Santa Monica, U.S.A. — IMAX Corporation and Lionsgate, a leading diversified global entertainment company, announced that ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’, the second film in the wildly popular franchise, will be released in the immersive IMAX format.

The first Hunger Games film just crossed the $400 million mark at the North American box office, making it the 14th highest-grossing film of all time. The film has grossed nearly $650 million worldwide, with a rollout in China (including 67 IMAX screens) later this month.

Helping to further eventize this cultural phenomenon and transport moviegoers into the world of Panem, director Francis Lawrence will utilize IMAX cameras in filming portions of ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’. Exclusively in IMAX theatres, sequences shot with the extremely high-resolution cameras will expand to fill the entire screen with unprecedented crispness and clarity, putting moviegoers right into the action alongside Katniss and her fellow Tributes. Leading the cast is Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence, reprising her role as Katniss Everdeen, along with fellow returning cast members Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne and Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark.

“We are thrilled to continue the productive partnership we enjoyed with IMAX on the first installment of ‘The Hunger Games’,” said Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Co-Chairs Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger. “Our partnership on the first Hunger Games film was a resounding success, and we look forward to building on that experience with an expanded IMAX relationship on Catching Fire. IMAX delivers a unique and memorable experience that is the perfect way to celebrate this special moviegoing event.”

“Beyond the global phenomenon that was ‘The Hunger Games’, the film resonated exceptionally with IMAX fans, resulting in sell outs across the network during the limited IMAX run,” said Greg Foster, Chairman and President, IMAX Filmed Entertainment. “We are excited to expand our partnership with directorFrancis Lawrence, producers Nina Jacobson and Jon Kilik and the Lionsgate team as Catching Fire joins a select group of blockbuster titles that have filmed with IMAX cameras, elevating the property to the next level.”

The IMAX release of ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ will be digitally re-mastered into the image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience with proprietary IMAX DMR (Digital Re-mastering) technology. The crystal-clear images, coupled with IMAX’s customized theatre geometry and powerful digital audio, create a unique environment that will make audiences feel as if they are in the movie.

‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ is based on the second book in Suzanne Collins’ bestselling series. It chronicles the life of Katniss Everdeen after she emerges from the 74th Annual Hunger Games victorious — but far from safe. Even as she becomes an unwitting symbol of the rebellion mounting in the districts, Katniss never loses sight of her commitment to protect her family. ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’ will be directed by Francis Lawrence, and produced by Nina Jacobson’s Color Force in tandem with producerJon Kilik. The novel on which the film is based is the second in a trilogy that has over 36 million copies in print in the U.S. alone.

Image Courtesy of The Hunger Games

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Once word was out that a film version of ‘The Hunger Games’ was in the works, speculation about casting snowballed into an internet phenomenon of its own.

Amidst the hoopla, the filmmakers began coming to grips with just how intensely invested fans of the book were in seeing something they could believe in on screen. It became clear that everyone who read the book had their own clear idea of who Katniss or Gale or Peeta should be,” notes the director, Gary Ross. “It’s a testament to how connected people become to this story, and I found it incredibly exciting.”

Adds producer Nina Jacobson: “People were very opinionated about who should play the roles and that was obviously a lot of pressure. But I feel the same way when I love a book – I don’t want anyone to mess it up. So as we began the casting process, we talked a lot about looking for the essence of these characters in the actors. You can create a lot of different things on screen, but you can’t create that essence. You have to go out and find it.”

Katniss and District 12

It began with the most difficult character of all to cast – the girl who rises from the dust and grime of Panem’s mining district to become an iconic rebel heroine: Katniss Everdeen. Her origins might be common, but Katniss is anything but a simple girl. Driven by harsh circumstances, she can be cold and calculating at times but at her core she is selfless and loyal. Only 16, she also is still very much in the process of forming her own ideals and notions of love and self-worth . . . in a world where such things are nearly impossible.

“Katniss is a fierce, independent survivor,” describes Gary Ross. “She’s a hunter, an archer and an athlete, and as the story begins, she already has amazing skills she’s developed to protect and fend for her family. Most importantly, she’s someone who comes to know her own truth. One thing Suzanne and I talked about is that she is a bit like Joan of Arc – someone who can’t abide tyrants, which ultimately gives her the courage to defy the Capitol.”

Executive producer Robin Bissell further observes, “In the middle of the Games, important questions arise for Katniss – not just can she survive but is she able to love, and who does she love? She gains remarkable strength but also blossoms as a human being.”

Young actresses across the world coveted the role, but the search stopped when Ross and Lionsgate executives met with Jennifer Lawrence, who had garnered an Oscar nomination for her devastating performance as a girl protecting her family in the low-budget indie thriller ‘Winter’s Bone’. Most importantly, Collins herself gave her blessing to Lawrence.

