Jennifer Lawrence truly went off the radar for a little while, got married, and had a baby. But now she’s easing her way back into the movie-making and celebrity world. She has a new movie coming out, No Hard Feelings, that seems like lowkey spon-con for….wait for it…Buick. Yeah, the old-school luxury imprint for General Motors. This is their marketing strategy, sponsoring a movie where a 32-year-old played by Jennifer Lawrence agrees to date a 19 year old wallflower in exchange for…a used Buick Regal. Is Buick trying to appeal to a younger, hipper consumer by making their car a major plot point in a raunchy R-rated comedy? Lord, beer me strength.
I went off on a tangent there but it is an exceptionally silly corporate gambit that I believe deserves to be made fun of. I think the people making the film were happy to have any help they could get. It’s hard to get original features financed these days. While promoting the Buick Movie, she said something in an interview for Variety that surprised me: she says she’d happily play Katniss Everdeen again–the Hunger Games character that made her a star. I never really got the vibe that she’d be down to return to that world.
Jennifer Lawrence is ready to play the girl on fire again.
The Oscar winner says she is open to returning to the “Hunger Games” franchise after she became a household name for her work as Katniss in the four movies.
“Oh, my God – totally!” Lawrence told me Friday morning during a Zoom video interview while promoting her new R-rated coming-of-age comedy, “No Hard Feelings.” “If Katniss ever could ever come back into my life, 100 percent.”
Looking off camera, she added, “My producing partner just clutched her heart.”
The four “Hunger Games” installments starred Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Stanley Tucci, Elizabeth Banks, Donald Sutherland and Woody Harrelson. The first, released in 2012, was directed by Gary Ross with the following three helmed by Francis Lawrence.
An upcoming prequel movie, “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” stars Viola Davis, Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman and Hunter Schafer. The film chronicles Coriolanus Snow’s rise to power to become President of Panem. It is set for release Nov. 17.
I remember seeing the first Hunger Games movie in college and I won’t lie, I found Jennifer’s performance in it quite moving. It’s probably because I identify with Katniss, the protective older sister. But I think the source material isn’t that good. The fourth book sort of ruined the whole thing for me. I’m sure Jennifer would be great as an older Katniss, maybe just coming to terms with the extraordinary trauma that the character faced as a child. But I cannot stress enough how tired I am of sequels and prequels. And honestly I think Jennifer deserves better. She has been in some questionable projects (remember Passengers?) but when she’s given the right material, she does great work. Everybody deserves better in Hollywood, frankly. Viola Davis, who is a queen and who elevates every single project she appears in, deserves better than a Hunger Games prequel, I’ll just say it. I think audiences are getting tired of nothing but franchises and kids’ films at the multiplex. There’s a sea change ahead, I hope. Streaming isn’t working as a business model, nobody’s going to the movies as often as they did five or ten years ago, and even Marvel movies aren’t always the surest bets…I don’t think Hollywood has been this destabilized since the collapse of the old studio system in the 1950s. Maybe something good will come out of it.
Photos credit: Olivier Huitel/Avalon, T. Jackson/Backgrid and Getty
“Lord, beer me strength” okay that was funny. I’m hoping sag will strike too just because I think it will expedite negotiations for the writers and give them more leverage.
To your point on sequels and prequels I couldn’t agree more, marvel may take it to the extreme but it’s exhausting trying to keep up with everything you need to have watched (and remember) to enjoy this new thing that’s out. I’ve given up.
I’m sure I missed plot points coming in to Fast X not having seen any since maybe 5 (and now I’m not even sure I saw that one) but it was still fun (and utterly ridiculous).
Part of the wider issue is access to things. There are a few films that have come out that I’d have loved to watch but they’re on Apple and I’m not paying for another service. Don’t taunt me with cinema trailers if I can’t come to the cinema and watch it (looking at you Tetris).
I think I only saw the first one, not really my thing. But given how often studios are going back to their properties for sequels and prequels, I wouldn’t be surprised.
She looks very pretty in that header photo.
I loved all the Hunger Games movies and can’t wait for the prequel. No Hard Feelings looks hysterical and the trailer had me really laughing. Looking forward to Barbie too. We don’t actually go to the movies anymore but buy them when they stream. The Regal theatre near me switched to Pepsi and they are now dead to me. 🤷♀️😢😂
I love all the hunger games books/movies so I’m excited for the prequel. It’s the only movie I would see in a movie theater. I would love for Jennifer to reprise her role as katniss.
Prequels and sequels is just proof to me that movie stars are not what they used to be. The franchise is stronger than the actor. In this case, it is true that I dont really want to pay to go see Jennifer Lawrence, i would probably be going becuase I want to see another hunger games.
I want the true stars, the ones you cant wait to see again because you know it’s going to be good like the Tom Cruise (I know…), Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts, Sly/Arnold at the time. I dont think Jennifer Lawrence is there yet for me? Who really has an urge to pay to see Vin Diesel really?
I liked the trilogy– both books and movie. I read the books after the first movie came out. Confused what Carina means about the FOURTH book– does she mean the prequel or is she confusing with the third book, Mockingjay?
… but yeah, no more prequels and. sequels. I am truly at the point now where if it’s a franchise I am just not interested. It’s not that good films can’t still be made in franchises, but the profit incentive is overwhelming the art for me.
I kind of suspect that Jennifer’s response is just to continue to support the franchise and express gratitude/positive feelings about the Hunger Games in her career (if she said anything else, people would ask questions).
The books (the source material) were excellent. Unfortunately so much of that excellence was interior and extremely difficult to translate to movies.
I did think that some aspects of the things done to the tributes in the Games (the mutts) and the traps in the city in the third book were a bit cartoonish but overall the books were brilliant.
They conveyed so many themes and they showed the awful effects of dictatorships, fascism, an-eye-for-an-eye tactics, and war. The characters suffered from PTSD, injuries and trauma. Nothing was glorified.
They were great YA books. The movies were okay adaptations.
But how could Katniss come back unless her peace was destroyed and she was retraumatised? No, she should be left alone.
Hunger Games made her super famous. She’s not the type of actress to be above that and say oh no I’d never go there again. Of course she enthusiastically said she would. That’s her brand. Also, a hundred percent unlikely to happen.
I will watch Viola Davis in any role she takes whether it’s for art or a paycheck.
To be fair to the Hunger Games prequel, in comparison with other Hollywood franchises where the studio ran something fresh and good into the ground and ruined it with unnecessary sequels and prequels and remakes in order to squeeze as much money as possible out of the property, the original author of the trilogy wrote the prequel book, it was successful, and then a movie was greenlit to adapt it. So it’s not really the same thing as what you’re likening it too. And it takes place decades before the original trilogy, so there’s no question of Jennifer reprising Katniss. She’s just talking about it because people are talking about Hunger Games again because of the prequel movie coming out this year.
That’s not to say the OG trilogy wasn’t guilty of this. There was absolutely no need to split up and drag out the third book into two movies beyond a shameless cash grab, and it actually ruined my investment in the franchise until the prequel book, which is pretty good, imo.
She was also in some, maybe X-Men or something, movies. First I’d heard of her – she was blue and everyone had some special odd skill.
I didn’t like her as Katniss. Her performance became increasingly lazy in Catching Fire. I actually didn’t watch the two MockingJay films because of her, and I was obsessed with the books .