The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set to hit theaters later this year, taking viewers into a story decades before the familiar The Hunger Games Trilogy, but while the film se set long before Coriolanus Snow becomes president of Panem, don’t expect it to be any less brutal. Director Francis Lawrence told Empire Magazine that the upcoming film kicks off its Hunger Games with a bloodbath — and that bloodbath was also star Rachel Zegler’s introduction to the film itself.
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“The opening of the games we call ‘the bloodbath’,” Lawrence said. “And that’s exactly what she had to jump into right away. She was leaving [the set] bruised pretty much every day, but those fighter qualities came in.”
Zegler’s Lucy Gray Baird is the “Anti-Katniss”
While Zegler’s Lucy Gray comes from the same District as The Hunger Games‘ Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), Lawrence has previously said that fans shouldn’t expect the two characters to be anything alike — specifically, he described Lucy Gray as the “anti-Katniss”.
“Katniss was an introvert and a survivor,” Lawrence explained. “She was quite quiet and stoic, you could almost say [she was] asexual. Lucy Gray is the opposite. She wears her sexuality on her sleeve, [and] she really is a performer.”
“She loves crowds,” Lawrence continued. “She knows how to play crowds and manipulate people.”
What is The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes About?
In The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, years before he would become the tyrannical President of Panem, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) is the last hope for his fading lineage, a once-proud family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol. With the 10th annual Hunger Games fast approaching, the young Snow is alarmed when he is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), the girl tribute from impoverished District 12. But, after Lucy Gray commands all of Panem’s attention by defiantly singing during the reaping ceremony, Snow thinks he might be able to turn the odds in their favor. Uniting their instincts for showmanship and newfound political savvy, Snow and Lucy’s race against time to survive will ultimately reveal who is a songbird, and who is a snake.
The ensemble cast for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes also includes Hunter Schafer, Jason Schwartzman, Laurel Marsden, Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, Jose Andrés Rivera, Ashley Liao, Mackenzie Lansing, Irene Boehm, Cooper Dillon, Luna Kuse, Kjell Brutscheidt, Dimitri Abold, Athena Strates, Dakota Shapiro, George Somner and Vaughan Reilly, Lilly Maria Cooper, Sofia Sannchez, and Max Raphael. Nina Jacobson will executive produce alongside her producing partner Brad Simpson, as well as Lawrence, Collins, and Tim Palen.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is scheduled to be released exclusively in theaters on November 17th.
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