A few major takeaways (and one funny story) regarding this announcement:

1. First, the story. About 2 or 3 weeks ago, a family member asked me when the new Hunger Games movie was coming out. My response was, "You mean the new book, right?" (+) https://ew.com/books/2020/01/21/hunger-games-prequel-exclusive-excerpt/

2. Now for the serious stuff: I'm a bit surprised that they've already announced a movie deal about a month before the book releases. I would have assumed they would have waited to see how the book does before announcing a movie deal. (+)

3. I have said since the book's title was announced that I believe the phrase "Songbirds And Snakes" refers, respectively, to an ancestor of the Donner/Undersee family (i.e. Maysilee and Madge) and to President Snow. The Snow part of that theory has since been confirmed (+)

publicly via an excerpt from the book that revealed Snow would mentor a girl from District 12 (who I believe will be the ancestress of Maysilee and Madge). If I am right about the Maysilee/Madge part of that theory, then there are VERY serious continuity issues with the film (+)

canon insofar as Maysilee and Madge were cut out of the other films. If people go to see the movie without first having read the book (which is a practice that I would NEVER encourage for any reason) then the importance of Snow's mentee will not be made apparent. (+)

4. Having said what I just did, I must admit that I am kind of glad to see that Francis Lawrence, who directed the last three films of the Original franchise. I say that because Catching Fire is easily my favorite of the four films currently published. The two Mockingjay (+)

films (which he also directed) are admittedly weaker, but that largely has to do with Lionsgate's decision to cut Mockingjay into two separate films.