#FirstLook: ‘The Hunger Games’ Prequel Trailer Is Here

Eight years after the final film in the blockbuster franchise, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes has a tantalizing trailer and a Thanksgiving release date.

It stars Tom Blyth as 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow and Rachel Zegler as District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird. Snow is ordered to mentor her, and guess what happens?

Producer Nina Jacobson tells Variety that Zegler’s original singing sets her character apart from original series hero Katniss, played by Jennifer Lawrence:

“It is such a completely original Lucy moment,” Jacobson says. “She’s such a different character from Katniss. She’s such a performer. Katniss is the opposite. This is a woman who loves and lives to perform. To see the connection there, the history that she represents, and to think that Katniss Everdeen grew up knowing about Lucy Gray and this moment, it was just a great kind of microcosm of both how much of a new ground it is and how rooted it is in what we’ve seen, but in this backward-looking way.”

Sharp-eyed fans are already making copious notes about the star-crossed lovers at the heart of the film. According to the official synopsis, Coriolanus Snow

is the last hope for his failing lineage, the once-proud Snow family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol. With his livelihood threatened, Snow is reluctantly assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird, a tribute from the impoverished District 12. But after Lucy Gray’s charm captivates the audience of Panem, Snow sees an opportunity to shift their fates. With everything he has worked for hanging in the balance, Snow unites with Lucy Gray to turn the odds in their favor. Battling his instincts for both good and evil, Snow sets out on a race against time to survive and reveal if he will ultimately become a songbird or a snake.”

Donald Sutherland played a much older Coriolanus Snow in the beloved film series. He has a voice cameo at the end of the trailer. Now we get to see his origin story from 64 years earlier.