The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes may be criticized for its long runtime, but the length of the movie contributes to a much larger issue.

Summary

• The length of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is not the prequel's main problem, but it intensifies a bigger issue.
• The lack of compelling characters, outside Lucy Gray Baird and the villainous Snow, in the prequel may cause it to struggle at the box office and make it feel longer than its actual runtime.
• Previous installments of The Hunger Games franchise succeeded because audiences cared about the characters, and the prequel struggles to deliver the same emotional connection throughout its long runtime.

The overall runtime of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes has been a topic of concern, but the movie's length simply contributes to an even bigger problem for the new franchise prequel. At 2 hours and 38 minutes long, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes sets out to trace the origin and rise of Panem's authoritarian dictator, Coriolanus Snow, played by Tom Blyth in the prequel and Donald Sutherland in the original films. Although Snow was the main antagonist of the original Hunger Games movies, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes allows his side of the story to be told in the franchise's longest movie entry to date.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes takes place 64 years before the events of the first novel and has been released 11 years after the first film.

The Hunger Games' lengthiest installment faces pressure to succeed among the other entries of its $3 billion (via The Numbers) cult franchise. While The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes' length raised enough concern that it had to be addressed by The Hunger Games franchise's four-time director Francis Lawrence, it faces even more pressure to fill its long runtime with the same type of Hunger Games content that drew fans in for the original films. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes' greatest expectations were to follow through on the best aspects of The Hunger Games, such as intense battle royale action, intricate socio-political threads, and an ensemble of absorbing characters. However, without properly integrating these elements, the prequel risks the problem of being too long with little substance.

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The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes' Runtime Isn't The Hunger Games Prequel's Problem

On the surface, as a new installment in the hit The Hunger Games franchise, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes really shouldn't get slack for its long runtime. Plenty of other movies are just as lengthy, and fans of book-to-movie adaptations could appreciate spending that much time in a novel universe brought to life. Films like Forrest Gump (2 hours and 22 minutes), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2 hours and 58 minutes), The Godfather (2 hours and 55 minutes), and so many more have long proven that it's not how long the movie is but the content it provides and how well it translates over from its source material.

Considering the franchise previously received backlash for splitting the Mockingjay book into two movies, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes being adapted into one lengthy film would presumably be welcomed over another two-part entry. Unfortunately, the runtime alone doesn't necessarily pose an issue but intensifies an even bigger problem. The new prequel doesn't possess a key characteristic found in the previous entries of The Hunger Games franchise. Because the prequel lacks bigger characters that audiences care about, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes' box office draw may falter in comparison to its sister installments, and feel much longer than its 2 hour and 38 minute runtime.

The Hunger Games Prequel Needed More Characters To Care About

Since the very first movie installment, The Hunger Games has thrived, in part because it made audiences feel for its cast of characters. Even upon the 2012 film, fans rallied behind and followed lead character Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and her closest associates because their legacy bled from the source material of Suzanne Collins' novel trilogy and into a series of theatrical adaptations that spanned an entire decade. In a similar vein, audiences have experienced every evil that President Snow has authorized throughout the entire The Hunger Game series.

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Because the prequeldelivers an isolated storyline set well before Katniss' narrative that revolves around the wicked Snow, audiences may struggle to care about him or his circle of trust. The prequeltries to rectify this by featuring lead character Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), but those who haven't engaged with the franchise in years might not recall who she is or her place in the story's lore. Almost every other The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes character is new or has little direct bearing on the original movies, making the need for more characters that audiences truly care about a much larger problem for the prequel movie to mend than its runtime.

Source: The Numbers

• The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

  Release Date:

  2023-11-17

  Director:

  Francis Lawrence

  Cast:

  Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Hunter Schafer, Jason Schwartzman, Peter Dinklage, Josh Andrés, Josh Andrés Rivera, Viola Davis

  Rating:

  PG-13

  Runtime:

  157 Minutes

  Genres:

  Action, Adventure, Drama

  Writers:

  Michael Lesslie, Michael Arndt, Suzanne Collins

  Studio(s):

  Color Force, Lionsgate

  Distributor(s):

  Lionsgate

  Sequel(s):

  The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

  Franchise(s):

  The Hunger Games