Much like the Tributes they portray, the young cast of the film adaptation of the successful book by Suzanne Collins had to immediately jump into the most intensive training of their lives to prepare for the highly physical action of ‘The Hunger Games’.

They beefed up, leaned out and dialed in their skills via a comprehensive but crash-bang, 8-week training program just before production began. Most of all, they immersed themselves into the psychological situations faced by their characters, who each must use everything they’ve got – body, mind and soul – if they have any hope of beating the remote odds against them all.

“We had to take a cast, most of whom had no previous action experience, and turn them into stunt people capable of firing bows, throwing spears and climbing trees,” explains director Gary Ross. “There was a massive training component to making it all real. In the end, we only rarely used stunt doubles.”

Stunt coordinators Chad Stahelski and Allan Poppleton began by teaching combat choreography to the cast – with a twist. “The interesting part is that Gary really didn’t want the action to feel choreographed so we tried to create a more spontaneous feeling of wild, emotional struggle,” explains Stahelski. “We looked at each character and talked about their skills, their energy levels, the way they move and working with all of those elements, ran with the action sequences from there.”

Meanwhile, stunt trainer Logan Hood set up a gym program with an emphasis on functional fitness – using everything from free weights to pushups and pull-ups to rope climbs and high box jumps – with each actor given a custom training program specific to their character. The training also included elements of “free running,” the newfangled sport of urban gymnastics, featuring free-form, creative acrobatic moves over all kinds of obstacles.

“The training had to transfer directly to their characters’ personalities and backgrounds,” explains Hood. “We weren’t interested so much in creating ‘gym bodies’ as in creating seamless, believable performances for each of the Tributes.”

Though main actress Jennifer Lawrence is naturally athletic, she says she worked hard at trying to bring out Katniss’ grace under fire. “Since half the movie for me is running, I worked extensively with a running coach. All day long I was running down mountains, through sticks and brush, and doing it over and over again,” she explains.

“I also worked a lot on climbing, both at rock gyms and on real trees, as well as on vault stunts and even more on archery. The training was really rough, but also really fun.”

The Zen focus of archery was challenging for Lawrence to master – as she learned to use both an old school hunting bow and the futuristic “recurve” bow, a twist on current Olympic bows, used in the Games — but very rewarding when she did. “Archery is a real mind game, all about total focus,” she says, “and if you do one thing wrong, you get whipped with a string going like a hundred miles an hour and it’s painful! I developed a real love-hate relationship with it. Ultimately, the bow became my friend.”

As part of her stunt work in the woods, Lawrence also had to confront a wall of fire created by Special Effects Set Foreman Brandon McLaughlin and Special Effects Coordinator Steve Cremin who built steel trees to withstand a forest blaze that was later enhanced by Visual Effects Supervisor Sheena Duggal. Says McLaughlin: “Gary’s idea was to keep everything real as possible. So instead of a ten-foot fireball that defies reality, he wanted a six-foot fireball moving at Katniss in a way that you really feel it.”

By the time production was underway, Lawrence was ready for whatever Katniss would face. “Jennifer was up for anything, bringing a great attitude to the training,” recalls Robin Bissell.

“Every day she would drive out to UCLA to train then head to the Valley for stunt training, then off to rock climbing and then to Santa Monica for lessons with an Olympic archer. She worked really, really hard and by the time we were filming, she had an amazing acumen for all of Katniss’ skills.”

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Though he’s been involved in sports since he was a little kid, Josh Hutcherson had to put on 15 pounds of muscle for the role of Peeta in the thrilling box office succes ‘The Hunger Games’. “I had to eat a lot of food and work out hard five days a week, with a lot of heavy weightlifting,” he explains. “The training was rigorous but it worked. And I loved doing all the running, jumping and evading people.

Stunt trainer Logan Hood adds: “We had Josh eating a ton and doing a crash program of heavy push and pull exercises. We had such a short lead time, but he jumped right into it.”

The muscle building was one thing, but finding the competitive edge necessary for the Games was something else again. “We had to learn to go from hanging out with your fellow actors to finding all kinds of fear and aggression against them. It was a very drastic transition every day, but we had amazing actors who brought that out physically,” says Hutcherson.

Alexander Ludwig especially had his work cut out for him as the ferocious Cato. “The fight training was extremely intense,” Ludwig admits. “I trained and trained and trained because I really wanted to be skilled the way Cato is. It was a great experience because I got to learn a lot of cool stuff, diving over things, doing flips, and more. I wanted to incorporate it all in the film, because I didn’t want to let any of what we learned go to waste.”

