Suzanne Collins’ latest Hunger Games novel, Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, just came out in March. The book, unsurprisingly, has already sold more than 1.5 million copies in its first week, which is triple the sales that Mockingjay—the third book in the original trilogy—saw back in 2010 when it was first released.
Given the success of the franchise, Lionsgate had already greenlit a feature adaptation before the book came out. And today, we got details on the creative team behind it. During the Lionsgate presentation, we found out that Billy Ray—the ingenious writer behind the AMC Nicole Kidman ad, as well as the script for 2012’s The Hunger Games—will pen the script, with Francis Lawrence, the filmmaker behind the five Hunger Games films after the first one, once again in the director’s chair.
The prequel novel focuses on a young Haymitch, who is played in the original films by Woody Harrelson.
Here’s the official synopsis:
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping 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 50th Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell.
The movie is set to start filming this July, and casting is underway. We’ll be able to see the film in theaters starting on November 20, 2026.
