New ‘Hunger Games: Mockingjay’ teaser: What happened to Peeta?

MANILA, Philippines – They’re back, but despite President Snow’s insistence, all is most definitely not well in Panem. 

The teaser for the upcoming The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, the first of two movies that will end the film adaptation of the popular novels by Suzanne Collins, has arrived. True to the book’s theme, this teaser takes on the form of a presidential address from Panem’s leader, as a stony Peeta looks on. 

In the first Hunger Games movie, viewers were introduced to post-apocalyptic Panem, composed of 12 districts and ruled by the Capitol. Each year, two representatives from each district participate in a complex game where children aged 12-18 fight to the death. Heroine Katniss Everdeen volunteers to fight when her sister is chosen to participate – and together with Peeta, the male representative for Panem, she finds a way to play the system, and survive.  

But she learns in the second installment, Catching Fire, that survival doesn’t necessarily mean freedom. The Games are just part of the complex power struggle in Panem’s dog-eat-dog world, where a lucky few live lives of luxury at the expense of the other districts. 

In Catching Fire, Katniss witnesses growing unrest from the different districts and is plunged back into battle in another version of the Games. The end sees a blow dealt against the Capitol, but at a price – Katniss and Peeta are separated, and Katniss must recover and regroup with her surviving friends in District 13, where parts of the events of Mockingjay unfold. Peeta is held at the Capitol. 

It’s rebels against supporters of the Capitol in Mockingjay, and in Panem, propaganda material is used strategically by both sides to gain sympathy and win the favor of the public. The first teaser you see contains a chilling warning from Panem’s President Snow, in a veiled message to rebels: 

“If you resist the system…fight against it, it is you who will bleed.” 

Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, Donald Sutherland, and Woody Harrelson return to reprise their roles in the first two films. Julianne Moore makes her first appearance as President Coin, leader of District 13, while Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died earlier this year (scenes for the movie had already been filmed), will appear as Capitol citizen-turned-rebel Plutarch Heavensbee. – Rappler.com