptation of the first novel in Suzanne Collins‘ best selling trilogy, The Hunger Games for Lionsgate, against the likes of David Slade (30 Days of Night), Sam Mendes (American Beauty) had confirmed that he scored the director’s chair.
While the books are fairly violent and a faithful adaptation could easily garner an R rating, Ross recently explained to EW why he feels the movies need to be rated PG-13:
“It’s not going to be an R-rated movie because I want the 12- and 13- and 14-year-old-fans to be able to go see it. This book means too much to too many teenagers for it not to be PG-13. It’s their story and they deserve to be able to access it completely. And I don’t think it needs to be more extreme than that. I don’t need to have a huge prosthetic budget or make this movie incredibly bloody in order for it to be just as compelling, just as scary, and just as riveting. (It’s not) an overly graphic book. Even things like the Tracker Jacker sequence, while horrific, it’s the ideas that Suzanne has created that are so harrowing.”
About The Hunger Games:
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capital surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capital is harsh and cruel and keeps the other districts in line by forcing them to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight-to-the death on live TV. One boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and sixteen are selected by lottery to play. The winner brings riches and favor to his or her district. But that is nothing compared to what the Capital wins: one more year of fearful compliance with its rules. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her impoverished district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to death before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love. Acclaimed writer Suzanne Collins delivers equal parts suspense and philosophy, adventure and romance, in this stunning novel set in a future with unsettling parallels to our present.
The Hunger Games is slated to hit theaters in 2011.
