Last week Indiewire confidently reported that Gary Ross was splitting ways with Lionsgate and foregoing involvement with the next Hunger Games film for a number of reasons, not least of which was an opportunity to pursue a project of his own with a better paycheck.
Today old media outlets are stepping in with their sources and saying that, while he hasn’t in any way committed to cataching fire, Gary Ross is by no means split from Lionsgate. As Deadline and THR tells it, Ross is out on vacation and negotiations are still ongoing. They both dump the obviously logic of why the director would stay with the franchise, but you can probably guess what all that amounts to.
For what it’s worth, I’ve also heard through a pretty credible grapevine that Ross probably will return and this grand hype is one-part Ross playing hard-to-get and two parts internet story inflation. Considering how often that exact scenario is the case, I’m inclined to think it’s the most likely explanation. We’ll find out one way or another in the next week or so, I would suspect.
(via /Film)