Getty Image
Speaking with BroBible’s Post Credit Podcast ahead of the release of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, longtime The Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence, who helmed three of the four movies in the original series, discussed returning to the franchise that changed his life, the musical inspirations for the film, an update on his CONSTANTINE sequel and what he plans on doing with Keanu Reeves’ hair, his upcoming BIOSHOCK movie, and more.
Editor’s Note: This article has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Eric Italiano, BroBible: First question, do you have an MP3 file that you could send me until the soundtrack officially drops? Because that music was great. I particularly loved the track that she [Rachel Zegler] sings when she’s trying to earn donations. Because the genre is so clear, who are some of the specific people, or touchstones, that you used as the sonic ideal for this film?
Francis Lawrence: What was also great is that I actually really fell in love with the era and the genre of music that we’re touching on in this, in this. And so I think it’s like the second episode of this documentary. We get down into kind of West Virginia, and it’s sort of focusing on like the Carter family, Maybel Carter, and that sound that comes out of West Virginia and Appalachia. And, and I, I just fell in love with it. I play the guitar, and I suddenly wanted to learn how to play guitar like Maybel Carter, and I just loved the sound. And this was in the early days of starting to record people and putting out records.
Then we went and we hired Dave Cobb, a great Nashville-based producer and songwriter, who also has a vast knowledge of country music and gets this genre, and this tone specifically. He put together this great little band and he wrote the chords and the melodies for the music that Suzanne [Collins, THE HUNGER GAMES novelist] had already written.
And for me, it Came together seamlessly. And the next worry, I will say is — Rachel has an amazing voice — but we didn’t know if she was going to translate to this kind of music. But the thing is, is that she got it instantly, like hardly with any coaching for Dave, she already had a little bit of the dialect going into it. Just fully understood and zoned in and got it. And it was amazing. And then could sing live on set. Everything we did in the movie, she sang live.
EI: She’s one of those performers that you can’t believe a voice so powerful comes out of a body so tiny. It’s incredible.
FL: I know.
EI: There’s something a bit meta here that I’d like to talk about. What’s it like returning to a franchise that not only takes place in a different time period than the one you previously knew but also at a time when you yourself are in a different time period of your life?
FL: Um, you know, I mean, I have to, I have to say that, you know, I, I didn’t think there were going to be any more books and, um, Suzanne didn’t have any plans for anything and she sort of surprised us with this in 2019, end of 2019, and she was almost done with the book. And when I discovered that it was essentially two things, one, the origin of a villain.
EI: I’m going to ask you about that. Don’t worry.
FL: But the other part was that we were basically in essence making a period piece to the original movies. And I thought that was such a wildly fun challenge. Um, and I love world-building. It’s one of the things I look for in all the projects that I do. And so the fact that I’m not just kind of recreating the world of Panem, we know I get to sort of create an older version of Panem, and a much more rudimentary version of Panem, that was really, really fun.
EI: I’m going to be frank here. I have never seen any of these films before. So I’m curious if you think that puts me at an advantage or a disadvantage for enjoying this film and how you sort of approach that, trying to reach new fans, but also appeasing long-time ones.
FL: The truth is the way we tried to approach it is that ideally somebody who has not read any of the other books and not seen any of the other movies could come in cold, get into this world, understand the world, follow the story, and have a fulfilling experience and comment, come out having been ideally, have their thoughts sort of provoked, have them thinking about the themes of the story. I will say there’d be a little bit of a benefit if you were to have seen the other movies. Well, cause at, at one point I’m like, why are they singing? Why are they singing in general?
EI: No, no, no. But I’m saying like, it took me a while to sort of get my grasp in the world. But once I did, and this is me being totally truthful, I was in, so I was impressed by sort of that ability to like appease a new fan to me in what I imagine is the whole reason that the checks were writ were, was to get franchise fans back in, but it’s still connected with a new fan like me.
FL: Well, that’s ideally, ideally, that’s what we want to do. We want to have it work on its own, right? I was going to say that I think that for people who are fans of the books and the other movies, there’s another layer that’s at play that wouldn’t be there are now, like, if you had seen the other movies and you see this, you’re suddenly going to have sort of epiphanies about characters, about character dynamics, about the origins of certain songs. One of the songs in this movie, you probably didn’t know.
EI: No, I caught up now. I’ve gone and dug into the lore. I have gone back and bought the movies and completely dove in since. So I do know the song you’re talking about.
FL: That one you’ve heard Katniss sing, but now to go back, you know, 64 years and go, oh, okay, this was created here. We get to see the hanging tree. We see the person who created the song. There are people that actually meet at the hanging tree. There’s a lot of that kind of stuff, but discovering, you know, what District 12 really means to Snow, um, to understand who Tigress really is and how close Tigress really was with Snow. If you’ve seen her in MOCKING JAY PART TWO, you would never in a million years imagine what she’d become.
