Hunger Games | featured news

The perfect alignment of the gift-giving season and anticipation for The Hunger Games movie is boosting sales for Suzanne Collins' popular young-adult trilogy. The first book, The Hunger Games, reaches No. 1 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list for the first time (its previous peak was No. 2, on Sept. 29). Catching Fire is No. 7, Mockingjay is No. 8, and the boxed set is No. 27. "As strongly as The Hunger Games trilogy has been selling all year, it's been amazing to see how many new readers continue to discover the books every day through word-of-mouth recommendations, holiday gifts, and the incredible buzz for the upcoming movie," says Scholastic's Ellie Berger. The movie, starring Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, opens March 23.

Forget "Harry Potter" and "Twilight." In a few months, "The Hunger Games" phenomenon will be taking over the pop culture world. Although it will be feeding off the tween demographic, this franchise will chew up those other guys and spit them out. But what exactly is this "Hunger Games" wonder that has so many folks talking months before the movie (which just wrapped up filming earlier this month) is even released? Like many of the wildly successful film franchises these days, it began with a book.

How many roles are in this movie? It feels like I hear a new cast announcement for THE HUNGER GAMES every day. But this one seems important, as the role of Seneca Crane has been cast, where Crane is the head gamemaker who creates the titular tournament.

The film is based on a futuristic young-adult novel by Suzanne Collins.