On Thanksgiving, it was announced that over 20 million players have played DON’T NOD’s Life is Strange.
06.11.2023 - 12:05 / gamesradar.com / Jason Schwartzman
The first reactions to Hunger Games prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes are here – and they're pretty much unanimously blown away, with some even going as far as saying the prequel is better than the original movies.
The film, which tells the story of Coriolanus Snow long before he was ruler of Panem, stars Rachel Zegler, Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, and Tom Blyth.
"I really enjoyed the harrowing #BalladofSongBirdsandSnakes mostly thanks to Tom Blyth who made me root for his Snow, despite knowing what he would choose to become," says Hello's Rebecca Lewis.
"As a longtime obsessive of #TheHungerGames, oh boy, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes really delivered for me. Watching this made me feel the magic I felt when I saw the first movie as a 14-year-old – I literally cannot wait to see it again when it comes out," says Buzzfeed's Lauren Garafano.
"#TheHungerGames: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is an epic return to the world of Panem. The production design & world building are excellent. With a bare-bones Capitol & games still finding their identity, the stakes are raised & immensely felt. Fans of the book will be happy," says Lauren LaMagna.
"#TheHungerGames is a FEAST in terms of visuals + storyline + character arcs + tension. One of the best production of the whole year," is the verdict of Brit and Co.'s Chloe Williams.
"#TheBalladOfSongbirdsAndSnakes is one of the best #TheHungerGames films. Coriolanus Snow’s 'rise to power' story is well executed by [director] F. Lawrence in this colder, twistier & more interesting prequel. Tom Blyth impresses, Rachel Zegler shines bright & Jason Schwartzman is hilarious," says critic Fico Cangiano.
getFANDOM'S Eric Goldman is slightly more reserved: "#TheHungerGames The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is very good. The depiction of the games is terrific and really captures this scaled down and arguably more intensely brutal version of what we see in the future. However, don’t think the ending captures the impact the book did."
Collider's Perri Nemiroff has similar thoughts: "Big #TheHungerGames fan over here and LOVED #TheBalladOfSongbirdsAndSnakes book, so I am *very* happy to report that the new movie is quite good! In fact, the first 2/3 is excellent. While I understand why they didn’t split the book into two movies, it is quite noticeable that the first 2/3 is stellar and the last 1/3 is so-so – underserved and rushed, but works just well enough"
"THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES is the best #HungerGames movie yet. It's darker, more of a character study than anything, but always genuinely entertaining. With high stakes, solid action, and killer performances, it's a thrilling return to Panem," says Next
On Thanksgiving, it was announced that over 20 million players have played DON’T NOD’s Life is Strange.
Whenever a new movie prequel is announced, even the core audience that loved the original work sometimes responds with a resounding ugh. Who can blame anyone for dismissing out of hand the marketing formulation that gave us 2007’s Hannibal Rising, 1979’s Butch and Sundance: The Early Days, or 2004’s Exorcist: The Beginning? Prequels tell stories where the end has been predetermined, often without beloved key actors, prompting unflattering comparisons to inimitable classics. (Like what happened with the Star Wars prequel movies.)
Netflix has unveiled the first look at Guy Ritchie's new drama series The Gentlemen, based on the hit 2019 film.
“Can’t Catch Me Now,” the original song Olivia Rodrigo co-wrote and performed for the soundtrack of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, follows in a grand tradition.
There are plenty of pros and cons at the box office this week. We’ll start with the good news. The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, opened with a decent but not spectacular $44 million, enough to propel the Francis Lawrence-directed pic to No. 1 domestically, per Deadline.
Billionaire Elon Musk endorsed an antisemitic post on X, the social media site he owns, that attacked members of the Jewish community for pushing “dialectical hatred” against white people.
Making an iconic villain your own is no easy task, as Tom Blyth can attest. The actor plays Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which is set some 64 years before we meet him in the original films.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes features a lot of callbacks to the original film.
The Hunger Games is supposed to be a horrifying condemnation of commodified violence and a statement about the brutality of class-based spectacle remade as must-see viewing for salivating elites. But for one brief moment in the early 2010s, it also seemed like a pretty decent pitch for a reality show of its own, so that’s exactly what The CW did. And maybe it wasn’t the worst idea.
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The Hunger Games producer Nina Jacobson says the prequel film will give audiences a new insight into the original movies.
With a new Hunger Games movie on the way, many fans across social media hope that it ignites a full-on Hunger Games renaissance. After all, earlier this year the YA dystopian series experienced a small cultural resurgence when the movies landed on Netflix.