Davis joins ‘Hunger Games’ prequel

We’re always hungering for more Viola Davis.

The Oscar winner, 57, is joining the “Hunger Games” prequel as the villainous head game-maker Dr. Volumnia Gaul in “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” based on the novel by the original trilogy’s scribe, Suzanne Collins, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“The ‘Hunger Games’ films have always been elevated by their exceptional casting, and we are thrilled to be continuing that tradition with Viola Davis as Volumnia Gaul. Her formidable and powerful presence will add layers of complexity and menace to this story,” said Nathan Kahane, Lionsgate motion picture group president.

“Dr. Gaul is as cruel as she is creative and as fearsome as she is formidable,” director Francis Lawrence said.

Lawrence is a staple of the “Hunger Games” universe, having directed all but the first film.

The film will center on the origin of the original films’ President Coriolanus Snow (played in those by Donald Sutherland) tyrannical legacy by focusing on him as a teenager, brought to life by “Billy the Kid” star Tom Blyth. In the prequel, Snow has to prepare for the 10th Hunger Games — a competition until the death — by mentoring tribute Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) of District 12, from which the original films’ and books’ heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) hailed.