Gary Ross’ adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ New York Times bestseller novel of the same name has been getting more and more attention over the past few months.

We had our first look at Jennifer Lawrence in the lead back in May, then came a nice little motion poster, and most recently a batch of images from the film. Now, the first teaser trailer has landed at MTV’s VMAs, Collider report.

There will be plenty of people, myself included, who haven’t read the book, and are partly wondering whether or not this will be the next Twilight series (Lionsgate have already announced that the second film in the trilogy of novels has been green-lit), and whether or not it will mostly play to the novels’ ‘young adult’ target audience. I remain hopeful, though, that with its pretty impressive cast, it will be enjoyable for a wider audience too.

Led by Jennifer Lawrence (X-Men: First Class) as Katniss Everdeen, the film also stars a young cast that includes Josh Hutcherson (The Kids Are All Right), Liam Hemsworth (The Last Song; Chris Hemsworth’s brother), and is supported by an older cast of Elizabeth Banks (Zack And Miri Make A Porno), Woody Harrelson (Zombieland), Stanley Tucci (Lucky Number Slevin), Lenny Kravtiz, Wes Bentley (American Beauty), and Donald Sutherland (The Eagle).

“In a not-too-distant future, the United States of America has collapsed, weakened by drought, fire, famine, and war, to be replaced by Panem, a country divided into the Capitol and 12 districts. Each year, two young representatives from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. Part entertainment, part brutal intimidation of the subjugated districts, the televised games are broadcasted throughout Panem as the 24 participants are forced to eliminate their competitors, literally, with all citizens required to watch. When 16-year-old Katniss’ young sister, Prim, is selected as the mining district’s female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart, Peeta, the son of the town baker who seems to have all the fighting skills of a lump of bread dough, will be pitted against bigger, stronger representatives who have trained for this their whole lives.”

The teaser doesn’t give much away, but that’s of course exactly why it’s a teaser; that’s not its job. Its job is to get people excited, and I can imagine it’s been working pretty well so far. The clip is introduced by Lawrence, who says she’s hard at work filming The Hunger Games right now, which we can look forward to on 23rd March, 2012.

Having not read the book, I can’t be sure, but I think the male voice in the trailer comes from Hemsworth’s Gale, supporting Katniss, and doing a nice job of it. The final shot of the arrow launching is a pretty sweet visual, and at the very least, I think we can look forward to some great action scenes in this. The sequel, Catching Fire, has already been scheduled for 22nd November, 2013, so it looks like The Hunger Games is going to be around at least for the next few years, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it performs brilliantly at the box office. Without further ado, here’s the first teaser trailer to introduce you to the Games.

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Since graduating, I spend as much time as possible watching films/TV shows, reading books, and listening to music. So getting to write about what I love is nothing short of awesome. Biggest film-related hope for 2014/ever: Guy Ritchie announcing the RocknRolla sequel is finally moving forward.