The SAG-AFTRA union reached a tentative agreement with major studios on Wednesday to resolve the second of two strikes that had rocked the entertainment industry as writers and performers demanded higher pay in the streaming TV era.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, set 64 years before the films starring Jennifer Lawrence and which follows the rise of tyrannical president of Panem, Coriolanus Snow, had been offered a waiver allowing cast members to promote it during the strike.
Hunter Schafer walks the red carpet at world premiere in London.
"I already woke up feeling positive and then I saw the news, I was like 'Well, this is a great day'," Tom Blyth, who plays the young Snow in the new film, told Reuters on Thursday.
"It feels pretty terrific ... for it to be the premiere after so much time ... and for it to happen on a day with other really good news is good," said Josh Andres Rivera, who plays Snow's friend, Sejanus Plinth.
"I know a lot of people who are ready to get back to work. I'm ready to get back to work".
Rachel Zegler poses with a fan for photographers on the red carpet.
SAG-AFTRA members walked off the job in July after negotiations - over compensation and protections around the use of artificial intelligence - with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) collapsed.
Like the other Hunger Games films, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a Lionsgate movie, a studio that is not part of the AMPTP.
In the film, Snow mentors and falls for Lucy Gray Baird, the female District 12 tribute during the 10th Hunger Games - a gladiatorial contest that pits the oppressed against each other, while the elite of the wealthy Capitol watch on.
Tom Blyth stars as Coriolanus Snow and Rachel Zegler stars as Lucy in The Hunger Games prequel.
Rachel Zegler, who plays Lucy, described the role as "overwhelming in the best possible sense".
"I got to do my own stunts. I got to hold live animals, sing, dance, cry, run for my life. It's amazing," she said.
Like the other movies, the prequel is based on a novel by Suzanne Collins, released in 2020.
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