Dayo Okeniyi also had to do a lot of training to play Thresh. “I had to gain about 20 pounds so I went on a rigorous protein diet, did bodybuilding exercises, trained with swords, trained with boxing, and trained hand-to-hand combat for two months. But I love that stuff, so it was awesome.”

The entire cast was awed to see the results of their work ethic. “We were doing a lot of fun things like somersault rolls, balance boards, jumping on high blocks and obstacle courses,” recalls Jacqueline Emerson who plays Foxface. “But suddenly, you realize you’ve built all kinds of strength and stamina.”

Like the Tributes, the cast also had to endure the mercurial threats of shooting in the deep woods, which ranged from extreme weather to wild bears – not a complete surprise, given they were shooting in an area of North Carolina known for having the highest black bear density in the United States. “At times, if felt like we were all participating in the Games,” remarks Jon Kilik. “We were literally confronting snakes, bears and lightning and that is something you feel on the screen.”

“It was brutal at times,” Jack Quaid admits. “We had torrential downpours, flooding, scorching heat and then a bear would wander onto the set. But it was an amazing bonding experience. For most of us, this is either our first or second movie, and here we were flung into this crazy world. We definitely all had a great story to tell about what we did on our summer vacation.”

In the end, Ross wanted that heady mix of Katniss’ exhilaration, adrenaline, mortal fear and moral dilemmas to transfer directly to the audience as the characters battle to survive.  He knew there could be no holding back from the character’s raw emotions and tough decisions. “The beauty of what Suzanne did in the book was to always be honorable and never exploitative,” sums up Nina Jacobson. “She achieved that so deftly and Gary set out to keep that part of The Hunger Games’ legacy.”

For Suzanne Collins, that legacy is most of all about provoking young minds to think about the direction of the world’s future. As she told The New York Times about her hopes for The Hunger Games’ impact:

It’s crucial that young readers are considering scenarios about humanity’s future, because the challenges are about to land in their laps. I hope they question how elements of the books might be relevant in their own lives.

About global warming, about our mistreatment of the environment, but also questions like: How do you feel about the fact that some people take their next meal for granted when so many other people are starving in the world? What do you think about choices your government, past and present, or other governments around the world make? What’s your relationship to reality TV versus your relationship to the news?

Was there anything in the book that disturbed you because it reflected aspects of your own life, and if there was, what can you do about it? Because you know what? Even if they’re not of your making, these issues and how to deal with them will become your responsibility.

Image Courtesy of   Helga Esteb / Shutterstock.com

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Early on, Suzanne Collins made the decision to entrust Katniss and the re-creation of her life in Panem to Lionsgate because she liked their hands-on approach, accessibility and commitment to the spirit of the story across the entire top tier of Lionsgate’s film group.

“Everyone we needed to get the movie going was right there on the phone,” she recalls. “The studio was small enough for that to be possible and I felt it would be our best chance of seeing the story become a film.”

Lionsgate made it their mission to show Collins that they would be faithful to her vision for how to bring the book to the screen. “Suzanne thought we were the House of ‘Saw’,” recalls Joe Drake of his first phone call with the author, “but we convinced her that we could sensitively and accurately handle the material, citing our work on such films as the Academy Award-nominated ‘Precious’ and Best Picture winner ‘Crash’.”

Nina Jacobson was equally impressed with Lionsgate’s passion for the project. “I felt so connected to it and I was certain that there was a great movie to be made — but one that had to be treated with care,” she explains. “I made a very passionate case to Suzanne that her vision needed to safe-guarded and Lionsgate gave us their full support for a faithful adaptation that would not be about blood and gore, but thematically driven.”

Collins was likewise gratified by Jacobson’s contributions. “Of all the producers we met, I felt Nina had the greatest connection to the work,” says the author. “I believed her when she said she would do everything she could to protect its integrity.”

From the beginning, Drake, along with Lionsgate’s President of Production Alli Shearmur and marketing head Tim Palen, had lovingly referred to Suzanne as ‘Mother Hunger Games.’ Their most important aim was to stay true to their word to her about how the book would be treated, and their choice of director was the first – and maybe the most important – decision they’d make on the path to honoring that commitment to Suzanne and her book.

