A new addition to Suzanne Collins’s best-selling dystopian series, The Hunger Games, titled “Sunrise on the Reaping,” is set to be released on March 18, 2025.
This fifth volume will be a prequel, occurring 24 years before the events of the first Hunger Games novel from 2008, and 40 years after “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” the latest installment in the series.
The announcement was made by the publisher Scholastic.Following the book release, Lionsgate has confirmed that a film adaptation is already in the works, with a planned release date of November 20, 2026.
Francis Lawrence, the director of all but the first Hunger Games film, will return to helm this project. The previous four Hunger Games books have achieved massive success, selling over 100 million copies globally and being translated into numerous languages.
The film adaptations have also been highly profitable, with Jennifer Lawrence famously portraying the protagonist Katniss Everdeen alongside other notable actors like Liam Hemsworth, Stanley Tucci, and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.
A film adaptation of “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” was released last year.
In addition to the new book and movie, the Hunger Games universe will also be expanding to the stage with a West End production debuting in London this autumn.
Author Suzanne Collins has indicated that “Sunrise on the Reaping” will explore new thematic territory, inspired by Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume.
She plans to delve into Hume’s ideas on implicit submission and the ease with which the many are governed by the few, as well as the use of propaganda and narrative control. Collins noted that the question “Real or not real?” feels increasingly relevant in today’s world.
