Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes!
Summary
The bestselling dystopian young adult franchise has hit a new low as explored in Screen Rant’s Pitch Meeting episode centered on The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Based on Suzanne Collins’ 2020 novel of the same name, the movie tells the origin story of Coriolanus Snow as he gets involved with the Academy to restore his family’s name and becomes the mentor to a tribute during the 10th Annual Hunger Games. Led by Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes ultimately explores Snow’s transition towards the tyrannical President of Panem.
Fresh off the movie’s release, the latest episode of Screen Rant’s own Pitch Meeting series has set its sights on The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. The video, as seen at the top of this article, spotlights some of the flaws behind the franchise prequel, namely its disparate narrative halves, with the first focusing on the thrilling action of the Games themselves and developing the relationship between Blyth’s Snow and Zegler’s Lucy Gray Baird, while the second becomes a character drama. The episode also spotlights some of the unnecessary explanations of elements from the original movies, including districts donating items to the tributes and the origin of “The Hanging Tree” song.
Was The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes Necessary?
Upon both the novel and movie’s original announcements, questions swirled regarding the necessity for a Hunger Games prequel. The original storyline’s focus on Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss and her turn towards becoming a revolutionary to bring down Donald Sutherland’s President Snow seemingly left little interest in branching the universe out to another character. The further reveal that The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes would focus on Snow rather than one of the other more protagonistic characters further led to skepticism for its chances.
Much like Voldemort in the Harry Potter franchise, Snow was a villain better left unexplored, with the expansion of his backstory risking undermining his overall nature. One of the biggest reasons for this would be the need to ultimately tie the character back to the original Hunger Games books and movies, doing so quickly in a solo installment rather than multiple projects. Reviews for both versions of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes have frequently criticized the story’s pacing, feeling the ending to be rushed and unsatisfactory.
The reviews aren’t the only indication that The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes may have been an unnecessary expansion of the franchise. Though opening to a modest $44 million and topping the box office, the prequel did become the franchise’s lowest opening yet, falling well short of its original $50 million projections. With reports indicating a need for $120-130 million at the domestic box office to break even, it will be interesting to see if the Thanksgiving weekend can find word of mouth bolster the movie to success.
Though sitting at a franchise-low of 65% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes holds the highest audience score of the franchise at the time of writing with 90%.
Source: Pitch Meeting
Release Date: 2023-11-17
Director: Francis Lawrence
Cast: Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Hunter Schafer, Jason Schwartzman, Peter Dinklage, Josh Andrés, Josh Andrés Rivera, Viola Davis
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 157 Minutes
Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama
Writers: Michael Lesslie, Michael Arndt, Suzanne Collins
Studio(s): Color Force, Lionsgate
Distributor(s): Lionsgate
Sequel(s): The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2
Franchise(s): The Hunger Games
