The Ballad of Serpents and Songbirds will be released in 2023

As part of the CinemaCon Cinema Owners Convention, representatives of the Lionsgate film company announced release date for The Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds, the Hunger Games prequel based on the Hunger Games novel. The movie will start rolling on November 17, 2023.

It takes place 64 years before the events of the original films, during the tenth Hunger Games. In the center of the plot will be 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow, who has yet to become the tyrannical president of Panem. He gets a chance to change his fate when he is chosen to mentor Lucy Gray Baird, who will represent District 12 in the new games.

Francis Lawrence, who directed Catching Fire and both parts of Mockingjay, will direct. The writer of The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins is responsible for the script, Michael Arndt won an Oscar for the screenplay of Little Miss Happiness", who also worked on Catching Fire, and Michael Leslie, for whom the film will debut in screenwriting. Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson will continue to produce.