Maybe you thought that if you ignored it long enough, it would go away. You were wrong. The Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is coming, it has a release date, and it is rounding out its cast. Like the 517-page Suzanne Collins book it will be adapted from, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is an origins story for Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) — the future tyrannical President of Panem — who is apparently the last hope for his lineage.

“With the 10th annual Hunger Games fast approaching, the young Snow is alarmed when he is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler, West Side Story)), the girl tribute from impoverished District 12. But, after Lucy Gray commands all of Panem’s attention by defiantly singing during the reaping ceremony, Snow thinks he might be able to turn the odds in their favor. Uniting their instincts for showmanship and newfound political savvy, Snow and Lucy Gray’s race against time to survive will ultimately reveal who is a songbird, and who is a snake.”

I’m guessing that Snow and Baird fall in love, but Snow will have to sacrifice her to save himself, which is what turns him into the monster he becomes in Hunger Games, no? The film will also star Viola Davis as the villain, Dr. Volumnia Gaul, as well as Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera, and Jason Schwartzman.

“Suzanne has done such a great job of going back into the mythology and telling a story about the creation of the world,” director France Lawrence explained to THR. “You get a little background of Katniss. You will obviously get a lot of the background of Snow, the history of the Games, the history of some of the music, where songs like ‘The Hanging Tree’ actually come from.”

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is scheduled for release on Thanksgiving weekend in 2023.