The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Director Considered Splitting Prequel Into Two Movies

The Hunger Games prequel novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is the longest book in the series, which means that the movie adaptation earned the longest run time in the franchise. The amount of material The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes covers is so dense, in fact, that director Francis Lawrence briefly toyed with the idea of breaking up the material into two films. He only briefly toyed with this idea, however, as he had regretted the decision to split the events of the final book, Mockingjay, into the two movies The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and Part 2. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes hits theaters on November 17th.

"There was, like, one second where I thought, 'Do we do two movies?'" Lawrence revealed to Entertainment Weekly. "I decided, no, we're not going down that road again."

Franchise producer Nina Jacobson added, "The length was daunting," though admitted that the story "really goes by so fast."

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes follows a young Coriolanus (Tom Blyth) who is the last hope for his failing lineage, the once-proud Snow family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol. With his livelihood threatened, Snow is reluctantly assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from the impoverished District 12. But after Lucy Gray's charm captivates the audience of Panem, Snow sees an opportunity to shift their fates. With everything he has worked for hanging in the balance, Snow unites with Lucy Gray to turn the odds in their favor. Battling his instincts for both good and evil, Snow sets out on a race against time to survive and reveal if he will ultimately become a songbird or a snake.

When the Mockingjay films were released, it was part of a trend of YA adaptations, as the final Harry Potter story and final Twilight story were both broken up into two parts. The filmmaker even expressed his regret over breaking up the story, or at least including something of a cliffhanger at the end of Mockingjay – Part 1.

"I totally regret it. I totally do. I'm not sure everybody does, but I definitely do," Lawrence revealed to PEOPLE. "What I realized in retrospect -- and after hearing all the reactions and feeling the kind of wrath of fans, critics, and people at the split -- is that I realized it was frustrating. And I can understand it. In an episode of television, if you have a cliffhanger, you have to wait a week or you could just binge it and then you can see the next episode. But making people wait a year, I think, came across as disingenuous, even though it wasn't ... Our intentions were not to be disingenuous."

He continued, "In truth, we got more on the screen out of the book than we would've in any of the other movies because you're getting close to four hours of screen time for the final book. But ... I see and understand how it frustrated people."

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes hits theaters on November 17th.

Do you wish the book was broken up into two parts? Let us know in the comments!