THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE
The Abridged Script
FADE IN:
EXT. VARIOUS DISTRICTS
The winners of the previous HUNGER GAMES, JENNIFER LAWRENCE and JOSH HUTCHERSON, are taking a GLOATING TOUR through all of the districts and giving speeches about how great it is to not have been killed.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Hello people of Panem! As the nation's favorite symbols of defiance, the Capitol has decided to parade us around the country rather than let us simply fade into obscurity!
JOSH HUTCHERSON
Thank you all for coming out today. To show our appreciation, we're giving one month of our winnings to each of the districts, even the asshole ones, despite a prohibition against doing just that being a rule of pretty much every reality show since forever.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
It's not entirely clear what this means, since this is the first year where there are two winners so we don't know if we're already splitting it, or if the Capitol is paying out twice or what. It's all very vague, get used to it.
GRIEVING PARENTS
Thanks for reminding us about how they changed the rules to allow for multiple winners after our kids were already killed. Somehow, we don't hate you though, in fact we look at you as leaders of the worst rebellion ever, which consists largely of whistling and doing the "read between the lines" middle-finger routine.
Hearing the overused whistle song again enrages the NON-COPYRIGHT-INFRINGING STFGGLHMTROOPERS, who grab and beat and shoot the grieving parents.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
No! I'm the only one allowed to openly defy the Capitol and live! And most of the people of my district for some reason! Stop barely protesting!
JOSH HUTCHERSON
You'd think after violent fascist dictator President Donald Sutherland specifically told us that one word from us could start a revolution he'd be a little more cautious about letting us near a microphone, but I guess not.
WOODY HARRELSON
Jennifer, you're in the public eye now. You need to constantly appease Donald Sutherland, and for reasons that this script barely attempts to justify, that means pretending you're in love with Josh Hutcherson even though you really totally love Liam Hemsworth.
JOSH HUTCHERSON
Maybe we should get married. Teenage girls love that shit according to focus groups, and this entire series is nothing if not a cynical exercise in demographic-centric media marketing.
ELIZABETH BANKS
That's a great idea and I serve no purpose in this movie at all! Let's throw a beautiful decadent wedding and I'm completely worthless! I'll get started on designing your wedding dress, why in God's name am I here?! Does anyone need the lovechild of Lady Gaga and Hyacinth Bucket?
The VICTORY EXPRESS stops at the CAPITOL and there's a huge party with expensive clothing to serve as a reminder that FASHION = EVIL.
DECADENT ASSHOLE
Here, Josh, drink this Ipecac on the Beach. It's bulimialicious!
JOSH HUTCHERSON
Pfft. Everyone is starving in the districts but here they drink stuff to make themselves vomit so they can eat more. This is actually something I say in the movie because we literally could not have any less respect for our audience's intelligence.
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN
Hey kids, I'm the gamemaker this time around. Please try not to notice that I'm way too good of an actor for such a small role or that I'm not wearing makeup, fluorescent clothes, or a beard that belongs on a porn star's crotch.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Nothing fishy there. Man, I just hope President Sutherland doesn't execute me, Josh, my family, Josh's family, Liam Hemsworth, Liam's family, Woody Harrelson, Lenny Kravitz, or Amandla Stenberg's family, all of which he could do at any time with no repercussions. Jeez, you'd think I'd give half a rat's shit about being afraid of this guy.
DONALD SUTHERLAND
As it happens, I can tell you still love the guy with the poofy hair and not the guy with the box for a face. This infuriates me beyond words, let the beatings commence!
EXT. DISTRICT 12 - ETERNALLY OVERCAST
JENNIFER and JOSH return home, only to find that the STFGGLHMTROOPERS have taken over the town, led by DARMPTGH VADGLER, PATRICK ST. ESPRIT.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Yes, this should motivate me not to do anything stupid against the government.
LIAM HEMSWORTH
I don't like your Stfgglhmtroopers being in my town, which I will show by smoldering at you.
PATRICK ST. ESPIRIT
Liam Hemsworth!? To the torture rack with you! Twerking is not a crime, TEAM MILEY!!
LIAM is strapped up in the public square and PASSION OF THE CHRISTED in front of EVERYONE.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Stop, I will not allow you to do this! I do not know where I've gotten the idea that I'm queen of this town, but it's even more baffling that I apparently am!
PATRICK ST. ESPIRIT
Even though the only reason I'm doing this is to assert my authority over you all, nobody in this movie behaves like an actual human being, so I'll stop. But rest assured, next time I'm super cheesed off, I'll make a much more serious-sounding empty threat than this one.
JENNIFER takes LIAM to her HOUSE and throws him on the kitchen table in front of her sister, WILLOW SHIELDS.
