New behind the scenes image from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes + interview with producer Nina Jacobson

Rachel Zegler, Luna Steeples, Nina Jacobson, Cooper Dillon, Lucas Wilson

There's a new behind the scenes image from the filming of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds And Snakes plus a great interview with producer Nina Jacobson in Polygon. Spoilers for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes to follow. 

Jacobson says there was never a chance that Lionsgate would reboot the series or do endless sequels just to cash in. “You could have gone with a fan favorite — Let’s do Haymitch’s story! Or do Finnick’s games! — but that would be doing it to do it,” Jacobson tells Polygon. “If Suzanne Collins had a story in this world, with something she wanted to talk about, something to explore, then great. But if not, better to leave a franchise as something people feel fondly about rather than crank out a sequel for the sake of a sequel.”

 Jacobson never spoke to Collins while Songbirds and Snakes was in development, but after reading the book, she had no hesitation about making another. “Suzanne, the originator and North Star of everything that we try to do with these books, she doesn’t write just to make money,” Jacobson says. “She writes when she has something to say.”

Author Suzanne Collins

Jacobson talked at length with Collins about Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau as she devised a modern cinematic spectacle that could still have a philosophical heart.

“Are we fundamentally good if left to our own devices? Are we fundamentally bad, and need the state to keep us in check or we’ll destroy each other? These ideas about how people perceive each other, and the government, and what they need based on those perceptions, felt so incredibly timely. And to do it through Coriolanus Snow, somebody we’ve all spent the last four movies hating, felt like a particularly interesting and original approach,” she says.

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The Hunger Games Fan Art Sweepstakes

The Hunger Games is hosting a Fan Art Sweepstakes and your artwork could win you a trip to a Hunger Games premiere! Submit your creation inspired by The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes using the toolkit provided HERE. The official rules are HERE 

You must use elements from the toolkit in your art, have a public instagram, and post your art there using the hashtag #TheHungerGamesSweepstakes

Open to U.S. residents, age 18+. Enter by September 27, 2023.

May the odds be ever in your favor! 

New Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes Still & Interview With Francis Lawrence In Empire Magazine

An exclusive new still from The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes and an interview with director Francis Lawrence is in the October issue of Empire Magazine. The digital copy will be available Thursday, August 31st for Empire members. 

In the interview Francis discusses how Lucy Gray Baird differs from of Katniss Everdeen, how Rachel had to jump right into the arena, and a key scene we're all looking forward to from the book:

“Katniss was an introvert and a survivor,” Francis says. “She was quite quiet and stoic. Lucy Gray is the opposite. She wears her sexuality on her sleeve, and she really is a performer. She loves crowds,” says Lawrence. “She knows how to play crowds and manipulate people.” 

The new film is set against the tenth annual Hunger Games, in which Lucy Gray, a travelling musician confined to one of the competing districts, has been chosen to enter. Zegler - who broke through as Maria in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story - had already proven she had the musical chops for the part. But how would she fare as a contestant in a brutal fight to the death?

She didn't have long to find out. Two days after wrapping Disney's live-action Snow White, Zegler was in Poland shooting intense battle scenes in the staged Hunger Games arena. "The opening of the games we call 'the bloodbath, and that's exactly what she had to jump into right away," says Lawrence. He describes Zegler's first few days, which saw her running around a dusty, crumbling set while performing combat choreography. "She was leaving [the set] bruised pretty much every day, but those fighter qualities came in," he remembers.

Mentoring Lucy Gray through the games is Corialanus Snow (Tom Blyth), who, it's no spoiler to say, rises to become the big bad played by Donald Sutherland in Katniss' story. In The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes, young Snow is trying to restore his family's legacy when he succumbs to Lucy Gray's well-rehearsed charms. "She loves crowds. She knows how to play crowds and manipulate people," says Lawrence, who reveals that rather than deadly weapons, this is the character's strongest survival tool.

The film will play up to its new hero's performative personality with a series of musical numbers, some of which come courtesy of Lucy Gray's troupe, the Covey. Żegler was learning the guitar when she came on board and had tutorials to further prepare for the role, while Lawrence gave her country music from the 1930s to listen to. A particularly key performance will occur at a crucial point in the games. "It was so emotional to hear the song, which is an a cappella piece that she sings near the end of the arena sequence," he says. "I think it stunned everybody."

After one of these songs, she delivers a slow, defiant bow to the crowd, a nod to Katniss and proof that some connective tissue exists between the polar-opposite protagonists. "The bow was actually not scripted," Lawrence reveals. "I thought it could be really interesting, as [we] start to develop more history and mythology, if somebody else long before [Katniss] had done that." 

Enjoy the show! 

THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES WELCOME TO THE ACADEMY TEASER

For the glory of Panem! A new promotional video for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was just released! Have you received your welcome to The Academy? Text 1-717-THG-MKJY to enroll - Available worldwide. Use WhatsApp if you're outside the US and then follow the prompts to join the community. Just make sure you select US as the country to get the +1 and then enter the remaining numbers.  🕊️🐍

First Official Stills From The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds And Snakes

Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird & Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds And Snakes

Along with the release of the first trailer for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds And Snakes, we've got a look at our first official stills from the film. Legendary film photographer, Murray Close, is on hand again to capture all of the beautiful still photography throughout the filming of the movie. We always love to see how he captures both the key film and behind the scenes moments. 

Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow, and Josh Andrés Rivera as Sejanus Plinth inThe Hunger Games The Ballad of Songbirds And SnakesHunter Schafer as Tigris Snow Official Still from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and SnakesRachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird, Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds And SnakesViola Davis as Dr Gaul in The Ballad of Songbirds and SnakesJason Schwartzman as Lucky Flickerman