Concord company's products have role in 'Hunger Games'

CONCORD, N.C. — When the producers of “The Hunger Games” called up Gary Adams, looking for special seats for a scene in the movie, Adams had a pretty good idea of what they were looking for. More importantly, he knew just how fast they would need it.

Adams had already worked with Hollywood, having been a sales manager for Fuel Safe Racing Cells, a company that provided the special gas tanks for movie stunt cars. And as a result, he knew how fast-paced the movie business can be.

“I’m familiar with how they work, as far as very short lead times, need it now and by the way we need something you’ve never done before,” Adams said.

Just one of the movies he provided fuel cells for was “The Fast and the Furious.”

“There were 900 some cars,” Adams said. “Every explosion, every vehicle that exploded, every vehicle that rolled over — that was one of our tanks in the vehicle when they did it.”

Adams has since left Fuel Safe Racing Cells and is now set up as the sales manager at ButlerBuilt Professional Seat Systems in Concord.

But he hasn’t gotten away from the movies. Now, with ButlerBuilt, he provides special seats to NASCAR drivers and has provided them to stunt drivers as well.

Gary Plattenberger, the general manager at ButlerBuilt, said the company specializes in making race car seats, and the prices range from $239 to $4,000 a seat.

Plattenberger said, “The Hunger Games” purchased 12 seats to be used on a transport vehicle for the characters in the movie. He declined to say how much the sell was for, but did say the seats sold for less than $1,000 each.

ButlerBuilt has had many connections to the movie industry even prior to “The Hunger Games,” having supplied special seats for the actors in the animated movie “Cars” when the movie premiered at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

In addition to the movies, the ButlerBuilt seats are used in all levels of racing.

“We see our products on TV every week,” Plattenberger said. “We’ve got Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch— the biggest names in NASCAR use our products.”

Plattenberger said they have about 20 employees and produce several hundred hand-built seats a year.

For, “The Hunger Games” the group was able to provide seats, only having to make a few minor modifications for producers.

Adams got involved with the movie after production staff contacted him looking for the seat. His contact described what she was looking for, which sounded to Adams like something from “Mad Max.”. So he snapped a photograph and texted it to his contact.

“And she goes, ‘Holy smokes, that’s exactly right!’” Adams said. The woman then told him they’d swing by ButlerBuilt, since they were already shooting at the old Philip Morris building.

Filmed entirely in North Carolina, “The Hunger Games” was shot in Concord, Hildebran, Asheville, Black Mountain, Cedar Mountain, Barnardsville, Shelby and Charlotte.

The film pairs Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence (“Winter's Bone,” “X-Men: First Class”) with Josh Hutcherson (“The Kids Are Alright,” “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island”) and Liam Hemsworth (“The Last Song”) in the key young adult roles. Rounding out the cast are Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Wes Bentley and Toby Jones.

Until he was contacted by the producers, Adams had no idea of how big “The Hunger Games” fan base was.

“The way people are talking about it now, talking about rivaling, ‘Lord of the Rings,’” Adams said.

The movie opens in theaters on March 23, and Adams is already planning on buying a ticket.

“I know I’m going to be sitting there with my popcorn and soda,” Adams said. “And I know I’ll say, ‘That’s our stuff!’ And everybody will be telling me to shut up.”

WSOC