In a story that began as will or won’t Gary Ross return to direct Catching Fire, the sequel to the now $500+ million international hit, The Hunger Games, has now become what director will board the project? (Ross vacated the director’s chair feeling he couldn’t prep the sequel for the August production start.)
Lionsgate had a list of directors that it whittled down to just two: Francis Lawrence (Water for Elephants, I Am Legend) and Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball). Despite the fact that both know their way around helming adaptations of popular works of literature, the studio is going with Lawrence – his work on Legend and Constantine probably weighed heavily in the decision, considering the production design of the Hunger Games saga.
Lawrence, who has no conflicts with productions, is jumping right into the project and will be raring to go for August. While there was an issue to as whether or not Jennifer Lawrence’s commitments to a X-Men: First Class sequel would delay Catching Fire‘s production, it appears that 20th Century Fox has pushed its production back to a January 2013 start, thus allowing Lawrence to go from one franchise to another with ease.
