'Hunter Games' prequel 'Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes' gets first trailer starring Rachel Zegler

LAS VEGAS – "Star Wars" had one with "Phantom Menace," "The Wizard of Oz" got one with "Wicked," and now "The Hunger Games" is the next epic mythology with its own high-profile prequel.

Directed by Francis Lawrence, "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes" dropped its first trailer at CinemaCon on Thursday to take audiences back to the dystopian nation of Panem, 64 years before Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss Everdeen volunteered as tribute from District 12.

The first footage teases the invention of the Hunger Games and centers in part on Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), decades before he'd become Panem's tyrannical president. (Donald Sutherland played the character in the original "Hunger Games" films.)

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When the Hunger Games are put into effect, and the inventors want the teens-dueling-to-the-death contest to be less about survival and more about spectacle, Coriolanus is reluctantly assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from the impoverished District 12. He's trying to save his livelihood after his family's fall from grace, and when warrior Lucy captures the heart of Panem, Coriolanus sees a way to help each other out but they also begin to have feelings for each other.

The trailer gave glimpses at the all-star supporting cast including Jason Schwartzman as Hunger Games host Lucky Flickerman (played in the earlier movies by Stanley Tucci), Viola Davis as villainous Dr. Volumnia Gaul and Peter Dinklage as Casca Highbottom, the creator of the Hunger Games, who has a line that speaks to the film's core relationship: "It's the things we love most that destroy us."

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Asian stars celebrate R-rated 'Joy Ride' 'that doesn't take itself seriously'

The raucous, R-rated comedy “Joy Ride,” which stars an Asian cast, screened at CinemaCon before its July 7 release. Star Ashley Park described taking her parents to the “Joy Ride” premiere last month at South by Southwest without discussing the content of the film ahead of time. “They are so thrilled” about the movie's positive buzz, Park said, but after her mom saw it, “I don’t think she could look at me square in the eye the rest of the night.”

“Joy Ride” centers on four Asian-American friends (Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu and Sabrina Wu) who go on a bonkers journey of self-discovery and depravity in China. “As a culture, we’ve been dismissed as submissive, of not rocking the boat,” Cola says of Asian people. “And this movie is the opposite of not rocking the boat: This is rocking the train, rocking the plane.”

The film is Hsu’s first since nabbing an Oscar supporting actress nomination for her breakout role in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

“Every opportunity is a chance to break down a wall and reach a new audience,” she said. “Not every film needs to be a prestige film, and now we also get to have a wild, R-rated debaucherous film that doesn’t take itself seriously.”

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes' debuts first trailer