"Hunger Games 3: All You Need to Know" was splashed across the top of the latest issue of SFX Magazine. Unfortunately inside there's no new Mockingjay information, it's basically a catch-up (albeit one with major spoilers). Don't play with our poor Mockingjay news-starved emotions, SFX!
And I don't even need to tell you how we feel about "Hunger Games 3." You'll make it up to us later, right guys?
From SFX:
What's Katniss Up To Now?
When we last saw the bowing belle of District 12, she was being carted off by rebels to the fabled-and-decidedly-unwiped-out District 13. So expect Katniss to spend a goodly portion of Mockingjay Part 1 mulling over her new propaganda role in the revolution - as the iconic Mockingjay - before inevitably taking a leading role in the decisive battle against President Snow and the Capitol, a battle that'll take a devastating personal toll on our Kat.
So we'll get to see District 13 this time...
Yep, and it's there that the reluctant pin-up Katniss meets a whole new set of characters. Chief among these are the propaganda team, led by Natalie Dormer's shaven-headed Cressida alongside Messalla (Evan Ross) and photojournos Castor and Pollux (Wes Chatham and Elden Henson). Another fan-favourite is Kat's bodyguard Boggs (Mahershala Ali) who'll lead a climactic sortie into the Capitol.
Who's pulling the revolutionary strings?
Every revolution needs its Lenin - but is Alma Coin its Stalin? The biggest addition to Panem's expanding role of characters is Coin, District 13's president. When casting the role - as with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jeffrey Wright - Team Hunger Games have pushed the button marked "class in a morally ambiguous glass": Julianne Moore.
Sounds like things are really about to, er, catch fire...
With the grand finale getting split, [we'll bet $5] on the big movie axe landing just as Katniss - on that major assignment to the Capitol - finds herself taking charge of the big push to President Snow's house: the book's biggest setpiece in the absence of the usual Hunger Games.
"The Capitol IS the arena," suggests director Francis Lawrence, who'll now get to kick off the otherwise action-light Part 2 with the majority of the battle's intense warfare. In retaliation, we'd reckon the book's other skirmishes - the rescuing of (brainwarped) Peeta, the hoverbomber assault on District 8 - become heftier action beats.
Surely some people won't make it out alive
Katniss' little sister Prim, due to a tragic ending at the Capitol battle's finale, will live to see at least another movie, we think. "I'm just trying to avoid thinking about it right now," says actress Willow Shields. "It's one of those scenes that I feel is going to be one of those really sad days, but it could be really cool to shoot."
How are they adapting to the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman?
The awful news of Philip Seymour Hoffman's passing inevitably caused the Hunger Games team some some issues. While he'd finished his Part 1 scenes as secret rebel leader Plutarch Heavensbee, he still had filming left to do on the franchise's finale. They're not recasting though, with sources suggesting they'll go down the digital double route, with some judicious character-shifting.
When to expect it?
Mockingjay Part 1 will be out on November 21 2014 with Part 2 out one year later.