The Hunger Games franchise introduced Coriolanus Snow, simply referred to as President Snow, as its main tyrannical villain. So telling a story about his early years in the prequel film, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, was an “interesting challenge” during development, according to director Francis Lawrence.
The Capitol dictator, played by Donald Sutherland throughout the franchise’s four installments, has established himself as a manipulative and cruel leader responsible for sending out a bunch of teenagers on a killing spree in a glamorized murder show called “The Hunger Games.” With the forthcoming prequel delving into his past portrayed by Billy the Kid actor Tom Blyth, Lawrence shared that creating a backstory for a young man who will be the ruthless villain in the future was not an easy task to begin with.
“To tell a story about, and to create empathy for, a young man who’s going to become the villain of the other books and movies was a really interesting challenge,” Lawrence told Empire. “How do we make this person that’s going to be the antagonist of our story the protagonist of our story? How can we get audiences behind him in his struggle, and see him change and be groomed and turned into the Snow of the later series?”
The filmmaker, who previously helmed Catching Fire and Mockingjay – Part 1 and Part 2, revealed he had to revisit the source material to gather more information about the fictional tyrannical leader.
“It was really fun to go back to the formation of him and to humanise him on screen,” said Lawrence. “It was probably the trickiest thing, even from a scripting stage. Because in a book you can hear a lot of characters’ inner thoughts. Our primary objective was to get an audience behind him, but we also had to lay the breadcrumbs so that when the turn happens, it’s believable.”
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Will Revisit District 12’s Early Years
Set 64 years before Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) volunteers as tribute to save her sister Primrose (Willow Shields) from merciless game, the upcoming prequel follows the young Coriolanus Snow as he tries to turn the odds in his favor, along with his love interest from District 12 Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler).
The synopsis for the upcoming film reads: “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes follows a young Coriolanus 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, 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.”
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes stars Jason Schwartzman as Lucretius Flickerman, Peter Dinklage as Casca Highbottom, Viola Davis as Dr. Volumnia Gaul, and Hunter Schafer as Tigris Snow, a character who also appeared in Mockingjay – Part 2.
The prequel will hit theaters on November 17, 2023.
