Every dollar Disney won't get at the box office for the $250-million “John Carter” will probably end up in the pockets of Lionsgate and the other entities behind “The Hunger Games” (which allegedly cost less than half as much). The first volume of Suzanne Collins' series about a plucky girl in a dystopic future arrived just as Stephenie Meyer's “Twilight” saga — about a plucky girl in a lycanthropic (and vampiric) present — was winding down, tapping into the same female tween/teen audience.
That demographic certainly doesn't need a plot synopsis here, but since their parents probably do ...
In a post-apocalyptic America, the government keeps the once-rebellious proles in line through force, humiliation and hopelessness. Every year, each of the 12 districts (whose labor allows the city dwellers to live in luxury) chooses, in a lottery, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to take part in the Hunger Games. These 24 contestants are dumped in a wilderness, from which only one will be allowed to emerge alive. As the kids kill each other, the resulting mayhem is broadcast on live TV, molded into a narrative that delights the decadent urbanites and demoralizes the impoverished outlanders.
