March 06, 2012

Catching Fire Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy Said that the First Draft of the Hunger Games Sequel is Finished

The Hunger Games is just about to open in theaters but work is continuing behind the scenes on the sequel, Catching Fire.

News is out today that Oscar winning screenwriter, Simon Beaufoy has finished the first draft.

Hollywood Outbreak talked to Beaufoy about adapting the book for the screen:

“It’s very, very different from the way I normally adapt which is to read the book twice and then put it to one side,” says Beaufoy, who has already submitted his first draft for Catching Fire. “You can’t do this (with Catching Fire) because you’ll get firebombed by the fan base. I never see changing a novel a lot into a screenplay is disrespect at all really to the novel or the novelist. I see it as the opposite. You are making something different. And to do that you have to be quite free with the material. I had many concerns with taking on Catching Fire because my usual approach is to be very free. But what I hadn’t realized was that Suzanne Collins used to be a TV writer and film writer. She sort of adapted it already. The novels are very filmic structurally already. Luckily I haven’t had that battle in my head where I thought I had to discard everything, which is good because the fan base is incredibly loyal to everything.”

Beaufoy explains why he would describe The Hunger Games trilogy as “bold” storytelling saying the book really takes teenagers on at face value and respects the world they live in:

“They are completely at home with the level of violence and the complexity of the political satire that’s going on in that book, which makes it a really titan adaptation.  I really have no words because it is bold and it’s teenagers killing each other with spears, which you know, is not Harry Potter.  They don’t get up.  Nobody waves a magic wand and you’re alright again. Once you’ve been shot with an arrow through the heart, you’re dead.

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