The franchise's first film, The Hunger Games, was directed by Gary Ross, whose previous work as a director and screenwriter included the (somewhat inexplicably) lauded Seabiscuit and the (much more explicably) beloved Big. He collaborated very closely with the books' author, Suzanne Collins, which ensured a high level of fidelity to the source text. It was, after all, expected that he'd stay on for the sequels. However, after the film's release, Ross announced that he would not continue with the franchise as he felt the scheduling didn't allow him enough time to make Catching Fire great. Francis Lawrence took over and substantially changed the visual style of the movies, doing away with Ross' shakycam habit and making the action sequences more sprawling.