The politics of “too soon” are tricky. If tomorrow, chanteuse of the year Adele unexpectedly dropped dead, there would be no way to tell when it would be appropriate to start making “hello from the other side” jokes. Jennifer Lawrence is all too familiar with the subtle complexities of “too soon,” and showed off her workable understanding of the concept in a recent chat with Variety at the premiere of her new film Joy. While walking the carpet, for her newest effort with David O. Russell, a Variety reporter asked her opinion on the recent announcement from Lionsgate vice chairman Michael Burns that a series of prequels to The Hunger Games franchise was a-coming down the pike. In his comments, Burns also added, somewhat threateningly, that the series of films would “live on and on and on.”
Lawrence reacted the way most levelheaded human beings reacted to this news, and voiced her disapproval to Variety‘s Brent Lang. “I wouldn’t be involved,” she told them, “I think it’s too soon. They’ve got to let the body get cold, in my opinion.” (Lawrence, having previously attempted to prematurely resurrect several still-warm dead bodies, knows what she’s talking about.)
She’s probably right about this being an unwise idea. With a legion of pale imitations (Divergent, Scorch Trials, what’s good?) clogging cineplexes, Hunger Games fatigue has begun to set in for the pop-culture consumers of America. The recent Mockingjay — Part 2 a.k.a. Hunger Games 3: 2 a.k.a. Hunger Games 4 drew the humblest box-office receipts of any film in the franchise, and much of the films’ original appeal relied on Lawrence’s star-power. A potential sequel released without its poster gal, in a future where people are sort of sick of Hunger Games-ish movies, and not based on the hugely popular source novels that guaranteed a built-in audience, would be a much bigger gamble for Lionsgate. But franchises demand new blood, and so it shall be, too soon or otherwise.
