Script for Mockingjay Part One Finished, Part Two Greenlighted
Exciting news, everyone! The Hollywood Reporter has revealed today that not only is the first draft of the script for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 already finished, but it has also been approved by Lionsgate and screenwriter Danny Strong has been given the official go to start working on the script for Part 2.
Strong had already written the script for Mockingjay, Part 1 and had a deal to write the script for the second part. But it was always contingent on the studio liking and approving his draft for Part One.
Now it’s all systems go for him to commence the new script.
Do you have high expectations for the adaptation of the series’ final two installments? What are you most looking forward to from Mockingjay? Be sure to let us know in your comments!
I just hope it’s as good as HG was! Obviously a movie can’t be exactly like a book, but HG was by far one of the better adaptations I’ve seen. And I hope Mockingjay Parts 1 and 2 don’t disappoint! (though I’m sure they won’t)
So many things I’m excited to see, but the main ones-SPOILER!!!!
have to be in the end of Mockingjay. Prim’s and Snow’s ending, and I really hope Gale isn’t written off as much as he was in the book. I don’t know, I’d just like to see more than “he got a fancy job in District 2.” He’s such an important character and I would love to see him get more of an ending.
It is my least favorite of all 3, so no high expectations here
It’s my favorite of the three, so high expectations there.
Really? Whys that?
To me it felt very rushed and although there’s some awesome storytelling and scenes in it, I just keep thinking that it should have been 4 books.
My personal favorite is the 1st one.
You get to meet Katniss and things are more simple, she only has to worry about surviving the games (not saving an entire country!) and its just extremely entertaining, I could read that book a 100 times and not get tired of it.
Sooo true. MJ was not only rushed but off-balance too, IMO, in spending so much time on the Capitol attack. It’s the makings of a powerful conclusion to the trilogy, but SC didn’t flesh it out to be any more than that. A good scriptwriter can correct those deficiencies, though. We’ll see what happens.
Yeah mine too. I don’t like it that much. Of course the story went on and it was getting darker but it just had another feel to it. Everything I loved about it just changed.
So I just hope that the movie will make the book better somehow cause with two movies (still not sure if I agree to that) they have a lot of space to add things that will make it better.
AND the movie needs to make a better ending!!!! I hated it.
So my biggest wish for the movie is a longer ending to show what happens with katniss, peeta and haymitch…and a nice little ending scene with katniss and peeta together
I feel like , when people see the film version of Mockingjay, they’ll appreciate the book better. They’ll see how powerful Mockingjay was.
Now that I read some of your comments I’m reminded of some really great parts of the book.
Like in the first part when Katniss is trying to figure out what to do, what she feels and she grows closer to Finnick and Johanna. I especially loved Finnicks quote: It takes ten times as long to build you up than it does to break you (I’m not exactely sure how he said it)
And yes as a K/P fan I’m looking forward to the tiny bits of them in the Capitol like some of you mentioned.
Still it’s not my favourite book and I remember beeing dissapointed!
But I just don’t think there is anything wrong to have favourite books so I don’t understand why some of you seem so angry. That doesn’t mean we don’t love the series I mean for what other reason would we be here?!
I loved the first book and the second half of catching fire most. Still I’m excited to see how they’ll bring it to screen since now there is so much spce and hope my favourite bits will make it
And god when will we see a trailer??? I can’t wait any longer. I mean guys it’s going to take nearly 3 more years till we see mockingjay part 2 and as sad as I might be when it all ends but I’m tired of waiting…so I’m longing for some bits of catching fire (they can’t have us waiting till summer to see the trailer)
Everyone says they hated the ending but the ending was my favorite part (possibly my favorite part of the entire series?). From the time they get in Tigris’ shop to the end– that’s my favorite. Everything is just so awesome and I honestly found it to be the perfect ending. Why does everyone hate it?
(I reread that part just a week ago and I think it’ll look epic in the movie.)
Not everyone hated it, I loved it. But it does seem that a lot of people misunderstood it because of the way SC wrote certain things. MJ is my favorite book in the trilogy but it does have some real flaws: most of all, SC was explaining too much at some points (mostly in the first part of the book- the lengthy explanations about the meanings of “The Hanging Tree” and Katniss’ game with Buttercup were probably unnecessary) and too little at others (the last few chapters). I used to like the subtlety with which some of the things were dealt with, like the Katniss/Gale goodbye, but after reading other opinions, it seems like she was too subtle and it went over many of the readers’ heads. (Kind of like the first movie did, as opposed to the book?) In particular, maybe she shouldn’t have written the voting scene the way she did, withholding all of Katniss’ thoughts, in order to have a surprise when Katniss shoots Coin – because it just ended up confusing many people.* So, while I loved those chapters when I first read them, now I’m having second thoughts: if so many readers misunderstand what is going on, is it their fault or the fault of the writer?
