Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds ever be in your favor. “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is the newest film from the Hunger Games series, this time acting as a prequel to the series and depicting a younger Coriolanus Snow before he became Panem’s authoritarian president.
In this futuristic post-American society known as Panem, the Hunger Games is a battle-royale-esque deathmatch where 24 children between 12 and 18 are chosen in a lottery-style drawing to fight each other to death until only one remains. The games serve as both punishment and entertainment - reminding all of the districts that rebellion will not be tolerated and that the Capitol reigns supreme over all others, while also repelling boredom from the residents within the Capitol by allowing them to watch something akin to a gladiatorial fight.
The film is inspired by the book of the same name, written by Suzanne Collins and published in May 2020.
The book starts with lore, telling the reader that after a long, costly war with the multiple districts, the Capitol had finally obtained victory, despite suffering heavy casualties. The story then focuses on its main protagonist Coriolanus Snow, the 18-year-old son and heir of General Crassius Snow, the patriarch of the Snow family. Thanks to the war, the Snows have lost much of their wealth, due to their munitions factory in District 13 being destroyed, and are faced with losing not only their grand apartment but their great social prestige among the districts of Panem, and Coriolanus plans to avert that.
Thanks to his academics at the Academy, one of the Capitol’s most prestigious schools in Panem, Coriolanus was successfully chosen to mentor a tribute for the 10th anniversary of the Hunger Games. Coriolanus was paired with Lucy Gray Baird, a female tribute from the impoverished District 12 and the member of a nomadic musician group named “The Covey” as his tribute. Despite the obvious divergences between the two, there were two things that the pair both wielded with precision and what would help both of them achieve victory, their political savvy and their showmanship.
The cast of the film has been selected and may make the movie a stunning masterpiece. Tom Keir Blyth, an English actor, will take the role of Coriolanus Snow in the film. Blyth started his acting career by taking up small supporting roles in the 2010 films “Robin Hood” and “Pelican Blood” before he starred opposite Richard Mason in the coming-of-age film “Scott and Sid” in 2018. He then went on to appear in more films, such as “Fibs,” “Fluffy,” “Wash Club” and “Benediction.” Rachel Zegler will take up the role of Lucy Gray Baird. Born in Hackensack, New Jersey, the American actress and singer began her career by starring in numerous musicals, such as “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Little Mermaid,” “42nd Street” and “Shrek: The Musical.” After a few years, she moved on from musicals to films, with a few examples of her works being “West Side Story” and “Shazam! Fury of The Gods,” with plans to take up roles in the later films “Spellbound” and “Snow White.”
“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” may be a cinematic masterpiece like its predecessors, but there is no telling if the film will stick with the book or divert from the original story. The film has been set to come out on Nov. 17.