The new Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, is lastly right here. It transports audiences to a time lengthy earlier than the exploits of Katniss Everdeen, as an alternative chronicling the rise of the unique films’ villain, Coriolanus Snow. So, does that imply we shouldn’t count on an look by Katniss – or her different half, Josh Hutcherson’s Peeta Mellark?
It’s a query that’s been on quite a lot of Hunger Games followers’ minds, ever since Lionsgate introduced The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes again in 2019. Director Francis Lawrence even admitted in a recent interview that the fanbase’s devotion to Katniss and her interior circle gave him “anxiety” concerning the undertaking.
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Lawrence additionally just lately confessed that he had issues over the scale of Suzanne Collins’ authentic Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes novel, and toyed with the concept of splitting the variation into two films. However, the filmmaker finally determined towards this strategy, as he regretted dividing up Collins’ third Hunger Games tome, Mockingjay.
Was Lawrence capable of finding room in his single movie retelling of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes for even a quick cameo by Josh Hutcherson? Read on to search out out!
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Is Josh Hutcherson in Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes?
No, Josh Hutcherson isn’t in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
This shouldn’t come as a lot of a shock, both, given the prequel is ready greater than 60 years previous to the occasions of the remainder of the franchise – many years earlier than Peeta was born.
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Of course, Hutcherson might conceivably have reprised the Peeta function in a framing sequence earlier than or after The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes’ major narrative, however this doesn’t occur. Nor does the movie embrace any direct references to Peeta or Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss, who’s likewise a no-show right here.
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Indeed, no forged members from the primary 4 Hunger Games films return in The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes – not even Donald Sutherland, who originated the President Snow function. The 88-year-old Hollywood icon was too old to painting Snow’s 18-year-old self, and so Benediction’s Tom Blyth was employed to exchange him.
Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes director discusses Tom Blyth’s Coriolanus Snow
Lawrence unpacked Blyth’s efficiency function in an interview with Dexerto, revealing that he instructed the English actor to not mimic Sutherland. “I didn’t want him to try and do his voice or his mannerisms or anything like that,” he stated.
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“And that’s partially just because we’re meeting Snow at such a sort of young, unformed age, that I wanted Tom to be able to just own the performance,” Lawrence continued. “But because he’s unformed, I think we were dealing with very different kinds of topics to talk about, Tom and I, and a very different kind of journey.”
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is in cinemas now. Check out Dexerto’s different Hunger Games protection under:
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