Ready to go back to Panem? Author Suzanne Collins and Lionsgate certainly hope so, with the dual announcement of a new book set in the world of The Hunger Games, which is also being greenlit as a feature film due in 2026. The book, Sunrise on the Reaping, will be the fifth entry in the series and like the previous title, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, will also be a prequel to the main trilogy.

Set twenty-four years before Katniss Everdeen’s trials, the novel will open on the morning of the reaping of the Fiftieth Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell. The tentative release date for the book is March 18th, 2025. The film adaptation, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, will hit the big screen on November 20th, 2026.

Lionsgate chair Adam Fogelson stated in a press release:

“Suzanne Collins is a master storyteller and our creative north star. We couldn’t be more fortunate than to be guided and trusted by a collaborator whose talent and imagination are so consistently brilliant. We know Hunger Games fans worldwide will be spellbound by where Suzanne has focused this next extraordinary story. The Second Quarter Quell is legendary and looms large over the history of the Games, even into the time of Katniss Everdeen a quarter-century later. Like fans around the globe, we are eagerly anticipating this exciting return to Panem.”

Collins had this to say about the upcoming story:

“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’. 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.”

Sources

AP

People