Along with the success of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, author Suzanne Collins announced a new prequel entry in her popular YA series.
Last year saw the Hunger Games franchise continue with the prequel, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Now, Suzanne Collins, the author of the series, is due to release a brand new novel from the title. The Hollywood Reporter has reported that Collins and the publishing company, Scholastic, have announced the new entry that will be released next year. The fifth installment will have the title Sunrise on the Reaping, which will be set for release on March 18, 2025.
Scholastic has stated that the novel will be another prequel and the story will be taking place 24 years before the events of the first book. All that is known about the plot is that it will be “starting on the morning of the reaping of the Fiftieth Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell.” As with the book, a new movie would also be inevitable. However, they have not yet also announced the film rights to the new prequel despite the last movie grossing about $340 million at the box office in 2023. The four core movies in the series that starred Academy Award-winner Jennifer Lawrence would gross almost $3 billion.
In a statement, the author Collins said, “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.”
Ellie Berger, president of Scholastic Trade, would add, “Suzanne Collins has done it again, bringing us back to the world of Panem in order to ask us important questions about our own world. Sunrise on the Reaping is a remarkable book, bringing new complexity, perspective, and revelations to a piece of the Hunger Games story that readers have longed to know more about.”
