It made a star of Jennifer Lawrence. It launched an obsession with YA dystopian fiction. It is The Hunger Games and this September you can watch all four instalments on M-Net City. But before you stock up on popcorn, go behind the scenes of the movies with these fast facts.
1. The song Safe & Sound, which featured in the franchise’s first instalment and was sung by Taylor Swift, was recorded in one day.
2. The first movie has around 1200 CG shots.
3. It was also banned in Vietnam.
4. To prepare for her role as Katniss Everdeen, Jennifer Lawrence learnt how to use a bow and arrow.
5. While filming one of her first scenes J. Law accidentally punched and broke a window.
6. Katniss is the only character with a side braid. All other braids in the movies were different in order to distinguish Katniss’s.
7. After finishing Catching Fire J. Law chopped her hair into a pixie cut. She wore a wig for Mockingjay.
8. Francis Lawrence (no relation to J. Law) who directed the last three instalments in the franchise, is also the director of the music videos for Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance and Beyoncé’s Run the World (Girls).
9. In an interview for Mockingjay – Part 2, Josh Hutcherson (who plays Peeta Mellark) revealed that he can juggle, and loves cinnamon rolls.
10. Elizabeth Banks’s wig for her character Effie Trinket was initially orange. But the bright colour of the wig looked too much like Bozo the Clown’s so it was toned down.
Watch the quadrilogy every Friday at 21:00 this September on M-Net City channel 115:
- The Hunger Games, 7 September
- The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, 14 September
- The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, 21 September
- The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, 28 September