The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Director Francis Lawrence Talks Adapting Franchise's Longest Book
Francis Lawrence says he didn't have to fight to keep anything in The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is heading to theaters this month, and while the prequel won't see any returning actors from the first four films, there will be some well-known characters back in action. The new film follows 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) before he becomes the tyrannical president of Panem, but Snow isn't the only return fans can expect. The movie is also being helmed by Francis Lawrence, who also directed Catching Fire, Mockingjay – Part 1, and Mockingjay – Part 2. ComicBook.com recently had the chance to chat with Lawrence, and he talked about adapting the longest book in Suzanne Collins' best-selling franchise.
"I don't think it was really anything that we fought to keep in," Lawrence shared. "I think the trick was figuring out how to keep as much of the information in the story as possible, but we had to compress it because this is the longest book in the series. And so making sure that we can get it down to a feature-length, that was just the tricky part."
You can watch our interview with Lawrence at the top of the page.
Francis Lawrence Regrets Splitting Mockingjay Into Two Movies:
In a recent interview with People, Lawrence revealed that he regrets splitting Mockingjay into two films. According to the director, the "two halves of Mockingjay had their own separate dramatic questions," but he still isn't sure if it was the right call for the fans.
"I totally regret it. I totally do. I'm not sure everybody does, but I definitely do," Lawrence revealed. "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," he adds. "Our intentions were not to be disingenuous."
"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," Lawrence admitted. "I see and understand how it frustrated people."
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set to open in theaters on November 17th.
