VIDEO: Kevin Tancharoen’s ‘The Hunger Games’ Pitch Trailer
You’ve all seen fan-made trailers on YouTube cut to look like movie trailers using clips from other movies, right? Well, according to an article on Slashfilm, that’s precisely how some actual Hollywood directors go into meetings and pitch their movies.
Years ago, Fame and Mortal Kombat: Rebirth director Kevin Tancharoen went in and pitched his take on Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. The film eventually went to Gary Ross and became a $400m+ success. I came across this video and Tancharoen has graciously allowed us to share it. Watch it now after the break. I also had an opportunity to chat briefly with Tancharoen about the process of pitching movies, how that process has changed, and the emergence of these mash-up trailer pitch reels, and that interview follows the video.
What do you all think? It’s definitely got a very different tone and I did like the feel of his futuristic Capitol better than the historical one Gary put forth, but in the end it seems like we might have ended up with a B sci-fi movie too.
Well… Rue was the only thing they got right lol
Im more happy with the movie we got than this. This guy’s vision is too dark in nature and unlike the book. Even the Capital looked “poor”.
…Was that Amandla Sandberg??? LOL They both had the same Rue!!
is that Gaspard Ulliel who he would have chosen for gale?
I really liked this “darker” capitol… In the official movie i think the capitol citzens were too “colorful”, i always saw them as greedy and rude people. And surely, a bit more violence would be good for the “impact” in my opinion, but it was obviously not gonna happen with a PG 13.
By the way: He got rue’s actress right, what a guess!
SOOOOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOOooooOOOOOOOOoooooo Happy Peets wasn’t Zac Efron!
woah.. peeta as zac efron??? REALLY?? … it’s weird cos it kinda works…. x
This was pretty amazing in a creepy way. It’s cool to see the movie and see this and see the visions both directors had. Gary did something, bright and colorful yet completly evil on the inside while Kevin wanted to do something completly dark and evil all together.
haha he guessed amandla! =)
But the book does not paint the picture that the people in the Cap were dark and evil. The people in the Cap are colorful and delusional. Also, the people in D12 are poor and pressed, not imprisoned like the people in this movie.
This movie is too dark…which kills the emotional conncection
So cool to see this different version. I do like the way he portrayed the Capitol… more evil and creepy. And what a great moment to see our very own Amandla as Rue!
The thing you have to understand is, while there is a certain darkness and grittiness, this movie would have no doubt glorified the gore and action. Some people say Gary left out a lot of the social satire, but he actually stopped the movie from being the exactly what the book criticizes. This is a great mashup trailer, but I think it wouldn’t have had the same recognition of the message of the books as Ross’s did.
I don’t think it’s fair to say that it would have ended up as a B movie. It’s very hard to tell what the movie would’ve been like from something like this because it’s using clips from other movies and tv shows. These are only meant to reflect the director’s choice of style and tone, not the actors, props, costumes or sets that would’ve necessarily been used.
I’m getting that the movie would have had a darker and grittier tone to it. I’m getting a graphic novel feel from it instead of Ross’s vision which was much more grounded in reality.
Kevin is apparently Jed Whedon’s (brother of Joss Whedon) brother-in-law, which explains the Firefly clips. If he’d ended up doing it he might’ve gotten input from Joss and Jed, which wouldn’t have been a bad thing IMO. (I’m still hoping Joss does Mockingjay).
Well, I did say “might have”. It did certainly make me curious if the movie had been made this way and I actually found it intriguing in a good way, but it had this… Equilibrium feel to it rather than a Gattaca one. I considered Gattaca to be a really good and serious sci-fi dystopian film, while Equilibrium fell over the fence into the land of cheese. I just think that his overall tone had Gattaca-potential, but also Equilibrium-risk.
I’m happy with the Hunger Games movie that was made but I do like the more darker feel that this pitch had. I’ve always been one of those people that didn’t understand why some people were hoping for more gore in the movie. However, seeing this did make me think maybe a little more would have helped with the darkness that was a little lacking in the movie. I liked how Gary didn’t glorify the violence in the movie but as a result the movie didn’t appear as life and death as in the book. I would have liked the actors to have looked more distraught in the arena like they did in this pitch.
I like Gary Ross’ version better because in his movie it felt real not futuristic at all. This on the other hand looks as though it could never happen.
I did like some parts of this though
Zac efron as Peeta? HELL NO!!!!!!
I think the movie would’ve been a BAZILLION times better if this guy made it!!!
I don’t mean to be harsh, but I’m SO GLAD they chose Gary. I did like a few of the choices he made, including the girl he wanted for Primrose (though I love Willow) and of course Amandla for Rue. I also did like that futuristic shot of the Captiol when the train shoots in.
However, Kristen Chenoweth as Effie and Zac Efron as Peeta? I laughed out loud when I saw that. And I totally agree with @Isaac about how this version looks like it could never happen. I think that’s an incredible facet of Gary’s vision, how this movie was a futuristic world of our nightmares but that felt scarily close to our reality. That’s the message I got from the book, and Gary made that message ring loud and clear in the film.
At the end of the day, I adore the film Gary made. It was actually very hard for me to watch this. It felt all wrong. I kept seeing stuff and going, No, no, you’ve got it all wrong!
Again, really glad Gary was our man and not Kevin.
clarification: I did like a few of the choices Kevin made.
Haha so glad Zac Efron isn’t Peeta.
@FRED – I think you’ve hit the nail exactly on the head there, and that’s the problem I had with the trailer. Whilst moments were good, it was definitely glorifying the games and I don’t think we would have gotten as much of Katniss’ perspective/emotions/fears as we did.
