The games are beginning again in the new trailer for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
The film takes place 64 years before the events of The Hunger Games and stars Tom Blyth as a young Cornelius Snow, who decades later will become the ruthless ruler of Panem, the land which forces children from each of its districts to fight to the death in the annual Hunger Games.
Rachel Zegler stars as Lucy Gray Baird, a tribute and competitor in the Hunger Games, who is mentored by Snow. Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera, Jason Schwartzman and Viola Davis also star.
Filmmaker Francis Lawrence returns to direct the project after helming three of the four Hunger Games features that starred Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen.
The project is one of a few tentpoles moving ahead with its release amid the SAG-AFTRA strike, which if still ongoing when Songbirds and Snakes opens on Nov. 17, will prevent its actors from doing press to support the movie. Warner Bros., likewise, is moving ahead with a release for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom a month later.
The film comes three years after The Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins published her prequel novel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Michael Arndt and Michael Lesslie adapted the novel for the screen.
