60 SECOND SCREENPLAY

TF SAVES YOU THE COST OF A MOVIE EVERY MONTH. THIS ISSUE: THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES…

FADE IN:

INT: ACADEMY, PANEM TOM BLYTH, a grade-A student, is poor and hungry and determined to restore his family’s fortune. So he pretends to be a rich jerk like his classmates.

PETER DINKLAGE I am the creator of The Hunger Games, and this year’s prize money will be awarded to the best mentor of the tributes. Tom, because I really don’t like you, I’m assigning you the ‘runt girl’.

TOM BLYTH The one that’s just attacked someone with a snake and then led the crowd in a rousing rendition of a protest song? Seems like a good choice, TBF!

EXT: ZOO ENCLOSURE TOM BLYTH meets ‘runt girl’ RACHEL ZEGLER and they instantly form a bond, despite her and the other tributes being put on display for tourists to gawk at.

TOM BLYTH I have stolen you some food, because you must have had so much hunger before these games.

RACHEL ZEGLER Aww, that’s nice. Maybe being forced to fight strangers to the death isn’t so bad after all.

TOM BLYTH meets gamemaker VIOLA DAVIS to suggest ways to make the brutal murder event even more fun.

VIOLA DAVIS Come look at my gigantic tub of rainbow snakes. They are extremely deadly unless they are familiar with your smell, in which case they are harmless.

TOM BLYTH What an oddly specific and easy-to-exploit loophole…

INT: ARENA RACHEL ZEGLER and TOM BLYTH become even closer. They very nearly kiss. Then he prepares her to battle to the death so that he can win some money.

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TOM BLYTH I’m not really supposed to do this, but take this rat poison in with you.

RACHEL ZEGLER Great, that will help me fend off all the knives and axes.

The Hunger Games begin. All the unimportant characters immediately attack each other. RACHEL ZEGLER uses the rat poison but it accidentally kills one of the nice tributes.

RACHEL ZEGLER Oh my goodness! Now I’m a killer! I totally wasn’t expecting that in this brutal killing game.

VIOLA DAVIS unleashes her rainbow snakes, but TOM BLYTH first puts RACHEL ZEGLER’s handkerchief in their container to save her. The snakes kill everyone else.

PETER DINKLAGE Tom, we know that you’ve been cheating, which, of course, is morally wrong in our government-run death sport, so we’re banishing you to be a policeman in the districts.

EXT: DISTRICT 12 TOM BLYTH bribes officials to be stationed at District 12, so he can be with RACHEL ZEGLER, who is now a successful country singer.

RACHEL ZEGLER I want to be with you, even though we have diametrically opposed world views.

They live happily ever after for a few minutes before becoming embroiled in a rebel plot that sees TOM BLYTH kill a woman and then get his friend hanged. He hides his guns.

TOM BLYTH We need to run away together. You can trust me. Probably.

EXT: WOODS TOM BLYTH finds the guns again. For no reason, RACHEL ZEGLER reminds him that she is a loose end and quickly runs away. He hunts her down.

TOM BLYTH Wow, who would have thought that a relationship based on murder, distrust and an insurmountable power imbalance would end badly?!?

Rather anticlimactically, he fails to find her, but then discovers that his banishment has been lifted so he returns to the Capitol.

VIOLA DAVIS You passed all my tests. Now you will train with me.

TOM BLYTH I see! So the real Hunger Games was the hunger and the games I experienced along the way!

INT: ACADEMY TOM BLYTH receives the prize money and is now rich. He kills PETER DINKLAGE, just because.

AUDIENCE OK, that’s enough death now. We’re full…

FIN

NEXT ISSUE: AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM