Lionsgate Whets Exhibition’s Appetite For ‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes’ – CineEurope

Nancy Tartaglione
·3 min read
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Lionsgate President of International, Helen Lee-Kim, opened the studio’s CineEurope presentation on Monday afternoon in Barcelona with a shout-out to exhibition for its part in helping build the John Wick franchise that’s taken in over $1 billion globally. With John Wick: Chapter 4 now at $430M and still going, Lee-Kim also highlighted Ballerina, the spinoff that hits cinemas next year starring Ana de Armas.

The bulk of the presentation, however, was reserved for the anticipated next film in the Hunger Games franchise, prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Billed as the biggest entry in Lionsgate’s near-$3B franchise, pic begins international rollout on November 15 and heads to North America on November 17.

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Color Force producer Nina Jacobson joined Lee-Kim on stage to talk about what fans can expect from the new film.

Based on Suzanne Collins’ book series, the franchise’s latest movie “doesn’t feel like it’s trying to duplicate the past films,” Jacobson said. She added, “It’s a new story, with new ground and new characters. We were able to create a completely different visual language… one that is still recognizably Panem, but also different and fresh.”

Director Francis Lawrence, who’s helmed four of the five movies, added, “This is the kind of playground that doesn’t come along very often, so when you have a chance to return, it’s enormously gratifying.”

Exhibs were given an extended behind-the-scenes look with new footage from the film which unspools 64 years before the original, as well as being shown character posters including for Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow, Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird, Viola Davis as Dr Volumnia Gaul, Peter Dinklage as Casca Highbottom, Jason Schwartzman as Lucky Flickerman, Hunter Schafer as Tigris Snow and Josh Andres Rivera as Sejanus Plinth.

When Blyth read for the role of Coriolanus, Jacobson said, “He stole the part and it was game over.” Lawrence explained he had asked Zegler to sing an Appalachian tune for Blyth over Zoom and “you could just see it, the way he was watching her and the way she was singing. It was perfect.”

Though they didn’t name the person, a major recording artist is due to come on board for the film’s first single.

The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is set years before Snow became tyrannical President of Panem as the 18-year-old is the last hope for his fading lineage, a once-proud family that has fallen from grace in a postwar Capitol. With the 10th annual Hunger Games fast approaching, the young Snow is alarmed when he is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Zegler), the girl tribute from impoverished District 12. But, after Lucy Gray commands all of Panem’s attention by defiantly singing during the reaping ceremony, Snow thinks he might be able to turn the odds in their favor. Uniting their instincts for showmanship and newfound political savvy, Snow and Lucy’s race against time to survive will ultimately reveal who is a songbird and who is a snake.

Lawrence said the movie’s title reflects “a duality of spirit; light and dark, good and evil, joy and sorrow – it’s inside all of us…. We are all songbirds and we’re all snakes, but can we find connection with the people around us? That’s the question.”

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