The Hunger Games on the hunt for new director

Dystopian teen tale The Hunger Games might still reign at the box office, but the budding movie franchise is losing its original director.

Gary Ross has revealed that he will not return for Catching Fire, the next film instalment inspired by Suzanne Collins' super-hot book trilogy about reluctant teen heroine Katniss Everdeen, who defies the authoritarian regime of Panem, a post-apocalyptic America.

Ross, whose credits include family-friendly fare like Seabiscuit, Pleasantville and Big, cited the restrictions of a "tight production schedule" -- the next Hunger Games movie is due in theatres November 2013 -- for his decision and has denied reports of a rift with distributor Lionsgate.

Though a legion of young fans have kept The Hunger Games No. 1 at the North American box office for a third week, critics offered mixed reviews for the inaugural look at the multi-layered world of Panem, with many -- including our own Eli Glasner -- noting that Ross' take lacked the fire, excitement and unsettling potential of the books.

"Just for a moment imagine what a Paul Greengrass or Kathryn Bigelow could have done with this," Glasner noted in his review. "Turns out director Steven Soderbergh did some second-unit directing on a small riot scene -- a scene that is one of the few moments in which the movie approaches the potential of the books."

In particular, one thing that piqued my interest in the book series was Collins' dark commentary about government control of the media, the lust for the Survivor-type entertainment programming so commonplace today and its use as a distraction for the masses. Sure, the subject's been tackled before -- and Collins has obviously been inspired by historical, literary and pop culture predecessors in her trilogy -- but she wove it all into a smart, intelligent tale that somehow doesn't quite make it to the silver screen.

In that vein, and riffing off Eli, what might a more sci-fi familiar director do for The Hunger Games? Though I wouldn't call RoboCop, Total Recall or Starship Troopers dramatic masterpieces, Paul Verhoeven has often offered interesting interpretations of dark and dystopian futures as well as media used as propaganda in his films.

Greengrass, Bigelow, Soderbergh, Verhoeven: many fans are contemplating which filmmaker should tackle Katniss and Panem. Who would you like to see in the director's chair for Catching Fire and the explosive series final, Mockingjay?