There is a Brave New World of teen entertainment afoot, where kids born long after 1984, and unfamiliar with The Running Man imagine a future world full of tiny electronic devices which rule our media and communications, and where the global language is TXT SPK - oh, wait. Lionsgate has announced that it will bring dystopia to a whole new movie audience, by picking up the movie rights to best-selling teen novel The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins.
Following in the footsteps of Battle Royale, **Tron **and even Death Race 2000, The Hunger Games are a televised death match for a lottery-picked teen boy and girl from each of the futuristic Capitol's districts.
The story follows a girl called Katniss Everdeen who volunteers to replace her little sister when she is picked to take part. Katniss must then endure the Games, where she is forced to make a series of critical choices to ensure her own survival, amid moral questions of humanity and love.
Producer Nina Jacobson said: "The suspense of The Hunger Games is heightened by its spirit of moral inquiry, and Suzanne has entrusted Lionsgate and me to bring that moral perspective to the adaptation - a charge we fully intend to honor."
Collins will adapt her own book for the screen and the follow up to the novel, Catching Fire, is due out in September 2009. The Hunger Games is slated for a 2011 release.