Someone else I know mentioned Battle Royale. You could also mention Logan's Run, The Running Man, The Long Walk, etc.,.

All I know is, this movie has gained in popularity as release date approached. We started with a midnight Imax show and a midnight show on the regular-theater side. We added a 2nd midnight. We added a 3rd midnight. They're all sold out and today we added a 4th midnight. I'm sure the film will die down significantly in popularity but, just based on the opening weekend, it should turn a healthy profit.

yea, thats what i said earlier....mashup of 70s Sci-Fi Dystopia (Soylent Green, Logans Run, Clockwork Orange, etc..) and Battle Royale. Very odd subject matter for young adult fiction. Not something girls would normally be attracted to.

All I know is I am stoked.

And there are a ton of fantastic YA dystopian novels (it was my pet genre for a while). The Uglies series by Westerfeld will likely be a movie soon. Shipbreaker is really good. Unwind by Westerfeld is awesome. Little Brother by Doctorow is amazing though it's near future dystopian.

I have to think that the main draw to these girls is the strong female lead along with the love story. That is what draws them in and they stay for the ride that Katniss goes on.

It all starts with teachers though. Schools across the country are pushing these "social" novels as a way to get kids to read and compete with the diverse media clamping for their attention. I'm torn. On one hand I love that kids are reading. Unfortunately it doesn't really translate to tolerance for or enjoyment of more complex works.

Very true, my husband is a middle school language arts teacher and he went and bought a couple extra copies because of the demand. I wouldn't say he was pushing them, but at this point it's a word of mouth thing. I heard a story on NPR today about a school having their own hunger games, without all the killing of course. : ).

Thanks for the recommendations. I am on a bit of dystopian kick myself, not YA right now, but could go that direction. I'm reading Swastika Nights at the moment. Quite disturbing.

I'm secondary ELA. I feel like the Common Core is about to smack our kids in the face with the rigor of texts it requires.

I haven't heard too much about what is going to be required with it. I know Kansas adopted it, but I don't know when it actually goes into effect? Right now they are using America's Choice for their curriculum guides, if it's anything tougher than that, his kids are in trouble too. He is in a Title IX school with 98% on free and reduced.

So it rips off Battle Royale but leaves out the gore??

If anyone wants to see it how it should be netflix battle Royale on netflix, the sequel sucks though.. And you have to watch it subtitled..

Author, fwiw, claims she knew nothing of BR when she wrote book.

Whereas those other movies are similar, Hunger Games is damn near and exact copy of Battle Royale though..

This movie is geared more towards girls, Royale is for the guys, think of it as a Tarantino movie..

I saw it an a preview event this evening and I also read the books about a year and a half back.

It felt flat and rushed. I know that they're trying to cram a lot into 2 hours and it's never the same as the book, which makes it OK to skip a lot of things but the parts that they kept still felt rushed.

As best I can remember they stayed true to the book, which is rare.

The special effects were really terrible in a few spots.

For someone who hasn't read the books there will be no expectation for a 2nd or 3rd movie. It just kind of ends. One of my friends after the movie who hasn't read it just said "that's it?".

I'm not debating this, but how do you know? Is the movie already out? I haven't been paying attention to movie releases lately.