With only a month to go before "The Hunger Games" hits theaters, now is the time for die-hard fans of the books to start really and truly panicking over what kind of terrible, shocking differences there will be between the literary trilogy we loved and the movie we can't wait to see. I mean, it's Hollywood! They could do anything! And what if they make Peeta a butcher boy, not a baker? Or what if Haymitch isn't as drunk as he's supposed to be? Or what if the infamous tracker jacker scene includes a surprise musical number in which the jackers don't just sting, but also sing, tap-dance and play jazz medleys on tiny dystopian saxophones?!! It'll be anarchy!
...Except actually, we don't have to worry about any of this. Because when Josh Horowitz sat down with director Gary Ross, he made sure to grill him real good about just how close he stayed to the source material when adapting the book for film...and Gary came back with the news that not only did he cling as closely as possible to Suzanne Collins' vision, but he was pretty close—literally—to Suzanne herself.
"She wrote the last draft of the script with me," Gary said. "We collaborated. We were in a room together! We locked ourselves up in a room and literally wrote the last draft of the script together."
Okay, then! Consider us assured—because if there's anyone we trust not to muck up the greatness of "The Hunger Games," it's the person who wrote the books. But Gary went one step further, explaining, "It's very, very faithful in the literal sense, but it's even more faithful in the tonal sense. My job is to give you that same visceral feeling you felt when you read the book."
And just in case you still weren't satisfied, Josh went ahead and asked him point-blank: Are there any differences between the books and the movies that are truly going to infuriate fans? Like, say, surprise deaths of characters we expected to see in the sequels?
"Oh no," Gary protested. "No, no, no. It's a faithful adaptation. There are obviously differences, because I'm adapting a book to the screen, but no. It's not like Peeta leaves the story or anything like that."
And by "anything like that," we assume he also means "there will be no singing, tap-dancing, saxophone-playing tracker jackers in this movie." Which is no doubt a great relief to all of us.
Don't miss the premiere of Taylor Swift's "Safe & Sound" video during "MTV First: Taylor Swift" on Monday at 7:54 p.m. ET on MTV, followed by an exclusive chat with Swift about her "Hunger Games" clip on MTV.com.
Are you still a bit worried of how things might change between "Hunger Games," the book, and "Hunger Games," the movie?
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