The positive reactions to The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes prove that one key lesson needs to be continued concerning book adaptations for future movies and TV shows. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a prequel story to The Hunger Games and its subsequent three sequels. Set around 60 years before Katniss Everdeen’s rebellion against the Capitol, the story centers on a young Coriolanus Snow. Before he became the ruthless authoritarian president of Panem, Snow was a mentor to the Hunger Games Tributes of District 12, placing the film as the first chronological entry in the order of Hunger Games movies.
Upon the announcement of the project, many were wary given the often divisive or unsuccessful reboots, remakes, sequels, and spin-offs of popular franchises from the Star Wars sequels to Jurassic World and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, to name a small handful. However, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes had a better chance of success due to one detail centering on The Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins. This chance at success has seemingly been confirmed by the detail in question which future movies and shows that are adapting novels could learn from.
The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes Is Receiving Rave Reactions For One Major Reason
Firstly, it is worth exploring why The Hunger Games’ prequel will likely succeed. Ahead of the movie’s November 17, 2023 release, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ first reactions have been released online. These reactions are overwhelmingly positive, with praise being attributed to the talented cast, focused direction, and further exploration of The Hunger Games franchise’s intriguing, political-based themes.
While some reactions highlight slight changes made to the original book, most mention that The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes succeeds primarily because of its faithfulness to the source material. Rather than other spin-offs of popular franchises that had no story constructed – such as Warner Bros. Fantastic Beasts series – The Hunger Games‘ prequel is based on a pre-existing story which allowed the film to have a very clear direction from the off. What’s more, Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games’ author – was directly involved in the production of the movie.
The Hunger Games Is Outdoing Other Major Adaptation Franchises
One thing that this fidelity to the source material proves is that The Hunger Games series is outdoing other major book-to-film adaptation franchises, especially those within the same young-adult novel category. Two examples of this are the Maze Runner films and the two Percy Jackson movies released in the 2010s. While the Maze Runner films were completed with a trilogy and were largely well-crafted quality-wise, the main issues with the latter two films especially came from the big changes made to James Dashner’s original books. This saw the film franchise fade almost entirely into obscurity despite new novels being written, the complete opposite of The Hunger Games.
When concerning the Percy Jackson films, only two of the five books were adapted and were criticized by audiences for the needless, illogical changes made to the original books by Rick Riordan. Riordan himself even openly criticized the film adaptations, often stating that they were largely produced by 20th Century Fox and did not reflect what he wanted for a live-action treatment. The Hunger Games continuing with The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes to extreme praise only proves that the franchise is outdoing franchises that used to be its biggest rivals, primarily due to sticking true to the source material.
How Future Adaptations Will Follow The Hunger Games’ Success
This brings to light how future adaptations seem to be following in The Hunger Games’ footsteps. Interestingly, despite the aforementioned failure of the movie franchise, a TV adaptation of Percy Jackson and the Olympians is set to be released on Disney+ in December 2023. The marketing for the show thus far has hinted at a much greater sense of fidelity to the original books complete with author Rick Riordan serving as the showrunner, creator, and screenwriter on the project. This instantly proves how much movie or TV adaptations of books can benefit from sticking to the source material given the much-improved audience reaction to the Percy Jackson show’s initial teases.
Other upcoming instances in which fidelity to source material will likely result in success include Dune: Part Two and Netflix’s upcoming The Chronicles of Narnia reboot. Concerning the former, Dune: Part Two will adapt the second half of the book of the same name after 2021’s Dune received critical acclaim for being an incredibly faithful adaptation that made the book’s story accessible to general audiences. As such, it stands to reason that Dune 2 will be the same.
Concerning Narnia, the original three Disney films were fairly accurate to the books by C.S. Lewis despite making some significant changes that disappointed fans. This resulted in waning interest in the series after 2010’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader under-performed at the box office, resulting in Netflix’s reboot. With Greta Gerwig hired to write and direct the first two Narnia films for Netflix, the franchise has a second chance at replicating the success of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by faithfully adapting the stories on which it is based.