LIAM HEMSWORTH
Holy shit, I know we're all starving, but this seems a little drastic!
WILLOW SHIELDS
No, I'm going to stitch you up. I'm a doctor now. Hold Mr. Bear for me while I get out my Crayola Sewing Kit.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
I'll get some filthy, bacteria-laden snow to rub on your gaping wounds.
WILLOW SHIELDS
Make sure you fill the bowl with snow in the slowest, most half-assed way possible so that it's extremely obvious you're expecting to reset the props for what is obviously the fifty-thousandth take of this scene due to my unimaginably terrible acting.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Seriously people, it takes me fifteen minutes to put some snow in a small bowl, go back and watch.
Meanwhile...
INT. PRESIDENT SUTHERLAND'S OFFICE - PANEM
PRESIDENT SUTHERLAND meets with PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN.
DONALD SUTHERLAND
I want Jennifer Lawrence destroyed! I've been at this shit for over fifty years and she wins Best Actress for, what, her ninth movie?! Bullshit!
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN
Okay, I've got a plan. We'll broadcast tons of footage of us beating random civilians and executing people in public. And then we'll splice in obsessive discussion of her upcoming wedding. People will have no choice but to start hating her and drop their rebellion!
DONALD SUTHERLAND
That makes no sense at all, a concatenation of randomly-chosen words would have been better. Oscar-winning screenwriters were brought in, is the original book written with scented markers on construction paper or something?
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN
Alright, fine. What if we just make a special All-Star Hungrier Games with previous winners and send Jennifer and Josh back in?
DONALD SUTHERLAND
Completely unoriginal, I love it! Try to make it as much like the first one as possible, Suzanne Collins tried to do something new with the third book and everyone hates it.
INT. PANEM
Previous winners of THE HUNGER GAMES are selected to play again in a move that surprises everyone despite CBS doing it since 2003. JENNIFER, JOSH, and CANNON FODDER are all interviewed by STANLEY TUCCI, but we only see clips of PEOPLE WHO WILL LIVE PAST THE FIRST FIFTEEN SECONDS.
STANLEY TUCCI
Jena Malone, you've apparently forgotten how to act since Sucker Punch broke your brain. How does that make you feel?
JENA MALONE
I'll tell you how I feel, f**king pi**ed off! This is f**king bulls**t! Wait, am I being bleeped? I'm in a movie, right? My career hasn't fallen so far that I'm a TV actor yet has it?
STANLEY TUCCI
No, but you're on a TV show in a movie, so it makes sense for us to bleep the swear words for the network.
JENA MALONE
This is the same network that annually shows 8-year-olds being brutally murdered by beefed-up athletic teenagers, right? Actually, I retract this criticism, this is probably the most accurate prediction about the future these movies make.
STANLEY interviews only JENNIFER LAWRENCE and JOSH HUTCHERSON, well aware of the complete inability for anyone to muster up a single fuck to give for any other contestants.
STANLEY TUCCI
And you, Jennifer... you're in a wedding dress, is there any chance that it somehow magically transforms into a CGI bird suit by lighting it on fire?
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
In a complete assault to everyone's sense of realism, yes. The feathers even move, this shit is so stupid I can actually taste the dumb.
STANLEY TUCCI
It's also your fourth unique classy costume since the start of the movie. How does it feel trying to mix survivalist porn with fashion porn?
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
It's great! I just want everyone to know it's unwise to trust other people by their appearances unless they're me.
STANLEY TUCCI
And Josh, how are you feeling knowing that the same audience whose adoration for your relationship single-handedly saved you in the last movie is now totally fine with one of you dying?
JOSH HUTCHERSON
Well, it'd be alright, I guess, if not for... Jennifer's pregnancy!!
STANLEY TUCCI
What?! This changes everything!
This changes NOTHING. It's NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN.
INT. BATTLE ARENA
JENNIFER gets a pre-battle coaching session from LENNY KRAVITZ, who apparently doesn't care about JOSH HUTCHERSON at all.
LENNY KRAVITZ
Just remember, there's basically no fighting in The Hunger Games anymore. Everyone you run into will want to be your ally, and they'll team up with you until they are killed, at which point you'll run into more people who want to be your ally.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Okay, thanks. Are there any obviously evil combatants I should watch out for?
LENNY KRAVITZ
Yes, but they'll all be shirtless or have fangs. No kidding, actual fangs. Everyone else will die offscreen, we won't even see their names. Good luck, Jennifer. The suit is light, so it's probably going to be a desert setting just kidding it's a forest again.
JENNIFER enters the ARENA and immediately runs to the center of the cornucopia to get A BOW despite that exact thing being explicitly highlighted as the stupidest possible thing to do in the last movie.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Oh crap, there's no way I'm going to be able to shoot any of these people. Just shooting a rabbit was enough to give me a full-blown panic attack at the start of the movie.
