Things to know about The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

With the release date expected in November 2023, here’s BLOT’s guide of everything you need to know about the new Hunger Games prequel.

The Setting

While the first Hunger Games took us from District 12 to the Capitol, this prequel gives us the very opposite. Except, it’s not quite the one we know.

Set 64 years in the past, we settle into a post-war Capitol that’s struggling so much that some of their richest barely have enough to eat. 

Within the prequel, we are introduced to the Capitol Academy where the most elite children attend school. It’s also where the majority of our cast is plucked from to help… modify the games.

At this stage, the hunger games are nothing like the big spectacle we are introduced to through Katniss and Peeta. As in, no luxury apartments, no interviews or stylists, no mentors. Well, not yet at least.

The Cast

Coriolanus Snow 

Actor: Tom Blyth

Like the book, the film follows a young Coriolanus Snow before he became the villain of the stories we know and love. As the powers that be try to make the games more entertaining to watch, they select 12 of the Capitol students to become mentors for the tributes and Coriolanus is one of them— the mentor of the District 12 tribute to be exact.

Lucy Gray Baird

Actress: Rachel Zegler

Katniss wasn’t the first girl from District 12 to leave their mark on Panem, that would be Lucy Baird. Lucy is the female tribute for District 12 in the 10th Hunger Games, and she is Coriolanus’ mentee.

She’s a member of ‘the Covey’ — a group of musical nomads who travelled between the districts and the capitol to perform before the war. It doesn’t seem like a lot when you think of the brutality of the Hunger Games, but with all the changes that happen in this one, it makes her a Capitol favourite.

Dr Volumnia Gaul

Actress: Viola Davis

Dr Gaul is a rather eccentric, slightly deranged character in the books, which makes sense when you realise she’s the woman who started the mutations you see within the Capitol. She’s also credited as the creator of the Hunger Games, but that’s a grey area. Incredibly intelligent and extremely terrifying, dear I say, she might be worse than Snow himself.

Casca Highbottom

Actor: Peter Dinklagege

Meet the dean of the Capitol Academy and the true creator of the Hunger Games. In the book, he’s a miserable, wicked dean who’s either always drunk or high, but don’t let that act fool you. He knows better than most that the only difference between the people in the districts and the ones in Capitol is where they happened to be born. He also hates Coriolanus simply for breathing, but whether or not there’s a reason for that, we just have to wait and see.

Tigris Snow

Actress: Hunter Schafer

Remember that weird cat lady that was in the background of Mockingjay Part Two? The one that looked like she was going for really good tiger cosplay? Well, that’s President Snow’s cousin and when she was younger, she didn’t have all those body modifications. In fact, she was a really sweet girl and his closest confidant. As for what happened between them, well we just have to wait and see, but she did always have an affinity for raw meat so….