It stands to reason that Lionsgate was eager for a new project set in the Hunger Games realm.

The four-film franchise (the events of Mockingjaywere split into two movies ) earned nearly $3 billion at the global box office. That's not exactly shocking, given that first three Hunger Games books - The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay-sold more than 100 million copies upon release. Studio execs were in contact with Collins while she was still writing The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. How long has the prequel been in development? “You're going to understand a lot more of why he is the way he is.” You can listen to part of the first chapter here. “You think you know someone but there are a lot of surprises,” Fontana told EW. Although a new actor will likely be cast to play the younger character, Sutherland could appear in flash-forward scenes in the upcoming movie.Įntertainment Weekly exclusively debuted an 11-minute excerpt of the novel's audiobook, read by Santino Fontana ( Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Broadway's Tootsie) as Snow. The plot summary reads: “Young Coriolanus is handsome and charming, and though the Snow family has fallen on hard times, he sees a chance for a change in his fortunes when he is chosen to be a mentor for the 10th Hunger Games, only to have his elation dashed when he is assigned to mentor the girl tribute from impoverished District 12.”ĭonald Sutherland played an older version of President Snow in the Hunger Games film franchise. The story centers around an 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow, long before his tyrannical reign as President of Panem. “The reconstruction period 10 years after the war, commonly referred to as the Dark Days-as the country of Panem struggles back to its feet-provides fertile ground for characters to grapple with these questions and thereby define their views of humanity.”

“With this book, I wanted to explore the state of nature, who we are and what we perceive is required for our survival,” Collins said in a statement about the book, via THR. The book is set 64 years before the beginning of the original trilogy and delves deeper into Panem’s historical roots. Below, everything else we know about the project, including whether any of the OG cast members would return. Now, Francis Lawrence-director of the final three films in the original series-will officially helm the project. Lionsgate has announced that Suzanne Collins’s new novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snake(released May 19, 2020) will be adapted into a movie with the same title.ĭiscussions about a return to the world of Panem officially began in June 2019, with The Hollywood Reporterconfirming that Lionsgate was “eyeing” a prequel film after the announcement of Suzanne Collins' new novel. The Hunger Games hive, assemble once more.

The hunger games sequel book