Author: business

Massachusetts-based Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys says they were not suspended on X after frontman Ken Casey called out a fan for wearing “Make America Great Again” merchandise at a weekend show.

Casey, Dropkick Murphys founder and lead vocalist, had some choice words about MAGA hats after he spotted a fan wearing a white one at a sold-out show in Boston on Saturday night.

“The Chinese (expletive) red that they all wear, and I think it’s dyeing their brains. Ya got the black-on-black Elon Musk, true Nazi edition. And then my man here is getting ready for summer with a nice (expletive) white white one,” Casey says in a clip reposted to YouTube.

Casey went on to say that he admired the man’s “dedication,” asking the audience: “If you’re in a room full of people and you want to know who’s in a cult, how do you know who’s in a cult? They’ve been holding up a (expletive) hat the whole night to represent a president.”

“This is America, there’s no kings here,” Casey yelled to a cheering crowd.

Various media outlets reported that the Dropkick Murphys account was suspended on X following the interaction between Casey and the fan.

The Dropkick Murphy X account currently says it was suspended for violating X rules, but the band says they have been off X, formerly Twitter, since 2022. The exact details and the timing surrounding the band’s suspension were not immediately available.

“We broke up with him first. We quit Twitter in 2022 when he was only half a Nazi,” Casey said in Tuesday statement.

‘He would have suspended us by now,’ band says

Someone else, unaffiliated with the band, later took band’s X handle and pretended to be “our official account,” Casey said.

“So we filed a legal complaint to put a stop to that—which is why @dropkickmurphys shows as suspended,” Casey said. “Look, we pulled our account because we didn’t want to be part of that guy’s empire. But if we were still on there, I’m sure he would have suspended us by now.”

An X spokesperson confirmed to USA TODAY that the information shared by Dropkick Murphys on Tuesday afternoon was accurate.

Dropkick Murphys, who have been vocal about their disdain for President Donald Trump, also called out another fan sporting MAGA hat at a show in Clearwater, Florida on March 8, according to a fan video shared by the band.

“The reason we speak out, we don’t care if we lose fans because when history is said and done, we want it known that the Dropkick Murphys stood with the people,” Casey said in the video. “We stood with the workers. It’s all a (expletive) scam, guys.”

Casey also noted that the band “always sells proudly made in America merchandise only.” Official MAGA merchandise is American made, but unofficial vendors make them elsewhere, USA TODAY reported in 2020.

Contributing: Chris Jordan, Asbury Park Press part of the USA TODAY Network

Move over, “Challengers.” There’s a new steamy sports movie in town.

In a Vanity Fair profile published Tuesday, Gwyneth Paltrow shared new details about her first film in six years: “Marty Supreme,” a ping-pong comedy that pairs her with Timothée Chalamet. After Paltrow, 52, and Chalamet, 29, were spotted kissing on set, she teased that there’s more where that came from.

“I mean, we have a lot of sex in this movie,” she said. “There’s a lot — a lot.”

Indeed, when Vanity Fair asked the “Iron Man” actress if she is “in a lot of vulnerable positions with” the “Dune” actor, she simply replied, “Beyond.”

This will be Paltrow’s first movie since 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” and her first on-screen role in a non-Marvel film since 2015’s “Mortdecai.”

The actress evidently had a bit of catching up to do on how the industry works now, as she told Vanity Fair she was unfamiliar with the role of an intimacy coordinator, which SAG-AFTRA says acts as a liaison between actors and production for nude and intimate scenes. Paltrow did not seem to feel this was necessary, and she recalled that she and Chalamet both told their intimacy coordinator to “step a little bit back” when filming.

“I don’t know how it is for kids who are starting out, but … if someone is like, ‘Okay, and then he’s going to put his hand here,’ I would feel, as an artist, very stifled by that,” she told Vanity Fair.

