About 8 years after “The Hunger Games – Mockingjay Part 2” was released in theaters, the prequel “The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes” is now in local theaters and tells us the backstory of the future President Snow over an impressive playing time. from well 2.5 hours. Leading up to the film’s release, director Francis Lawrence and producer Nina Jacobson had spoken in several interviews about the fact that they would only make another “Hunger Games” film if novelist Suzanne Collins wrote a new book about Hunger Games.
This means that our own films about fan favorites like Haymitch and Finnick would also get a bad star as long as Collins doesn’t chronicle their games and give them a thematic undertone that also warrants cinematic narration. After the premiere of “The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes” in Berlin, we asked Francis Lawrence and Nina Jacobson more about it and received exciting answers about a possible “Panem” series and a Snow sequel…
There will be no Francis Lawrence “Panem” series
The idea that “Panem” Also, rebooting the series to produce new content for fans without additional book templates doesn’t seem unlikely given the reboot of the “Harry Potter” or “Twilight” series. Instead of continuing to tell these stories, JK Rowling and Stephanie Meyer’s existing novels will be revised and adapted as a TV series.
In the FILMSTARTS interview, we asked Francis Lawrence and Nina Jacobson if they could imagine retelling the story of Katniss or Snow in a series based on Suzanne Collins’ novels. For Francis Lawrence, however, that is out of the question: “I don’t know, that sounds quite depressing. If you just restart things as series. I can’t imagine that.”
In principle, however, there would be interest in telling more stories of Panem – but only with one intention, as producer Nina Jacobson made clear: “[…] If Suzanne wants to tell a new story, we are happy to make something of it. But not like that. And I think the viewers also see through what we do. Suzanne writes these books because she has something to say, and we are fortunate to be able to help her express that through film. But I don’t think any of us would want to just say something like that if it didn’t come from her. Because then it doesn’t really belong to this world.”
Francis Lawrence then continued Nina Jacobson’s answer and emphasized that again that a “Panem” reboot series would be absolutely out of the question: “And just retelling things and taking away the relevance really drives me crazy.”
That’s why there is no “The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes 2”
We asked Francis Lawrence and Nina Jacobson in the FILMSTARTS interview why they decided to cover Suzanne Collins’ 500+ page novel “The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes” in just one film instead of making it into two films at the time with “Mockingjay Part 1” and “Mockgaai Part 2”. However, sharing the conclusion of the original ‘Hunger Games’ series prompted Francis Lawrence to tell Snow’s story holistically in a film:
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Although the film leaves Lucy Gray’s fate open and a lot happens in Snow’s biography between the end of “The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes” and the beginning of “The Hunger Games,” the story is based on the novel by Suzanne Collins. for Francis Lawrence has therefore been completed for the time being. However, should Suzanne Collins present a new novel from the ‘Panem’ universe, Nina Jacobson’s words also give hope that it will also be accompanied by a new film.
Tom Blyth And Rachel Zegler could also imagine him returning as Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray, whether Suzanne Collins should write another novel and director Francis Lawrence is also involved in the film adaptation again. The full FILMSTARTS interview with the two leading actors can be found here: