Gary Ross reportedly sees the movie franchise as bigger than others like 'Twilight' and therefore thinks that Lionsgate should pay him a more decent salary than the first.
- April 5, 2012
AceShowbiz -
"The Hunger Games" director Gary Ross has not committed himself to the hit movie's sequel due to, reportedly, salary problem. Although the movie has broken $363 million in the box office, Ross would not sign up for "Catching Fire" unless Lionsgate will give him a raise.
According to THR, the first negotiations to get him on board of "Hunger Games" left a mark that prevented Ross from signing right away the second time. The so-called seasoned filmmaker took a relatively low wage of $3 million plus 5|percent| of the backend gross for double duties as director and co-writer.
Problem is, Lionsgate is not used to paying seasoned-filmmaker fees while Ross wanted a significant raise way before he knew how the first movie would perform. Lionsgate then had negotiations with Ross three weeks into the March 23 premiere but the director stepped on the brake after knowing that the movie was on to a huge opening number.
On the other side, Lionsgate is anxious to start the filming of the second movie this fall although there's a possibility that lead star Jennifer Lawrence will start filming a new "X-Men" movie for FOX around the same time. Meanwhile, the other actors, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth, have all signed up and the script for the second is already written by Simon Beaufoy even though it is still subject to Ross' revision. Lionsgate has also set the release date to November 22, 2013 release.
