Nordling here.
Now that Gary Ross has exited, Lionsgate is scrambling to figure out who should be the director for CATCHING FIRE, the seuqel to THE HUNGER GAMES. And 24 Frames seems to have the skinny on who Lionsgate has in mind - they claim to have seen the short list of directors that Lionsgate would like to get involved in the project.
They don't reveal the full list, but they do say that the list is entirely comprised of male directors, and that three names stand out, especially - Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and David Cronenberg. Cuarón, of course, directed HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN, my personal favorite of the Potter films, and neither Cronenberg or Iñárritu have ever attempted anything as mainstream and as popular as THE HUNGER GAMES.
It also depends on who can get along best with Suzanne Collins, and while Cuarón definitely brought his own flavor to POTTER, I'd be curious as to any conversations he had with J. K. Rowling on that particular movie, because it doesn't feel so much like a Potter film as it does a Cuarón film. Anyone who Lionsgate finds, regardless, will have to find grace under pressure, considering the box office and the stakes involved, and none of these directors mentioned seems to be the type to roll over for an insistent studio.
I haven't read CATCHING FIRE, so I don't know how the movie would benefit from these filmmakers' visions, but who would you like to see continue this series? And why no women directors? I think someone like Kathryn Bigelow could absolutely nail these movies.
