Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes gets its first look

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes has its first look, with a new image, originally shared by Vanity Fair, giving us our first glimpse of lead characters Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) and Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler).

The pair are reclining on a picnic blanket in what appears to be an idyllic scene – and judging from their seemingly contemporary-looking clothes, the prequel is going to be much less dystopian than the original Hunger Games movies. 

The movie will be based on Suzanne Collins' novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which was published in 2020. Set over 60 years before the first Hunger Games novel, it follows an 18-year-old from the Capitol (Blyth), who would later go on to become President Snow (played by Donald Sutherland in the original movies). He's tasked with mentoring one of the Games' tributes, Lucy Gray Baird (Zegler), but as their fates become entwined, things start to get complicated. 

"This is very much a story about love," director Francis Lawrence told Vanity Fair. "It's this kind of love story set in a different kind of a world in a different time." The movie's cast also includes Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schafer, and Jason Schwartzman.

Lawrence also helmed the last three movies in the original quartet (Catching Fire, Mockingjay – Part 1, and Mockingjay – Part 2), while Hunger Games author Collins is on board as one of the film's screenwriters. 

The first Hunger Games movie was released in 2012. Set in a dystopian future version of the US called Panem, each year one boy and one girl from each of the nation's districts must take part in the annual Hunger Games as punishment for past uprisings against the Capitol. The Games are a televised competition in which the adolescent "tributes" must fight to the death. 

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set to be released on November 17, 2023. In the meantime, check out our guide to the rest of this year's most exciting movie release dates.