Though they’re not quite as prevalent as they once were, it wasn’t too long ago when the YA faze was sweeping over Hollywood, with every studio rushing to get their own franchise out the door in hopes of emulating the success that Warner Bros. found with Harry Potter. Admittedly, nothing was ever able to reach quite the same heights as the hit fantasy series, but a few properties came close. Namely, The Hunger Games and Twilight.
The former franchise stretched four movies and ended in 2015 while the latter brought us five instalments and concluded in 2012. By all accounts, each one was mega successful. Perhaps not always with critics, but in terms of bringing in the big bucks for Lionsgate, both of them delivered and as such, it’s really no surprise to learn from Variety that the studio is looking to dive back into each of them.
After all, this isn’t the first time that we’ve heard we may be getting more of Twilight and The Hunger Games, and while no firm plans have been set as of yet, make no mistake about it, it’s just a matter of time before a revival happens. In fact, Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer said as much during a recent earnings call.
Speaking about revisiting the beloved franchises, the studio exec said: “There are a lot more stories to be told, and we’re ready to tell them when our creators are ready to tell those stories.” As for what form a continuation could take, well, that remains to be seen, but in all likelihood Lionsgate is probably looking at a spinoff. After all, both Twilight and The Hunger Games are ripe for such a thing and there’s a number of directions that the studio could head in if that’s the route they decide to take.
Whether or not the creators behind each series, Stephenie Meyer and Suzanne Collins, respectively, are interested in continuing on is another question entirely, but at the end of the day, we imagine that the financial gains would be too tempting to say no to. Despite the diminishing quality in each franchise (though one can argue that there was never much quality to be found in Twilight to begin with), you can bet that audiences would still show up in droves for a revival of either and as such, it shouldn’t be too difficult to convince the authors to give their consent to do more.
Time will ultimately tell what becomes of these franchises, but what do you make of all this? Should Lionsgate push forward with more of Twilight and The Hunger Games, or have you had enough of the YA craze already? Take to the usual place and let us know.
