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\n‘Hunger Games’\u00a0Director Says He “Totally Regrets” Splitting\u00a0‘Mockingjay’ Into Two Films https:\/\/t.co\/zvlPa8RlYy<\/a><\/p>\n
\u2014 The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) October 14, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Francis Lawrence, who is currently directing the Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbird and Snakes<\/i>, told PEOPLE he wishes he hadn\u2019t split the film \u2014 based on the book of the same name (Mockingjay) \u2014 into two parts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI totally regret it. I totally do. I\u2019m not sure everybody does, but I definitely do,\u201d he said of releasing Mockingjay Part 1 in Nov. 2014 and Part 2 the following year.<\/p>\n
Lawrence said that the team agreed that the \u201ctwo halves of Mockingjay had their own separate dramatic questions\u201d and different arcs, but he understands why some fans didn\u2019t like that it was split.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn an episode of television, if you have a cliffhanger, you have to wait a week or you could just binge it and then you can see the next episode. But making people wait a year, I think, came across as disingenuous, even though it wasn\u2019t,\u201d he said. \u201cOur intentions were not to be disingenuous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn truth, we got more on the screen out of the book than we would\u2019ve in any of the other movies because you\u2019re getting close to four hours of screen time for the final book. But,\u201d he said. \u201cI see and understand how it frustrated people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI would never let them split the book in two,\u201d Lawrence said about the new film. \u201cThere was never a real conversation about it. It\u2019s a long book, but we got so much shit for splitting Mockingjay into two \u2014 from fans, from critics, from everybody \u2014 that I was like, \u2018No way. I\u2019ll just make a longer movie.\u2019\u201c<\/p>\n
ONTD, should books be split into two films?<\/b><\/p>\n