The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is a 2023 American dystopian action film produced and directed by Francis Lawrence from a screenplay by Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt, based on the 2020 novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins. It serves as a prequel to The Hunger Games (2012) and the fifth installment in The Hunger Games film series. The film stars Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Hunter Schafer, Jason Schwartzman, Peter Dinklage, Josh Andrés Rivera, and Viola Davis. In the film, Coriolanus Snow (Blyth) is called on to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Zegler), a Games tribute, as he seeks to restore his family's prosperity in Panem. Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer confirmed future The Hunger Games films would be produced if Collins wrote further installments. In 2019, an adaptation of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes was jointly announced with the novel and official development on the film began a year later, with Lawrence returning as director and Lesslie and Arndt serving as screenwriters. Blyth and Zegler were cast in May 2022 and principal photography began that July and lasted until that November, with filming locations including Wrocław, Berlin, and Leipzig. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes premiered at the Zoo Palast in Berlin on November 5, 2023, and was released in the United States on November 17. The film grossed $349 million worldwide against a production budget of $100 million. It received mixed reviews from critics. A sequel, Sunrise on the Reaping, is set to be released on November 20, 2026.