EI: Hunter Schafer was great [in the role of Tigris].
FL: Great. She’s awesome.
FL: YI love those kinds of stories. You know, if you look at old stories like Macbeth, then you look at stories like, you know, the origins of Darth Vader, or you look at BREAKING BAD. I love those stories of people breaking bad. So this was one of my opportunities to do that.
The challenge we have, especially for people that know the movies as they come in knowing he’s bad, right? What we have to do is we have to make the journey to darkness surprising. And we also have to get people behind them in the beginning. We have to get people to empathize with them, to understand his struggle, to root for him. At the same time, we have to be seeding in his ambition, his greed, his need for power, the darkness that is in there fighting with the goodness, so that when he goes dark, it feels truthful and it feels honest and it feels authentic.
EI: You know, it’s a very common thing these days to, uh, look down on prequels and sequels and spinoffs and cash grabs, but just hearing you talk, you’re threading a fine needle here. There’s a, you know, this is a tricky little trick that you pulled. And that’s why I was curious if it was, if you felt it was an advantage or disadvantage that I went into it blind because I was able to take in Snow as the verse that you wanted to tell him versus having preconceived notions.
FL: Yeah, I think, I think it’s great. I mean, the good thing is I think, you know, for the fans who have seen it, that are very familiar with the books and stuff, I think they find that they’re surprised that they’re rooting for him. I don’t think they thought that it could happen. And then they get into this story and in the beginning and they’re suddenly behind them and they like him and they even find themselves going, wait, I know he’s going to become evil at some point, but like, maybe it won’t be now, you know, like sort of rooting for him to stay good. And I love that. But, you know, as I said, we really did try to design it to please fans, but also to just work as a standalone film for people who may not be educated in the series.
EI: You’ve nailed that. I think if there are folks like me who go in there blind, I think that they’re going to be just as hooked as if they had known the whole story. I’ve got one more about the Hunger Games before we move on to the rest of your work. Albeit it’s not about this film. When I bring up the name Philip Seymour Hoffman, what’s the first thing, what’s the first moment that pops into your mind?
FL: First moment that pops into my mind? I will say that the first one that popped in my mind was that he left me a voicemail after he saw Catching Fire. So my first time working with him was on Catching Fire. And he only worked with us for two or three weeks or something. And, you know, we were super, super excited to work with him. And he came in and he did a great job. He didn’t bond really with everybody in the way that we thought. And, you know, we obviously knew he was going through some stuff that we became much more open about later. But he saw the movie and he loved the movie. And I remember, you know, him leaving me this voicemail about how much he loved the movie and sort of pledging how much harder he’s going to work on the next ones to do an amazing job. And I have to say, I saved that voicemail for probably six years.
EI: I don’t blame you.
FL: Yeah. And I actually wish I still wish that I hadn’t erased it, but I felt like it was time that I had to erase it.
EI: It’s Okay. I’m sure it still lives where it needs to live, you know? So, my man, Constantine, I feel like I am a ground-floor investor in this film. I’ve been screaming that it’s good for close to 20 years now. I’m curious from your perspective why you think it’s taken so long for culture to realize that.
FL: You know, I don’t know. Look, every job I do, I fall in love with something about it, whether it’s the character, the story, the world, ideally all of it. I loved it. I loved making it. I was passionate about it. And, you know, we did okay financially…
EI: Was it $70 mil or $100 mil? Because I’ve seen varying numbers online.
FL: The budget was $96 million.
EI: Because you guys made $230 million. That’s pretty good.
FL: No, it’s pretty good. And that was at a time, too, when ancillary markets like you typically double your box office We made money. It wasn’t bad. It’s not a grand slam by any means, but we did okay.
But we got, you know, harshed on by the critics. And what I found was over the years, you know, and then when I go out on tour with I Am Legend or something and everybody’s got Constantine DVDs and my next would be Constantine DVDs and then Hunger Games Constantine. And then there’s like Rotten Tomatoes has these, you know, articles on the movies that Rotten Tomatoes got wrong. And Constantine’s on there going like, oh, no, this is a gem. People harshed on it, you know, inappropriately. And I don’t really know why. I think part of it is I think the world turned around on its opinion of Keanu. And it went from somebody that people didn’t really respect for a while. So now he’s beloved, the most beloved, you know, actors around. And deservedly so, he’s a fantastic guy. So I honestly can’t say why. It’s great that people love it and that the fan base seems to have grown. And it’s gotten this kind of almost like kind of culty-like quality to it now. It’s a hell of a lot better of a feeling now than it was when it came out. I’ll tell you that. And we’re trying to make a sequel.