(shoots multiple Tributes)
Huh. I guess Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is as easy to shrug off as an old overcoat that turns into fire when you twirl and then transforms into a bird suit.
SAM CLAFLIN
Hey Jennifer, I want to be your ally. Also my deadweight grandmother or some stupid bullshit.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Um, okay...
JENA MALONE
I want to be your ally too, Jennifer. I'm good with an axe because I come from a lumberjack district, isn't that hilariously juvenile?
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Alright then...
JEFFREY WRIGHT
Me too, Jennifer. I'm a whiz with technology, literally the worst possible skill to have when trapped in the woods.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Sounds good...
AMANDA PLUMMER
Alligator kumquat filibuster, mollycoddle knickers bumfuzzle!
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Welcome aboard!
ALAN RITCHSON
(shirtless)
Grrrr!
(killed)
META GOLDING
(fangs)
Hiss!
(killed)
The GOOD GUYS go off into the woods, where they are attacked by a series of deadly synthesized traps like POISON GAS, TIDAL WAVES, LIGHTNING, and MONKEYS.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Damn this place is full of a lot of traps, considering that "Dodge the CGI" is probably the Panem audience's least favorite way to watch people die.
JEFFREY WRIGHT
Wait a second! Each of the traps goes off on the hour, and the effects of each trap are somehow contained within a slice of the arena corresponding to that hour's position on a clock!
JOSH HUTCHERSON
We're in a riddle-based deathtrap? Hoffman is going to turn out to be Jigsaw's latest surprise collaborator, isn't he?
JEFFREY WRIGHT
We can use this to our advantage! Lightning strikes that tree every night at midnight, we can run a wire from the tree to this pool of water, and electrocute all of the shirtless, fanged contestants remaining!
JENA MALONE
How do you know the wire won't just explode or something?
JEFFREY WRIGHT
Because I invented it, dramatic pause.
SAM CLAFLIN
What does that mean? You invented the idea of wire?
JOSH HUTCHERSON
This plan is great. I sure hope it doesn't get suddenly abandoned before it even starts to make way for the world's must abrupt and unsatisfying anticlimax.
JENNIFER starts running the wire from the tree to the water, but the wire gets caught on something despite the fact that she's the one holding the spool.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Damn damn!
Suddenly, she's attacked, but FUCKING EVERYONE sacrifices themselves to save her. And everyone else dies offscreen. JENNIFER wins, sort of.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
I'm getting the feeling that, contrary to the franchise tagline, the odds are massively, colossally, excessively in my favor.
JENNIFER uses an arrow and fires the wire, the same one that was stuck on a branch a second ago and couldn't make it a hundred yards to the water, a few miles into the sky at STEPHEN KING'S THE DOME.
The dome electrocutes itself and somehow damages the structural integrity of the facade.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Wait, the "forcefield" was a steel and mortar construction and not some kind of electromagnetic field? That's not so much a "forcefield" as it is a "roof."
(falls unconscious)
A SHIP with a GRABBER ARM blows through quarters until it successfully picks up JENNIFER.
INT. SHIP
WOODY HARRELSON, SAM CLAFLIN, LIAM HEMSWORTH, and PHILLIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN greet JENNIFER.
WOODY HARRELSON
We're sorry we kept you in the dark, but we're actually starting a revolution. That's why the arena was completely devoid of any sense of conflict or danger, everyone was protecting you from, I guess, everyone else who was protecting you. We never told you so you wouldn't do anything that would endanger the mission.
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
You mean like nearly killing Jena before she could dig that tracker out of my arm? Or trying to abandon the group before Jeffery Wright enacted his plan? Or not just happening to run into and decide to trust the exact people assigned to help me?
SAM CLAFLIN
Exactly. As you might imagine, the best time to start our revolution was at the very end of The Hungrier Games, rather than two days ago when we had about twenty additional able-bodied past winners with weapons training and a grudge against President Sutherland.
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN
And surprise, I'm actually one of the good guys!
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Didn't you personally recommend public beatings and executions to President Sutherland earlier?
PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN
Yep!
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
So are we ending on a cliffhanger? Because they already decided to split the next book into a two-parter, despite it being universally disliked and regarded as dragged-out and boring.
LIAM HEMSWORTH
Yes, but keep in mind that we stopped attaching the camera to a hardware store paint mixer, so this movie is an improvement by default.
WOODY HARRELSON
It's the "Empire Strikes Back" of the series!
JENNIFER LAWRENCE
Jesus Twerking Christ, people aren't actually calling it that, are they?
They ARE.
END