by: S. Scott Stanikmas – Senior Staff Writer

When the release date for Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 was coming nearer and nearer, rumors started swirling that Lionsgate was trying to find a way to keep the franchise going. And why wouldn’t they? The films have grossed billions for the studio and you don’t just throw a moneymaker like that away because there aren’t any more books to adapt.

Lionsgate Entertainment Vice Chairman Michael Burns recently spoke at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York and said that more Hunger Games films are being talked about. He specifically likened it to the Harry Potter films and how Warner Bros is going the prequel route, saying the world of Katniss Everdeen will “live on and on and on.”

Burns said that “The one thing that kids say they missed [from the early Hunger Games films] was there were no arenas…If we went backwards, there obviously would be arenas.”

I don’t know what kids were complaining about no arenas. The first two films had two different and deadly arenas. The last two didn’t have arenas in the typical sense, but the Capitol was almost like one gigantic arena in the concluding chapter of the franchise.

Hunger Games wasn’t the only film mentioned. Other Lionsgate properties like Twilight, The Expendables and Saw were being lined up for reboots, prequels and sequels galore.

I get that fans want action and violence but I think the studio is missing the crux of what made Hunger Games a hit. It wasn’t the arenas or the deaths or the action – it was the story of Katniss and her struggle to overcome after being made a reluctant symbol of revolution.

Could prequels work? Maybe, but I think it would just be a cheap cash-grab at this point in time. Who ever said studios weren’t in it for the money?