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) "improve on many sources. Quentin Tarantino has built his career on this principle." It reminded an author at "Salon" of the 1932 film "The Most Dangerous Game". "The Hunger Games" has also been conceptually compared to Robert Sheckley's 1953 short story "Seventh Victim" and its 1965 Italian film adaptation by Elio Petri, "The 10th Victim", as the story and film feature a government-endorsed, televised (in the film's case) "Big Hunt", featuring contestants from around the world acting as "hunters" and "victims". Wheeler Winston Dixon, a film professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, listed several precedents: "Battle Royale", Jackson's "The Lottery",