Fans of Suzanne Collins' best-selling The Hunger Games trilogy were sceptical when it was announced that Lionsgate planned on splitting its adaptation of the final novel, Mockingjay, into two movies, and when the first film came out in 2014, that trepidation proved to be warranted.
Though The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 received decent reviews and was a box office success, the studio was accused of padding out the story as an excuse to keep the franchise going and squeeze another film out of it.
At the time, director Francis Lawrence defended the decision.
"I still completely stand by the idea," he told the BBC. "You know, we got some flack for splitting the movies; I think they're two distinct stories, but really, that kind of evolution [of the characters] would be a much, much, much more difficult thing to do in the course of two hours versus the course of two films."
However, his take has most definitely changed over the years.
"I totally regret it," the filmmaker admitted in a new PEOPLE interview. "I totally do. I'm not sure everybody does, but I definitely do. What I realized in retrospect — and after hearing all the reactions and feeling the kind of wrath of fans, critics, and people at the split — is that I realized it was frustrating. And I can understand that."
"In an episode of television, if you have a cliffhanger, you have to wait a week, or you could just binge it, and then you can see the next episodes," Lawrence continued. "But making people wait a year, I think, came across as disingenuous, even though it wasn't."
Lawrence was able to depict more of the book's story over the two movies, but most fans simply didn't feel it was necessary to expand the dystopian tale to that extent. In any case, the director had no intention of making the same mistake with his upcoming prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which will be the longest movie in the franchise at 2 hours, 36 minutes.
"I would never let them split the book in two," Lawrence said of the new movie. "It's a long book, but we got so much s--- for splitting Mockingjay into two — from fans, from critics, from everybody — that I was like, 'No way. I'll just make a longer movie.'"
How did you feel about Mockingjay being adapted as two films? Do you plan on seeing Songbirds and Snakes in theaters? Drop us a comment down below.