As we knew they would be, the Hollywood Gamemakers are hard at work on the film adaptation of Suzanne Collins’s brilliant Hunger Games prequel: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It really is a remarkable novel. If you need a refresher, check out mine and our Headmaster‘s thoughts from its release in 2020, as well as a run-down of connections to the original trilogy. If you have not read the novel, you have time before the film’s planned 2023 release. If you have read it, you are probably wondering how the filmmakers will deal with the main character, the young up-and-comer Coriolanus Snow, as well as some of the complex and fascinating Machiavellian themes. Of course the movie business loves unpleasant protagonists, from the Joker to Venom, so they are doubtless planning another humongous blockbuster, once again without the slightest indication that they understand the irony of these splashy productions that hit theaters during the Thanksgiving season. The film is still in the early stages, with little known except that the director will once again be Francis Lawrence, and that other production staff and writers (including Collins) involved with the previous films will be joining this one. No casting has been announced, but I would love to start taking suggestions. If you have ideas about who should play the deviously charming Snow, the talented (and also devious) Lucy Gray Baird, the hapless optimist Sejanus, the horrifying Dr. Gaul, or any other of the fascinating characters, let’s start discussing those now, before the Hollywood people invariably make choices that make us scratch our heads. What are your expectations for what will, sadly, always be called “the fifth Hunger Games movie”?
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