‘I really hate seeing myself’: Gwyneth Paltrow reveals the only movie she can watch herself in

Josh Safdie, one half of the Safdie brothers, directed “Marty Supreme,” which is being released by A24. Few details about the plot have been confirmed, but Paltrow told Vanity Fair she plays a woman “who is married to someone who is in the Ping-Pong mafia, as it were,” who becomes entangled with Chalamet’s character.

“They meet and she’s had a pretty tough life, and I think he breathes life back into her, but it’s kind of transactional for them both,” she explained.

Timothée Chalamet at 2025 Oscars: See photos of his red-carpet look

Paltrow described her co-star to Vanity Fair as “such a thinking man’s sex symbol,” adding that he is a “very polite” and “properly raised” man “who takes his work really seriously and is a fun partner.” But she revealed she has been so disconnected from Hollywood since she last acted, she had never seen a Chalamet movie.

“Marty Supreme” will follow a recent trend of films in which women end up romantically involved with much younger men, including “Babygirl” with Nicole Kidman and “The Idea of You” with Anne Hathaway.

The movie is set for release on Dec. 25, which could suggest the studio plans to position it as an awards contender for the 2026 Oscars. Tyler, the Creator and Fran Drescher also star in the film, which is one of two separate movies directed by the Safdie brothers arriving in 2025.

Josh Safdie’s brother Benny also has a film on the way, “The Smashing Machine,” starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

“The Sex Lives of College Girls” is dropping out after a few semesters.

The show, which follows a foursome of roommates as they navigate the ups and downs as they embark on their college careers, has been canceled after its third season. Warner Bros. Television, the studio behind the show, is trying to find a new home for the comedy series.

A brainchild of comedy writer and actress Mindy Kaling, “Sex Lives” enjoyed cult-like popularity when it was first released on HBO Max in 2021.

However, the third season, which began airing on the platform (now called Max) in November and wrapped in January, offered fans a bit of a different flavor.

Mindy Kaling on the pressures of TikTok for young comedians, where comedy is headed

Breakout star Reneé Rapp, who played the self-confident and oozingly sarcastic Leighton, departed just two episodes in and was replaced by a new suite-mate: Kacey, played by Gracie Lawrence.

Rapp previously announced the season would be her final one, writing in a post on X in 2023: “A lot of queer work gets belittled—but playing Leighton has changed my life. I love who I am 10x more than I did before knowing her. I hope she gave y’all a little bit of that too.”

The reception to her replacement was a bit wobbly, however, and some fans speculated that the final episode, which did not lean into a cliffhanger format mid-way through the ladies’ sophomore year, was a hint that the show’s future was uncertain.

Justin Noble, who co-runs the show alongside Kaling, previously insisted that wasn’t the case, however.

“No one told us to, like, wrap up the show or anything like that,” Noble said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published in January.

In the streaming era, cancellation has proved somewhat more fickle as a show that was one platform’s trash can become another’s treasure.

How did ‘Sex Lives’ Season 3 end?

As Season 3 wrapped, Bela (Amrit Kaur) had a bisexual awakening, Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) faced legal action from Essex College, Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) had successfully unionized against the university and Kacey found her voice as the lead of a play.

Noble told TheWrap in January that he felt there was “momentum” for Season 3 to inspire a Season 4 renewal.

“We have multiple new love interests that appear in these two episodes at the end of Season 3, we have the closing of some doors and different extracurriculars and school things, so there’s a lot of momentum heading into a Season 4, and lots of ways we can go,” he said.

Noble added: “So pending a phone call, Mindy and I and the writers will be at the ready to decide which way to go.”

Justin Noble holds out hope for ‘Sex Lives’ Season 4

On Tuesday, Noble took to Instagram to express sadness over the cancellation news.

“Unfortunately, Max has decided not to order a fourth season,” he confirmed. “We are currently in discussions with some new potential homes for the show, and it’s nice that there is so much interest.”

“As creatives we’re sort of taught to never compliment our own projects. Or even downplay it when other people do,” he wrote. “But here’s the thing: I think ‘The Sex Lives of College Girls’ is a pretty damn good TV show.

