Adam Lenhardt
Senior HTF Member
This is the latest blockbuster franchise adapted from a literary source to stretch the final book out into two movies. The first half premieres this Friday.
So far, the reviews are holding at 86% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes -- an excellent score, slightly above the 84% fresh for the first film but slightly less than the 89% fresh for the second film. The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy has given it the most notable negative review so far, calling it "...an overgrown and bloated trailer for a film yet to come" and saying that it "spreads perhaps 45 minutes of dramatic material across two far-too-leisurely hours."
Director Francis Lawrence told The Huffington Post that Philip Seymour Hoffman still had two scenes left to shoot for the two-parter when he died of a heroin overdose. Out of respect for him and his performance, they opted to rewrite the scenes with other characters rather than try to fake his presence with stand-ins or digital trickery.
The first film was shot by Tom Stern on Super 35 and cropped to 2.4:1. Catching Fire was shot by Jo Willems using a mix of cameras and techniques. Most of the film was shot on 35mm using anamorphic lenses. All of the stuff in the arena was designed for the IMAX aspect ratios. The bulk was shot using IMAX cameras at 1.43:1 and with planned crops at 1.9:1 for IMAX digital and 2.4:1 for regular cinemas. The stuff in the arena that was impractical to shoot with IMAX cameras was shot Super 35 protected for 1.43:1, with planned crops at 1.9:1 for IMAX digital and 2.4:1 for regular cinemas. Due to the compressed shooting schedule and the amount of scenes shot in low-light conditions, Lawrence and Willems opted to shoot the two Mockingjay films digitally using ARRI Alexa cameras.
So far, the reviews are holding at 86% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes -- an excellent score, slightly above the 84% fresh for the first film but slightly less than the 89% fresh for the second film. The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy has given it the most notable negative review so far, calling it "...an overgrown and bloated trailer for a film yet to come" and saying that it "spreads perhaps 45 minutes of dramatic material across two far-too-leisurely hours."
Director Francis Lawrence told The Huffington Post that Philip Seymour Hoffman still had two scenes left to shoot for the two-parter when he died of a heroin overdose. Out of respect for him and his performance, they opted to rewrite the scenes with other characters rather than try to fake his presence with stand-ins or digital trickery.
The first film was shot by Tom Stern on Super 35 and cropped to 2.4:1. Catching Fire was shot by Jo Willems using a mix of cameras and techniques. Most of the film was shot on 35mm using anamorphic lenses. All of the stuff in the arena was designed for the IMAX aspect ratios. The bulk was shot using IMAX cameras at 1.43:1 and with planned crops at 1.9:1 for IMAX digital and 2.4:1 for regular cinemas. The stuff in the arena that was impractical to shoot with IMAX cameras was shot Super 35 protected for 1.43:1, with planned crops at 1.9:1 for IMAX digital and 2.4:1 for regular cinemas. Due to the compressed shooting schedule and the amount of scenes shot in low-light conditions, Lawrence and Willems opted to shoot the two Mockingjay films digitally using ARRI Alexa cameras.