The ‘Hunger Games’ Director Knows Better Than Trying to Change the Endings of the Books (Exclusive)

Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence doesn't like to deviate much from author Suzanne Collins' work for a simple and important reason: "I really like the books."

Released in 2008, Collins' dystopian YA novel The Hunger Games became an instant sensation, leading to sequel books Catching Fire and Mockingjay and a massive four-film series (with Mockingjay being split into two). Gary Ross directed 2012's Jennifer Lawrence-led Hunger Games, with Collins' co-writing the script adaptation. Francis Lawrence (no relation) then took over and worked closely with Collins on Catching Fire and the Mockingjays.

"With Suzanne, because I really like the books, I always go in wanting to make the book," Lawrence tells The Messenger. "We never go in saying, 'Hey Suzanne, guess what? We love everything but we don't like your ending.' Because the truth is, if we did that, like, 'We want to change your ending and do something different,' she'd probably go, 'Thanks, I'll find some people that want to make my book.' Starting with Catching Fire, I'd always wanted to make Catching Fire, and so she and I actually go through the book together and create the beat sheet of what we think the movie's going to be."

To Lawrence's surprise, their collaboration resumed with the new film The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Despite the belief that they had closed the door on the franchise, Lawrence received a call from Collins in 2019 that she was almost finished with a prequel novel that served as an origin story for the villainous President Snow (Tom Blyth taking over for Donald Sutherland). Set decades before Katniss Everdeen became a tribute, 18-year-old Coriolanus "Coryo" Snow (Blyth) is elected a mentor to young competitor Lucy Gray (Rachel Zegler), giving him a chance at love and glory.

"Suzanne is great at augmenting for the adaptation process," Lawrence explains of the partnership. "As long as we're staying true to the spirits of the themes, the spirits of characters and the he general plot, she knows that there's going to be compression and some attrition. Like, you're going to lose this little sub-characters, subplots, especially with [Songbirds & Snakes] being the longest book in the series."

Lawrence continues of Songbirds & Snakes, "So we knew that we were going to have to focus on Snow, Lucy Gray, Sejanus (Josh Andrés Rivera), Tigress (Hunter Schafer), and then you have the Viola Davis and Peter Dinklage characters — they were our goals. Once you're in that world and staying true, she's very helpful in having to make compression, or combining scenes together, or doing whatever we have to do to get the length of it all down to something more manageable."

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is in theaters now.