“I can’t help but mention that it feels like there are fewer and fewer comedy series every month − and we are living in an era where we need that comedy badly, so I really hope that turns around,” he continued later in the four-slide statement.

“I will always be proud of this show for being the thing that we weren’t seeing enough of: a hard comedy ensemble where ladies get the jokes,” Noble wrote, adding that he hopes there is still a future for the program somewhere.

In his January Hollywood Reporter interview, Noble discussed the possibility of a Season 4.

“I’m hoping the show goes on,” he said. “It’s always at the top of the Max (top 10 series) list, which is nice to see. And I think that’s, at the end of the day, what’s making decisions these days, it’s numbers and dollars spent.”

This story has been updated to add new information.

Contributing: KiMi Robinson, USA TODAY

“Matilda” actress Mara Wilson is mourning the loss of her childhood friend Michelle Trachtenberg.

In an emotional Vulture essay on the “Harriet the Spy” star published Tuesday, Wilson paid tribute to Trachtenberg, who was found dead last month in a New York City apartment building at 39.

Wilson, 37, wrote that she met Trachtenberg during the 1997 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, where the Nick alum was “play-fighting” with “Jerry Maguire” star Jonathan Lipnicki.

“It stuck with me for a different reason: She was being nice to him,” Wilson wrote in the piece titled “My Cool Friend Michelle.” “Jonathan was five years younger than her, but she didn’t treat him like an annoyance. I knew so many older girls who were mean to younger kids, but she wasn’t, even when Jonathan was trying to slip an ice cube down the back of her shirt.”

‘Matilda’ star Mara Wilson empathizes with Britney Spears on being sexualized as a young star

The pair would see each other once again at the Audrey Hepburn Foundation’s Hollywood for Children charity film festival months later. She affectionately added: “That’s where I would find out it wasn’t just me: Everybody fell in love with Michelle Trachtenberg.”

Wilson, an outspoken advocate for child stars, wrote that their star-studded group of child actor friends included Trachtenberg’s “Harriet the Spy” co-star Vanessa Lee Chester, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Rider Strong, Mae Whitman, Raven-Symoné and the sibling trio of Tia Mowry, Tamera Mowry and Tahj Mowry, among others.

“Last month, when I found out Michelle died, I was packing for a work trip. I looked at my phone and felt my stomach drop. My hands were shaking and my knees went weak — I thought I might pass out. I sat in a chair, and started to sob,” Wilson wrote.

She continued: “This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was too young. She’d worked too hard. I always thought I would get the chance to see her again, to tell her how much I’d always looked up to her. To tell her the times we spent together as children were some of the best of my life.”

Mara Wilson says Michelle Trachtenberg was bullied about stardom

In her essay, Wilson recalled that Trachtenberg was bullied in school for being more famous than her classmates.

After seeing “less and less” of one another as they grew older, “something surprising happened” when Trachtenberg’s family moved to Burbank, California, and the pair attended the same middle school.

“Surely, I thought, she’d be one of the beloved girls in school. But that didn’t happen,” Wilson said, adding that other kids bullied the actress because “there was always a lot of resentment toward the kids who’d ‘made it.’”

Wilson said that shortly before Trachtenberg graduated in 1999, she pulled her aside for an emotional conversation, in which she asked Wilson if she was also targeted by their peers. “They never stop,” Trachtenberg reportedly told Wilson.

“I had never seen Michelle cry before. I’d never seen her anything other than perfectly composed and confident,” Wilson wrote. “It wasn’t just that she was being bullied; it was that there wasn’t any way she could get them not to hate her. So much of being a child actor is about making everyone happy. It felt cruelly ironic to be so hated when our raison d’être was getting people to like us.”

