The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the prequel novel to Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, is being adapted into a movie. Production for the film is expected to start sometime during the first half of 2022.
According to Deadline, Joe Drake (a chairman from Lionsgate motion pictures) announced this update during “the company’s quarterly earnings call with Wall Street analysts.” As of now, the film’s target release date will either be in the late fiscal year of 2023 or early 2024. Drake claimed things are “moving along really, really well” in pre-production.
Deadline also reported that filmmaker Francis Lawrence is returning to direct The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Lawrence directed the last three Hunger Games movies: Catching Fire, Mockingjay: Part 1, and Mockingjay: Part 2. Casting information is not yet available.
Like the novel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes film will focus on the eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow before he became President of Panem. Attractive and charismatic, Snow belongs to a struggling family. He believes he has a chance to improve his life (and his family’s) when he’s chosen as a mentor for the Tenth Hunger Games. However, his excitement turns to disappointment when he’s assigned to help the girl tribute from the “impoverished” District 12.