The Evolution of the Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Gets a Premiere Date

Sixty-four years before Katniss Everdeen volunteered as tribute to take her sister Primrose’s place in the 74^th Annual Hunger Games, Coriolanus Snow was an ambitious 18-year-old living in the Capital of Panem whose family is struggling to make ensue mean. Suzanne Collins’ The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes describes a capital that is nothing like the luxurious city we know it to be. Taking place only a decade after the thirteen districts rebelled, the capital still bears the scars of the damage done by that war. Food and supplies are scarce. Setting him on his path to the presidency, Snow is given the task of mentoring the Hunger Games contestant from District 12, Lucy Gray Baird. Like with the capital, the 10^th Annual Hunger Games is nothing like we know it to be and does not yet have the level of cruelty, relevance, and extravagance that it would have some 60+ years later.

When Suzanne Collins’ best-selling trilogy of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay was first published in 2008 it spawned a wave of copycats in the Young Adult literary world. Dystopian futures became the next “big thing” in the genre, from Divergence to Matched, The Maze Runner to Delirium, and more. The Hunger Games books were later developed into four films, earning $3 billion at the global box office, and launching Jennifer Lawrence’s career. In May 2020, a prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, was published, revealing how the Hunger Games and the capital became over-the-top and overly brutal (though of course, any system that forces teenagers to fight each other to the death and air it for everyone to watch is innately overly brutal, so being able to take that to a new level is almost impressive).

Even before The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was published, Lionsgate announced that the prequel series would be made into a movie. The movie now has a release date: November 17, 2023.

President Coriolanus Snow in the Hunger Games. Courtesy of Lionsgate.