'Hunger Games' adds Oscar winner Hoffman to cast

[July 10, 2012]  LOS ANGELES (AP) -- "The Hunger Games" has bagged an Academy Award winner.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, who earned the best-actor Oscar for 2005's "Capote," has joined the cast for part two in the futuristic adventure series, "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire."

Lionsgate Films announced Monday that Hoffman will play Plutarch Heavensbee, the new head game-maker overseeing an annual televised fight to the death staged by a repressive government in post-apocalyptic North America.

"Catching Fire" takes place a year after the blockbuster "The Hunger Games," with game survivors Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence, and Peeta Mellark, played by Josh Hutcherson, hurled into the government's machinations over the 75th annual games.

Based on the middle book of Suzanne Collins' best-selling trilogy, "Catching Fire" hits theaters Nov. 22, 2013.

[Associated Press]

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