The Hunger Games Prequel Will Dive Into The Mythology Of Panem

The Hunger Games film series created a blockbuster franchise and a pop culture phenomenon that Hollywood has been trying to replicate for over a decade now. Next year, the story will continue with the prequel film, following a young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth, HBO’s The Gilded Age) and his relationship with a tribute from District 12, Lucy Gray (Rachel Zegler, West Side Story).

“This is very much a story about love,” said Francis Lawrence, director of the upcoming The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes to Variety. “It’s this kind of love story set in a different kind of a world in a different time,” he adds. “A very intimate love story.”

Snowbirds and Snakes takes place 64 years before the events of the first Hunger Games novel and focuses on Snow eventually becoming the man he is when he assumes the role of President. “He is a young man finding his way in the world, but he also makes choices that presage the man he is becoming,” producer Nina Jacobson says. “He is a shape-shifter who craves control, but is drawn to a woman who threatens everything he thought he wanted.”

Much like Katniss choosing between two suitors, Snow is in the middle of choosing Lucy Gray’s love or being seduced by the power that the villainous Dr. Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis) wants to show him.

In addition to what’s been seen before, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will still of course have callbacks to the original trilogy, but also dives more into the world of Panem’s mythology. “Suzanne has done such a great job of going back into the mythology and telling a story about the creation of the world,” said Lawrence. “You get a little background of Katniss. You will obviously get a lot of the background of Snow, the history of the Games, the history of some of the music, where songs like The Hanging Tree actually come from.”

In addition to Blyth, Zegler, Davis, the cast includes Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, Kjell Brutscheidt, Ashley Liao, and Josh Andrés Rivera.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is expected to hit theaters November 17, 2023

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