Hunger Games director Frances Lawrence to return for prequel film The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

The film will follow the villain of previous Hunger Games films Coriolanus Snow

Francis Lawrence, the man behind all The Hunger Games movies, is returning to direct a prequel based on Susan Collins’s The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Set roughly 64 years before The Hunger Games, The Ballad of Song Birds and Snakes follows Coriolanus Snow, an 18-year-old who eventually rises to become the evil dictator ruler of the dystopian nation Panem.

The story starts at the 10th annual Hunger Games, where Snow is chosen to be a mentor for a young girl of District 12, the future home of Katniss Everdeen.

The book is due to come out on 19 May. Collins says it will return to “important questions about authority, the use of violence, and the truth of human nature”.

But when an excerpt of the novel appeared on Entertainment Weekly, many fans were unimpressed with Collins’s decision to focus on Snow.

“You mean to tell me… I’ve waited years and preordered the Hunger Games sequel,” wrote another fan, amid a plethora of disappointed responses, “for it to be a President Snow origin story … about a rich white boy becoming an authoritarian who loves *checks notes* genocide?”

“Like we need another story about some tortured white boy,” complained another. “Snow? Hard pass. Removing this from my anticipated list. Bye.”

Collins has previously said that she wanted her new book “to explore the state of nature, who we are, and what we perceive is required for our survival… The reconstruction period 10 years after the war, commonly referred to as the Dark Days – as the country of Panem struggles back to its feet – provides fertile ground for characters to grapple with these questions and thereby define their views of humanity.”

The cast and release date of the film adaptation of The Ballad of Song Birds and Snakes is yet to be announced.