Eight years after the release of the lastHunger Gamesfilm, the universe created by Suzanne Collins will expand withThe Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, a prequel story focused on one of the most controversial characters in the entire saga. Which it turns out was a great challenge for director Francis Lawrence.
While the original movies had the heroine as the lead character,The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakesseeks to take a big departure from conventional narratives in centering on the villain. Following similar steps to Todd Phillips’Joker, the new film in the franchise will tell the origin of one of the most ruthless bad guys in the world of YA novels, Coriolanus Snow.
Originally played by Donald Sutherland, the live-action version of Snow was first introduced in 2012’sThe Hunger Gamesas the fearsome and powerful president of Panem, a fictional country set in a dystopian future. From the Capitol, the richest city in all of Panem, Snow rules seeking his personal benefit and those he considers equal to him, while exploiting the remaining Districts, draining them of all their resources while their inhabitants starve.
Obviously,Ballad of Songbirds and Snakesis not the first story to have the villain as the protagonist. However, no matter how many times it has been done, it is still a difficult task.In an interview with Empire, director Francis Lawrence confirmed that the fact that the story was told from Snow’s perspective was one of the biggest challenges he had to face while adapting the novel:
“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. 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? It was really fun to go back to the formation of him and to humanize him on screen. 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.”
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Coriolanus Snow may be the big star ofThe Hunger Gamesprequel, but the story ofThe Ballad of Songbirds and Snakesis much more than a tale about the character’s past. The book, published in 2020, surprised fans because of its theme and the story Collins chose to tell. While most fans were expecting a spinoff focused on another younger character from the previous novels, such as Haymitch Abernathy, Finnick Odair or Johanna Mason, the writer decided to take a different path.
ButThe Ballad of Songbirds and Snakesis not just a story created to give Snow a past and help readers to understand his motivations. The novel also explains how’s the life of thepeople from The Capitol, the consequences that all of Panem suffered after the first rebellion of the Districts against the government, and how the celebration of the Hunger Games evolved over the years.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakespresents a turning point for the universe created by Collins, because it marks the beginning Snow’s path to becoming the president of Panem, but it also marks the moment when the whole concept of the Hunger Games changed.