The Palace of Culture and Science casts a long, spiky shadow over Warsaw’s Plac Defilad (Parade Square). Europe’s biggest public square is brutalised by the vast mass of this “gift” from the Soviet Union, a hulking, syringe-spired skyscraper in Stalin’s favoured socialist realist style, completed in 1955. It was designed by Lev Rudnev who was also responsible for similar prominent towers including the looming main building of Moscow State University.

Its shadow seemed so present that for decades it haunted and stymied development of the square, which was designed for military parades and May 1 tank shows and, after the fall of communism, was filled with booths, kiosks and car parks as capitalism arrived in a hurry. 

Now, 70 years after the completion of the Soviet skyscraper, comes the next phase in the square’s life. A large white groundscraper has appeared on its eastern side, beginning to enclose the windy, uninviting public space.

This block houses the Museum of Modern Art, an impressive new institution and home to the city’s collection. It was designed by New York-based Thomas Phifer, a genial architect whose work is the culmination of a quarter-century of efforts to reimagine the site. First there was a mooted Frank Gehry blockbuster that came to nothing, then a competition-winning proposal from Swiss architect Christian Kerez. Badly mishandled by the city authorities, that commission ended acrimoniously in a legal dispute and the next competition was won by Phifer with his gleaming white concrete block. 

Architects like the idea of dialogue between buildings, between new and old. I’d have to say that here, in this charged space, there is not much dialogue at all — more of a confrontation. Perhaps there could never be; perhaps these are mutually exclusive languages; the vertical and the horizontal, the minimal modern and the maximal authoritarian. Between a banal commercial thoroughfare and that stonking symbol of Stalinism, the design might have been more nuanced, more of a conversation with history, language and material. Or perhaps the stark contrast is a deliberate moving on.

Either way it is bold and a little clumsy. The clean, white, toothpaste texture of the concrete appears more like a taut tarpaulin than a civic building. An arcade suggests a public nature but there is no real reason to wander along it and remarkably, for a building stuck right in the middle of a square and on a main road, the entrance isn’t immediately obvious. The unfindable entrance is a hoary cliche of modernist architecture but one that seems to weirdly abide.

The glass behind the facade appears blank and corporate but once you’re inside, the building begins to wrap itself around you. The biggest surprise appears in the form of an elaborate central stair. It looks like an MC Escher for the digital age, an impossible split stair squeezed through an AI grinder to produce something uncanny, almost kaleidoscopic, maybe a little headache and vertigo inducing. It is photogenic, striking and, for a building in 2025, oddly ableist. I know the less mobile can ascend in lifts but having the pivotal public experience of an interior as an epic stair seems a little undemocratic. Phifer talks about it “as a place for meeting, encountering people” but perhaps not all people?

If this all sounds a little like a lot of unreasonable quibbling, it stops here. There may be issues with the public spaces, both inside and out, but the galleries are outstanding. Arranged in a simple circuit over two large floors, they are easy to navigate, exquisitely lit and generous spaces of luminous clarity. 

Many contemporary museums confuse, leaving you with the impression that you might have missed a room along the way. Not this one. Phifer credits the museum director, Joanna Mytkowska, with steering the designers away from an idea of vague flexibility. Instead these are fixed and formal rooms, known quantities for the curators who have regular, serious galleries to fill. There are no leftover spaces here, no awkward corners, only well-proportioned, well-lit rooms. 

About two-thirds of the work here is Polish, with the rest establishing some contemporary global context and more than half of the work is by women. There are plenty of familiar names: Monika Sosnowska (more of her would have been good), Mirosław Bałka, Paweł Althamer, Magdalena Abakanowicz (a stunning red sculptural installation), Isa Genzken alongside many younger and less well-known artists. There is every medium imaginable, from amateur movies (Marysia Lewandowska) to suture stitches from Mexican morgues (Teresa Margolles) via craft, sound installations and the usual explorations of gender and sexuality through dressing up. The powerful socialist realist bronze “Friendship”, by sculptor Alina Szapocznikow, dominates the central stair space. It has stood in the Palace of Arts since its opening and the figures lost their arms when they were shoehorned out in 1992. Found in a garden, it was restored and returned. The art is not all brilliant but yet all somehow looks brilliant.

