There’s been quite a bit of Hunger Games news in the last 24 hours, starting off with the news, via Variety, that casting for the coveted role of Finnick Odair in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire has come to an end, with Pirate 4 and Snow White & The Hunstman’s Sam Claflin chosen for the role.
Melissa Leo and Tony Shalhoub have also been mentioned as front runners to play fellow Hunger Games winners Mags and Beetee. Lionsgate hasn’t confirmed any of these, but they have said Amanda Plummer will play Wiress.
Back in May, it was rumoured that Armie Hammer, Taylor Kitsch, and Garrett Hedlund were the front runners for Finnick, although it seems now that Sam Claflin has won the role. Odair is the District 4 tribute who won the 65th Annual Hunger Games, and returns to the battlefield for the Quarter Quell, where past Hunger Games victors battle each other.
Mags was Finnick’s mentor when he first won The Hunger Games at the age of 14, one of the youngest winners in Panem history. She volunteers to join the Quarter Quell in the place of Finnick’s lover, Annie Cresta. Beetee is an inventor nicknamed Bolts by Johanna Mason (Jena Malone), due to his electrifying weapons. Wiress meanwhile is from District 3. She’s a smart but odd woman who has a hard time communicating her ideas to the other tributes.
Lionsgate is also looking ahead to who will direct the final two Hunger Games movies, based on Mockingjay, as Francis Lawrence, who is making Catching Fire, apparently won’t be back. There’s no news on who it might be, but Anne Thompson says “Summit’s Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger, producers Nina Jacobson and author Suzanne Collins are currently vetting the right directors” for the final two films.
It still doesn’t seem quite right that Daniel Radcliffe is signing up for movies that don’t start with ‘Harry Potter and the…’ but he’s added another, this time heading for his first romantic comedy, called The F Word. Zoe Kazan has also signed up for Goon director Michael Dowse’s movie.
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After the box office success of Moonrise Kingdom, which has earned $44 million worldwide from a $16 million budget, director Wes Anderson is going right back to work on his new project. The filmmaker has secured Johnny Depp to star in his new ensemble drama entitled The Grand Budapest Hotel, which is likely to Wes’ next movie, according to 
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