The Hunger Games are a film trilogy that started in 2012.
The Hunger Games is a 2012 American dystopian science fiction adventure film directed by Gary Ross and based on the novel of the same name by Suzanne Collins . It is the first installment in The Hunger Games film series and was produced by Nina Jacobson and Jon Kilik , with a screenplay by Ross , Collins , and Billy Ray . Development of The Hunger Games began in March 2009 when Lions Gate Entertainment entered into a co-production agreement with Color Force , which had acquired the rights a few weeks earlier . The film was released on March 21 , 2012 , in some European countries and in the US on March 23 , 2012 , in both conventional theaters and digital IMAX theaters .