*It reminds me of a certain plot at the end of “Buffy” season 6 – where the writers were trying to be clever and have a character’s motivation and intentions be a real surprise to the viewers, so they wrote it ambiguously and tried to make them think the character was intending to do one thing, while in fact he was trying to do something completely different – and they even didn’t tell the actor what the character’s real intentions were. But it turned out that the writers had overplayed it, since there were many fans who, instead of going “Aha! So that was what he was doing!” believed that the character was tricked into what happened – and Joss Whedon himself eventually had to tell the fans that this interpretation was wrong, the character was always trying to do that and he got what he wanted; they were just trying to keep it a secret till the last scene.
I may be an exception that proves the rule but I really appreciated the ambiguity of the voting scene. Up until that point we had been privy to Katniss’ thoughts and feelings on every important issue. When we did not understand her motivations it was because Katniss did not understand them herself. When Suzanne Collins suddenly pulled us out of Katniss’ head it caught me up short and got my attention. One of the effects of course was to heighten the dramatic tension. However, I believe that she had a more important reason. I think she wanted us to make up our own minds on what motivated Katniss to vote yes. In life we never completely understand another person: there is always some mystery. The same is true of great literary characters. In three books we got to know Katniss, now Suzanne Collins forces us to use that knowledge to decide for ourselves why she agrees to the hunger games. Our answer to that question is a measure of who we think Katniss is. Because she did not give me the answer Ms. Collins caused me to think much more deeply about Katniss than I would have otherwise. I have an answer that satisfies me, but I cannot be sure and I love that. I do not see this as a literary defect and I would point out that volumes have been written trying to understand Hamlet’s motivations in what is generally considered one of the world’s greatest plays.
I do understand the argument that it is a mistake on an author’s part to so misjudge her readers that she leaves them confused and frustrated. All I can say is that this was not my experience in reading the voting scene and if she had spelled out Katniss’ reasons more explicitly I probably would have ended up loving the books a little less.
DUDE,YO ROCKED IT.I COULDNT HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF!!!Collins wanted us to consider why Katniss could possibly vote yes if she wanted to stop the Games more than anything?Thats why Suzanne is a freaking genius…
Glad to see a Buffy fan here. It is the only show I can watch over and over. I didn’t know that was confusing to some viewers. I loved that part of the season finale. Huge Spike fan here!
really wow that is ridiculous obviously you aren’t that big of an hg fan have a nice life
If they take that time to break up the last novel, they should take time bettering it. As a general consensus, most agree that Mockingjay was the least favorite in the trilogy. It felt like a haphazard mess. This is the time for not only Lionsgate but Collins to prove themselves.
If there is a general consensus that Mockingjay was the weakest of the trilogy I am in the minority and I certainly disagree that it was a haphazard mess. I thought it was a well plotted, tightly written novel that advanced Suzanne Collin’s stated theme of the traumatic effects of war and violence on those who live them. I think that the decision to shatter Katniss and have her lose nearly everything was correct artistically and the last part of the novel where she begins to put herself together again is one of my favorite part of the trilogy. This is the part that I’m most worried they will not do well in the movie. To reply to Paige I’m not sure if there is enough movie before Peeta strangles Katniss – after all there is only on big action sequence before that: the battle in 8. I think it is more likely that they will break sometime after the fall of the Mountain.
I agree with you. I’m sure they won’t end with Peeta strangling Katniss, for two reasons: 1) a movie is not an episode of a TV show, and can’t end on a “to be continued” cliffhanger where the audience is left puzzled as to what is even going on (that’s how the small budget B-movies of the 50s were ending, but the audiences had to wait just a week or so, I don’t know how much, to see the next one, not a year!), a movie should be able to stand on its own. 2) There really isn’t enough going on before that and there’s too much happening after that. An additional reason is that would leave a bitter taste if it ended on love angst and Katniss’ despair and would be devoid of any clear message about the war – whereas the battle for the Nut, Katniss’ speech and D2 joining the rebels is a big climactic event that shows Katniss at her most heroic and has her taking an important stand, and the D2 siding with the rebels as a result shows that a successful rebellion is about winning the hearts of people more than blowing them up.
