Lionsgate in Talks for Hunger Games Theme Park, the Hungriest Place on Earth

Wasn’t I just talking about misguided attempts at marketing The Hunger Games? I suppose this was inevitable when we made an action blockbuster franchise out of a dystopian future setting where the enemy isn’t robots or aliens or disease or a natural disaster or dragons… it’s just other people.

There isn’t a lot of information to go on here, but the story comes from a phone conference between Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer and industry analysts. From Variety:

Feltheimer said Lionsgate had been approached about “Hunger Games” theme parks in two territories and was considering those possibilities. He gave no further details.

What Variety might want to think about is the kind of fan of The Hunger Games that would actually shell out hundreds of dollars to spend a day immersed in its setting. Specifically, whether that fan exists. The difference between The Hunger Games and, say, Harry Potter, is that there’s literally no part of the world that most readers actually want to see come alive. (Also, like, everything else about the books aside from the fact that they star teenagers.) There’s the abject poverty and forced labor of the higher numbered districts, the somewhat more gilded but still very clear cage of the lower numbers, and then a Capitol full of people who live happy and uncaring on the blood and tears of others, joyfully ripping twenty four families apart every year in order to derive entertainment from their unhappiness.

If I may make an obscure reference, I’m pretty sure the hardcore fans of The Hunger Games who you’ll be depending on for a theme park attraction would be fine with walking away from that Omelas.

(via Variety)

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