'The Hunger Games' (2012)

Set for mainstream success is The Hunger Games, a cinematic adaptation of Suzanne Collins's hugely popular "young adult" novel.

Set in a dystopian post-America now known as Panem, where an elite preside over a starving, benighted working class, The Hunger Games centres around a brutal televised tournament where randomly selected teens, referred to as "tributes", are whisked away to battle to the death for the enjoyment of their oppressors. A grim premise, perhaps, but also the sort of subject matter that the hallowed YA demographic can't seem to get enough of. A cautious sales estimate puts the number of copies sold at around 26m for the first novel alone, earning it a three-year residency on the New York Times bestseller list. Indeed, so profound has been the book's impact on the YA industry that a slew of copycat works have followed, with publishers maintaining that "dystopia" is the new "vampire".

All of which, predictably, has got Hollywood in a bit of a tizzy. Lionsgate quickly acquired distribution rights for adaptations of all three novels in 2009 and is hoping for Twilight levels of success. Jennifer Lawrence, co-stars John Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth, and a supporting cast that includes Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks and Woody Harrelson have signed up for a quadrilogy of films, the first of which hit screens this week. Tickets for the opening weekend showings went on sale in January in the US and promptly broke existing pre-sale records. Indeed, some industry types consider it a dark horse for highest grossing film of 2012.

Full article @ The Guardian 17/3/12