After Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was split into two movies, other franchises followed suit, including The Hunger Games. However, director Francis Lawrence told People that he now regrets splitting the final Hunger Games novel (Mockingjay) into two movies.
“I totally regret it. I totally do,” Francis Lawrence said. “I’m not sure everybody does, but I definitely do.” While the director wanted to be sure that each part of Mockingjay had “their own separate dramatic questions,” he understands why it proved to be upsetting for some fans, particularly as they had to wait a full year between movies.
“What I realized in retrospect — and after hearing all the reactions and feeling the kind of wrath of fans, critics and people at the split — is that I realized it was frustrating,” Lawrence said “And I can understand it. In 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’t,” he adds. “Our intentions were not to be disingenuous.” On the plus side, spreading the story across two movies did allow Lawrence to include more from the book.
Francis Lawrence has returned to the franchise with the upcoming prequel, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, which “follows a young Coriolanus who is the last hope for his failing lineage, the once-proud Snow family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol. With his livelihood threatened, Snow is reluctantly assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird, a tribute from the impoverished District 12. But after Lucy Gray’s charm captivates the audience of Panem, Snow sees an opportunity to shift their fates. With everything he has worked for hanging in the balance, Snow unites with Lucy Gray to turn the odds in their favor. Battling his instincts for both good and evil, Snow sets out on a race against time to survive and reveal if he will ultimately become a songbird or a snake.“
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will be released in theaters on November 17th.