New The Hunger Games Stills; Lionsgate Already Pursuing a Writer for the Sequel, Catching Fire

Steve Barton |

Nov 17, 2011

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People

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http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20545466,00.html

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Hot on the heels of releasing the official trailer for The Hunger Games, Lionsgate has provided People Magazine with a few new stills from the film. In addition, we’ve heard some rumblings about the studio already attempting to lock in a writer for the sequel, entitled Catching Fire.

Per Deadline Lionsgate is courting Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours scribe Simon Beaufoy to write Catching Fire, the second installment of the three-book series that tracks the life and death adventures of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence). It also looks like Gary Ross, who directed The Hunger Games, is coming back for the sequel. Ross originally intended to write the outline for the second film and script it with author Suzanne Collins (they teamed to do a lot of writing on the first film), but the post-production schedule on The Hunger Games has made that difficult. There is no start date on the sequel, but it is a high priority. Negotiations with Beaufoy haven’t begun yet, but Lionsgate is pushing hard for him since there is extra heat on the series after how well received the trailer was.

In any event, check out the new stills and that impressive trailer again below, and look for The Hunger Games in theaters on March 23, 2012

The Hunger Games, directed by Gary Ross, stars Donald Sutherland, Woody Harrelson, Wes Bentley, Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Liam Hemsworth, Paula Malcolmson, Willow Shields, Latarsha Rose, Lenny Kravitz, Brooke Bundy, Leven Rambin & Jack Quaid (#1), Alexander Ludwig & Isabelle Fuhrman (#2), Ian Nelson & Kalia Prescott (#3), Ethan Jamieson & Tara Macken (#4), Chris Mark & Jackie Emerson (#5), Ashton Moio & Kara Petersen (#6), Sam Ly & Leigha Hancock (#7), Samuel Tan & Mackenzie Lintz (#8), Imanol Yepez-Frias & Annie Thurman (#9), Jeremy Marinas & Dakota Hood (#10), Amandla Stenberg & Dayo Okeniyi (#11), and Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss) & Josh Hutcherson (Peeta) (#12).

Set in post-apocalyptic America, the movie will introduce heroine Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence), a self-sufficient 16-year-old who lives in District 12, one of the poorer districts in the nation of Panem, what used to be known as North America before its utter destruction several years earlier. Katniss becomes a participant in the Hunger Games, an annual televised tournament where one boy and one girl from each of the nation’s twelve districts must fight to the death until only one competitor, or “tribute,” is left standing.

Be sure to keep your eyes on the official The Hunger Games Facebook page and the official The Hunger Games Twitter feed for updates.