Why new Hunger Games movie is missing one element from the book
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is out this week in cinemas, but fans of the prequel book might be disappointed by one change from page to screen.
Ahead of release, director Francis Lawrence admitted that while he was tempted to cut the book into two movies, he decided against it due to his experience of cutting Mockingjay into two movies.
This had to lead to some difficult decisions to condense the book, which is longer than Mockingjay, into one single movie. Talking to Digital Spy, Lawrence explained why he chose to slim down one particular character's storyline.
If you're avoiding even mild spoilers though for both the book and the movie, don't read on.
The character who doesn't appear as much in The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes movie as she does in the book is Clemensia Dovecote.
Played by Ashley Liao, Clemensia is Coriolanus Snow's classmate who gets into trouble with head gamemaker Dr Gaul. In the book, we see the aftermath of an incident involving snakes, but this incident is the last we see of her in the movie.
"There's much more of a story with her. There's more time with her in the hospital, recovering from the snakebite, and more of her relationship with Snow," Lawrence explained of the changes.
"The truth is, when you're distilling these things down, there's gonna be some attrition. You're gonna have to lose some things, and those were things that had to go away. But we really stayed true to the spirit of the story, and I feel like the important things are all there."
Even with characters like Clemensia not getting as much screen-time as expected, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes still delivers plenty for fans, clocking in at the longest Hunger Games movie yet.
You don't have too much longer to wait to find out if the changes were worth it.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is released in cinemas on November 17.
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