CATCHING FIRE: Francis Lawrence may direct THE HUNGER GAMES sequel

Francis Lawrence may direct Catching Fire, the sequel to The Hunger Games. Francis Lawrence has been offered the directing duties of The Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire due to many factors. The biggest was the production schedule for Catching Fire, which isn’t ideal and caused The Hunger Games director Gary Ross to leave the project.

Catching Fire has a compressed production schedule because of its main star Jennifer Lawrence.

Because star Jennifer Lawrence is obligated to shoot Fox’s X-Men: First Class sequel in January, Lionsgate needs to get Catching Fire into production by August in order to hit its targeted November 22, 2013 release date. Fortunately, (Francis) Lawrence’s late summer schedule looks free and clear, and he should have no problem getting right to working on the script with screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) and author Suzanne Collins.

Director Francis Lawrence is no stranger big-budget productions:

Lawrence last helmed Water For Elephants, and before that I Am Legend and Constantine and before that videos for the likes of Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez and Green Day.

With Francis Lawrence on board, he can get Jennifer Lawrence:

through the second installment before Fox enforces an option for her to make the second installment of X-Men: First Class. Some feel that Fox might not even make that early 2013 start date, but there is testiness between the studios after Lawrence wasn’t made available to do promotion on X-Men: First Class because she was on Hunger Games duty.

I like some of the visuals in I Am Legend and Constantine and with a background in music videos, some fans with be looking to see that visual fare added to The Hunger Games franchise. Are you?

Source: Deadline, Slashfilm