A Hunger Games prequel movie is coming: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

A Hunger Games prequel movie is coming. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will be based on the upcoming prequel novel by Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Lionsgate Motion Picture Group will produce the movie with director Francis Lawrence, screenwriter Michael Arndt and producer Nina Jacobson. Collins is writing the treatment and will serve as an executive producer. The team previously adapted the original trilogy of novels as four blockbuster films: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay Parts I and II. Together, they raked in almost $3 billion at the box office, so yes, of course there’s gonna be another one.

It’s way too early to know who might be cast in the film yet, but we do know what the book is about. It’ll follow a young President Snow, the villain of the first trilogy, as he rises in the world to become the autocrat we all know and hate.

"It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined – every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute . . . and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes."

In the movies, Snow was played by Donald Sutherland, but obviously Lionsgate will find some younger blood this time around. Unless…no, someone younger will be fine.

District 12, for those who may not recall, is the same district where Katniss Everdeen came from. So Snow has a connection to the teeming masses out there from early on.

There hasn’t been a release date set for the movie, but The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes book will be on shelves on May 19. Until then, we can debate whether any of this was a good idea:

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