It has been over a decade since a young woman was plucked from relative obscurity to enter a gruelling and cut-throat institution in the name of entertainment. That’s right: in 2012, Jennifer Lawrence debuted as the face of young adult series The Hunger Games.
The films, based on Suzanne Collins’ wildly popular books, had a horrifying, instantly memorable hook: each year, children are picked from different areas of post-apocalyptic country Panem to fight to the death in a televised competition. Lawrence made it out alive, and now has an Oscar, but our taste for dystopian teen franchises fizzled out. The series finale, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, was a box office disappointment. The final instalment of similar franchise, Divergent, was cancelled; book sales of YA fiction slumped.
If anything is going to revive the genre’s fortunes, it’s the return of a main character. And so Hollywood is putting a bet on nostalgia and ritual killings with the release of prequel adaptation The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (a mouthful, indeed!), leaving you with questions. Let’s answer them.
What is the The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes based on?
The film is based on Collins’ 2020 novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which is set 64 years before the main action of the trilogy, meaning you can forget about Katniss. Collins instead focuses on the villain of the original series, Coriolanus Snow (played in the first four films by Donald Sutherland). There has been a war between the impoverished districts and elitist stronghold, the Capitol. Though the latter won, it is significantly damaged. The once-wealthy Snow family are now running out of cash; their factories in District 13 were destroyed in the war. Bright and determined Coriolanus (Tom Blyth) views academic success as the way to help his family, which includes fashionable cousin Tigris (Hunter Schafer).
At the Academy, the Capitol’s top school, Snow and his fellow classmates are picked to mentor a tribute in the tenth annual Hunger Games. The games, in which children are picked from the districts and forced to kill each other, have been set up as a way for the Capitol to brandish their power. Snow is landed with District 12’s female tribute, Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a natural performer and nomadic musician. If Snow can guide Baird to victory, or simply show that he can work the system, he could win the top prize: enough money to save his family’s home and to get to university. But Snow is about to find out that life, love and child murder do not always go according to plan.
Who else is involved in this thing?
Viola Davis is playing Head Gamemaker, Dr. Volumnia Gaul, who has a penchant for genetic modification and campy murder plans. Peter Dinklage is also putting in a villainous turn as the Academy’s dean, Casca Highbottom. He helped to create the Games and now nurses a painkiller addiction and a grudge against Snow. Jason Schwartzman pops up as Lucky Flickerman, a magician, weatherman and first host television host of the Hunger Games. Francis Lawrence, who directed three out of the original four movies, is back in the director’s seat.
Is this prequel getting a sequel?
The film, a hefty 157 minutes covers the events of Collins’ prequel. The author has not written another book so it looks like this could be a self-contained prequel. But depending on its success, you wouldn’t bet against a spin-off.
Can we talk about the soundtrack?
As any true Hunger Games fan knows, the real gem of this franchise lies in the music. Taylor Swift produced (and contributed two songs to) the first movie’s soundtrack. Lorde covered Tears for Fears for the second, and wrote “Yellow Flicker Beat” for the third. “The Hanging Tree”, a creepy murder ballad performed by Lawrence, charted in America and the UK (there is also, extraordinarily, a dance remix). In a Swiftian move, Zegler recorded “The Hanging Tree (Lucy Gray’s Version)” for this prequel should you want to revisit a song about a tree dedicated to capital punishment.
This decade’s answer to Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, wrote the second single for this new film, with her frequent collaborator Dan Nigro. “Can’t Catch Me Now” is an evocative slow burn, a worthy successor to Swift’s earlier singles. If anything, it goes one better: Rodrigo’s lyrics more subtly reference the film’s themes. It certainly establishes Rodrigo’s place in the pop firmament. The full album will be released on the same day as the film; most of the tracks are Zegler’s songs from the movie.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is in cinemas 17 November
