PHOTO: See the First Official Still of Katniss and Finnick from Catching Fire

Per the EW Sam Claflin interview, the “sugar cube” scene was NOT cut, though apparently he’s wearing a tad more than the “nothing but net” costume from Book!CF. So, agree with those who have stated that this must be the knot-tying scene from the training stations.

As for whether this shot looks romantic; I don’t think it does at all. It looks like Finnick is playfully flirting with Katniss, but Katniss is being her usual, stony-faced self. In fact, I bet that if LG were to show a still of the “Johanna stripping down in the elevator” scene, that it would look much more “romantic” than this one. Since we know from canon that Peeta, if not exactly reciprocating Johanna in terms of flirtation, does find the situation to be amusing.

But even if people DO make unwarranted assumptions about Finnick being a possible love interest: I really don’t care that much about inaccurate marketing, as long as he’s not portrayed that way in the actual movie.

Also, maybe I have a different perspective on this as a post-movie fan, but while we know, as book fans, what Finnick REALLY is about, remember, that when Katniss first meets Finnick, she herself thinks Finnick is nothing more than an egotistical, creepy manwhore (in the colloquial, not literal way — when she finds out in MJ that he actually was forced into prostitution, she is ashamed of jumping to conclusions about him earlier). She also has no clue, until Peeta tells her after the Jabberjay “attack”, that Annie is Finnick’s true love. (I’ve always wondered HOW Peeta came to know this; did Finnick tell him? Did other tributes tell him? Or did he just figure it out by observing Finnick?)

Anyway, my take is that, ONE article about this movie, is way too early to start freaking out about Finnick being given more attention that he “deserves”, or whether the movie itself (as opposed to some of the marketing for it) will present Finnick as a love interest. I am pretty confident that there will be articles to come that focus more on the “love triangle” with references to Peeta and Gale.

Having read the actual article – I can say that it doesn’t focus on romance at all (in fact, it completely lacks any, and I mean any, mention of romance). I am, however, disappointed that EW writers are immediately spoiling the Quarter Quell for the magazine readers who did not read the books.

The biggest new info from the article is really about the script and who did or didn’t work on it. I’m actually relieved that Beaufoy did not write it since I hated Slumdog Millionaire even though I really liked The Full Monty, so I’m 50:50 on his movies I’ve seen, while I really love Little Miss Sunshine (though, granted, I haven’t seen Toy Story 3).

Let me just say that I love Finnick as a character-and really was happy with the friendship he and Katniss had by the time we get to Mockingjay- felt he was the only one who could really understand what she was going through when Peeta was captured.
That being said-I still think that Peeta should also have been on the cover along with the other allies.
Ok- so we have photos of Finnick trying to unnerve Katniss during training–
Will the next cover be a shirtless Johanna along with Peeta and Katniss when she tries to unnerve Katniss?