
In late breaking news, director
Francis Lawrence has become Lionsgate's choice to head up
Catching Fire, the highly anticipated sequel to
The Hunger Games. This comes less than two weeks after Gary Ross,
THG's director, made his decision not to be involved with the rest of the franchise. His decision was due to the filming schedule for
Catching Fire and the high demand for the film's star
Jennifer Lawrence, who will be splitting her time between filming the movie adaptation of the next installment of the
Hunger Games series and the sequel to 2011's
X-Men: First Class, in which she played a young Mystique. The wildly successful
Hunger Games adaptation has grossed $336,666,363 as of April 15, $152,535,747 of which is the total for the opening weekend.