A lot of those, the sort of control of those kind of dark DC characters/Vertigo characters have bounced around and we’ve tried to gain control [of them]. We finally have and Keanu and I and Akiva Goldsman, who did the movie together originally, and are batting around ideas and we got sort of halted by the strike. But we are actively coming up with ideas to make a part two and a very rated R.
EI: Now, is that a conversation that involves James and Peter at DC Films?
FL: I mean, it has because they’re part of, you know, people that have controlled the rights, but really this is a project that Akiva, Keanu, and I are doing.
EI: And now here’s what CONSTANTINE, particularly a sequel, particularly in this genre has going for it that I’m not sure a lot of people know. The original vertigo version of John Constantine is an outlier amongst comic book characters as he actually ages in real-time. Is this an element that you are going to incorporate in this film?
FL: Without spilling too much, I would say, yes, my instinct is as of now, the idea we have is we would not be pretending that this is, you know, what happens two weeks after the last Constantine, that this is an older version of John Constantine.
EI: And would you let Keanu keep his hair?
FL: You mean, keep his dark hair?
EI: The long hair.
FL: Oh, I don’t know about that. I haven’t thought that far ahead, but I’m certainly not making it blonde like the Constantine of the graphic novels.
EI: You know, I’m glad that you bring that up because the character itself has gone through quite a big boom since you last touched him, particularly in the DC animated films, does anything from that stand out to you that inspires you that you would like to incorporate in your version?
FL: I haven’t been watching any of the DC animated films. I don’t know the interpretations there.
EI: He’s very cool in those. Very, very cool.
FL: I mean, I know that I, you know, the one that we did was primarily based on dangerous habits, that one series of graphic novels. There are lots of elements of a bunch of the other series that I love that we’re going to probably pull in and use, but a lot of this, the bulk of this new idea is one that is being created by me and Akiva and Keanu.
EI: Now, another one of your works that is currently in development that I am psyched for is Bioshock. I, again, for a long, long time have been yelling about how great these games are and how adaptable they are. Particularly for you since you say that world-building is your thing. How is that process going and where are you guys at right now?
FL: Um, uh, I will say the pre-strike when we were working, that was the project that I hoped was far enough along that we could have started sort of the research phase, but I will say that we have a draft, um, that I’m really, really happy with and really, really love. Michael Green, uh, who has been a friend of mine who wrote Blade Runner 2049. I think it’s really good and it’s really exciting.
EI: That makes me psyched, man. I’m sure all fans are going to be psyched to hear that. Uh, did you have, did you have any discussions with any actors prior to the strike? No, not yet.
FL: No, no, no actor discussions or anything like that yet. We wanted to crack it. This is an amazing game and an amazing world and amazing mythology. There’s the sort of detail of mythology and history and backstory and that is fantastic.
The truth is, you know, you have to create a character, right? I’ve got one for you. Really exists much. No, no, no. Yeah. But so it’s like, but that was the thing. So we wanted to spend the time to really make sure we, we cracked it, worked in the mythology, and stayed true to the spirit of the game, much like an adaptation of a book. Um, and I think we really got it.
EI: I’m curious about that because I think that BIOSHOCK 1 and 2, the of creating that world is, is reason enough to sign up, right? But Bioshock Infinite, the third game, one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had, one of the best narrative gaming experiences I’ve ever had, the lead character in that Booker DeWitt, I think is ready-made for to be a cinematic lead. I’ve, I’ve got to wrap here. So talk to me. Are you incorporating the third game into this? Or you’re doing it game by game.
FL: I, not necessarily. I mean, we’re starting with one. So, you know, the first one is where, where we start. Um, and we’re being very true to that. Um, there have been no talks yet as to how it’s going to continue and in what way it’s going to continue.
EI: Gotcha. And then just one, but there’s a lot of possibilities with, with, you know, this as being like the possible beginning of a franchise, you can go in many, many directions in terms of TV, in terms of movie, in terms of animation, like all kinds of things. So, but we’re starting with the original.
EI: I’ve got to wrap here. So I just want to close by saying that your career fascinates me in the term that you started with Constantine, which is a comic book movie in that kind of comic book film dead years, right? In between X-Men/Spider-Man and the launch of the MCU. And it has stood the test of time. I AM LEGEND is of course beloved. HUNGER GAMES is huge. And I think what strikes me most about your work is that you’re able to make IP projects, but strip away the IP and make compelling stories within them. And the IP just provides the sort of entryway into what I find are consistently very fulfilling stories.
FL: Thank you so much.
EI: So I appreciate your time. I truly did enjoy this film. THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES hits theaters on November 17th, Francis Lawrence. Thank you.
FL: Awesome. Thank you. Great talking to you.
THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES hits theaters on Friday, November 17.