Collins admits that initially she had some trepidation over the idea that anyone could embody the Katniss she’d envisioned. But Lawrence set those worries to rest. In a letter to readers of Entertainment Weekly, Collins wrote: “In her remarkable audition piece, I watched Jennifer embody every essential quality necessary to play Katniss.

I saw a girl who has the potential rage to send an arrow into the Gamemakers and the protectiveness to make Rue her ally. Who has conquered both Peeta and Gale’s hearts even though she’s done her best to wall herself off emotionally from anything that would lead to romance.

Most of all, I believed that this was a girl who could hold out that handful of berries and incite the beaten down districts of Panem to rebel. I think that was the essential question for me. Could she believably inspire a rebellion? Did she project the strength, defiance and intellect you would need to follow her into certain war?

For me, she did. Jennifer’s just an incredible actress. So powerful, vulnerable, beautiful, unforgiving and brave. I never thought we’d find somebody this amazing for the role. And I can’t wait for everyone to see her play it.”

“I felt I’d found the one person who could possibly play Katniss,” recalls Ross of meeting Lawrence. “I’ve worked with many amazing actors but I think someone like Jen comes around once in a generation. She’s an unbelievable talent and she brings so many qualities that are raw and true to the character, from her natural athleticism to her emotional power. I can always imagine different versions of films I direct, but I can’t imagine a version of this film without Jen.”

Adds Jacobson: “In her audition, Jen stole the role. There was instant power, intensity and certainty in her performance. Some people can be fierce and others can be tender, but Jen is both.”

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Welcome to the intense reality of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who must try to survive – by sheer wits and will alone – a future world that is at once high-tech and apocalyptic, glitzy and primal, unsettlingly dangerous and a telltale mirror to our own.

Unfolding entirely through Katniss’ intimately personal POV, ‘The Hunger Games’ reveals how this miner’s daughter from a dark future transforms from a mere pawn in a lethal televised contest to a soulful, sacrificing heroine who comes to realize that she has even more to protect and fight for than her own family.

Few who have encountered Katniss have been able to resist the visceral excitement of watching her find her strength, resolve and heart while under the most extreme pressure a teenager could imagine. This was certainly true for the production executives at Lionsgate Entertainment. For them, Katniss’ journey jumped off the pages of Suzanne Collins’ literary sensation ‘The Hunger Games’ with such beauty and force, they felt instantly it deserved to be captured on screen.

When producer Nina Jacobson had bought the rights to the novel in 2009, ‘The Hunger Games’ was just beginning to find a devoted audience. Jacobson brought it to Lionsgate’s film executives Joe Drake and Alli Shearmur, among other studio executives, and they instantly became obsessed with Katniss and her journey.

It was only as development began that the popularity of the books swelled in tandem with anticipation of the movie. Millions began to wonder how a filmmaker might bring to life Collins’ fresh twist on a sinister future and – most of all – bring to life the complicated but gutsy heroine who made the book’s adventure feel so harrowingly true.

Ultimately, Lionsgate and Jacobson put together a team, headed by visually bold director Gary Ross, that was equally compelled by Katniss’ arc and how her evolution as a human being touched millions of readers. The idea behind the screen adaptation was to visually get inside Katniss’ head, and ultimately her heart, the same way that Collins had done in words.

In that way, the film would not only capture Katniss’ battles with her fellow Tributes in the Games, but would also mine the rich themes Collins had explored through Katniss’ life-changing experience: personal sacrifice, star-crossed love and the question of where our current society might be headed.

Katniss’ world was initially inspired, Collins says, by her fascination with the ancient Greek myth of Theseus – who every nine years sent a phalanx of young boys and girls into a deadly labyrinth to fight the monstrous Minotaur. It was equally influenced by her experiences channel-surfing through an unsettling blur of reality TV and war coverage, wondering what this mix of entertainment and true-life terror boded for the future of society.

Together, these two ideas added up to the birth of Katniss Everdeen – who enters a violent and mythic future from a perspective unlike any other. Her adventure in the Capitol of Panem, once she takes her sister’s place in the Games, might have the breathless pace of a sci-fi thriller, but it is at heart about a girl coming to grips with the moral dilemmas of power, injustice and self-preservation at the same time in life as she is also discovering love, independence and her own identity.

A former children’s TV writer and a mother of two, Collins found a way to make Katniss’ world feel so deeply personal that readers couldn’t help but imagine how they would feel in her place – as she is first driven to save her sister, her family and herself, but then begins to see the glimmer of a chance to make a difference for others across the shadowy landscape of Panem.

