Quentin Tarantino renews debate over 'Hunger Games', 'Battle Royale'

Quentin Tarantino isn’t holding back when it comes to his opinion of The Hunger Games. 

In a recent appearance on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast, the director criticized the billion-dollar franchise and accused it of borrowing heavily from the 2000 Japanese cult classic Battle Royale — a film he has repeatedly listed among his personal favorites.

“I do not understand how the Japanese writer didn’t sue Suzanne Collins for every fucking thing she owns,” Tarantino said, referring to Battle Royale author Koushun Takami. He argued that the similarities between the stories were unmistakable. 

“They just ripped off the fuckin’ book,” he continued, adding that early reviewers didn’t catch the parallels because, “Stupid book critics are not going to go watch a Japanese movie called Battle Royale… They talked about how it was the most original fuckin’ thing they’d ever read.”

Tarantino said film critics reacted differently once the blockbuster adaptation starring Jennifer Lawrence hit theaters in 2012. “As soon as the film critics saw the film, they said, ‘What the fuck? This is just Battle Royale except PG!'”

The comparisons between the two properties have followed The Hunger Games since its debut. Battle Royale depicts a dystopian Japan where junior high students are forced into a deadly government-mandated fight to the last survivor. 

The Hunger Games centers on a similar death match — a televised competition in which two teens from each district of Panem must battle until one remains.

Author Suzanne Collins has repeatedly denied that her trilogy drew from Takami’s novel. “I had never heard of that book or that author until my book was turned in,” she told The New York Times in 2011. 

Her editor, she said, advised her not to read it: “No, I don’t want that world in your head. Just continue with what you’re doing.”

Battle Royale spawned a 2003 sequel, while the Hunger Games franchise continues with a sixth film, Sunrise on the Reaping, arriving in 2026.