The Hunger Games (film) C. Reilly was in talks with Lionsgate to portray Haymitch Abernathy. The following month Lionsgate announced that the role had gone to Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson. The casting of Grammy winner Lenny Kravitz as Cinna, Oscar nominee Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, and Toby Jones as Claudius Templesmith, soon followed. Both got the role at the time they were promoting "". Multiple-Golden Globe Award winner Donald Sutherland was cast as President Coriolanus Snow in late May 2011. Gary Ross, Sam Mendes, David Slade, Andrew Adamson, Susanna White, Rupert Sanders, and Francis Lawrence were listed as possible directing candidates, but in
The Hunger Games (film) William Golding's "Lord of the Flies", "Metropolis", "Blade Runner", "Death Race 2000", and George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four". Manohla Dargis in "The New York Times" compares it to "Battle Royale", "Ender's Game", and "Twilight", but contrasts "The Hunger Games" in terms of how its "exciting" female protagonist Katniss "rescues herself with resourcefulness, guts and true aim". Steve Rose of "The Guardian" refers to the film as "think "Battle Royale" meets "The Running Man" meets "Survivor". Writing in "The Atlantic", Govindini Murty made a list of touchstones the film alludes to, from the ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian civilizations to modern references