The Hunger Games By the time the film adaptation of "The Hunger Games" was released in 2012, the publisher had reported over 26 million "Hunger Games" trilogy books in print, including movie tie-in books. "The Hunger Games" universe is a dystopia set in Panem, a country consisting of the wealthy Capitol and 12 districts in varying states of poverty. Every year, children from the districts are selected to participate in a compulsory televised battle royale death match called The Hunger Games. The novels were all well received. In August 2012, the series ranked second, exceeded only by the "Harry Potter" series in NPR's
The Hunger Games (film) "The New Yorker". David Sexton of "The Evening Standard" compared "The Hunger Games" unfavourably to Kinji Fukasaku's Japanese film "Battle Royale", as did several other critics; the novel had earlier faced criticism for its similarities to the novel "Battle Royale" by Koushun Takami. Jonathan Looms of "The Oxford Student" argues that it is "unfair that the film is only drawing comparisons with "Battle Royale"" but that it "is a veritable pastiche of other movies" as well, comparing it to "The Truman Show", "Death Race", the "Bourne" films, and "Zoolander", and that it is common for artists to borrow from and