The Hunger Games has become one of the biggest franchises to emerge from the wave of Young Adult book adaptations in the 2010s. Other series like Divergent and The Maze Runner have come and gone, but The Hunger Games has stayed relevant, thanks to Author Suzanne Collins and the team at Lionsgate, who have made no less than five films out of her books. Now the sixth film is about to open in theaters: The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. The second prequel to the original Hunger Games book trilogy (and film quadrilogy), Sunrise on the Reaping takes us back 24 years before the events of the first book, to experience the story of Haymitch Abernathy’s bloody and tragic victory at the 50th Hunger Games, also known as “The Second Quarter Quell.”
Suzanne Collins released Sunrise on the Reaping in March of 2025, five years after her previous prequel novel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. However, Hunger Games movie fans have been surprised to see Sunrise on the Reaping coming to theaters just one year after the book’s release. It’s the fastest turnaround time for a Hunger Games adaptation, and it has caused speculation that Collins and Lionsgate are moving in lockstep to produce the books and the movies almost simultaneously.
ComicBook.com’s Chris Killian attended the press junket for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, where he asked franchise producer Nina Jacobson if there is an actual pipeline where Suzanne Collins starts working on a book, and Lionsgate gets a heads-up to start early development on the film adaptation.
“Well, we never know, actually,” Jacobson explained. “Like, after she did the originals, right? We thought we were done after Mockingjay. It was a trilogy; we made four movies, that was that. And so we had no idea until we got the phone call that she had written Ballad [of Songbirds and Snakes]; that was like a stunner. We didn’t see that one coming at all.”
The veteran producer let it be known that the situation with Sunrise on the Reaping was very different, in that the studio had no idea that the turnaround time would be so fast – until Suzanne Collins let them know. “At the Ballad premiere, her agent gave us, like, the wink and the nod that she was working on another book; that was thrilling,” Jacobson explained. “Also didn’t know that, but then she finished it way sooner than we expected: I thought it was like, years away… And then the next thing we know, much earlier than we have in the past, we got this manuscript. It was all under lock and key. We were NDA’d up the wazoo because nobody could know. And it was months and months and months until the book was announced. And so we were much further ahead this time.”
However, if you think that there is now some firmly-established assembly line between Collins and Lionsgate, think again. Jacobson let it be known that The Hunger Games film producers are once again in their usual “wait and see” mode after Sunrise on the Reaping. “We’re back where we always are: we have no idea if she’s going to write another book,” Jacobson said. “We hope so. We hope somebody gives us the wink and the nod, but we don’t know. We just hope maybe she will.”
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping will be released in theaters on November 20th. Are you hoping we get more new books (and movies)?
