Lionsgate picks up 'Hunger Games'

March 17, 2009 Producer Nina Jacobson grabbed film rights to the book for her independent Color Force banner in a highly competitive environment two weeks ago. Lionsgate president of motion picture production Alli Shearmur will oversee the project for the studio, along with senior vp motion picture production Jim Miller. The Scholastic novel, which is the first in a planned trilogy, imagines a dystopian future (is there any other kind?) where North America has been divided into 12 oppressed districts, each of which is forced to send tribute in the form of a boy and a girl to compete in a televised battle to the death once a year.

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