Director discusses Hunger Games Easter egg in Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

The director of the original Hungers Games and its sequel Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes has revealed a connection between the two movies.

Though the original Hunger Games film franchise came to an end in 2015, a prequel film is slated to premiere soon.

The sequel — titled The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes — will showcase the 10th annual Hunger Games and how Coriolanus Snow, the eventual ruthless president in the original franchise, came to power.

Though the movies are set in the same universe, there hasn’t been word about any super direct connections between them outside of characters. However, the movie’s director has highlighted one striking Easter egg that connects them.

Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes connects its two leading ladies

In the first trailer of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) is seen giving a mocking bow when she’s reaped as the female District 12 tribute in the 10th Hunger Games.

This curtsey is incredibly familiar to Hunger Games fans as Katniss Everdeen did the same gesture in the first film after she shot an arrow directly into a room with Capitol officials who were overseeing the tributes’ training before the 74th annual Hunger Games.

The gesture may seem like a coincidence, but the film’s director, Francis Lawrence, who also directed Catching Fire and both Mockingjay films revealed to Entertainment Tonight that he improvised that moment.

“It was something that I made up on the day and had Rachel do, because we’re constantly looking for, in the making of this, little sort of Easter eggs that would excite the fans,” Lawrence explained, “I thought, wow, this is really cool.”

“If she does this then, you know, Katniss could have heard generations later about this kind of rebellious, irreverent act of this woman that was a singer and did this sort of bow curtsy at the reaping.”

Lawrence went on to add, “It just gives a different sort of meaning to Katniss’ action and I think that it’s a really fun element of this movie, to get lots of those moments.” 

Even though Katniss and Lucy Gray have no other connection outside of this gesture and being reaped from the same District, it’s Easter eggs like this that make the Hunger Games franchise a lot of fun to watch.

You can read more about The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes here, and check out some of our other upcoming movie hubs below:

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