The young adult dystopia series The Hunger Games is a completely different animal from a Greek epic poem that is one of the oldest extant pieces of literature, so it’s hard to predict what the retelling from the Hunger Games team will be like. The Hunger Games franchise has been a massive financial success due to fan attention from the uber-popular book series and Lawrence’s skyrocketing fame for her acting skill and for being considered a positive role model to the young female audience of the books and films. The first installment made $691 million worldwide; the second, $864 million; and the third, $752 million, according to Box Office Mojo. The films have been generally warmly received by critics, in particular for Lawrence’s performance.
Since the recent star-studded Biblical epics like Noah and Exodus: Gods and Kings haven’t performed very well with critics or at the box office, it will be interesting to see if Lionsgate takes a risk and goes full-on ancient Greek. According to Box Office Mojo, Noah only made $362 million on a budget of $125 million, and Exodus did poorly, too, making $268 million worldwide on a budget of $140 million. Even more embarrassingly, that movie only made $65 million domestically. People just don’t seem to be very interested in the ancient stuff, even if you have Christian Bale or Russell Crowe leading the cast, so a straightforward Odyssey adaptation seems like a risky move.
Much of The Hunger Games’ success was due to the already popular source material and Lawrence, rather than the filmmakers, so it will certainly be interesting to see how they pull off adapting The Odyssey. Side note: Wouldn’t Lawrence make a great gender-bending Odysseus?
Follow Jacqueline on Twitter @Jacqui_WSCS
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