The Hunger Games Catching Fire and Mockingjay: Director Francis Lawrence Talks Box Office Success

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire has taken the box office by storm. Recently, director Francis Lawrence spoke about his reaction to the film's success as well as the future of The Hunger Games franchise including the next sequel, Mockingjay.

Lawrence originally gained fame as the director of the Will Smith film I Am Legend and the film adaptation of Sara Gruen's novel, Water for Elephants. The opening weekend and reviews of Catching Fire, however, give the director a new claim to fame.

"The numbers are a bit crazy. Sort of hard to comprehend really, but this franchise does have an amazing fan base," Lawrence told MTV News via e-mail. "...I am really happy that the Johanna scenes get great laughs. I think she's one of the standouts in terms of new characters and am really proud of her scenes."

One of the things that has impressed reviewers the most about Catching Fire is its ability to be fierce and independently notable, despite being a sequel.

"I always wanted to make sure that this film could stand on its own, especially in terms of backstory," Lawrence said. "I wanted people to be able to fall in step with the movie easily whether or not they've read the books or seen the first film. The trick is not over-explaining, and that was a fine line that I think we were able to tread appropriately.

Lawrence learned a bit from adapting novels after his work on Water for Elephants, which starred Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson.

"The adaptations of Water for Elephants and Catching Fire were probably the closest in process because I truly wanted to make as faithful an adaptation as possible for both," Lawrence explained. "Although, I worked much more closely with Suzanne Collins [author of The Hunger Games trilogy] than I did with Sara Gruen."

Although Catching Fire has just begun spreading its fiery success across the world, Lawrence is already working on its successor, Mockingjay. Lawrence was scouting for locations for the film as he wrote these e-mails.

"I find that in working on the Mockingjay films that I constantly go back to Catching Fire and pull things from that film and story to inhabit these stories... locations, characters, and some certain aesthetic choices," he said.