Back at the peak of Hunger Games fever, Jennifer Lawrence took “The Hanging Tree”—a fictional folk song about a man being put to death for committing multiple murders—to the number 12 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Nearly a decade later, new franchise star Rachel Zegler is putting her own spin on the track in the latest trailer for The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, which premieres in theaters November 17.
Zegler plays Lucy Gray Baird, the bard who actually originated “The Hanging Tree” 64 years before Katniss Everdeen competed in the Hunger Games. We don’t actually get to see Zegler perform in the trailer (though there’s some blink-and-you’ll-miss-it stunt work once she’s dropped into the arena), but we do get to see how her performance mesmerizes her mentor Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth). Snow, who grows up to be Panem’s president and Katniss’ main adversary, has his own selfish reasons for participating in a partnership with Lucy, but he also can’t help but be drawn in by her, either.
The adult Snow was a creepy, formidable villain (his infamous roses get a moment in the new trailer), but Viola Davis’ Volumnia Gaul is on another level. With sumptuous costuming and alarming multi-colored eyes, she cuts an intimidating figure, drawling such phrases as, “You wanna protect people, then it’s essential to accept what human beings are. And what it takes to control them” or, “I want my enemies to see a rainbow of destruction engulfing the world.” The latter said to a squirming tank full of colorful snakes, natch.
Compared to that, sure, Snow probably seems “like a good man,” at least in Lucy’s eyes. But The Ballad Of Songbirds and Snakes promises to reveal how he went from a pawn in Panem’s twisted games to being the top player by the time Katniss Everdeen comes around. Directed by Francis Lawrence, the film also stars Hunter Schafer, Peter Dinklage, and Josh Andrés Rivera.