The second movie can then start with the preparation for and the actual mission to Capitol and focus on hijacked Peeta and his slow recovery andthe K/P relationship, as well as also Johanna struggling with her PTSD after torture, and the Finnick/Annie wedding; the action part of the movie would involve the Star Squad mission to Capitol, which will probably take up quite a lot of the movie, and the attack that took the lives of Prim, other medics and Capitol children. The other big moment is, of course, Katniss shooting Coin, and the ending of the movie would need to expand on the book – not only because the last chapter felt rushed, but because it’s a movie where you don’t “tell” but “show” such things such as Katniss’ trial and the machinations of the new government (I think these things should be dealt briefly), Katniss and Peeta growing back together, the rebuilding of D12, their and Haymitch’s life there, where other characters have ended, and the epilogue (all this could take up about 20 minutes or so).
I just want to state my opinion and your guy’s thoughts on where they should cut off the book. Where I keep telling myself where they should cut it is where Katniss gets shot on live Television. Can you imagine it ending there? The image of our heroine getting shot, the screen going dark, and the faces of the people who havent read the book thinking: oh my god, did she die?, what happened to her, what happens next? leaving them all pumped up to watch our big finale of this series.
I really dislike this idea, for two reasons: first, cliffhangers where it seems like a major character has been killed and then it’s revealed they’re OK feel like a cheap ploy. Second, it’s a movie, not an episode of a TV show. Since you don’t get the “‘to be continued’/they wouldn’t kill the main character before the end of the show” thing you get on TV. If they ended the movie with Katniss getting shot, some casual viewers who didn’t read the books might even think that she’s dead. More importantly, ending it like that would make it seem like her speech failed to convince the people in D2 and the whole message would be lost, while the whole point is that in fact her speech – and probably her willingness to risk her life as well – moved so many people that it resulted in D2 eventually siding with the rebels. In the end it was Katniss’ appeal to people, rather than Gale’s bombs, that won them D2.
I think the first big thing everyone will want ot know is where will the split be (I am with the majority that it will be when Peeta strangles Katniss). Other than that, my hope is that putting it into two movies will allow them to hopefully stretch out the ending part of the book, specifically the “growing together” part and more closure with Gale. I thought that specific section felt rushed, so I hope they will be able to add mroe detail to it. Mostly, though, being a K/P fan, I think the moment I will be excited to see if when she kisses him in the Capitol and says “Stay with me.” which brings Peeta back to his senses. It was a great moment. Mockingjay is probably my least fave in the series, but there are still a few good moments. I am looking forward to it all.
im tired of hearing that Mockingjay is the least favorite of the three books, you should be glad we have more than two books. The trilogy is without flaw so stop freaking complaining geez
(MAY INCLUDE SPOILERS) Mockingjay was defiantly my favorite. What i’m really looking forward to, will be in part two (in the movie) where they invade the capitol. It’s so heart pumping, it gives you this buzz! Anyway i think people who dislike Mockingjay (MOSTLY) didn’t understand it. First of all, it was katniss’ story, no one else’s. To be completely honest, i didn’t care for Gale after what he became. I think his character was to show how war has no rules and can change even the ‘good guys’. It also made perfect sense for Gale and katniss to distance. Katniss would constantly be reminded of her sister’s death through him. This book isn’t your traditional YA novel where either everyone dies or everyone lives. This book is realistic. Finick’s death was so sudden, fast and not really dramatic. It happened so fast and they had to move on. Just because he was a main doesn’t mean he’s granted a slow motion hero’s death. I see this come up a lot too “Why did katniss say yes to the hunger games for capitol children”. Well she was lying (IMO) she did it so president coin would trust her, thus president coin wouldn’t dispose of her too soon. Even if this isn’t true, Katniss isn’t perfect. After all the trauma she’s been through, it makes sense that she is bitter/want’s revenge.
Quoting what Beetee had said, the price of being The Hunger Games victor.
Um what did Beetee say again? .__.
