00:00 Francis, congratulations on the movie.
00:01 Thank you.
00:02 But first and foremost, I'm going to throw you a curveball.
00:03 I was sat down the other night, watched myself some I Am Legend, still a quality movie.
00:07 Oh yeah.
00:08 Still holds up.
00:09 There's some rumours over time about the idea of an I Am Legend 2.
00:12 There may be one, yeah.
00:13 So this is something, this is a potential reality and not a pipe dream?
00:18 You know, I don't know.
00:19 I've been, I have to say, I'm going to admit that I've been a little more on the sidelines
00:22 of that.
00:23 A thing I've been more active in is trying to get Constantine 2 going.
00:27 So me and Keanu and Akiva, who's also on I Am Legend, like I've been putting more of
00:31 my energy into Constantine 2.
00:34 So are you suggesting that that might be closer to reality right now as well?
00:38 I mean, maybe for me, maybe, yeah.
00:40 It's another great movie, I'll be honest here.
00:41 I love that movie.
00:42 OK, let's get on to The Hunger Games.
00:44 You're no stranger to these.
00:46 A few of these under your belt already.
00:48 How much did this feel like a kind of, did you feel unbound to do something new and do
00:56 something fresh, being able to kind of pull us out of the time zone, take us away from
01:00 most of those characters, but bring us back to that world?
01:03 Was it an exciting thing for you?
01:05 It was super exciting.
01:06 I mean, honestly, it's one of the reasons I wanted to do it is like what I loved about
01:11 reading the book was it very much felt like a Hunger Games story, but it didn't feel like
01:15 a rehash.
01:16 You know, the worry is that you just feel like, OK, I feel like I've seen these things
01:20 before, these themes, these elements, whatever.
01:22 And Suzanne just really crafted a really interesting story, a very different one, but that also
01:27 gave me a lot of freedom to like reinvent the way Penem looked because of the period,
01:31 reinvent the technology, reinvent the games, tell a very different kind of story about
01:36 a character's descent into darkness instead of a young girl just trying to survive.
01:41 So it was a lot of fun.
01:43 How different was the experience of making it?
01:45 Because when you've been in a number of films, especially with a star like Jennifer
01:49 Lawrence, who become this huge global phenomenon by the time you're doing the later films,
01:54 at least, I guess a big part of it was a collaboration of people who've been invested in that for
02:00 a really long time, whereas now you've brought in this new cast.
02:03 It's all fresh to them.
02:06 They may have wanted you to kind of guide them through the process in a slightly different
02:09 way.
02:10 No, you know, it's weird.
02:11 I mean, I have to say what was amazing about even my first experience was that, you know,
02:18 I came on in the second movie, but I had a very specific point of view of what the second
02:23 movie should be and what my approach was going to be.
02:25 And I had meetings with everybody ahead of time.
02:27 And I have to say, even though I inherited a bunch of cast and I brought in a bunch of
02:32 new cast, everybody was looking to me in those as well.
02:36 You know, they had decided like, OK, this guy's got a vision for a movie and we're behind
02:40 it and we're going to go with it.
02:41 And and they were like behind me in that way.
02:44 So it honestly wasn't any different here.
02:46 It was like they came in, we talked, we end up sharing a vision for the movie, for the
02:51 characters, for the themes and we go.
02:54 How exciting was it to work with young Tom and Rachel, knowing, having seen what happens,
03:00 knowing kind of what they've got to look forward to, not only with the fandom, the love you
03:06 guys get from these movies and these stories, but also the excitement of where their careers
03:09 can go over the next 10 years because you've seen this route before.
03:12 No, I mean, look, I'm really excited for them and honestly, I'm really excited.
03:16 You know, this is partly why I have to say with the news of the end of the strike, even
03:20 though we got the interim agreement for some of the cast, the fact that they can come and
03:26 celebrate the movie and stand in front of this movie and be a part of like experiences
03:30 like this just is really special, I think, for them.
03:34 And it would have been sad if they wouldn't have been able to do it.
03:36 Yeah.
03:37 And for people who haven't seen the original movies, people who haven't read the book before,
03:40 would you say this is as good a jumping on point now chronologically or would you suggest
03:45 go back and start those movies from where they were?
03:47 You know, it's interesting, I've been thinking about that a lot because people have been
03:50 asking me that question and I will say it'd be interesting for people to start here.
03:56 It's almost like I remember when Francis Ford Coppola like released, there was a Laserdisc
04:01 version of The Godfathers and you could go back and watch it in order.
04:04 They split, like, it was weird.
04:05 They split up The Godfather 2 with the period stuff first.
04:09 Yeah, and then, oh yeah, this version.
04:11 And so there was, and I watched it and you go, wow, that's interesting.
04:14 It's like, so it'd be interesting to go and watch this one first and get some of the origins
04:18 and then go back.
04:20 I mean, and I think it would work.
04:22 I think part of the fun though is for people that know the books and the movies and all
04:25 that is that this sort of upends like what people think of certain characters and certain
04:31 moments and certain events and certain songs and all these things, you know, and so it's
04:36 like that's part of the fun of this.
04:38 I'd love to see some people's reactions, watching this first and then watching the others going,
04:41 why is Donald Simmons being so horrible to everybody?
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