Official Trailer
Trailer · Lionsgate Movies · 27 April 2023
The film
Film 5 of 6 · Prequel era Australia first
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
“What do you hunger for?”
- Australian release
- 16 November 2023
- US release
- 17 November 2023
- Classification (AU)
- M
- Runtime
- 157 min
- Director
- Francis Lawrence
- AU distributor
- Roadshow Films
§ 01
Sixty-four years before Katniss Everdeen volunteers as tribute, the Hunger Games are a shabby, poorly rated punishment broadcast that Panem is quietly losing interest in. Coriolanus Snow, eighteen and secretly broke, is handed a last chance at a Capitol future: mentor the District 12 tribute at the 10th Games and win the Plinth Prize. His tribute is Lucy Gray Baird, a Covey singer who understands instinctively that survival in the arena is a performance problem before it is a physical one. What follows is the origin story of both the spectacle we know and the man who will weaponise it.
§ 02
Songbirds & Snakes news The Australian angle
On the ground here
- Australia got it first again: in AU cinemas Thursday 16 November 2023, a day ahead of the 17 November US opening.
- Australian premiere screenings ran simultaneously in four cities at 6.30pm local time on Tuesday 14 November 2023 — IMAX Sydney, HOYTS Melbourne Central, Event Cinemas Chermside and Event Cinemas Innaloo. Roadshow supplied 175 double passes through a Supanova competition.
- AU opening weekend took $5.06 million from 586 screens, roughly $2 million ahead of The Marvels' debut the week prior.
- Held number one in Australia for multiple weeks, knocking Napoleon off the top spot, and finished 2023 as the country's 11th highest-grossing release with A$20.9 million.
- Ritz Cinemas Randwick, along with sister venues Cameo, Classic and Lido, ran an all-day marathon of the four original films as a lead-in to release.
- Rated M by the Australian Classification Board, keeping the franchise's consistent local M rating rather than tipping into MA15+.
- No Australian press visit or junket appearance by any principal cast member could be traced for this film — a gap worth pressing on for Sunrise on the Reaping.
§ 03
Who's in it
Cast
20 principal roles · 1 Australian, marked
Coriolanus Snow
Tom Blyth
Cast May 2022, previously known for EPIX's Billy the Kid
Lucy Gray Baird
Rachel Zegler
Performed Lucy Gray's songs live on set
Dr Volumnia Gaul
Viola Davis
Head Gamemaker
Dean Casca Highbottom
Peter Dinklage
Credited co-creator of the Games
Tigris Snow
Hunter Schafer
Coriolanus's cousin, later the stylist of the original trilogy
Lucretius 'Lucky' Flickerman
Jason Schwartzman
Ancestor of Caesar Flickerman
Sejanus Plinth
Josh Andres Rivera
Grandma'am
Fionnula Flanagan
Commander Hoff
Burn Gorman
Clemensia Dovecote
Ashley Liao
Lysistrata Vickers
Zoe Renee
Festus Creed
Max Raphael
Coral
Mackenzie Lansing
District 4 tribute
Billy Taupe Clade
Dakota Shapiro
Reported as Australian, born in Byron Bay — secondary sourcing only
Mayfair Lipp
Isobel Jesper Jones
Jessup
Nick Benson
District 12 tribute
Wovey
Sofia Sanchez
Mizzen
Cooper Dillon
Young Coriolanus Snow
Dexter Sol Ansell
President Snow (older)
Donald Sutherland
Archival audio only
§ 04
Behind it
Crew and credits
- Directed by
- Francis Lawrence
- Screenplay
- Michael Lesslie, Michael Arndt
- Based on
- The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020) by Suzanne Collins
- Music
- James Newton Howard
- Cinematography
- Jo Willems
- Editing
- Mark Yoshikawa
- Production design
- Uli Hanisch
- Costume design
- Trish Summerville
- Produced by
- Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Francis Lawrence
- Studio
- Lionsgate
- Australian distributor
- Roadshow Films
- Budget
- US$100 million
§ 05
How it performed
The numbers
- Australian box office
- A$20.9 million 11th highest-grossing film in Australia in 2023
- Worldwide
- US$347.9 million
- North America
- US$166.4 million
- Rotten Tomatoes
- 64%
- Metacritic
- 54/100
§ 06
The gallery
Official stills
20 images · Lionsgate / Roadshow Films
Lionsgate / Roadshow Films
§ 07
Watch
Official videos
12 uploads, each verified against its official channel
§ 08
How it was made
Production notes
- Francis Lawrence refused to split Suzanne Collins's novel into two films, telling Rolling Stone 'I would never let them split the book in two' and 'I'll just make a longer movie'. The result is 157 minutes, the longest film in the franchise.
- Shot 11 July to 5 November 2022 in Poland and Germany under the working title 'Butterfly', using Wrocław's Centennial Hall, Berlin's Olympiastadion and Strausberger Platz, Leipzig's Monument to the Battle of the Nations, and Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord.
- Olivia Rodrigo wrote and recorded 'Can't Catch Me Now' for the film. Lionsgate announced it on 1 November 2023 at a Times Square event; the single dropped 3 November and the music video on 13 November.
- Rachel Zegler performed Lucy Gray's songs live on set, including 'The Hanging Tree (Lucy Gray's version)' and 'Pure as the Driven Snow'.
- Dave Cobb produced the soundtrack, leaning hard into Appalachian, country and folk textures rather than the pop-forward soundtracks of the original quadrilogy.
- James Newton Howard returned to score his fifth Hunger Games film.
- Donald Sutherland appears via archival audio as the older President Snow, bridging the prequel to the original trilogy.
- Emmy-winning production designer Uli Hanisch, of The Queen's Gambit, was the significant new hire alongside returning crew Jo Willems and Trish Summerville.
§ 09
The record
Key dates
-
Lionsgate announces the film adaptation alongside Suzanne Collins's novel.
-
Francis Lawrence confirmed to direct.
-
Tom Blyth cast as Coriolanus Snow.
-
Rachel Zegler cast as Lucy Gray Baird.
-
Principal photography begins in Poland and Germany under the working title 'Butterfly'.
-
Filming wraps.
-
First trailer released.
-
Olivia Rodrigo's 'Can't Catch Me Now' released.
-
World premiere at BFI IMAX, London.
-
Australian premiere screenings across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.
-
Australian cinema release via Roadshow Films.
-
Streaming on Prime Video in Australia.
§ 10
All coverage From the desk
Latest on Songbirds & Snakes
Sources
- Australian Classification Board
- The Numbers
- Mediaweek — AU box office
- IF Magazine — Australian box office 2023
- Rolling Stone — Francis Lawrence on splitting Mockingjay
- Wikipedia
Stills and key art © Lionsgate / Roadshow Films, reproduced editorially with credit. Image data sourced via TMDB; THGAustralia uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB. Spotted an error? Tell us.
