Summary
- The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes will be the longest movie in the franchise, with a runtime of 2 hours and 45 minutes.
- The length of the film is justified by the extensive history and storytelling that the prequel sets up for The Hunger Games trilogy.
- Splitting The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes into two movies would be a viable option to ensure that important scenes and plot points from the book are not compromised.
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is a prequel to The Hunger Games trilogy, based on the books by Suzanne Collins. The first three books, The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, revolve around the story of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. They were adapted into four wildly successful films from 2012 to 2015, with The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes hoping to positively expand the franchise.
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes takes place about 65 years before The Hunger Games trilogy started, which began with Katniss and Peeta competing in and eventually becoming victors of the 74th Hunger Games. The prequel focuses on the 10th Hunger Games, District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird, and her relationship with her mentor and future president of Panem Coriolanus Snow. The prequel book not only told their stories, but set up a great deal of history that was further explored in The Hunger Games and its subsequent books/films, justifying its lengthy running time, but leaving room for more as well.
The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes Runtime Will Be The Longest In The Hunger Games Movie Franchise
With the reported runtime for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes being set at 2 hours, 45 minutes, it will be significantly longer than the previous films in the trilogy. The Hunger Games and Catching Fire both were both under 2 hours, 30 minutes, while Mockingjay was split into two parts – the first being just over 2 hours and the second part being 2 hours, 16 minutes. This may make the runtime for The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes seem excessive, especially when considering the success of the previous films, but the amount of content that needs to be covered makes this a good sign for the adaptation.
Why The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes Movie Needs To Be So Long
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is also the longest book in The Hunger Games series. Collins published The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes an entire decade after the final book in the original trilogy was released, and while it followed a similar story to those before–complete with a tense Games and star-crossed lovers–its length immediately set it apart. The prequel is 517 pages long, whereas the second-longest book in the series, Catching Fire, is only 391 pages. This huge difference in length thus warrants a longer running time for the film adaptation.
Where Collins had three books to tell Katniss and Peeta’s story in The Hunger Games trilogy, she only had one to tell the story of Lucy Gray and Snow, hence the length. The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes not only has the task of telling the story of the 10th Hunger Games, but it also had to set up Coriolanus Snow and his backstory as a character in a way that enhanced the original Hunger Games trilogy. He is an extremely complicated and compelling character, as is Lucy Gray, and their story needs time to be explored and unraveled in a way that will do the book justice.
Should The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes Have Been Split Into 2 Movies?
The current running time of 2 hours, 45 minutes is a good sign that The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes won’t have to cut too much from the books as many book-to-film adaptations end up having to do. However, when comparing the book’s length to the film’s length, there will inevitably be some parts of it that end up on the cutting room floor, which could be detrimental to the story and the film’s success. Though the splitting of Mockingjay into two films wasn’t necessarily the right choice, it could work for The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
Unlike the other books in The Hunger Games series, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes has a clear and distinct point where it can be split into two films. The first part of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is focused on the lead-up to the 10th Hunger Games and the Games itself, where Lucy Gray is ultimately crowned victor after many shocking and intense twists and turns. Following the Games and the discovery that Snow had helped Lucy Gray cheat her way to victory, both of them are sent away from the Capitol. Coriolanus becomes a Peacekeeper in District 12, where they secretly reunite and continue their story.
This provides a natural point in which The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes can be split into two films without having to compromise any of the original material from the book. To make a two-part film successful, each part needs to have a complete story to tell, and The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes has this, along with an exciting plot twist that would make audiences excited for a second part. At 2 hours and 45 minutes, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes has a great opportunity to add as much from the books as possible, but a two-part film would be the best solution to avoid cutting important scenes.
