Advertisement

Lionsgate Won’t Shut Down ‘Hunger Games’-Inspired Anti-Hunger Advocates

Score one for the Districts against the Capitol.

Lionsgate, which is set for a record-breaking opening weekend with its movie adaptation of the dystopian young adult novel The Hunger Games, has reconsidered the takedown notice the company sent to imagine Better, an organization running an anti-hunger campaign inspired by the franchise.

The takedown notice, exclusively reported by ThinkProgress yesterday, targeted the Hunger Is Not A Game campaign, which is building support for Oxfam’s GROW program aimed at making food aid more efficient and less wasteful. The entertainment company accused Imagine Better of “causing damage to Lionsgate and our marketing efforts” — even though Lionsgate had previously wished Imagine Better luck while declining to sign on as a formal partner.

But now Lionsgate has reconsidered in the wake of widespread fan outrage. The company will not pursue legal action to back up the takedown notice. And Kate Piliero, the vice president for corporate communications for Lionsgate’s film division, emailed me to say that the company’s main concern was that their official charitable partners for the film have exclusive use of the film’s official images and logo (Imagine Better had created its own, separate set of images and branding).

Advertisement

“Lionsgate’s partnership with the United Nations’ World Food Programme as well as Feeding America, both tied to the release of The Hunger Games, is helping to generate awareness of and funds for this global issue,” she wrote. “We absolutely support and encourage the efforts of organizations battling world hunger and would encourage fans to join our efforts by visiting www.hungergames.com.”

In America, if not in Panem, it seems, fans and corporations can co-exist without a legal fight to the death.