Francis Lawrenceis no stranger to adapting the brutality and bloodshed ofSuzanne Collins’ young adult seriesThe Hunger Gamesfor the big screen. After all, the director has already backed three films surrounding the world of Katniss Everdeen inThe Hunger Games: Catching Fireand both parts one and two ofThe Hunger Games: Mockingjay. Now, Lawrence and Lionsgate are telling a story filled with new characters in the upcoming prequel,The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. During an interview with Collider’sPerri Nemiroff, Lawrence explained how he made the games different while also paying homage to the original set of films.
Reflecting on the past, Lawrence said that he’s always strived to keep things “different” with every film. “One of the things that is always important to me is when you’ve done Games, so I knew that the beginning of my games inCatching Firehad to be different than they were in the first one, right? So just emotionally it has to feel different. Visually, of course, very different kind of arena,” he explains. Moving onto his work in the upcoming film, theConstantinehelmer adds, “What I love about [The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes] and because it’s rudimentary is instead of fancy elevators and glass pods and all of this, they’re basically walking in at gunpoint, or dragged in if they can’t, and put on their spots.” As opposed to all the bells and whistles that accompanied thefanciful killing fieldsduring the original batch of films, Lawrence teases that the prequel will be much, much different — something he enjoyed crafting. “It’s just a basic arena, but of course, these explosions have happened and there’s rubble everywhere. That was really exciting for me.”
While the previous movies’ futuristic high-tech equipment used to get the tributes to their battle positions won’t be seen inThe Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, the story will still parallel that ofKatniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence)andPeeta (Josh Hutcherson). As Lawrence explains, “This is actually sort of similar toCatching Fire— the draw ofRachel[Zegler’s] character trying to find her friend. If you remember fromCatching Fire, it’s the same with Katniss, that Katniss is trying to find Peeta, and she doesn’t know where he is. So, sort of two parallel similarities there.” Essentially, the filmmaker is promising audiences that same feeling of sheer panic, chaos, and confusion of those opening moments when the cannon goes off and the games begin, despite not being filmed with a handheld shaky cam.
While audiences first metDonald Sutherland’s Coriolanus Snowas the tyrannical ruler of Panem in the original set of films,The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakeswill go into the past and tell his origin story. Played byTom Blyth, viewers will meet an 18-year-old Coriolanus who is given the task of mentoring District 12’s Lucy Gray Baird (Zegler) for the 10th annual Hunger Games.Along with Blyth and Zegler, the call sheet also includes namessuch asPeter Dinklage(Game of Thrones),Viola Davis(How to Get Away with Murder),Jason Schwartzman(The Darjeeling Limited), andHunter Schafer(Euphoria).
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakesarrives in theaters on November 17. Pre-order your tickets below.
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Watch Nemiroff’s full interview with Lawrence:
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakesfollows a young Coriolanus (Tom Blyth) - the last hope for the once-proud Snow family - who is reluctantly assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from the impoverished District 12 for the 10th Hunger Games. Snow sets out on a race against time to survive and reveal if he will become a songbird or a snake.
