Is Josh Hutcherson in Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes?

The new Hunger Games prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, is finally here. It transports audiences to a time long before the exploits of Katniss Everdeen, instead chronicling the rise of the original movies’ villain, Coriolanus Snow. So, does that mean we shouldn’t expect an appearance by Katniss – or her other half, Josh Hutcherson’s Peeta Mellark?

It’s a question that’s been on a lot of Hunger Games fans’ minds, ever since Lionsgate announced The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes back in 2019. Director Francis Lawrence even admitted in a recent interview that the fanbase’s devotion to Katniss and her inner circle gave him “anxiety” about the project.

Lawrence also recently confessed that he had concerns over the size of Suzanne Collins’ original Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes novel, and toyed with the idea of splitting the adaptation into two movies. However, the filmmaker ultimately decided against this approach, as he regretted dividing up Collins’ third Hunger Games tome, Mockingjay.

Was Lawrence able to find room in his single film retelling of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes for even a brief cameo by Josh Hutcherson? Read on to find out!

Is Josh Hutcherson in Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes?

No, Josh Hutcherson is not in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, either, given the prequel is set more than 60 years prior to the events of the rest of the franchise – decades before Peeta was born.

Of course, Hutcherson could conceivably have reprised the Peeta role in a framing sequence before or after The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes’ main narrative, but this doesn’t happen. Nor does the film include any direct references to Peeta or Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss, who is likewise a no-show here.

Indeed, no cast members from the first four Hunger Games movies return in The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes – not even Donald Sutherland, who originated the President Snow role. The 88-year-old Hollywood icon was too old to portray Snow’s 18-year-old self, and so Benediction’s Tom Blyth was hired to replace him.

Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes director discusses Tom Blyth’s Coriolanus Snow

Lawrence unpacked Blyth’s performance role in an interview with Dexerto, revealing that he instructed the English actor not to mimic Sutherland. “I didn’t want him to try and do his voice or his mannerisms or anything like that,” he said.

“And that’s partially just because we’re meeting Snow at such a sort of young, unformed age, that I wanted Tom to be able to just own the performance,” Lawrence continued. “But because he’s unformed, I think we were dealing with very different kinds of topics to talk about, Tom and I, and a very different kind of journey.”

The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is in cinemas now. Check out Dexerto’s other Hunger Games coverage below:

• The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes ending explained
• Hunger Games: How to watch Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes – Is it streaming?
• How Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes avoided R-rating in “brutal” story
• Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes cast: All actors & characters
• Hunger Games: Does the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes have a post-credits scene?
• Does the cannibalism happen in Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes?
• How long is The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes?
• The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes – Release date, cast, plot & more
• New Hunger Games movie gets rave first reactions
• Director discusses Hunger Games Easter egg in Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
• Why was The Hunger Games banned?