The top floor galleries are naturally top-lit, milky glass spanning deep concrete beams. Huge stainless steel doors impart a sense of permanence. There are occasional generous windows so that the city is always present; if there is a conversation it is finally established from the inside. The gallery sequences are broken up by a series of wood-enveloped “City Rooms”, spaces for looking back at the everyday life of Warsaw. With bespoke benches and huge pull wooden handles they feel like little temperate saunas, an occasional quiet relief from the intensity of the art. 

To one side of the museum stands a blind tower, a stubby San Gimignano effort perhaps in riposte to the stiletto atop the Soviet Palace. lt houses a neat little cinema with scalloped, illuminated walls. The occasional rumble of a subway train beneath gives a hint as to what seem rather arbitrary structural decisions that inform the facades; the building needed to accommodate the serpentine tracks beneath with pinpoint precision. It is this aspect, rather understated, which suggests the complex archaeology here; not so much a subterranean landscape of physical fragments and remains but a metaphorical subconscious, the memories of a city not only scarred but obliterated by war and marked by the relationship with Russia ever since. That (mostly) armless sculpture of embracing Polish and Soviet worker is totemic here.

The Soviet Union may have disappeared along with the tribunes, fur-hatted politicians and massively medalled generals, but the threat from the east now looks more real than it has for a generation. Yet this has also been a place of celebration, of football screens and enormous crowds for a Polish pope. Cities are all about adjacency, about layers of history and use, good and bad neighbours, new, old, shabby and shining. Plac Defilad, with its epic dimensions, will never be intimate or charming like Warsaw’s rebuilt old town, but its scale embodies a history that is grand, uncomfortable, ceremonial, sentimental and contested. I find it difficult to imagine that those acres of pristine white concrete will not become a canvas for graffiti of every sort but perhaps if they do it would be a perfect carapace for an art museum with an unforgiving shell but a wonderful inside. 

artmuseum.pl

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A cause of death has been released for drag artist and “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK” star The Vivienne, who died in January at age 32.

Chanel Williams, sister of the British drag queen born James Lee Williams, confirmed to the BBC on Monday that her sibling died from a drug-induced cardiac arrest. The heart abnormality occurred due to “the effects of taking ketamine.”

Chanel told the British outlet that the “Drag Race” alum’s family remains “completely devastated” by Williams’ recent death. The family also plans to team up with a substance-abuse organization to raise awareness of the dangers of ketamine.

Simon Jones, James Williams’ manager, confirmed the cause of death in a statement to People. USA TODAY has reached out to Jones for comment.

Williams’ “family and I feel it is important to say how James tragically died,” Jones wrote in an Instagram Story on Monday, according to the Los Angeles Times and Sky News.

Jones’ statement continued: “We hope that by releasing this information we can raise awareness about the dangers of ongoing ketamine usage and what it can do (to) your body. Ketamine usage is on the rise, particularly among young people, and I don’t think the full dangers of the drug are being discussed.”

The Vivienne dies: ‘Drag Race UK’ winner was 32

Jones previously confirmed Williams’ death in a Jan. 5 statement posted to Instagram. 

“Viv was a close friend, a client and someone I loved very much,” Jones wrote. “From the moment I met them in 2019 I knew we could create magic together, and I became their manager. Their talent was immense and the light they brought to every room was astonishing.”

A beloved member of both the drag and musical theater communities, Williams made history as the inaugural winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK,” a British spinoff of drag queen RuPaul Charles’ reality competition series “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

What is ketamine?

In 2023, ketamine made headlines after “Friends” star Matthew Perry’s autopsy revealed “the acute effects of ketamine” were the leading cause in his death.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration describes ketamine as “a dissociative anesthetic that has some hallucinogenic effects.” It’s a schedule III controlled substance, meaning it has been determined to have “a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.”

