Attendees of CinemaCon 2023 were in for a treat earlier today as Lionsgate dropped the newest trailer for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The trailer gives fans a first look at a young Coriolanus Snow and Hunger Games tribute Lucy Gray Baird as the two pair up in a volatile mix of showmanship and political savvy that stand to shake the foundations of the newly-minted Games themselves.
Set 64 years before the original “Hunger Games” trilogy by Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes centers around the 10th annual Hunger Games and Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zelger), a District 12 tribute who causes a stir by defiantly singing at her reaping ceremony. Coriolanus Snow, played by a surprisingly (and some may say unfortunately) attractive Tom Blyth, is assigned as Lucy’s mentor and told by Casca Highbottom, Dean of the Academy and originator of the Games, that “There have been some changes this year. Your role is to turn these children into spectacles, not survivors.”
Tom Blyth and Rachel Zelger Appear in New’ Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ Trailer
Despite chafing his mentorship role at first, Coriolanus Snow is quick to capitalize on the stir Lucy causes at the reaping, believing he can turn the odds in their favor as the two embark on a joint campaign of showstopping talent on Lucy’s part and political intrigue on Coriolanus’s, a talent present even six decades before he becomes the tyrannical president of Panem. The young Coriolanus we see in the new trailer – available below – is much more conflicted in his views than the elder version of himself that we see in “The Hunger Games” and is shown bringing Lucy white roses, a trademark for his character.
Like the previous “Hunger Games” movies, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set to tackle some heavy themes of good and evil, freedom and tyranny, and morality and justice. “There is natural goodness built into all of us,” Lucy Gray Baird declares in the new CinemaCon trailer. “We can step across that line into evil – or not.” In a divergence from the previous films, however, the “Hunger Games” prequel shows a Panem that’s been ravaged by ten years of civil war that would become known as the Dark Days, with tributes fighting in what appears to be a colosseum-like arena rather than the elaborate stages audiences saw in the original trilogy.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set to hit theaters later this year, with Francis Lawrence directing and producing alongside Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Tim Palen, Jim Miller, and “Hunger Games” author Suzanne Collins. Are you excited about the new “Hunger Games” prequel? What did you think of the new trailer? Let us know in the comments!
