Quentin Tarantino isn't holding back about his feelings toward a popular book franchise.
The famed director had some choice words about "The Hunger Games" during a recent appearance on the "The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast," accusing the Suzanne Collins book series of copying Koushun Takami's 1999 novel "Battle Royale," similarly about a dystopian teen competition and also turned into a film in 2000 directed by Kinji Fukasaku. "Battle Royale" has often topped Tarantino's list of favorite movies of all time.
"'Battle Royale' is based on a novel. I do not understand how the Japanese writer didn't sue Suzanne Collins for every [expletive] thing she owns," Tarantino said in the Tuesday, Nov. 25, episode of the podcast. "They just ripped off the [expletive] book!"
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Tarantino continued on to criticize book critics for not calling out Collins on the similarities: "Stupid book critics are not going to go watch a Japanese movie called 'Battle Royale' so the stupid book critics never called her on it. They talked about how it was the most original [expletive] thing they'd ever read. As soon as the film critics saw the film, they said, 'What the [expletive]? This is just "Battle Royale" except PG!'"