It is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for medical use in approved healthcare settings, with products that include as an “injectable, short-acting anesthetic,” as well as “a nasal spray for treatment resistant depression” (as esketamine). The FDA first approved ketamine as a short-acting anesthetic for use in humans and animals in 1970.

According to the DEA, “Ketamine has the potential for misuse, which may lead to moderate or low physical dependence or high psychological dependence.”

RuPaul mourned The Vivienne’s death

In a Jan. 6 statement shared on Instagram, Charles mourned Williams’ death with a photo of them together on the “Drag Race” stage.

“With a broken heart, I join the entire Drag Race universe in mourning the loss of The Vivienne — an incredibly talented queen and a lovely human being,” Charles wrote.

Charles’ “Drag Race” co-judge Michelle Visage paid tribute to the British drag artist in her own Instagram post, remembering Williams as “a beacon to so many.”

“You were always there, always laughing, always giving, always on point,” Visage wrote. “Your laughter, your wit, your talent, your drag. I loved all of it but I loved your friendship most of all.”

Kelly Clarkson is back on the air.

The “Since U Been Gone” singer, 42, returned to her daytime talk show on Tuesday after being out for almost two weeks. Guest hosts had stepped in for Clarkson during her unexplained absence.

Clarkson made her return on the March 18 episode, where she welcomed “Severance” star Adam Scott at the top of the show. She did not address the reason for her absence.

The Instagram account for “The Kelly Clarkson Show” indicated she will be absent again on Wednesday, as Andy Cohen is listed as guest host. Clarkson will be back for the Thursday and Friday episodes, per the episode lineup and a rep for the show.

On Thursday, Clarkson will host Tyler Perry, Alicia Vikander and Mau y Ricky. Ellen Pompeo, David Blaine and Crystle Stewart are slated as guests for Friday.

The “American Idol” alumna has not hosted her show since her March 5 episode, which prompted questions and concerns among fans.

Others argued Clarkson should not have to tell viewers why she is absent, with one fan writing on YouTube, “I think we need to remember that this is a job, and sometimes, people take time off from their jobs, and they don’t need to explain why. I don’t think Kelly Clarkson needs to tell us where she went to those wondering.”

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” star Simu Liu initially stepped in for Clarkson when she was out on March 3 and told the studio audience that even he wasn’t aware he’d be taking the helm that day.

“Kelly isn’t able to make it today. We’re sending her our very best. I did not know that I was doing this until about five minutes ago when I arrived to promote my new movie ‘Last Breath.’” I’m here now, and look, I’m not one to back down from a challenge.”

Kelly Clarkson opens up about diagnosis that led to weight loss: ‘I wasn’t shocked’

Kelly Clarkson’s guest hosts included Wanda Sykes, Josh Groban

Clarkson returned for the March 5 show, but had been out since then. “Sunday Today” anchor Willie Geist stepped in as host March 12, and Molly Sims hosted March 13-14. Kal Penn served as guest host on March 17.

Kelly Clarkson is ready to smile again with talk show’s move to NYC: ‘A weight has lifted’

The star-studded lineup of guest hosts also included “The Daily Show” alum and comedian Roy Wood Jr., who took the reins on March 6.

“Kelly’s out for the day. I’m back. You’re in good hands. I was here about a week ago, I think they brought me back because of my resemblance to Kelly. You need to squint to see it, though,” Wood joked.

Comedian Wanda Sykes and singer Josh Groban co-hosted the March 7 episode, and Brooke Shields performed and hosted, as well.

In 2019, amid the premiere of her talk show, Clarkson opened up to USA TODAY about her approach to hosting “The Kelly Clarkson Show.”

“This is what’s weird about me. Ignorance is bliss. I’m just doing my thing. I love talking to people. I love singing. I love the audience being kind of a co-host with me. My band’s here,” she told USA TODAY. “So, I’m just kind of doing me. It might work and it might not.”

