‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay’ … two movies?

Because it worked for Harry Potter (critically AND commercially) and Twilight (commercially, but not critically because those movies can suck a moose’s b-hole for all I care), the final installment of The Hunger Games will be split into two movies, even though the last book had a little more of a reserved pace and could easily be crammed into one movie. But then they wouldn’t be able to double their income, so why bother? TWO MOVIES IT IS! Entertainment Weekly reports:

It’s the hottest thing in Hollywood, you guys: Splitting the final volume of a massively popular YA novel series into two feature films, thereby doubling the size of the studio’s Scrooge McDuck money pit box office receipts. Today, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay officially joined the club: Lionsgate announced Suzanne Collins’ final book in her bestselling series would be two films to be released on successive Thanksgivings in 2014 and 2015. (Other members of said club include Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows parts 1 and 2, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn parts 1 and 2, and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again, with the final two Matrix films and the middle two Pirates of the Caribbean films forming a sister club next door.) But pulling off this kind of final book spliteroo is not simple surgery. Adventure-based novels (at least those not written by Dan Brown) don’t tend to have major climactic cliffhangers dangling conveniently in the middle of the plot. So wherever the folks who end up adapting Mockingjay — a dark, messy, troublesome tome — decide to split the book, they’ve got their work cut out for them.

Honestly, a lot of the third book deals with the politics that would come from toppling The Capital, and the inherent moral grey-area of creating a power vacuum that would only be filled by another dictatorial regime, which makes for a great read, but I’m not sure how that would handle in regards to two action movies. Although to be fair, The Hunger Games has always been a series that was smarter than its critics would give it credit for. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out over two films.