The Hunger Games almost looked a little different — with Austin Butler cast as Peeta Mellark.
“I auditioned for The Hunger Games and I didn’t get it at all,” Butler, 32, said during a Wednesday, June 26, interview with BuzzFeed Celeb. “I don’t even think I got a callback.”
Butler explained that he wanted to be Peeta. “Josh Hutcherson got that,” Butler continued, before giving Hutcherson, 31, praise. “He’s great.”
Butler’s The Bikeriders costar Jodie Comer noted that the decision to not cast the Elvis actor was “their loss.”
The Hunger Games, which hit theaters in 2012, was based on author Suzanne Collins’ young adult series of the same name. Following the success of the first movie, several more films were released including 2013’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, 2014’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1 and 2015’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2.
The franchise follows teenagers — including Peeta, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth) — fighting for their lives in a dystopian world. The films also starred Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Woody Harrelson and the late Donald Sutherland, all of whom formed friendships behind the scenes.
“The truth is, it was literally what everyone saw in all of our interviews together,” Hutcherson exclusively told Us Weekly in September 2020. “It was all of us being ridiculous children together, horsing around. I don’t know how we got any work done, ever. I’m surprised the movies are good.”
Even years after The Hunger Games series wrapped filming, Hutcherson explained that they still have a close bond. He revealed that the cast remains “in contact pretty closely.”
“We always get together and see each other when we’re in the same place,” he said. “There’s not a Hunger Games group chat. We’ve got a couple email threads that a few of us are on but we don’t have a group chat.”
The franchise has since expanded with last year’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbird and Snakes, which takes place over 60 years before Katniss begins the competition.
While Lawrence, 33, did not make a cameo in the movie, her name was mentioned by Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler). After filming, Zegler, 23, revealed that the twosome met.
“Meeting her was like meeting a friend because we have so many mutual friends and I’ve heard so much about her,” Zegler told Access Hollywood in November 2023. “Francis [Lawrence], our director, when I told him that we had finally met, he said, ‘Oh, finally the two weirdest contacts I have in my phone have collaborated,’ and I take that as a badge of honor, truly.”
