Suzanne Collins is ready to return to Panem again—and this time, it’s for another prequel in the wake of Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Update 6/6/2024 12:10pm ET: Lionsgate has now confirmed that it will be adapting the next Hunger Games novel for a movie set to release in 2026. No details about casting were revealed yet, but Francis Lawrence, who has directed every Hunger Games film since Catching Fire, is in talks to return as director. The original story is as follows.
Announced by Scholastic through Associated Press today, Sunrise on the Reaping will take place between the events of Ballad and the original Hunger Games, during the reaping—the process of selecting district candidates—for the 50th Hunger Games battle royale. “With Sunrise on the Reaping, I was inspired by David Hume’s idea of implicit submission and, in his words, ‘the easiness with which the many are governed by the few,’” Collins said in a statement. “The story also lent itself to a deeper dive into the use of propaganda and the power of those who control the narrative. The question ‘Real or not real?’ seems more pressing to me every day.”
The 50th Hunger Games took place approximately 24 years before the events of the original novel, and were won by Haymitch Abernathy—a character who went on to appear in the original Hunger Games trilogy as a mentor to Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, and eventually as a major figure in the rebellion against the Capitol. In the film adaptations, the older Haymitch was played by Woody Harrelson.
Sunrise on the Reaping is currently set to hit bookshelves March 18, 2025, and its movie adaptation, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, is currently set to hit theaters November 20, 2026.
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