@Crystal, I know what you mean and my comment wasn’t really directed at you by the way. But it is very hard to make a judgment call by looking at a trailer made up of clips of other projects because you can’t really tell his vision from that. It would’ve been best if he could’ve filmed a trailer from scratch, but that would take too much time and cost too much. In any case, I’m not sorry Gary Ross got the job.
@shelly Yeah you know, he had me until Edward and Bella. And Harry. lol
wow! this was really dark but pretty cool, too. The twilight clips sorta ruined it for me, though. And harry potter rocks but those clips didn’t help either. I could never see cinna being white, but I did like their choice for rue (haha same one), and Zac Efron as peeta… I can’t decide if I like that idea or not.
A young Gaspard Ulliel as Gale? That would have been PERFEFCT!
However… Zac Efron as Peeta, wtf?
umm…I don’t know this seems dark which is cool. But it’s also a bit cheesy and VERY unrealistic.
I like it! It was interesting all the clips included from Gladiator (made total sense, since the Tributes absolutely *are* sci-fi versions of gladiators) and the one clip of River Tam made me geekily happy. Really, all the random references thrown together were awesome.
It’s cool to see that official pitches look a lot like fan trailers. Though the one orc was a bit jarring. XD
This works surprisingly well.
At least he didn’t use any Battle Royale clips to my knowledge – I’m so sick of that comparison
Oh wow, that was HORRIBLE! So glad they chose Gary – this seemed SO far fetched and seemed to glorify the Capitol and the violence.
AND ZAC EFRON AS PEETA?!?!??!
It’s so fast, you probably missed these.
- Dammit, why he put Edward and Bella there?
- Harry Potter in the arena? Really dude, really?
- Which is worse, trolls or mutt? Well, they both still gonna hunts you down anyway.
- It’s so dark and violent. See the girl holding that gladiator axe? That version of Johanna is… well, darker than I ever imagine she would be.
This clip is total nightmare, more likely close as another horror/thriller movie. The Ring, anyone?
*ups..
Sorry, can’t tell the difference between orc and troll.
Although he didn’t mention Johanna. When I see that axe, 1st thing that crossed my mind is Johanna.
Here is the comment I put on that video:
“This is really intriguing. In some ways this was good but at other times I was just watching it and going ‘no that is definitely not what I imagined’. It’s interesting how much darker this angle of the story is but I think it would be dangerously close to glorifying the violence just as Gary Ross and Suzanne Collins said they didn’t want it to. I didn’t see any indication in that trailer that the games were bad either, so in the end I am very glad that we got the version we did from Gary Ross!”
Actually, I have been thinking a lot about this since I wrote that. There are a lot of things that could work for some people but I just don’t think it rings true to the book. Some of my biggest problems are District 12 (if that’s what it’s meant to be) and The Capitol. I always imagine District 12 as somewhere that is homely. Even though it’s down-at-heal and you are likely to die there, it needs to look like somewhere you could imagine was normal. If this was Panem, I don’t think anywhere would feel like home. The whole world would be dark and scary, and as a child, or an adult, you need somewhere to escape to that isn’t dark and scary. Somehow this whole world doesn’t seem real and that’s what I think Gary Ross did beautifully. He made it seem as if it was in the future but it was still grounded in reality, just as it was in the book.
Next we go onto the Capitol. Although I love the idea of the sci-fi futuristic city, his whole idea just seems outwardly too scary. I think it needs to be a place where the tributes could almost forget what terrible things were happening, but hidden beneath it was evil. In this Capitol you’d think they were in danger of being killed before they’d even entered the arena!
Other than that, the video is very well edited together and the clips are quite fitting. I just think I’d be a bit disappointed if that was the actual film. We’d probably be getting even more people than we do already complaining that it was too violent, and I’d actually understand what they’re talking about!
And sorry if that was too much like an essay! D:
This was so interesting – thanks for posting it! It’s definitely darker, and I think the HG film could have used a little of that, but this looks like a movie about the Games. I think Gary Ross made a movie about bigger themes, and the games were the structure he used to tell the story.
His casting choices did NOT work for me at all. They were all too pretty/wimpy (especially Katniss, who looked like every other damsel in distress). And I adore Jude Law, but he doesn’t have the warmth for Cinna.
Two points for all you people criticizing the casting choices:
1) He was limited by the current body of work of each actor, in order to portray Hunger-Games like scenes. For example, even if he wanted Jen Lawrence, he wouldn’t be able to use her because she was blonde in everything previous (and most of her stuff wasn’t even out yet when he made the video).
2) I’m pretty sure every one of his major casting choices was in the top 10 if not the top 5 of fancasting (yes, including Zac Effron as Peeta), so though you may disagree, a certain segment of the fandom would have been totally supportive. Kaya in particular was in the top 3 for most of the period, including people who claimed they wouldn’t watch the movie unless she was cast.
Agree with shelly that this “trailer” being made of a mash-up of OTHER movies makes it a little hard to evaluate it, and that this has more of a “graphic novel” feel; it reminds me of some anime and manga series set in an apocalyptic future, as well.
Agree with Isaac and Emily414 that while this version of THG may have been interesting to watch, it seems more like a made-for-TV movie they show on the Syfy channel, something that could never happen in real life. Whereas the movie we got seemed to be something that COULD happen even in the not-so-near future.
Let’s just say that I can’t see Donald Sutherland ever signing on for this version of the movie.
Two comments I’ve read so far that I totally agree with:
Oops, that last line in the prior past was an editing error, sorry!