Contributing: Bill Keveney, Melissa Rugierri, Brendan Morrow

In celebration of the release of “Sunrise on the Reaping,” we’re revisiting our 2009 interview with “Hunger Games” author Suzanne Collins, where she chatted about “Catching Fire” with the late USA TODAY Book Critic Bob Minzesheimer. It’s one of only about dozen press interviews Collins has done. This story has been lightly updated for style.

Suzanne Collins, author of publishing’s hottest new teen series, “The Hunger Games,” says the most common question readers ask isn’t about its violence or political undercurrents, but its budding love story.

“Catching Fire,” second in a trilogy, advances but doesn’t resolve a romantic triangle angling its 16-year-old narrator between two jealous boyfriends.

Love can wait, Collins says. “She’s got a lot of things on her plate — like staying alive and saving humanity.”

The series, filled with cliffhangers, is set in the future. North America has been devastated by war and divided between a decadent, all-powerful Capitol and 12 struggling districts. Each district must send one girl and one boy to compete in an annual televised fight to the death. The gladiators are primped by stylists and costume designers before the blood flows.

Collins, 47, has written for younger kids. She worked on TV shows, including Noggin’s “Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!”. Her five-volume fantasy about an underground war between humans and animals, “The Underland Chronicles,” is for readers 9 to 12.

“The Hunger Games,” for readers 12 and older, was inspired by Greek mythology and TV.

Three years ago, Collins, a mother of two (ages 10 and 15), was channel-surfing between reality shows and news from Iraq at her home near Danbury, Conn.

“On one channel young people were competing for money. On the next channel, young people were fighting for their lives. I was tired, and the ideas merged.”

If the Roman Empire had had TV, would the real-life gladiators have been TV stars?

“Absolutely,” Collins says. “It was mass, popular entertainment. If you take away the audience, what do you have?”

She also was familiar with the myth of the Theseus and the Minotaur, in which Athens was forced to send seven boys and seven maidens to Crete to be devoured until Theseus volunteered to go and kill the monster.

In Collins’ series, the country is called Panem, from the Latin “panem et circenses” (bread and circuses), a metaphor for popular amusements used to placate the populace.

The narrator is named Katniss Everdeen. Katniss is an edible plant, which Collins discovered in an outdoor-survival book.

Thanks to her father, who died in a coal-mining accident when she was 11, Katniss knows how to use a bow and arrow to survive, a useful skill when she volunteers to replace her younger sister in the Hunger Games.

Katniss cares about the two boys, but not in the same way they love her, Collins says. “She’s not that interested in romance. She equates love with marriage and kids, who could be sent to the games.”

Readers, however, are taken by Katniss’ romantic prospects. The Internet is filled with debates about her best potential mate. If you search Google for Katniss Everdeen, you will get 50,300 results — just one year after she appeared in print.

The first book, “The Hunger Games,” hasn’t risen above No. 92 on USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list, but it has stayed in the top 400 for an entire year, with 500,000 copies in print. “Catching Fire” has a 350,000-copy first printing, which portends a best seller.

In Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., where “The Hunger Games” is among 49 books on the ninth-grade summer reading list (students chose three), teacher Annmarie Powers says her students introduced her to the series.

It “spread like wildfire,” she says, with themes that teens are consumed with: “fairness, relationships, plenty of violence and blood, greed, hypocrisy, subservience and rebellion.”

Collins is slated to write the screenplay for movie producer Nina Jacobson. But first she has to finish the third book, saying only: “There are deaths.”

Major characters?

“Probably. Apparently, everyone is fair game.”

‘Sunrise on the Reaping’ is here: Prequel is a cornucopia of iconic ‘Hunger Games’ characters

Bob Minzesheimer was USA TODAY’s Book Critic from 1997 to 2015, where he interviewed everyone from Maya Angelou to Stephen King and James Patterson. Read his full obituary from 2016 here.