Producer On Coriolanus Snow Lore

By Waseem Akram On Nov 14, 2023

Summary

The Hunger Games prequel film, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, explores how The Hunger Games became the spectacle it is and showcases the transformation of young Coriolanus Snow into a seasoned villain.
The film features an all-star cast, including Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Josh Andrés Rivera, Hunter Schafer, Jason Schwartzman, Peter Dinklage, and Viola Davis, with director Francis Lawrence helming the project.
Nina Jacobson, producer of the Hunger Games franchise, talks about the joys of returning to the world of The Hunger Games and the challenges of shooting a period piece in the world of Panem , drawing inspiration from historical references such as post-World War II Germany.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Birds & Snakes follows eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow, sixty-four years before the events of the original Hunger Games film. With his family losing their status, Snow is determined to find a way to get it back. When he enlists the help of District 12’s Lucy Gray Baird for the tenth annual Hunger Games, he’s anxious to see how she separates herself from the others at harvest time. Believing they may have a shot, Snow and Lucy work together to win the games. This film will show not only how Snow becomes a familiar villain fan, but how the Hunger Games became a vision of the future.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Birds & Snakes featuring an all-star cast led by Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Josh Andrés Rivera, Hunter Schafer, Jason Schwartzman, Peter Dinklage, and Viola Davis. Director and producer Francis Lawrence will helm the project, returning to the franchise alongside producer Nina Jacobson. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Birds & Snakes The script was written by Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt based on the Suzanne Collins prequel novel of the same name.

Related: Lucy Gray Baird Explained: The Hunger Games History, Relationships & Who Plays It

Screen Rant just interviewed Nina Jacobson about it The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Birds & Snakes. She discussed the casting process for Coriolanus Snow and filming in practical locations for the Panem period piece. Jacobson also explained what she was most excited to explore The Hunger Games legend in the new film.

Nina Jacobson talks about The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Screen Rant: Nina, it’s been eight years since we’ve had a Hunger Games film; I would say eight years is too long if you ask me. How happy you were to dive back into the world of The Hunger Gamesand what surprised you the most to research from the tradition?

Nina Jacobson: Well, I was excited, just the thought of… they say you could never go home again, but this was like getting to go home, again. , to this amazing collaboration we have. Suzanne, and Francis and myself and so many of our department heads came back. And then we’ve added some really talented people, both behind the scenes on camera.

For me, I was very happy to be able to explore this moment when the Hunger Games themselves were in this critical crisis, and of course, I can relate to the idea of people say, Well, we have to get bums in seats. How do you get people to want to go see the games? And of course, the films we made, and the books that came before them. The games were already deeply embedded in the culture as a duty and habit.

The idea was that this was the moment where they could all be gone. And to find out that Snow was instrumental in that change, and the gaming and blitzing up, of the games. And making him feel a lot of fun with the wardrobe and the stylist, all of that, to think that all kinds of things started in this moment on this tenth game . And it might never have happened, if it weren’t for Coriolanus Snow. That’s what I found really interesting.

Speaking of Snow, I like stories based on complex characters where we see their origins, and this is no different. Can you talk about the importance of casting someone that audiences can empathize with but ultimately know where this character’s destiny is going?

Nina Jacobson: He really wanted us to find a really talented young actor. Someone who could, physically at least believe it, grow up to be Donald Sutherland’s version of the character we all know and hate. And as you say, we know it’s going bad. And yet you have to be involved in this tug of war yourself, in the same way that he is in this tug of war pulled between these different forces and influences in his life.

You have to have this kind of desire to somehow see him come to a different conclusion, even if you know he won’t. And yet, in the end, you have to get to a place where he feels really happy, when he makes the last move to do good, and let himself be the a person who knows what will happen in the end.

I love world building Hunger Games. I think this movie does such a good job of expanding on that. Can you talk about the challenges of shooting a period piece in the world of Panem?

Nina Jacobson: That was a really fun challenge. The idea of 64 years before, we wanted the world to feel much more analog, we really want to feel the presence of the war that the war is not a distant memory. Of course, we open with a flashback. We open with the experiences of two children in war and the way war has shaped who they are. And then when you get to the present of the film, you’re looking at a time where the Capitol, it’s not this shiny, happy place but it’s still a place of recovery the war

So we turned to many references to the reconstruction of Germany after World War II. We had the amazing Uli Hanisch who made amazing use of these practical spaces. And some of them had a surprising connection to our topics and ideas. Within our area is this Centenary Hall in Poland, but the outside and some of the surrounding areas are all in the Olympic Village in Berlin, where Jesse Owens ran in front of Hitler and the Reich.

So you have this kind of wonderful dialogue between history and fiction that felt really interesting, and the opportunity to make a period film allowed us to make good use of these amazing practical locations around Eastern Europe .