Josh Hutcherson Went Up Against Pablo Escobar In This Overlooked 2014 Crime Thriller

You probably know Josh Hutcherson from "Bridge to Terabithia" or the original "Hunger Games" franchise — but if you're trying to watch his entire body of work, you might not know that he starred in and produced a movie where he plays a young guy who takes on real-life drug lord Pablo Escobar.

In 2014's "Escobar: Paradise Lost," Hutcherson plays a young guy named Nick Brady who's in Colombia to surf with his brother Dylan (future director of "The Brutalist" Brady Corbet) when he meets a beautiful young woman with whom he forms an immediate romantic connection. Unfortunately for Nick, the woman in question — Maria, played by Claudia Traisac — happens to be the niece of Pablo Escobar, portrayed perfectly in the film by the legendary Benicio del Toro. Maria falls in love with Nick and decides to try to leave Colombia with him, but I'm sure you can guess that drug kingpin Escobar doesn't love the idea of his niece running away, and he concocts a plan.

Basically, Escobar tells Nick and other "trusted" friends that he's going to prison and he needs them to hide some of his most prized possessions, only to then kill the drivers who brought them to those remote hiding spots. When Nick can't bring himself to kill his target, he ends up targeted by Escobar, who seeks revenge ... and targets Dylan and Dylan's wife and child. "Escobar: Paradise Lost" is a brutal and stunning story, and it's also pretty interesting that Hutcherson sought out this particular story while he was still involved in a franchise about corrupt governments and violence as a means of control.

Actors involved in major franchises like to prove that they're more than their signature role, so I do think it's pretty admirable that Josh Hutcherson decided to show off his range as an actor in a project like "Escobar: Paradise Lost." As Teen Vogue reported when they interviewed Hutcherson around the film's release, he made it while he was on a break between the second "Hunger Games" film, "Catching Fire," and the first half of the final two-part epic "Mockingjay." As Hutcherson told the outlet, "I had to get an indie in there. I've never done a project like this; I thought it was so interesting ... and dark."

So why did he make such a hard pivot? According to Hutcherson, he wanted to challenge himself with a true independent film that had a low budget and was shot quickly. "There's something about not having a lot of money, not having a lot of time," he noted. "And you don't have to report to a company. Studios are run by a corporation. For an indie, you're making it with people who want to make this movie for art." Unfortunately for Hutcherson, his training for the "Hunger Games" films, in which he has to kill his fellow teenagers to survive, ended up kicking in at inopportune moments:  "Our director was like, 'Josh, you look too good with the gun — you've gotta look clueless,' and I was like, 'Uhh, sorry!'"

Just as a quick reminder, Hutcherson plays Peeta Mellark in the original four "Hunger Games" films, love interest to the reluctant protagonist Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), and a kindly yet formidable tribute in not one, but two iterations of the Games. Since then, Hutcherson has continued working steadily.

After the original "Hunger Games" movies wrapped up in 2015 with "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2," Josh Hutcherson's career did falter just a bit; he worked on a film with the now-disgraced actor, writer, and director James Franco in 2016 called "The Long Home" that was never ultimately released, although he did play a vital supporting role in Franco's 2017 project "The Disaster Artist" about the making of the terrible cult hit "The Room." (Hutcherson plays Philip Haldiman, an actor who plays the character of Denny in "The Room.") Thankfully, Hutcherson earned a recent career resurgence thanks to the 2023 horror hit "Five Nights at Freddy's," where he plays security guard Mike Schmidt, a guy who finds himself working a cruddy night job at a now-abandoned spot called Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. As Mike ultimately discovers, the animatronic animals inside Freddy Fazbear's aren't just alive, but extremely violent — and even though Mike survives the events of the first movie, he does find himself tormented by the gang of creepy robotic animals all over again in 2025's "Five Nights at Freddy's 2."

Beyond that, Hutcherson is currently starring in Rachel Sennott's hit HBO comedy "I Love L.A.," where he plays schoolteacher Dylan, the boyfriend of Sennott's main character Maia. Plus, Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence are set to reprise their roles as Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen in the upcoming prequel film, "The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping," which focuses on the origin story of Katniss and Peeta's Games mentor Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson in the original series and Joseph Zada in this prequel." If you want to check out his performance in "Escobar: Paradise Lost," it's available for free on Tubi.