Katniss the kitty? Cats remake 'The Hunger Games'

"Meow the odds be ever in your favor!" The Pet Collective casts cats in the roles of Katniss Everdeen and the other beloved characters from "The Hunger Games."

It's hard to improve on the hit movie and beloved best-selling series "The Hunger Games" -- unless, of course, you replace all the humans with cats. Instead of elaborate special effects, the movie set is "Sweded" (re-created using the cheapest materials possible) into a cardboard masterpiece. Or is that meow-sterpiece?

"The Hunger Games" cat video is part of a bi-weekly series called "Movies As Told By Cats" on The Pet Collective, a site dedicated to pets and the people who love them. The video features the best scenes from "The Hunger Games" -- romance, action, and drama at a purr-fect pace.

"The inspiration came from pictures of cats sticking their heads out of cardboards and someone online decided to draw anime characters on the cardboards," Hai-Lam Phan, senior producer and director, of the series, tells Crave. "I thought it would be funny to build on top of that, and make a story parody out of the frames. Thus, Movies As Told By Cats was born."
Human actors and actresses are hard to keep motivated and in the moment, so how does a director keep a cat's attention long enough to get the perfect shot?

"The funniest thing about making the video is probably the producers dancing around trying to get the cats' attention," Phan says. "In each frame of the movie, the cats have to somewhat emote to sell the story beat. And cats are cats, so they're naturally disinterested about everything. We tried everything -- playing with toys, dancing, making weird noises, begging. Through much trial and error, we got our shots, but not without looking a bit foolish."

For those of you who are inspired by this parody video to make your own feline-friendly tributes, Phan has a few tips.

"Infinite patience and lots of strings," Phan suggests. "My approach to working with cats is not to expect much from them, but instead, build the story around what they naturally do. I find cats are naturally funny in their own weird ways (like sticking their heads through things), so exploit that to your advantage."

If you like the feline "Hunger Games" video, there are more to come (paws crossed for "Game of Thrones" and "Sherlock" tributes)! All you "Pretty Little Liars" fans, be sure to watch their other video, "Kitty Litter Liars," here:

My personal favorite cat parody on The Pet Collective has to be "Paw Warz" -- cats (and humans dressed as animals) reenacting scenes from "Star Wars," including the Death Star trench run. Meow the Force Be With You, Always.