Collins was not afraid to take Katniss into risky terrain, because she knew teens were already grappling with these questions in the world around them.  In her book proposal for the series, Collins wrote: “Although set in the future, ‘The Hunger Games’ explores disturbing issues of modern warfare such as who fights our wars, how they are orchestrated, and the ever-increasing opportunities to observe them being played out.”

Yet she also balanced that with Katniss’ growth and evolution into someone as courageous and principled as she is stubbornly tenacious.  She noted that Katniss, though initially “distrustful,” takes from this adventure “a deep capacity to love and sacrifice for those few people she cares for.”

The success of ‘The Hunger Games’ hinged on readers identifying with Katniss — and that is exactly what happened. The book was soon being passed from hand-to-hand, reader-to-reader, developing a devoted following that flowed into the culture at large.

Author Stephen King dubbed Katniss a “bow-and-arrow Annie Oakley,” The Atlantic Monthly called her “the most important female character in recent pop cultural history” and The New York Times praised Collins’ “convincingly detailed world-building and her memorably complex and fascinating heroine.”

Stephanie Myer, author of the ‘Twilight’ series, blogged:  “The story kept me up for several nights in a row, because even after I was finished, I just lay in bed wide awake thinking about it.”

Once word began to get out about the books and the impending movie, their popularity began to spread like wildfire. When the film went into production, there were about 8 million copies of the novels in circulation; by the time production wrapped there were 12 million and now the number has exploded to over 26 million.

The first novel has since spent more than 180 consecutive weeks and more than three consecutive years to date on The New York Times bestseller list. Collins went on to write two more best-selling books in the series, Catching Fire and Mockingjay, which established Panem as a realm that has taken up permanent residence in the popular imagination.

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Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the Capitol of the nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games. A twisted punishment for a past uprising and an ongoing government intimidation tactic, The Hunger Games are a nationally televised event in which “Tributes” must fight with one another until one survivor remains.

Sixteen year old Katniss Everdeen volunteers in her younger sister’s place to enter the games, and is forced to rely upon her sharp instincts as well as the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch Abernathy when she’s pitted against highly-trained Tributes who have prepared for these Games their entire lives. If she’s ever to return home to District 12, Katniss must make impossible choices in the arena that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

‘The Hunger Games’ is directed by Gary Ross, with a screenplay by Gary Ross and Suzanne Collins and Billy Ray, and produced by Nina Jacobson’s Color Force in tandem with producer Jon Kilik. Suzanne Collins’ best-selling novel, the first in a trilogy published by Scholastic that has over 26 million copies in print in the United States alone, has developed a massive global following.

It has spent more than 180 consecutive weeks/more than three consecutive years to date on The New York Times bestseller list since its publication in September 2008, and has also appeared consistently on USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists.

The adapted story

In the ruins of the land formerly known as North America, the annual Hunger Games are about to get under way – and 16-year-old contender Katniss Everdeen has only the remotest chance of beating the fearsome odds. Like most of the nation of Panem, Katniss lives in one of twelve enslaved districts, ruled over by a mystery-shrouded Capitol, which after decades of chaos and war, now suppresses the people under the thumb of a harsh yet decadent dictatorship.

Every year, on Reaping Day, each of the districts must choose, by lottery or volunteer, one boy and one girl to represent them in the Capitol’s twisted idea of grand entertainment that proves its total control, while also giving the famished populace the faintest ray of hope to hang onto.

These are the Hunger Games — an intense gladiatorial competition between 24 adolescent warriors known as Tributes, broadcast live on TV until only one survivor remains . . . and once Katniss is entered there is no turning back.

On this day, in District 12, the unthinkable happens – Katniss’ little sister, Primrose, whom Katniss has helped to feed and care for much of her life, is chosen for the Games. In a brave, self-sacrificing move that she knows might seal her fate, Katniss volunteers to take her sister’s place.

Instantly, she and her new co-Tribute, the baker’s son Peeta Mellark, are taken into custody, whisked to the Capitol, thrown into glamorous makeovers and grueling training, readying themselves to be pitted against the ruthless “Career Tributes,” who hail from the wealthier districts and have prepared for these Games their entire lives.

In the days to come, under the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch Abernathy, Katniss will sharpen her instincts, hone her archery skills and focus her growing strength and will on what seems to be the task at hand: stay alive at all costs.

But as she enters the forested outdoor arena as a surprise leading contender in the Games, Katniss begins to see that far more than the promise of fame, fortune and existence itself are on the line. For if she is to win, she will have to make decisions both defiant and heart-rending, weighing survival against humanity, safety against trust and life against love.

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