While the bulk of Lionsgate's marketing for The Hunger Games has been targeted at the young adult audience, Suzanne Collins' novels are pretty graphic in their content. It is after all about a future in which the children from poor districts are forced to fight and kill one another mostly for entertainment. The violence perpetrated against the young puts it on the same level as something like the similarly themed Battle Royale. Would Gary Ross and Lionsgate tone down the content in order to maintain an audience friendly MPAA rating?
According to the MPAA, The Hunger Games has been rated PG-13 "for intense violent thematic material and disturbing images - all involving teens." That would seem to indicate that the violence hasn't been toned down much, although it's likely many of the more brutal acts will be left mostly off screen. This is probably the best place for the film to be, since a harsher rating would have left the primary audience out in the cold, while lightening the tone too much would render the story unrecognizable to its considerable fan base.
Lionsgate has also released a new 60-second TV spot, focusing on the life experienced by Katniss Everdeen(Jennifer Lawrence) in the poor, totalitarian ruled District 12. The studio appears to be keeping the bulk of the competition action scenes under wraps, choosing instead to flesh out the world that the Hunger Games could exist in....
The Hunger Games opens in a mere three weeks on March 23rd! Got your tickets yet?