The process of safeguarding the story and the character of Katniss began with choosing a director that would bring the story to life technically, but more importantly, emotionally.  Their choice was sealed when Gary Ross showed up for the first meeting with Lionsgate prepared with extensive storyboards, and a video presentation of real kids talking candidly and passionately about why they love the book so much.

Explains Shearmur, “After this show of tremendous understanding and sensitivity, we all agreed that Ross was the man for the job. He’s known both for the fantastical vision of ‘Pleasantville’ and the visceral emotions of ‘Seabiscuit’, and it was that balance that was so essential to this film.”

For Jacobson, Ross had the perfect blend of epic and intimate storytelling skills to immerse the audience directly into Katniss’ most subjective experiences. “Gary is not just a director but a writer/director and that was an important distinction for this movie,” she says. “Getting the book right was such a big responsibility, and Gary’s understanding of how Katniss’ POV had to be the heart and soul of the story was spot on.

He really connected with Suzanne, and they ended up writing the script together. Most importantly, while Gary has amazing visual ideas, he always knew this story had to come from a character place. So he approached it in such a way that characters drive the suspense at every turn and the audience has the chance to experience this world completely through their eyes.”   

Ross then brought on board producer Jon Kilik, with whom he had collaborated on ‘Pleasantville’. He, too, was won over by the book. “It has elements of classic movies that I’ve always loved, from ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ to ‘The Breakfast Club’, blended with a dystopian vision of where our society could be headed.

I found that to be an amazing mix and as soon as I read it, I told Gary I was in,” Kilik recalls. “I’ve known Gary since 1997 and I knew he was the right choice for ‘The Hunger Games’ because he has children who love the book, and because he has this very rare and unique ability to evoke both teen angst and alternate worlds.

Even though this story takes place in the future, I think Gary perceived that it’s more reflective of today than you might think – and that’s why people, not just kids but adults too, really connect to Katniss and Panem.  Katniss is trying to survive a tough world of game playing and manipulation, just as we all are.”

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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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Sometimes, fans of series get seriously annoyed when a movie adaption of their favorite book or comic stray too far from the original material.  In the case of ‘The Hunger Games,‘ though, it’s actually the opposite.

When reading, people usually create their own mental images of what characters look like, and when the movie does not accurately represent how they imagined the characters to look, they complain.  A number of fans did not think of some of the characters in the novel as being black, and are now angry with author Suzanna Collins and the producers of the film for casting black actors in important roles.  African-American actors Lenny Kravitz and Dayo Okeniyi play Cinna and Thresh, respectively, while actress Amandla Stenberg takes up the role of Rue.

“Im still pissed that rue is black. Like you think se might have mentioned that…?” @LexieBrowning tweeted.  But Suzanne Collins did bring it up in The Hunger Games. Rue is mentioned having “dark brown skin and eyes.”

The character Thresh is also described as having darker skin, but Cinna’s race was not mentioned in the trilogy.

Lexie is far from being the only person mad about the colored cast.  The Tumblr Hunger Games Tweets has collected an ensemble of racist tweets directed toward Kravitz, Okeniyi and Stenberg.

Some comments were less offensive than others, with tweets ranging from the relatively innocent “Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the innocent blonde girl you picture,” to more distasteful tweets.  @Joe_Longley wrote, “EWW rue is black? I’m not watching.”  Several others made use of the “N word” in their tweets.  @maggie_mcd11 tweeted, “why does rue have to be black not gonna lie kinda ruined the movie.”  The original user has since given up the account and a comedian is now at the helm of it, posting tweets making fun of the offensive tweet, such as, “Why does Herman Cain have to be black not gonna lie kinda ruined pizza.”

Some twitter account holders have at least shown some disappointment in themselves for their feelings towards the actors, “Kk call me racist but when i found out rue was black her death wasn’t as sad #ihatemyself,” wrote @Jashperparas.

Stenberg revealed in a statement given to Us Weekly the she would not let the tweets get her down.

“As a fan of the books, I feel fortunate to be part of ‘The Hunger Games’ family.  It was an amazing experience. I am proud of the film and my performance. I want to thank all of my fans and the entire ‘Hunger Games’ community for their support and loyalty.”

Despite the outrage and disappointment of racist fans, The Hunger Games did spectacularly at the box office, raking in $155 million from the opening weekend, managing to have the third highest opening weekend after “The Dark Knight” and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2.”

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