The sun will rise on a new “Hunger Games” novel next year, as Scholastic announced Thursday that Suzanne Collins is set to release “Sunrise on the Reaping” on March 18, 2025.
“Sunrise” is said to take place 24 years before the events of the original “Hunger Games” books, starting on the morning of the reaping of the 50th Hunger Games (the 2nd Quarter Quell, in the parlance of Panem).
No movie deal has yet been made public, though Lionsgate has made all four of Collins’ books into films so far. “The Hunger Games” was published in 2008 and adapted in 2012; followed by “Catching Fire” (2009) and “Mockingjay” (2010), the latter of which was split into two films. Prequel “Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes,” based on Collins’ 2020 prequel, was released last year.
Lionsgate banked a whopping $3 billion in the box office from those first five films. The studio did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment.
“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,’” Collins said in a press release. “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.”