The Hunger Games trilogy, including the movies and the books, have been some of the most successful of the 21st century, coming up right behind Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter.

In box offices, the first movie of the Trilogy came in at third with a whopping $152.5 million, right behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, and The Dark Knight Rises. (sources: boxofficemojo.com). Even more impressive Catching Fire brought in a surprising $864.5 million worldwide. These movies are incredible and we can only expect even more from the release of The Mockingjay: Part 1 scheduled for  Nov. 21.

The original director of the trilogy who produced the first movie, Gary Ross, had decided to resign. Leaving Francis Lawrence to fill his shoes. Lawrence is well known in the film world. He’s recognized for his movies like I am Legend, Water For Elephants and plenty of music videos by artists like Beyonce, Janet Jackson, Aerosmith, and Lady GaGa.

In an interview with Francis Lawrence in Empire Magazine, Lawrence was asked him about the possibility of there being more movies after MockingJay Part 2. Lawrence said in the interview:  “-There are a lot of past games and a lot of this world, but without Katniss, is it the same? Part of what I like about the series is the connection to things we think about and talk about now. What’s the new version of that? That would be the tricky thing.”  I’m ecstatic to hear that he isn’t so keen on expanding the franchise past the four movies. I personally think that this would be a terrible idea, sometimes we have to cut ties with stories, it can be disappointing to have some questions unanswered but most times sequels can ruin the franchise as a whole. We’ve seen in countless times. Shrek, they should have stopped after the first one, but now we have four unnecessary movies and even a musical. People get exhausted with plots that drag on. If they did this to the The Hunger Games trilogy people would be spent on it, the books deliver the concept of the series perfectly fine and there’s no reason to extend it any further. In my opinion it’s a money hungry production company that lets that happen, more concerned with pleasing their pocket books than pleasing the viewers.

The books are another department on their own, like any other book and movie duo, the book wins. Everytime. Movies are nothing and never will be anything compared to the book, but these books are on a different level. In the U.S. there were over 36.5 million copies printed, and this is from the first book alone. It was ranked at the second most successful and highest selling series on electronics in 2008, runner up to the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. (source: publishersweekly).

Suzanne Collins got her start in publishing with a few lesser known novels and the critically acclaimed Underland Chronicles, this series is more in the category of children books, I think these are similar to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan, but also do not stray far from her familiar post apocalyptic plot, much like The Hunger Games.

I love this franchise, it has exceeded all of my expectations, and although the movies are choppy compared to the book they’re still incredible movies. They display the characters almost perfectly.