16 Oct – After learning his lesson following his decision to split the final "Hunger Games" movie into two parts, Francis Lawrence stated that he did not do it again for the forthcoming prequel, "The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes". The director, who was criticised for his decision to do Part One and Part Two for the third Suzanne Collins book, "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay", released in 2014 and 2015, stated that he totally regret doing so, even though he previously defended his choice.
"I would never let them split the book in two," Lawrence said about the prequel. "It's a long book, but we got so much s*** for splitting Mockingjay into two - from fans, from critics, from everybody - that I was like, 'No way. I'll just make a longer movie.'"
It is noted that the upcoming movie, which stars Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow and Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird, will have a runtime of two hours and 36 minutes when it is released in November. The film, based on the Suzanne Collins prequel book of the same name, will revolve around the 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow prior to becoming the tyrannical president of Panem introduced in "The Hunger Games" trilogy.