SPOILERS my least favorite parts in the book were when Peeta was hijacked,Finnick died,and Prim died,my favorite parts had to be the whole book
She was voting ‘yes’ just to make Coin think she was on her side so she would let her guard down. Just before the meeting, Katniss was remembering what Boggs told her about Coin, ‘if you not with her, you’re against her’. Not only do I think that Katniss would never want to putmore children in the Hunger Games and that it would be hugely OOC for her (wanting revenge on Snow and/or Coin is one thing, wanting to kill innocents is completely different, and it’s something Katniss was firmly against and why she opposed Gale’s death traps in the Nut) but it doesn’t make sense since she already had realized that Coin was responsible for Prim’s death (and that’s exactly why she couldn’t forgive Gale; if Snow had been responsible, why would she be blaming Gale?). It’s hinted in the way Katniss votes – she never says she wants the Hunger Games to continue, she says “I vote yes. For Prim”. Not only was Coin responsible for Prim’s death, but Prim would never condone innocents dying, and the last thing Prim did in her life was help the wounded Capitol children. And I’m sure Katniss knew that continuing Hunger Games was the furthest thing from honoring Prim’s memory. But if, as I believe, she had made the decision right there to assassinate Coin – after seeing that Coin was indeed Snow 2.0 and that nothing would change with her as the President, one dictator replaced by another – then it makes perfect sense. It’s both revenge for Prim AND honoring her memory by preventing innocent kids like Prim from getting sent to death.
If Katniss had been motivated solely by revenge, why didn’t she want to kill more people? She can’t forgive Gale but she doesn’t want to kill him, she doesn’t even want to kill Plutarch, who was hinted at being involved in Coin’s plans, or Beetee, who was also involved in designing the bomb, or any of the others on the rebel side, or anyone else from the Capitol.
Haymitch was the only one who understood what Katniss was up to – Katniss mentions several times, including shortly before that scene, that he and she always had a way of communicating and understanding each other, like in the 74th Games – which is why he also voted yes, and he didn’t say he wanted the Games either: he said “I’m with the Mockingjay”, hinting that he was supporting her in what she was about to do (and that she was still playing her role as Mockingjay – the rebellion/’war’ was not over).
There are lots of hints during that scene that Katniss was going to assassinate Coin (I guessed it while reading it for the first time), but SC was trying to make it a surprise when Katniss shoots Coin, so she didn’t reveal all of Katniss’ thoughts, for the first time in the trilogy. This seems to have confused many people, since it was different from the way the rest of the trilogy was written. SC wrote those two scenes as if she was writing a screenplay rather than a first person perspective novel. Which is why this should work much better in the movie.
Very well stated, Ivana.
Brava, Ivana
Yes. So much subtle clue in the Mockingjay, I didn’t understand them at first either. But after re-read Catching Fire-Mockingjay back and forth over and over again, and I was like “Oh? Oh !!” lol It takes time for me.
You nailed it Ivana.I consider myself over anlysing this book and yet I didnt get that Haymitch said Im with the Mockingjay ” stating that she is still the Mockingjay because the war wasnt over yet,not reaally!Although the rest I knew
Hanson and Ivana-I really like your comments and think that the fall of District 2 is the other logical spot to end part 1. That is why I said that where they split it is probably the first thing most want to know. As I said. I agree with Ivana that the last chapter is rushed and the movie could give the opportunity to expand some of it. I do like Mockingjay overall. It has tons of action throughout that should keep the audience interested. Visually it could be fantastic. I have high hopes.
Yeah, actually … I wanna know more about Gale’s POV. The screenwriter cut several character to make room for another character, right? Sorry, if my wording not so good. But what I mean is, Katniss feels so guilty for what happened on her district. And then, there is The Nut part. Just don’t want to see him as ruthless in the books (sometimes, imo).
Oh, and I wanna know where Johanna is after the new President election. Will she stay in D13? Naahh, that’s not so Johanna. Because I don’t remember she back to D7. She didn’t, did she?
I wish that Finnick will not die in the Mockingjay movie (and maybe Gale will die in his place.)
Even if I hated Gale(which I don’t), I can’t say I’d expect that to happen. They never make that big of changes.
@ Rachael: Then you would miss miss out on the “who will she choose” conversation between Gale and Peeta.
BTW, Mockingjay is a novel that requires multiple readings to take it all in. The others I get nothing new from re-reads. I love all three but, Mockingjay is the only one I love more every time I read it.
”Mockingjay” is the best book in the series and a perfect conclusion.This series isnt all about happy ending and if you dont get that then you are not true fans morons
Dude, chiillsss.
Calling out names is not cool here.
The fact that everyone has a different view about the Katniss kills Coin topic, and is debating on this is why I love MJ so much. The line between good en evil isnt as clear as everyone thinks it is, and it gets very blurry in MJ. Which realistic, which is why I love it. I dont think MJ is my favorite tho, but it was by far the most interesting one.
why does every one hate my messages your just a bunch of hatas
I’m looking forward to the interviews between Peeta and Cinna!
