This opinion article is a response to the column: “Should ‘Catching Fire’ be split instead of ‘Mockingjay’?”

I’ve been reading all the articles debating which book in the Hunger Games trilogy should be split and have found myself wondering: Why do any of them have to be split at all?

The obvious answer is because Lionsgate says there’s going to be four Hunger Games films. My personal opinion is making a fourth film is just an excuse to exploit the wallets of millions of true fans. This was also my opinion when it was announced that the last Harry Potter and Twilight books would be split into two films. Even The Hobbit is being split! I feel as if Hollywood has found a way to make even more money than they do right now. It’s like the 3-D re-releasing trend. Why have people decided that every big blockbuster from the past thirty years should be re-released in 3-D? Because people will pay $12 a ticket to see it, that’s why.

But I digress. I’m losing focus here. There is absolutely no reason to split any of The Hunger Games books other than for pure profit. I felt this way when the last Harry Potter book was split. I realize that movies can never be a faithful adaptation of the book, but I felt that once the Harry Potter series hit the fifth movie, it really started to mess with what happened in the books. I blame this on the fifth movie, because the fifth book was the only book I’ve read that has ever needed to be split. Sure, things would’ve been left out of the Deathly Hallows movie had it been a single film, but who would’ve cared at that point? So many things had been taken out or added into the previous movies, that by the time I got to the last one, I just wanted to see it on the big screen. I didn’t care what it was compared to the book, because the series had already been messed with so much.

Why would splitting the fifth book have fixed that? Because it’s the longest book, by far. It also happens to be the shortest movie. That never made sense to me. If we can take an 870-page book and squeeze it into the shortest movie of a beloved franchise, why do we feel the need to split a book into two movies? I haven’t read the Twilight series, but my mom and sister both agreed it didn’t need to be split into two films. People have been trying to turn the Hobbit into a movie for decades, then someone decides it should be more than one movie, and it actually gets made.

If Hollywood can turn an 870-page book into a movie, why do they have to split a nearly 400-page Hunger Games book into two movies? That means a book less than half the size of The Order of the Phoenix will have twice the movie to it. I fear if we don’t put a stop to this practice soon, the next adaptation of Romeo and Juliet will be split into two films, because who could possibly fit a five act play into one little movie?