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Hunger Games Turmoil: Stars Stunned by Director Gary Ross' Departure

Exclusive! Find out what some of your fave tributes have to say about the filmmaker's decision to ditch Catching Fire

By Marc Malkin, Brett Malec Apr 11, 2012 4:03 PMTags
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The Hunger Games director Gary Ross has left the Capitol building.

Just minutes after Ross' big announcement yesterday that he would not be returning for the sequel, Catching Fire, we caught up with some of our favorite tributes.

Here's what they had to say about the big shakeup…

"One thing about Gary is, he can do everyone's job better than you can," Alexander Ludwig, who played Katniss' archenemy Cato, told us at Nylon magazine's 13th anniversary party at Smashbox Studios in L.A. "It's an honor working with such a talented director. He is an unbelievable guy and an actor's director, which is amazing...Nobody could really do what Gary did. I honestly believe that 100 percent."

We actually broke the news to Jacqueline Emerson, aka Fox Face. "That makes me so sad," she said. "I'm sorry, I can't move on yet. I'm still in mourning. I don't know that anyone else could bring it to life the way that he did."

Dayo Okeniyi (Thresh) said, "I'm heartbroken. He was the perfect person for me for the first movie, because he has this great ability to do the indie thing with the blockbuster thing and I think everybody wants that combination."

While Okeniyi said he hopes "somehow in the cosmos it works out [that Ross] can do the second movie," he also had a couple of suggestions for a new director.

"I'd like to see a David Fincher Catching Fire or Darren Aronofsky," he said. "I think he'd be amazing for the second movie. Be a little bit edgier, darker."

We're totally digging those ideas.

Do you agree? Leave your comments below.

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