‘The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Serpents’ releases its first official image

It’s been a busy summer for ‘The Hunger Games: Ballad of songbirds and snakes’ in terms of starting its promotion and incorporating signings to its already stellar cast. In July we learned that Peter Dinklage would play Casca Highbottom, dean of the Academy, and in August, that Viola Davis would play the film’s villain, Volumnia Gaul, director of the 10th Hunger Games. The prequel to the saga is still going strong and has already released a first look at what we will see on screen next year.

It has done so through Vanity Fair, which has exclusively released the first image of the film. In it we can see what the protagonists will look like (at least in civilian clothes): Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler as Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray respectively. “This is very much a love story”announced Francis Lawrence, director of the film, “It’s kind of a love story set in a different kind of world in a different time. A very intimate love story”. This is how the filmmaker who directed ‘The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’, ‘Mockingjay – Part 1’ and ‘Mockingjay – Part 2’ has defined this new installment.

However, despite having the same director, the story will have a somewhat different tone, since the events are framed 64 years before what happened in ‘The Hunger Games’. Based on the novel of the same name published in 2020 by Suzanne Collins, ‘Ballad of Songbirds and Serpents’ will tell the story of a young Snow, no less ambitious than the despotic version of Donald Sutherland. “He is a young man finding his way in the world, but also making decisions that hint at the man he will become”added Nina Jacobson, producer of the franchise. She also anticipated the dilemma that Snow will face: “He’s moody and craves control, but he’s drawn to a woman who threatens everything he thought he wanted”.

The prequel will explore the relationship between the two, which will go from a first meeting in the arena of the Games to an intimacy beyond the television cameras. “This is not a trial, but Lucy Gray is the anti-Katniss [Everdreen, interpretada por Jennifer Lawrence]. She’s a musician, she’s a performer, she’s charming…Snow had never met a girl like that before.“added the director.

Distancing with the original saga

The ‘Ballad of Songbirds and Serpents’ team wants to put land in between with the original saga, and that goes beyond having a protagonist very different from Katniss. “It is completely different stylistically, in terms of design, character and point of view“Jacobson noted in a recent Hollywood Reporter article, “Being able to show a different side of Panem at a different time in its history has been really exciting”. For his part, Lawrence also promises a new version of Panem: “We were able to redo District 12, the entire Capitol, and a whole new arena.“.

In addition, the team also had the help of the author of the novels herself to be able to adapt this prequel correctly: “Suzanne has done a great job of going back to mythology and telling a story about the creation of this world.“Lawrence added. “You have a little bit of Katniss’s history, a lot of Snow’s background, Games history and music history, like where songs like ‘The Hanging Tree’ come from”.

‘The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Serpents’ will hit theaters in November 2023 distributed by Lionsgate in the United States.