The Buffy references remind me that Strong was actually part of the cast as Jonathan, and it will be interesting where Danny Strong himself thought MJ should be ended. I agree with Ivana, though, that I doubt the first movie will cut off on a cliffhanger like “Peeta strangles Katniss” or “Katniss gets shot”. I think that the scene where D2 falls would definitely be a nice way to wrap up Part 1 on a positive note, and agree with Ivana that ending it with Katniss getting shot would send exactly the wrong message, that Katniss’s speech was a failure.
This is a misconception many people already have from MJ, that “All Katniss’s speech did was get her shot”. The problem, I think, is that in the book, we don’t “see” D2 fall because Katniss is injured and doesn’t get to see it herself, but is told later on by someone else; ironically, as I recall it is Gale who tells her!
BTW, widely misunderstood scenes like this are one reason MJ comes off as a little rough around the edges in terms of quality compared to THG and CF. I’m sure SC meant for Katniss to have won the D2 argument, and for Gale to have been forced to eat his words. But this scene is often used by Gale defenders as proof that “Gale was right, they should have killed everyone in the Nut, then Katniss wouldn’t have got shot”. It seems many Gale fans feel SC was “unfair” to him in MJ because their take on MJ is that the rebels would not have won the war without ruthless tactics like the ones Gale supported, and that Katniss was being a hypocrite in rejecting him. Even though I don’t think that was SC’s intent.
Although it seems the majority of online fans support ending Part 1 at Peeta strangling Katniss, I can’t think of any popular movie series that ended on such a total cliffhanger. Maybe Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 came the closest, with Voldemort seizing the Elder Wand, but Harry Potter himself was (though temporarily) safe and sound, having survived his latest confrontation with Death Eaters. In order for it to have been a similar cliffhanger, it would have ended with Bellatrix throwing her knife (won’t go into further details for the HP-naive).
Note that the Lord of the Rings trilogy did NOT end the first or second movie on cliffhangers, I didn’t even watch the Breaking Dawn movies, but I read the books, and I know enough about the movies that I know the first BD movie cut off with Bella awakening for the first time as a vampire. While this is certainly thrilling, but it also meant Bella was safe from dying as a human, which had been a threat hanging over her not just for BD Part 1, but for the whole franchise before that.
Also, let me point out that THG movie itself, changed the ending so that it was NOT the same kind of cliffhanger the book ended on. Instead of ending at the scene in which Katniss takes Peeta’s hand “one more time for the audience”, as it is in the book, the movie showed us that audience; both the people of D12 welcoming the two Victors, and the audience of President Snow contemplating what had happened.
While you could argue that when the THG screenplay was written, Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins, and others didn’t have confirmation there would be other movies, I think this shows that LG does want each movie to stand on it’s own as a complete movie. The THG ending provided a sense of foreboding, but also a sense of at least partial closure. An ending to MJ-1 in which Peeta strangles Katniss would provide the non-book-fan audience with neither foreboding or closure, but total confusion and shock. Remember, the movies are NOT being created only for us rabid fans who already know what is going to happen.
i always thought that Coin was watching the whole thing with Katniss speech in D2 ( through camera ) and the peace speech was exactely what she didn’t want. She ordered that a sniper shot Katniss, enough to make her shup up but without killing her.
I think they will finish MJ 1 after Peeta strangles Katniss and before her speech in D2. Hopefully we will see how she decides to leave and how she keeps in touch with Haymitch to hear news about Peeta. The cut should be somewhere there. I think MJ2 will be a bit of a “war” movie. Next tree years will be a suffer!
Does anybody knows how the filming is planned? Will they film it together?
Oh! I meant “three”.
With Mockingjay, it has it’s moments, and the moments are amazing, but with the film being in two parts I expect them to give characters better endings and tie up more loose ends! Does anyone know how closely Suzanne’s been working on the last three screenplays, because I know she was very closely involved on the first one and it paid off!
I don’t know about Mockingjay, but she did the outline for the Catching Fire script together with Francis Lawrence. According to the recent EW article, after Simon Beaufoy bailed out when Ross left, they were left without a script, and Lawrence and Collins worked on the outline for 3-4 days. Michael Arndt apparently took it from there, but it’s not clear from the article how much and exactly what he did and how much it was Collins and Lawrence.
I agree with a bunch of you. This one is not my favorite book. I am still really excited for it though! I love watching the casting start happening and I am super excited to see who they cast as Coin, Paylor and the Star Squad. Who do you want? I really like the people that have been put on this list: http://www.imdb.com/list/FpJDA9Bs4xQ/