After ready seven years, the extremely anticipated prequel to the Hunger Games trilogy, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, offers followers an opportunity to journey again into Panem. The official announcement of a launch date by Lionsgate at CinemaCon final April was obtained by followers with open arms. The Hunger Games movie franchise noticed large success ever because the first installment, The Hunger Games, was launched in 2012. The final film, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, was launched in 2015, leaving followers of the franchise craving for extra.
The new prequel movie is ready to take followers into historical past, being set a few years earlier than the occasions of the primary Hunger Games film. President Snow would be the most important focus of the movie. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes shall be directed by Francis Lawrence, who has labored on earlier movies within the franchise. Michael Arndt will even be returning to put in writing for the prequel. He has beforehand written for Catching Fire. In phrases of plot, solid, and different particulars, right here’s all we all know in regards to the prequel movie!
Updated September 26, 2023: This article has been up to date with latest developments in regards to the highly-anticipated The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Songbirds and Snakes: The Plot
Lionsgate
Similar to the primary motion pictures of the trilogy being diversifications of novels bearing the identical title by Suzanne Collins, the prequel additionally has its foundation in a novel by Collins, printed in May 2020. While we are able to’t count on the movie to strictly adhere to the novel, we can probably count on the movie to middle kind of on the identical core plot of its supply textual content.
The prequel movie is ready sixty-four years earlier than the beginning of The Hunger Games, the primary installment of the Hunger Games trilogy. To be extra particular, it’s set in a interval referred to as the Dark Days, ten years earlier than the district’s First Rebellion. Taking place earlier than the delivery of the main characters in The Hunger Games, together with Katniss, Peeta, and Gale, the prequel will give attention to the early lifetime of the dictatorial Coriolanus Snow (President Snow), whom viewers of the trilogy are aware of.
The official synopsis for the prequel reads:
“Years earlier than he would develop into the tyrannical President of Panem, 18-years-old Coriolanus Snow is the final hope for his fading lineage, a once-proud household that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol. With the tenth annual Hunger Games quick approaching, the younger Snow is alarmed when he’s assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird, the women tribute from impoverished District 12. But, after Lucy Gray instructions all of Panem’s consideration by defiantly singing through the reaping ceremony, Snow thunks he would possibly be capable of flip the chances of their favor. Uniting their instincts for showmanshi pand newfound political savvy, Snow and Lucy’s race towards time to outlive will finally reveal who’s a songbird, and who’s a snake”
Lionsgate has now launched two trailers for the prequel movie, giving followers extra perception into the place the journey again into Panem could take them. The trailers depict the early Hunger Games in all its bleak, gory glory. As the mentors are suggested relating to the tributes, what the Games require is spectacles, not survivors. Unlike the extremely superior, theatrical Games that followers are used to seeing due to The Hunger Games movies, the Games in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes happen in a rundown amphitheater, with the tributes armed with virtually skeletal weapons when in comparison with Katniss and Peeta Games.
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The trailers additionally set up that the movie will give attention to the connection between a younger Snow and District 12 tribute, Lucy Gray Baird. Unable to restrict himself to being simply her mentor, Snow develops a romantic relationship with Baird and guarantees her that he’ll get her out of the Games. His choice isn’t very nicely obtained by the top gamemaker, Dr. Volumnia Gaul, who proceeds to make Snow’s life extraordinarily tough. Thanks to the little glimpses into the prequel, we now know for sure that The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will inform us how the Games we’re used to seeing in The Hunger Games motion pictures got here to be. It’ll additionally give us perception into the roots of different parts of the trilogy, together with the rebels’ anthem.
The second trailer was launched on September 20, 2023, and gave audiences an excellent better have a look at what to anticipate from the upcoming sequel.
Songbirds and Snakes: The Cast
Lionsgate Films
Given the timeline of the prequel, not one of the characters from the trilogy shall be making a return for the prequel (given the truth that many aren’t even born but). As such, viewers will encounter a completely recent, extraordinarily proficient solid. Tom Blyth will play the younger Coriolanus Snow, who was beforehand performed by Donald Sutherland within the authentic movies.
West Side Story’s Rachel Zegler will star alongside him as Lucy Gray Baird. The head gamemaker position of Dr. Volumnia Gaul shall be taken on by Viola Davis. Peter Dinklage, greatest recognized for his position on Game of Thrones, can also be part of the solid as Casca Highbottom, the Dean of the Academy and the creator of the Games.
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Joining them shall be Hunter Schafer (Euphoria), who will play Tigris Snow, a cousin of Coriolanus Snow. The character is without doubt one of the few to seem in each the prequel and The Hunger Games movies. Tigris was a Capitol ally in Mockingjay and a kind of who helped Katniss and her staff of their mission to assassinate the president.
Jason Schwartzman would be the host of the Games within the prequel in his position as Lucretius Flickerman. Taking on the position of different mentors, alongside Snow, within the tenth Hunger Games is Sejanus Plinth, who shall be performed by Josh Andrés Rivera, who additionally starred alongside Rachel Zegler in West Side Story. The solid additionally contains Ashley Liao as Clemensia Dovecote, Max Raphael as Festus Creed and Zone Renée as Lysistrata Vickers.
Release Date
Lionsgate
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is scheduled to launch in theaters on November 17, 2023. This coveted third weekend in November launch date, which is true earlier than Thanksgiving, is without doubt one of the earlier Hunger Games movies used to nice success. Aside from the primary Hunger Games, which opened in March 2012, all the opposite movies within the franchise opened on this weekend in November.
With Dune: Part Two transferring into 2024, that makes The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes one of many greatest motion pictures of 2023, alongside excessive profile movies like The Marvels, Wish, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, and Napoleon, to call a couple of. Time will inform if nostalgia for the YA novels of the 2000s and 2010s will enhance the film to the report highs of the earlier movie.
First seem at The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: Everything to Know About the Hunger Games Prequel
