Francis Lawrence loved getting the chance to work with Peter Dinklage and Viola Davis on The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
"Some of Peter's scenes are some of my favorites in the movie," the director told Entertainment Weekly following his movie's latest trailer release. "I wanted to work with him for so long. He came in and blew everybody away," Lawrence added regarding the Game of Throne star's performance as Capitol Academy dean Casca Highbottom. He also praised Davis' work as gamemaker Volumnia Gaul and her dynamic with Tom Blyth's Coriolanus Snow, teasing, "We wanted to create a different kind of character in terms of powerful women in these stories."
Though Dinklage appears occasionally in The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes' new trailer, Davis' character takes up a majority of screentime, pressing Snow on what he thinks the Hunger Games are for and how best to control the other Districts' residents. According to Lawrence, Gaul is "a very strong believer in a specific philosophy and is grooming Snow in that direction. She finds strange joy and creativity in her job as a gamemaker." This, he added, is reflective in Gaul's costume, labeling her, "a creative person with a very sinister underpinning, so there's a lot of color in her wardrobe and in her hair, even her eyes, and also in her creation... She's truly the first real gamemaker to think outside the box."
An adaptation of Suzanne Collins' 2020 prequel novel, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes marks the first Hunger Games film in eight years after the original Jennifer Lawrence adaptations concluded with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2. The story follows a young Snow (played in the original films by Donald Sutherland) as he's tasked with mentoring District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) for the 10th Hunger Games event, a relationship that will lays the seeds for who Snow eventually becomes. Compared to The Hunger Games' Katniss Everdeen, Lawrence described Lucy as Katniss' antithesis, both for how, "She wears her sexuality on her sleeve, [and] she really is a performer," as well as her ability "to play crowds and manipulate people."
At the time of this article, it's unclear whether The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes will release before the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strikes come to an end. However, the film will replace Dune: Part Two -- which was delayed to a March 2024 release because of the strikes -- in IMAX theaters this November, joined by Marvel Studios' upcoming superhero film The Marvels.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes hit theaters on Nov. 17.
Source: EW