"Because the books are so Katniss-centric, and every scene you see and hear and experience is through Katniss' eyes, we have an opportunity to expand outward from her a bit in the movies. But there's a point at which scenes feel like they don't work. 

If you look at 'Catching Fire,' there are definitely scenes where Katniss is not present, where we see Snow making plans about Katniss and talking to Plutarch. There are scenes like that in this movie as well, and we thought we would be able to cut away to Snow and see him interact with Peeta. But for some reason, because it wasn't as directly linked to Katniss, it didn't feel like it worked. It just sort of fell on the other side of that balance for us. Where it felt like we were sort of experiencing some information that Katniss never would have. It felt like we were cheating a little too much.

The big dramatic question of 'Mockingjay - Part 1' is will we get Peeta back? Is Peeta okay? To see Peeta alive, looking pretty well and being brought into a nice place for an interview feels like it was letting a little air out of the bag. It gave away too much. So sort of for the combination of those reasons, we let it go."

See website for complete article licensing information.