The Hunger Games, the popular media franchise spawned by Suzanne Collins’ collection of young adult dystopian novels that began with 2008’s titular title, will be expanding with not only a new book, but also a new movie, publisher Scholastic and entertainment company Lionsgate have announced. Sunrise on the Reaping, as the new book is called, will surface in March next year and tell a new story set 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games, while Francis Lawrence, who directed the majority of the existing films for Lionsgate, is in talks to return for the latest one, scheduled to open in theaters in November 2026.
Release dates:
- Sunrise on the Reaping (novel): March 18, 2025
- Sunrise on the Reaping (movie): November 20, 2026
Details on the book from Scholastic:
- “Sunrise on the Reaping, the fifth book in the series, will revisit the world of Panem twenty-four years before the events of The Hunger Games, starting on the morning of the reaping of the Fiftieth Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell.”
- “Sunrise on the Reaping, the first new Hunger Games book since the worldwide #1 bestseller The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2020), will be published simultaneously in print, digital and audio formats by Scholastic in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.”
- “The deal was negotiated by Rosemary Stimola of the Stimola Literary Studio for Suzanne Collins and David Levithan, VP, Publisher and Editorial Director, for Scholastic.”
- “To date, there are more than 100 million copies of all four books in The Hunger Games series in print and digital formats worldwide, and foreign publishing rights have been sold in 54 languages.”
Details on the film from Lionsgate:
- “Franchise producer Nina Jacobson, alongside her producing partner Brad Simpson, will return to produce The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping under their Color Force banner.”
- “It will be the sixth outing for Color Force since bringing the franchise to Lionsgate in 2012. Francis Lawrence is in talks to direct the film; Lawrence has helmed four previous films in the Hunger Games franchise – every film since Catching Fire.”
- ” Lionsgate has adapted these best-selling books into five feature films that have collectively grossed more than $3.3 billion at the worldwide box office and boasted star-studded casts including Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Academy Award® nominee Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth, Viola Davis, Jason Schwartzman, and Peter Dinklage.”
A trailer for latest Hunger Games movie, which premiered last year:
Lionsgate on The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes:
Years before he would become the tyrannical President of Panem, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (Blyth) is the last hope for his fading lineage, a once-proud family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol.
With the 10th annual Hunger Games fast approaching, the young Snow is alarmed when he is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Zegler), the girls’ tribute from impoverished District 12. But, after Lucy Gray commands all of Panem’s attention by defiantly singing during the reaping ceremony, Snow thinks he might be able to turn the odds in their favor. Uniting their instincts for showmanship and newfound political savvy, Snow and Lucy’s race against time to survive will ultimately reveal who is a songbird, and who is a snake.