The odds are in our favor. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes has wrapped production in Europe after a four-month shoot. One of its stars, Rachel Zegler, shared the news along with a heartfelt message about her time working on the upcoming 2023 movie.
Rachel Zegler, who will play District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird in The Hunger Games prequel, took to Twitter to share that it’s a wrap! Check out her heartfelt post:
many many many more words come to mind but i shan’t bore you by pretending i have anything new to offer you with my thoughts.just know i am thankful.just know i love telling stories.just know i am so happy with real life.❤️ happy wrap, my songbirds. ❤️November 5, 2022
The 21-year-old actress shared a happy pair of photos of herself on the set of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, saying she’s “loved every second” on the production. Additionally, she noted how “thankful” she is to tell stories and be happy in her real life, outside of the cameras rolling. Now, her movie character Lucy on the other hand… will have gone through hell by the end of the tenth Hunger Games.
Zegler was cast as Lucy Gray Baird in May 2022, alongside her leading co-star Tom Blyth, who will play a young President Snow. The stacked Hunger Games prequel cast also includes the likes of Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage, Viola Davis, Jason Schwartzman and Euphoria’s Hunter Schafer. The story based on the 2020 novel by Suzanne Collins follows a teenaged Snow as he mentors Lucy in the Hunger Games a time long before Katniss Everdeen lit up the 74th Hunger Games with Peeta.
A couple of weeks ago, Zegler showed TikTok the set of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. From the glimpses we saw, it looks like the movie has brought the novel and the world of Panem back to life seven years after the Hunger Games movies starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth.
Zegler burst onto the Hollywood scene when she was handpicked by Steven Spielberg for his West Side Story as María. The Oscar-winning movie musical is just the beginning for Zegler as she’ll also star in Shazam! Fury of the Gods next year along with this Hunger Games movie. Additionally, she was cast as the live-action Snow White by Disney, set for release in 2024.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was directed by Francis Lawrence, who made three out of four of the franchise’s films: Catching Fire and Mockingjay Part 1 and Part 2. Lawrence arguably made the best of the batch too, per our ranking of the Hunger Games movies.
The screenplay was written by Michael Arndt, who also penned the film adaptation of Catching Fire in addition to his credits on Little Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3 among others. Michael Lesslie also worked on the screenplay following his work on 2015’s Macbeth and 2016’s Assassin’s Creed.
As we anticipate the movie’s release on November 17, 2023, you can check out what else we know about The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes movie, and read our reflection on the original The Hunger Games after its recent 10-year anniversary, here on CinemaBlend.