In an extended first look at the new film shared exclusively with PEOPLE — featuring new footage plus starRachel Zegler’s rendition of “The Hanging Tree” — directorFrancis Lawrenceexplains how the origin story shows a young Coriolanus Snow being “groomed to become the man he becomes.”

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Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird and Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Murray Close/Courtesy of Lionsgate

Producer Nina Jacobson says in the clip, “Snow’s never met anybody like her [Lucy Gray]. That romance between them makes Snow question everything he was raised to believe.”

Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow and Viola Davis as Dr Volumnia Gaul in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Composer James Newton Howard says, “‘Hanging Tree’ is back in a completely different iteration and treatment.” Adds director Francis, “Here, we get to see Lucy Gray coming up with it for the first time.”

The star-studded cast ofBallad of Songbirds & Snakes,which is based on Suzanne Collins’s 2020 novel, also includes Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera, Jason Schwartzman and Viola Davis.

Courtesy of Lionsgate

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

source: people.com