MHS Senior Assembly Features 'Hunger Games' Producer

The producer of the film returned to his alma mater today for an assembly with seniors, and told them that coming back was better than going to the Academy Awards.

“I can’t tell you how much it means to me to be here,” he said, adding jokingly that he went to South Mountain School and “grew up on the mean streets by the Rahway River.”

“It gives me the shivers because so much hasn’t changed,” he said. “You can go home again.”

Kilik also came to his hometown to open the Education Foundation-sponsored Millburn Film Fest Wdnesday night, where eight winning student films will be screened.

A 1974 MHS graduate and classmate of Millburn High School Principal William Miron, Kilik’s past credits include Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, Dead Man Walking, Pleasantville, Babel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the upcoming The Comedian starring Robert De Niro,and other films that have earned 27 Oscar nominations.

Kilik said his time at Millburn High School made him who he is today. Collaborating on projects, being part of the state championship track team, helped him learn how to work with others and lead to skills he’s used in his career.

The friends he made in high school and college are still his friends and it was through one of those friends that he met director and screenwriter Gary Ross, who he’s collaborated with on movie projects, including The Hunger Games.

Kilik has nearly 40 films to his credit, everything from comedies to intense dramas to documentaries. But the Hunger Games has been the biggest success. The Hunger Games earned $155 million at the box office its opening weekend, making it the third best film opening in America.

It was also the film that generated the most interest among the high school crowd, most of whom had read the series and/or seen the film.

Kilik noted that it was the director Gary Ross’s children who brought the book to their dad’s attention for a possible movie, long before it became so widely read.

Kilik told students that the film industry is one of the American industries where there are still jobs, and that for every few people they see on screen, there are dozens, if not hundreds, behind the scenes. In fact, he said, 1,500 people worked on The Hunger Games.

He talked of starting at the bottom, working as a gopher on sets with Woody Allen, Robert DeNiro and Martin Scorsese.

“If I could get my foot in the door – I’d get the coffee, whatever,” he said. “For five or six years I was the assistant to the assistant to the assistant director. But I learned and was able network and eventually I was able to get my own project together.”

Not long after that, he met Spike Lee and worked with him on Do the Right Thing, which, he said, was a turning point for him.

Thirty-five films later, he produced The Hunger Games.

On the heals of Gary Ross’s announcement Wednesday that he would not return to direct Catching Fire, the sequel to The Hunger Games, Kilik told the students that he has to make a decision quickly whether to produce it.

“It’s been a long road, and it would be nice to have a break,” he said, but he also feels responsibility to the writers, cast and crew. “I have to figure it out in the next 24 hours.”

He thanked the students and said someday he hoped to return to deliver a commencement speech.

“Millburn High School is No. 1,” he said. “This is better than the Oscars for me.”

On Wednesday night, Kilick opened the Millburn Film Fest, where eight winning student films, selected recently by a panel of judges, were also shown at the Red Carpet Premiere event.

The Film Festival, sponsored by the Education Foundation of Millburn-Short Hills, provides an opportunity for the district to showcase Millburn students’ talents in filmmaking and technology. For a list of the films and more informaiton about them, click .

Check back for more on the Film Fest later.