The Hunger Games Cast Tour in Seattle

  The stars of The Hunger Games are going on a national tour to meet fans the media March 3rd-10th. I’m happy to share with my fellow Northwestern fans that the tour is coming to Seattle and we get the chance to meet the leads playing Katniss, Gale and Peeta!

  Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson will appear March 10th at the University Village Microsoft Store. May the odds be ever in your favor so you can meet the stars.

 The Hunger Games opens March 23rd.

Jennifer Lawrence on Hunger Games Co-Star Chemistry

  X-Fans like me rejoiced this week with news that Director Matthew Vaughn and the principal cast of X-Men: First Class are signed on for a sequel to the prequel.

  Before Jennifer Lawrence reprises her role as the shapeshifting Mystique she will fight for her life in The Hunger Games based on the best-selling trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Lawrence plays Katniss a girl in a dystopian world in a tournament fighting to the death against other desperate teens. The books are riveting. The movie trailer captures the dangerous atmosphere of the series. I’m surprised a publisher hasn’t started work on a graphic novel adaptation of the trilogy.

  Josh Hutcherson (would made a great young Scott Summers) plays Peeta, one of the combatants in the death tournament who falls in love with Katniss. The two young stars talked with MTV News about their chemistry.

  “We did a chemistry read and kind of hit it off right away, I felt, for the second time, third time,” he joked, playing up the memories of their first meeting. “So that’s the first time we got to play the characters together.”

  “We had tons of chemistry,” Lawrence insisted with a laugh. “He was Peeta,” she added of her first impressions of Hutcherson as “the boy with the bread.” “I had heard the director, I had heard Gary [Ross] say, ‘He is the only one who is actually Peeta,’ and then [Josh] came in, and he was. He’s charming and nice and sweet, like a dog licking your face.”

  “A dog licking on your face?” Hutcherson asked, wondering if Lawrence was giving him a compliment or not.

  “It is! That’s what it’s like hanging out with you, it’s like, ‘Eeeeee!’ ” Lawrence said of her excitement being around the 19-year-old.

  For the entire interview here’s the MTV News link.

X-Men First Class Cast Confirmed

X-Men: First Class courtesy 20th Century Fox

  X Marks the spot for the cast of X-Men: First Class. Following up on yesterday’s news that Matthew Vaughn will return to direct the next film – The Hollywood Reporter Heat Vision reports that the entire cast will return – including Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence.

One point the article makes is that Simon Kinberg is working on the script – he wrote the excellent Sherlock Holmes and the “critically reviled” X-Men: The Last Stand.

I hope Rose Byrne’s Moira MacTaggert is back. I think James McAvoy (will he lose his locks in the next film?) and Byrne have great chemistry to explore.