Gauging America's appetite for 'The Hunger Games'

How much hunger will audiences have for “The Hunger Games”?

With Harry Potter gone and “Twilight” drawing to an end, Hollywood is frantic to latch on to another young adult franchise. So all eyes are on “The Hunger Games,” which comes out March 23.

Expectations are high. Perhaps too high.

On the other hand, there’s no denying the heat HG has going on right now. “The Hunger Games” trilogy — which includes “Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay” — held the top three positions on both Amazon’s print and e-book lists in January.

That’s pretty impressive, and that’s before new movie tie-in editions of the books were released Tuesday. By the time the movie arrives there should be well over 25 million copies of the trilogy circulating in the U.S.

Again, impressive. But peanuts compared to the more than 450 million Harry Potter books worldwide, or the 120 million or so “Twilight” books.

Look, I’m a huge fan of the trilogy — I’ve read it twice — and everything about the film suggests it’s going to be superb, from the casting of Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence and the involvement of director Gary Ross to the spot-on choice of supporting actors Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks and Stanley Tucci.

But let’s face a few facts:

* Jennifer Lawrence, as fine as she is, has never headlined a big movie before. She’s hardly a household name.

* Uh, this is a movie about kids killing kids. It won’t have the magical innocence of Potter, nor the swooning romance of “Twilight.”

* The audience awareness of the books is obviously nowhere near that of Potter or “Twilight.”

* As sophisticated as Potter got, HG starts there and then goes much further, becoming a political and social critique that goes way past good vs. evil.

There will be no screaming teens in the audience. no kids with wands or wizard hats, no Team Jacob or Team Edward. It’s not that kind of story. Yet people are already talking about a $70 million opening and $200 million domestic gross.

I hope so. I really do. I hope the audience is sophisticated enough to go with this stuff and all three movies get made and “Mockingjay” wins 11 Academy Awards.

I’m just worried that inflated expectations could harm the franchise before it even has a chance to catch on. Please, Hollywood, give “The Hunger Games” a chance to catch fire.