So as I understand it…in a dystopian society, a participant in a blood sport game gets so popular that the powers that be change the rules to get this person killed before this person becomes a threat to the order of things.
Sounds like “Rollerball”.
Not precisely.
In *Rollerball *a champion athlete is pressured to retire because he’s become too big a star in what’s supposed to be a collective team effort. In The Hunger Games an unwilling victim is drafted to fight in a gladiatorial exhibition as a tribute to the power of the Capitol; only her refusal to play along with the “rules” makes her suspect as a rebel, which ends up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Hunger Games sounds like a lot of stories really. I couldn’t help but think of Battle Royale the entire time I read it(and watched it).
Of course you couldn’t, because the Internet hive mind has you. 
Hunger Games and Battle Royale both owe their existence to The Most Dangerous Game and Stephen King’s Running Man/Long Walk two-fer. Anyone shouting “rip-off” at The Hunger Games hasn’t paid attention to what’s been happening with dystopian fiction for decades.
Interesting you say that. It made me think of Dangerous Game as well. I didn’t mention it, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t read it.
I guess Battle Royale is more recent in my memory.
Actually the Hunger Games was based on the myth of Theseus which predates them by a few thousand years.
Partially based. It was partially based on a lot of things. As I said, The Hunger Games is a nice soup of influences including Greek myth, Roman gladiator culture, The Most Dangerous Game, Stephen King, Battle Royale, and Survivor:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
Collins has said that the inspiration for The Hunger Games came from channel surfing on television. On one channel she observed people competing on a reality show and on another she saw footage of the invasion of Iraq. The two “began to blur in this very unsettling way” and the idea for the book was formed. The Greek myth of Theseus served as a major basis for the story, with Collins describing Katniss as a futuristic Theseus, and Roman gladiatorial games provided the framework. The sense of loss that Collins developed through her father’s service in the Vietnam War was also an influence on the story, with Katniss having lost her father at age 11, five years before the story begins.
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