Francis Lawrence

Francis Lawrence is a director and producer of large-scale Hollywood studio productions, predominantly of the long-running The Hunger Games franchise. After a decade as a very successful music video director, Lawrence expanded into feature film direction with Warner Bros.’ superhero horror movie, Constantine (2005), loosely based on the DC Comics Hellblazer graphic novels, and starring Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Shia LaBeouf, Tilda Swinton, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Djimon Hounsou, and Peter Stormare, and grossing $231 million on a $70 million budget.

Lawrence took charge of Warner Bros.’ long-delayed mega-production co-produced in part by Village Roadshow Pictures, I Am Legend (2007), starring Will Smith, Alice Braga, and Dash Mihok, based on both Richard Matheson’s story and the novel, The Omega Man, and earning $585.4 million on a $150 million budget. Francis Lawrence switched genres as director of 20^th Century Fox’s romantic drama, Water for Elephants (2011), written by Richard LaGravenese based on Sara Gruen’s best-seller, with Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, and Christopher Waltz, with a gross of $117 million tripling its $38 million budget.

Francis Lawrence had a major career turn as a feature director when he took over Lionsgate’s much-anticipated franchise of The Hunger Games, starting with the second entry, Catching Fire (2013), starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, and Donald Sutherland, and earning a worldwide gross of $865 million.

Lawrence’s success continued with his direction of the subsequent The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1 (2014) and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 2 (2015), with new cast member Julianne Moore, grossing a combined $1.409 billion. Lawrence returned to familiar territory eight years later with the series’ fifth installment, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023), starring Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Hunter Schafer, Jason Schwartzman, Peter Dinklage, Josh Andres Rivera, and Viola Davis, and released by Lionsgate Films.

In the interim between Hunger Games projects, Lawrence was director of Netflix’s Slumberland (2022) and another movie starring Jennifer Lawrence, the spy thriller, Red Sparrow (2018), with Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlotte Rampling, Mary-Louise Parker, Jeremy Irons, and Ciaran Hinds, and grossing only $151.6 million for 20^th Century Fox. Francis Lawrence returned to a long-delayed sequel in another series, Constantine 2 (date to be announced), starring Keanu Reeves and Peter Stormare, and then directed a feature film version of the video game, BioShock (date to be announced).