Josh Hutcherson Shrugs Off Tarantino Claiming ‘Hunger Games’ Ripped Off ‘Battle Royale’: ‘Everyone Borrows From Everyone’

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/josh-hutcherson-shrugs-off-tarantino-hunger-games-ripoff-1236599274/

39 comments

  1. > Upon being asked about Tarantino’s harsh take by Variety at the premiere of Hutcherson’s new horror film “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” the actor responded with, “There are similar themes, for sure. But, you know, everyone borrows from everyone.”

  2. Ugh, Tarantino is giving off first year film club kid with this.

    Yeah it’s the same concept but it’s different.

    Even original ideas aren’t original. You could say battle royale was a rip off of lord of the flies.

    If tomorrow I saw a preview for a true to the book film version of battle royale, at a similar production level of hunger games, my immediate thought wouldn’t be “they ripped off hunger games”

  3. I dunno, after his Fortnite sellout collaboration, maybe Tarantino should shut the hell up and continue to not make his final movie rather than tearing into Paul Dano and spouting off about a decade-old movie for teenagers.

    But that’s just my opinion.

  4. I’m seeing *Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair* on Saturday and I’m super excited. But if you were to strip every “ripped off” reference from that movie, it would be 40 minutes long. He’s a remarkable filmmaker, but a petty blowhard of a filmgoer sometimes.

  5. Just sounds weird coming from Tarantino…who borrowed plenty, and Id say pretty blatantly.

  6. Didn’t Tarantino just release the new Kill Bill in Fortnite, a ***Battle Royale*** game? Lmao

    Hot take: the new kill bill indirectly ripped off Battle Royale

  7. The phrase “steal like an artist” exists for a reason. Even Shakespeare took from previous works.

  8. Basically, right? Good response, don’t give Tarantino any extra attention. Its clearly what he wants.

  10. It’s pretty rich for Tarantino to criticize other people for stealing ideas.

  11. Battle Royale is a movie, but it’s also a thematic structure. Plenty of shows have used it. Tarantino’s point is pretty pointless.

  12. Everyone points out the hypocrisy of Tarantino saying this because he obviously “rips off,” classic movies himself, but what actually bothers me most about this is that Hunger Games is WAY more of a “rip off,” of the myth of [Theseus and the Minotaur.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theseus)

    A powerful overlord subjugates a people, every seven years said overlord demands seven young men and seven young women as tribute (yep). These tributes are dropped into a Labyrinth to die.

    Sound familiar?

    All you could argue it took from Battle Royale was the competition and entertainment aspect, which is far from a novel idea, Stephen King has been bashing that idea round for decades.

  13. And he would be wrong because the actual games are only a part in the overall book

  14. Everything Tarantino has ever done has been derivative of something that came before. And most of the time it’s intentional and he calls “homage.” He’s just up his own ass.

  15. “Hunger Games stole from ‘Battle Royal” is a line you hear from the most beginner cinephile or film student since Hunger Games came out.

    Nothing new was said with that analysis.

  16. Also bit rich for him calling out Hunger Games for stealing a concept from an Asian film, when Reservoir Dogs is a massive rip off of Ringo Lam’s City On Fire.

  18. And is Tarantino acting like he hasn’t borrowed from someone before?
    Also, while Collins may have taken the aspect of kids fighting in an arena, the overall themes of BR and THG are SO VASTLY different!

  19. Exactly. Feet Davidson should know that better than any motherfucker currently working in Hollywood.

  20. Did Battle Royale kind of invent the “teenager forced into a survival death match” thing? Yeah. Is there not enough meat on that particular bone for other people to take a crack out it though? Like you can all sorts of different dressing and theme to that basic idea to create something new and great in its own right

  21. Tarantino literally plagiarized “Fair Game,” a 1960 episode of TV western The Rebel. Hateful Eight is largely based on Fair Game, right down to some of the dialogue.

  22. Its funny he says this, because it literally wasn’t. Its based inspired by The Long Walk and The Running Man, both written by Stephen King under the pen name Richard Bachman

  23. I don’t think so? Really! There’s a lot of differences.

  24. Reservoir Dogs is the last 25 minutes of City on Fire as a feature film

    Kill Bill is equal parts Lady Snowblood and Death Rides A Horse

    Molding portions of foreign cult classics into American films is a significant portion of his own films.

  25. Everything is derivative from something else. Pure originality is hard to find.

  27. I don’t think Tarantino thinks before he speaks as much as people think he does

  28. Good artists borrow, great artists steal. I had to explain this recently and I used this example:
    Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone released in ’99 I think, and it was about an orphaned bespectacled boy with great magical talent.

    Around ’93 DC comics released a short series titled The Books Of Magic about Tim Hunter, a neglected bespectacled boy with great magical talent.

    Someone asked Neil Gaiman, the author of the Books of Magic, if JK Rowling ripped off his story when she wrote Harry Potter. He replied something along the line that they BOTH ripped off T.H. White and the Once and Future King.

    They say the Greeks wrote every story imaginable, we’re just reworking everything since.

    QT is really becoming exactly who he railed against earlier in his career.

  29. Y’all take Tarantino way too seriously. Dude talks shit. Always has, always will

  30. Why is Tarantino simultaneously one of my favorite directors while being almost insufferable to listen to?

  31. Dredd borrowed heavily from The Raid and who cares, Dredd is a fuckin banger of a movie

  32. Wait until Tarantino finds out about the books.

  33. Why does Tarantino keep reminding me that he is an asshole?

  34. Tarantino is way too full of himself. Literally so many of his movies are mashups of popular fiction that already exists.

  35. Fast and Furious is a ripoff of the movie Point Break.   

  36. Tarantino crying about taking ideas is so thick would irony you could through his comment with a knife

  37. Pretty ironic when the animated part of kill bill came from money based off a “battle royale” game , but hey let’s shit on other battle royale based media

  38. The whole “Hunger Games is a ripoff of Battle Royale” was something the dweebs would bring up all the way back when I was in college Quentin is late to game on this. And it’s especially eye-brow raising considering how many movies he “borrows” from. I’ve heard it said he has become the cinematic DJ taking other people’s work (Lady Snowblood, Django etc) and put his own remix to them, not that it’s a bad thing but that’s how he rolls.

  39. Will people finally realize Tarantino sucks? The world may never know.

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