With Star Wars: The Force Awakens also on the calendar and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice hogging the media spotlight, it’s been shockingly easy to forget that another major franchise event is headed our way this year in the final Hunger Games installment. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 will bring the tale of Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen to a fiery conclusion as she takes the fight for Panem’s future to the dastardly President Snow (Donald Sutherland).
Amid all the explosions, however, the finale also heightens the emotional stakes, and a new photo from the pic (premiered by EW) highlights a strengthening bond between Katniss and Elizabeth Banks’ Effie Trinket.
“There is some serious girl power in this movie,” director Francis Lawrence (no relation to his star) told EW, crediting book author Suzanne Collins. “She wrote it that way, and it’s been so much fun to inhabit.”
The director went on to call Mockingjay – Part 2 the “most emotional of the bunch” but also “the most satisfying,” surely music to the ears of fans who felt short-changed by the abrupt conclusion of the franchise’s penultimate entry.
The blockbuster Hunger Games franchise has taken audiences by storm around the world, grossing more than $2.2 billion at the global box office, and it was the #1 movie of the year two years in a row domestically. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 now brings the franchise to its powerful fourth chapter in which Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) now fully realizes the stakes are no longer just for survival — they are for the future.
With the nation of Panem in a full scale war, Katniss confronts President Snow (Donald Sutherland) in the final showdown. Teamed with a group of her closest friends – including Gale (Liam Hemsworth), Finnick (Sam Claflin), and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) – Katniss goes off on a mission with the unit from District 13 as they risk their lives to stage an assassination attempt on President Snow who has become increasingly obsessed with destroying her. The mortal traps, enemies, and moral choices that await Katniss will challenge her more than any arena she faced in The Hunger Games.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 opens November 20.
