July 11, 2012 
The final instalment of Suzanne Collins’ trilogy of Hunger Games books, Mockingjay, has been cleft in twain as if struck by Katniss’ arrow.
Mockingjay will now hit cinemas as two separate instalments, a’la Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn before it.
Lionsgate announced the two separate dates (reported by Deadline) as November 21, 2014, and November 20, 2015.
Catching Fire, its predecessor, hits cinemas November 2013.
Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Liam Hemsworth will all reprise their roles from the original, with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jena Malone joining the cast. Director Francis Lawrence begins shooting Catching Fire late September.
Discuss: Fans of Mockingjay; is it a good idea to split the book in half?
Quickflix 
Completely unnecessary and obvious money-grabbing by the studio. There’s not that much to the last book and although it embarasses me to say that I actually enjoyed the first two, the last was a real let-down and I can’t see the point in dragging it out anymore than it needs to be. Why don’t they just re-boot the series once the third film is released….will no doubt be the trend by that stage.
I can just see the 2014 release calendar now: JAN: American remake of the Artist, FEB: Reboot of HULK, MAR: American remake of the latest Scandi-crime thriller, APR: Reboot of Twilight, MAY: Ice Age 5, JUN: Pixar’s Cars 3, JULY: Batman/Superman DC crossover film, AUG: Expendables 3, SEPT: Terminator re-reboot, OCT: Resident Evil pt 10, NOV: James Bond 24, DEC: Mission Impossible re-boot/5th film