After it was conflicting report surfaced, which led most to believe negotiations with the co-writer/director had reached a point where both sides of the table were playing things out in the press. Well, that game is over as Lionsgate released an official statement from Ross confirming he won’t be back.
“I simply don’t have the time I need to write and prep the movie I would have wanted to make because of the fixed and tight production schedule,” Ross said in his statement before going into the standard niceties.
Curiously enough, this seems to mildly contradict Deadline‘s report which seemed to indicate the screenplay had been coming along nicely after Ross and “Hunger Games” author and co-screenwriter Suzanne Collins began working on Catching Fire back in November, before bringing in Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) to pen the first draft. This would seem to suggest there is still plenty of work to do and if Ross, supposedly, didn’t have the time to make it how could anyone possibly step in?
Of course, the script may not be near ready, or at least not to Ross’s standards but while I don’t want to get too deep into commenting on the first film, the script was certainly not one of its strong suits. Then again, neither was the direction.
As much as this has been made to seem as if it’s a big deal in recent weeks, major franchises including James Bond, Harry Potter, Twilight, The Avengers and others have all switched directors and never missed a beat and it isn’t as if Ross put such a signature on The Hunger Games a replacement can’t come in and take over.
At this point I’m actually more curious about the script. Will it be rewritten? Will Collins co-write the script again? Will Lionsgate try and bring in another writer/director to replace Ross?
I haven’t heard when production is expected to begin on Catching Fire, but recent reports seemed to indicate the film would be done shooting by the end of the year, in time for Jennifer Lawrence to begin working on X-Men: First Class 2 in January. So Lionsgate will likely need to move fast, which means we should have a replacement soon enough.
Catching Fire is currently slated for release on November 22, 2013.
