How The Hunger Games Prequel Provides Backstory To Original Movies

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes director Francis Lawrence explains how the prequel gives backstory to the original The Hunger Games movies. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is based on the 2020 prequel novel by Hunger Games creator Suzanne Collins. Set 64 years before the launch of the main series, it follows the story of young Coriolanus Snow, growing up in the Capitol with far less money than fans are used to seeing him with as President Snow in The Hunger Games. Its director, Lawrence, also directed the last three Hunger Games films.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is stacked with a talented cast. Tom Blyth (The Gilded Age) will play Coriolanus Snow, while Euphoria’s Hunter Schafer will play his cousin Tigris Snow. West Side Story’s Rachel Zegler will play District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird, who Coriolanus is assigned to train for the tenth Hunger Games. Also starring are Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, and Jason Schwartzmann. Between the cast of both seasoned actors and rising young adult stars and Lawrence as director, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a highly anticipated movie that will expand on the franchise and now the director has spoken about just how the movie will do that.

Related: Hunger Games Prequel Timeline: When Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes Is Set

Lawrence explains how The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes provides backstory to the original movies to VF. While The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a prequel and is set before the likes of Katniss, Primrose, Peeta, and Gale were even born, Lawrence claims that there will be callbacks. These will include “a little background on Katniss” and “history of some of the music” including the origin of the song "The Hanging Tree." More prominently, viewers will get a background on President Snow and the history of the games, as anyone who has read The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes should expect. Check out the full quote from Lawrence below:

“Suzanne [Collins] has done such a great job of going back into the mythology and telling a story about the creation of the world. You get a little background of Katniss. You will obviously get a lot of the background of Snow, the history of the Games, the history of some of the music, where songs like ‘The Hanging Tree’ actually come from.”

What exactly the background of Katniss will look like in the film remains to be seen. Given that the story is set 64 years before the commencement of the original trilogy, neither Katniss nor her parents would be born yet within the world of the story. However, it is possible that the series may throw in other allusions to members of the Everdeen family that are ancestors of Katniss, even though they will focus on the Snow family. For die-hard fans, the music callbacks will also be a great touch.

Collins’ work “going back into the mythology” of the Hunger Games world could have the potential to do even more for the film than Lawrence is describing here. The book version of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes certainly included ample references to the physical locations that populated The Hunger Games, including the districts and the Capitol. With the movie version, the creative team is much more likely to want to pay some fan service to long-time audiences through elements like the song callbacks.

Source: Vanity Fair