I don't think this is such a great idea. There was enough closure in Mockingjay to end the story. True, you could always set up a prequel feature, but I really don't think there is enough interest for something without Katness in it to do well.
Ironically, I think a Hunger Games prequel might work better as a game than a film, if the intention is to flesh out Panem enough for the world to be compelling enough on its own. But this would be difficult. The Star Wars universe is compelling without Luke Skywalker. The Harry Potter universe is compelling without Harry. Can Hunger Games be compelling without Katness? I'm just not seeing it. I'm not having this urge to learn more about Panem's history even after seeing four films that take place there.
@alienvangarde: What are you talking about? The original trilogy had lots of humor, and people loved it. The prequel trilogy was a lot more serious, and Lucas' vehicle for injecting some humor into the tale (Jar Jar Binks) made people laugh for all the wrong reasons. A lot of the Marvel movies have had humor that worked a lot better than what we saw in the Star Wars prequels. I'm hoping to see some of that in the new film.
@tsunami2311: Well, one thing Square-Enix doesn't want is another repeat of Final Fantasy XV's marathon development cycle. That has to figure in to their thinking, releasing something as huge as Final Fantasy VII.
@gotrekfabian: Pulling the cross-dressing segment may have nothing to do with politics in the end. It's one thing to put something completely off-the-wall funny in the form of text and simple PS1 animations. It's quite another to put it in photorealistic graphics. For it to be genuinely funny, the animations and expressions have to be spot on, and that requires great acting. This is not a scene that can be sold with programming alone. Cloud, Aerith, Tifa, and the supporting characters all have to be golden to make the scene work, and humor is one of the hardest things to get right in acting. And then you have to take the English dub into consideration.
I would love to see this scene make it into the game, but if they can't do it right we're probably better off without it.
@hugo_ferreira: I'm not sure Mockingjay could have been done in a single film, unless the runtime was prohibitively long. Probably would have left a lot out of the story if they tried. As for Hobbit, Peter Jackson wasn't sure how best to proceed because he was brought in to direct at the last minute, and had almost no time to prepare. If he had it to do over again, the films would probably have been more streamlined.
@Barighm: I think they've wanted to make the game for years, they just didn't know how to control costs enough to make development of the game practical. They've been living in denial for a long time, so set in their ways that no one knew how to proceed without a change in leadership. You've noticed that things have started to turn around since Wada left. The Epic deal never would have happened under Wada's watch.
@elheber: Indeed, this may be a cost-saving measure to make the development of the game feasible. Development costs for AAA titles have soared to the point where the inefficient practices of the Japanese publishers just don't make sense anymore. Square-Enix learned that the hard way with the development of Final Fantasy XV, and I think it's telling that they're jumping on the 3rd-party bandwagon now. They need to concentrate on making games, not game engines.
@overachiever89: Well, the beginning parts of the original game, in Midgar, have a very different feel from how it was after you left the city and started exploring the world in earnest. That's probably what the developers are thinking, and they want to run with that idea. Also, the end-game content should have a very different feel from the mid-game content. It doesn't necessarily mean that the combat system has to be radically altered as the story progresses. They didn't do that in the original game, so why would they do it in the remake?
JRLennis' comments