By Rollo Ross
CANNES, France, May 18 (Reuters) – The death of actor Philip
Seymour Hoffman by an accidental drug overdose in February has
not sidelined production of the latest installment of “Hunger
Games,” its director said.
Director Francis Lawrence and the stars of the blockbuster
franchise, including Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence (no
relation), spoke to Reuters at the Cannes Film Festival.
Seymour Hoffman’s sudden death in New York occurred while
the latest instalment in the blockbuster series, “Mockingjay
Part 1″ was still being shot.
He played a central role in the film as Plutarch Heavensbee,
the Head Gamemaker controlling the annual televised fight to the
death between boys and girls in the post-apocalyptic nation of
Panem.
Rather than recasting the role, director Francis Lawrence
chose to work on script rewrites to get around the loss of his
character.
Seymour Hoffman – who won a Best Actor Oscar in 2005 for his
role as Truman Capote in “Capote” – had shot the bulk of his
part before his death, Lawrence said.
“He was scheduled for 50 days or so and he had shot about 42
or 43 of those days,” Lawrence said. “He had about 8 days left
but the meat of his performance was already finished.”
“There were a couple of scenes that were pretty substantial
which we ended up giving to other actors to take over and
obviously although no-one is a replacement for Phil, the story
still works.”
Big-budget movies that are not competing in the prestigious
film festival, such as “Hunger Games”, often come to Cannes with
their stars to drum up publicity.
The previous two “Hunger Games” films grossed more than $400
million in worldwide box office receipts on their theatrical
releases. The books by Suzanne Collins on which the films are
based have sold more than 65 million copies in the United States
alone.
(Editing by Alexandria Sage and Angus MacSwan)
