We’re more than a year out from the release of last year’s The Hunger Games– which we here at Go, See, Talk! really dug– and still around eight months away from the theatrical run of the next installment in the series, Catching Fire. That’s enough to drive a fan of Suzanne Collins’ dystopian young adult sci-fi novels nuts, so we should all be thankful that Lionsgate is throwing us a bone with the release of the first official teaser for the film- even more so since the clip is pretty darn great.
Catching Fire, for the uninitiated, picks up right where the last movie leaves off, putting Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence, plus her new Oscar) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson, boasting trophy envy) right in the thick of a victory tour following their win in the previous games of the title. It’s a rank publicity stunt, one that doesn’t go as planned and ultimately identifies Ms. Everdeen as a threat to President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and his rule over Panem. How can he get away with eliminating her and extinguishing her influence on the oppressed and downtrodden? Well, you’ll have to watch the film and see.
And I mean that for real, because this footage doesn’t give anything away. (Except for the presence of one Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who brings class to anything he shows up in.) Check it out below:
If you’re a savvy viewer you might be able piece together what all of this means for our plucky, beloved heroine. (And if you’ve read the books, well, yeah. Duh.) While the presence of Francis Lawrence doesn’t immediately command respect, he’s got some good-looking material here, granting that there’s only so much that a teaser can really tell us about its content. After a couple of minutes, though, it’s clear that Catching Fire has a ton of promise and will up the stakes in a big, big way. Any wonder why it’s on our most anticipated list for the year?
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire arrives in theaters November 22, 2013. Are you looking forward to it? Or was the first film not your cup of tea?
