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This New Hunger Games Prequel Still Is Getting Us Hyped AF
Zegler "wears her sexuality on her sleeve" in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Get ready for over-the-top costumes and rebellion because we’re set to get an all new Hunger Games movie!
This November, eight years after Mockingjay Part 2 hit theaters, audiences are going to be transported back to Panem for The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, set 60 years before the events of the original movies.
Based on author Suzanne Collins’ prequel novel, the new film takes place decades before Katniss Everdeen ever volunteered as tribute and became the face of a revolution, focusing on Tom Blyth’s young President Coriolanus Snow (originally played by Donald Sutherland) before he became an evil dictator.
In the film, Snow is tasked with mentoring Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zeglar), one of District 12’s tributes for the 10th annual Hunger Games. Zegler, who was previously in West Side Story and Shazam! Fury of the Gods, has been in the headlines recently over controversial comments she made about her role in the upcoming Snow White live-action remake.
Despite her coming from the same district as Katniss, there are few similarities between the two characters, returning director Francis Lawrence said in a recent interview with Empire. Francis previously directed Catching Fire and both Mockingjay films.
“Katniss was an introvert and a survivor,” he 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.”
Katniss was a reluctant revolutionary leader who had to be taught how to politic and play to the cameras, but it all comes naturally to Lucy. “She loves crowds,” Lawrence said. “She knows how to play crowds and manipulate people.”
The film also stars Viola Davis, Jason Schwartzman, Peter Dinklage, Burn Gorman, as well as trans actress, Euphoria star, and activist Hunter Schafer.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will begin playing in theaters on November 17, 2023.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
Ariel Messman-Rucker is an Oakland-born journalist who now calls the Pacific Northwest her home. When she’s not writing about politics and queer pop culture, she can be found reading, hiking, or talking about horror movies with the Zombie Grrlz Horror Podcast Network.
