IF YOU’VE BEEN hoping for more “The Hunger Games” content to come out, your prayers have been answered. 

“Sunrise on the Reaping”, as written by Suzanne Collins, takes a look at Panem 24 years before Katniss started a revolution. Here, it starts on the morning of the reaping for the 50th Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell, with a young Haymitch Abernathy starring as the main character.

It can be noted that before Katniss, Haymitch was one of the few people from District 12 who’d won the Hunger Games. 

Given that it is the 50th Hunger Games, twice the number of tributes are reaped from each district, and all of them have to battle to the death in hopes of getting back to their homes.

According to the magazine Cosmopolitan, Suzanne Collins was inspired by philosopher David Hume’s idea of “implicit submission,” as well as the idea of the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.

It looks at the use of propaganda and the power of people who control the narrative, and Collins says that the question “Real or not real?” becomes more and more pressing to her with each passing day.

About the release

The novel is set to hit shelves on March 18, 2025, while the film adaptation to be directed by Francis Lawrence and written by Suzanne Collins, will be released on November 20, 2026. This prequel about Suzanne Collins’s dystopian world is the second to be released following “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” back in 2023.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, originally a novel by Suzanne Collins back in 2020, focuses on the story of 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow, who is tasked to mentor tributes for the 10th Hunger Games. He is assigned to Lucy Gray Baird, a musician from District 12, and a romance soon blossoms between the two.

Lawrence has been the director of all Hunger Games titles since the release of “Catching Fire” in 2013. According to the website Screen Rant, producers Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson will also be coming back on board to oversee production for the film. A cast list for the film has yet to be released.

Since this serves as the second prequel to be released thus far, fans can’t help but wonder: whose story will they tell next?