A New Hunger Games Book Will Center On Haymitch’s Origin Story

The world of Panem is growing. When The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes film released in November 2023, fans believed that was a final farewell to the Hunger Games saga. At the time, a sequel to the movie wasn’t in the works. However, the series’ author Suzanne Collins has more dystopian mayhem up her sleeve. She recently announced a new novel in the series, titled Sunrise on the Reaping, will be released next year.

Sunrise on the Reaping, the fifth book in the Hunger Games franchise, is set to release on March 18, 2025. According to the Associated Press, the upcoming novel will take place 40 years after the most recent adaptation, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Specifically, it’ll start on the dawn of the the Second Quarter Quell, the game that Haymitch Abernathy — played by Woody Harrelson in the films — won 24 years before the trilogy started.

This announcement is a win for Haymitch fans (including Lucy Gray’s own Rachel Zegler), who’ve been wondering how he succeeded through the annual games since Catching Fire. He was first introduced in the original Hunger Games novel as Katniss and Peeta’s mentor; however, much of his origin story wasn’t fully fleshed out in the films.

While Haymitch will serve as the focus, Collins also noted a certain historic figure inspired her to write the upcoming novel. “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 told the AP. “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.”

The film rights for Sunrise on the Reaping were announced the same day that the book was. Lionsgate announced the movie adaptation of the upcoming book will hit screens on Nov. 26, 2026, with franchise director Francis Lawrence already in talks to helm it.