'The world will be watching," reads the tagline on posters for The Hunger Games. Cinemas must be crossing their toes. The first movie instalment of Suzanne Collins's bloodthirsty teen trilogy of novels is out in March: could this be the franchise to fill the boots of Harry Potter and soon-to-be-departed Twilight? Set in an unspecified time in the future, America has collapsed into a dictatorship divided in 12 districts. Every year each district must pick a boy and girl to enter a barbaric reality TV show – a bloody fight to the death, Battle Royale-style, for the pleasure of audiences.

You need only look at Daniel Radcliffe, Kristen Stewart et al to see what the film could mean for its young actors. Among them is Josh Hutcherson, who stars with Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth. "When I found out I got the part, I couldn't speak," the 19-year-old from Kentucky said. You might remember Hutcherson from The Kids Are All Right; he played the son of Julianne Moore and Annette Bening, memorably experiencing total teen-bafflement at finding his gay mums' man-porn.

MTV named him "actor most likely to play a superhero" – possibly they had an eye on that jawline. Next up there's another Hunger Games as well as the lead in a Cuba-set drama directed by Benicio Del Toro and Laurent (The Class) Cantent. No doubt he'll have a few teenage fans to contend with too. Note the appearance of a YouTube devotional: "Josh Hutcherson – beautiful soul."