Ahead of its release in theaters next month, the official rating for Lionsgate's The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, has been revealed.
The MPA (Motion Picture Association) has given the movie a PG-13 rating for "strong violent content and disturbing material." That's the same rating as the previous four movies, though it sounds like this instalment will be even more brutal than its predecessors.
Director Francis Lawrence has previously said fans should expect a particularly violent Hunger Games sequence which is going to be a "bloodbath." It's thought this will be the sequence from the trailer showing Rachel Zegler's Lucy Gray Baird fending off attacks from tributes and robots alike.
Lionsgate has long waited for an opportunity to revisit The Hunger Games franchise and Suzanne Collins' prequel novel has proved the perfect opportunity to tell another story set in Panem. What the future holds for the franchise beyond this story remains to be seen.
How much The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes will push the boundaries of its PG-13 rating is hard to say but it certainly sounds like this is a much darker YA movie than most!
Experience the story of The Hunger Games - 64 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteered as tribute, and decades before Coriolanus Snow became the tyrannical President of Panem.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes follows a young Coriolanus who 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.
The cast includes Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Hunter Schafer, Jason Schwartzman, Peter Dinklage, Josh Andrés Rivera, and Viola Davis.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes arrives in theaters on November 17.