The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes reveal: The Rachel Zegler starrer prequel gets a release date

Lionsgate Movies used the 2022 MTV Movie and TV Awards to unveil the first official trailer for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which will hit theatres in November 2023. The teaser, which debuted during the award show's live broadcast on Sunday, June 5, reveals the official title and logo of The Hunger Games prequel film.

The one-and-a-half-minute video, set to haunting vocals and dramatic piano, features a terrifying view of a gold snake creeping toward a gold bird on a tree while both are shedding snow from themselves. The teaser text stated that you're welcome to come back to the games. In 2023, the world will find out who is a songbird and who is a serpent.

The official title of the prequel film is revealed at the end of the teaser, which is The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. On November 17, 2023, the film will be released in theatres across the United States.

The title treatment was revealed just days after West Side Story's Rachel Zegler was cast as the female lead in The Hunger Games prequel. The role of Lucy Gray Braid will be played by the actress who won a Golden Globe for Best Actress-Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for her work as Maria Vasquez in Steven Spielberg's musical drama. 

Francis Lawrence, who directed three of the four Hunger Games films (Catching Fire, Mockingjay Part One, and Mockingjay Part Two), is returning to direct the fourth instalment.

He waxed lyrical about Zegler, saying that he first saw her in West Side Story, and he knew he was watching a star who would command the screen for a generation, as did everyone else. Lucy Gray is an ideal role for her as an actor since she is both bold, independent, and defiant, as well as vulnerable, emotional, and loving. Rachel is going to make this character memorable.

In addition, Tom Blyth has been cast in the film to play young Coriolanus Snow, a part made famous by Donald Sutherland in the original trilogy. The film is based on Suzanne Collins' dystopian series' fourth novel, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Lionsgate's tagline for the prequel says that Coriolanus Snow, 18, is the final hope for his fading lineage, a once-proud family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol, years before he would become the dictatorial President of Panem. The young Snow is disturbed when he is assigned to train Lucy Gray Baird, the girl tribute from impoverished District 12, with the 10th annual Hunger Games rapidly approaching.