{"id":977919,"date":"2025-07-25T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/?p=977919"},"modified":"2025-07-24T15:17:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T19:17:42","slug":"hunger-games-director-teases-sunrise-on-the-reaping-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/movies\/hunger-games-director-teases-sunrise-on-the-reaping-connection\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunger Games Director Teases Sunrise on the Reaping&#8217;s Connection to Other Films"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Director Francis Lawrence has a thing for dystopias. His next film is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/movies\/the-long-walk-director-how-adapt-stephen-king-scariest-dystopia\/\"><em>The Long Walk<\/em><\/a>, an adaptation of the bleak Stephen King novel set in a brutal, totalitarian future America. That&#8217;s still due in September, but already Lawrence is hard at work on his next movie: <em>The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/movies\/hunger-games-movies-make-case-for-prequels\/\">the second prequel<\/a> in the Hunger Games<em> <\/em>franchise following on 2023&#8217;s well-received <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/movies\/hunger-games-the-ballad-of-songbirds-snakes-review-rachel-zegler\/\">The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds &amp; Snakes<\/a><\/em>, which Lawrence also helmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lawrence is sort of like the David Yates of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/the-hunger-games\/\">the Hunger Games saga<\/a>. Although Gary Ross directed the original <em>The Hunger Games<\/em> in 2012, Lawrence took over with the second movie <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/movies\/the-hunger-games-catching-fire-review\/\">Catching Fire<\/a><\/em> in 2013 before helming the subsequent <em>Mockingjay<\/em> films. When the saga was revived in 2023 with <em>The Ballad of Songbirds &amp; Snakes<\/em>, it seemed like Lawrence was the natural choice to pick up right where he left off. But despite already spending more than a decade bringing Suzanne Collins\u2019 books to the screen, the director tells us that <em>Sunrise on the Reaping<\/em> is \u201ca book I love and probably also my favorite in the series.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\r\n\n\t\t<div class=\"ad-dog__cnx-container\"><script id=\"0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796\">\n\t\t\tcnx.cmd.push(function() {\n\t\t\t\tcnx({\n\t\t\t\t\tplayerId: \"106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530\",\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t}).render(\"0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796\");\n\t\t\t});\n\t\t<\/script><\/div>\n\t\n\n\n<p>Set 40 years after <em>The Ballad of Songbirds &amp; Snakes<\/em>, <em>Sunrise on the Reaping<\/em> finds Coriolanus Snow (now played by Ralph Fiennes) firmly ensconced as the authoritarian president for life in Panem. This is long after he began his rise to power at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/movies\/hunger-games-ballad-of-songbirds-and-snakes-ending-explained-changes-book\/\">the end of the previous novel and film<\/a>, his soul curdling into corruption and rage while leaving his former lover and District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) to an unknown fate. The central character in this new story is Haymitch Abernathy (Joseph Zada), a defiant tribute who will win the 50th annual Hunger Games in the course of the story, but at a price so terrible that it leaves him a broken man: the drunken, dissolute, but still cunning mentor played in the earlier films by Woody Harrelson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whether the movie will elaborate on the destiny of Lucy Gray (which the book toys with in an intentionally oblique way) remains to be seen, but Lawrence says that the connection to the other books in the series will be there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;[<em>Sunrise<\/em>] is such a great, tragic, emotional story that works on its own and informs the earlier ones in the series,\u201d says Lawrence about the tale. \u201cIt&#8217;s informed by them too, it informs the one we just did, and is informed by it as well. It&#8217;s really fascinating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The previous books and films, while clearly set in a future that is in many ways drastically different from our real, present-day world, have not shied away from using Panem, the Hunger Games, and the totalitarian regime behind them as metaphors for current affairs&#8212;whether it\u2019s the way that reality TV and blood sports are used to distract a subjugated populace, or how the wealthy elite revel and live in splendor as long as they proclaim obedience to their leader and his corrosive system. <em>Sunrise on the Reaping<\/em> continues to mine those ideas, with Lawrence explaining that Collins takes her story cues from events happening in front of us right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSuzanne always writes from the theme and she&#8217;s always very, very specific,\u201d says Lawrence. \u201cIf she doesn&#8217;t have something to say, she really doesn&#8217;t write, and some of the philosophies that are in this are also very timely because she&#8217;s inspired by what&#8217;s happening around us.\u201d The annual reaping itself to select the tributes for the Games&#8212;literally snatching young people away from their families, which is normalized by a complicit media in Panem&#8212;arguably has its real-life parallel in the way that immigrants are being made to vanish on a daily basis in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis stuff is not secret, it&#8217;s in the book,\u201d Lawrence says about <em>Sunrise<\/em>. \u201cIt is about implicit submission and this idea that no matter what kind of regime we live under, why is it that we&#8217;re always sort of willing to be ruled by the few? There are also these elements of manipulating people into going along with what you want through the use of propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A submissive media, a cowed and sycophantic oligarchy, an unhinged ruler&#8212;these have been the hallmarks of autocratic regimes throughout history, and Lawrence suggests that <em>Sunrise on the Reaping<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/movies\/strength-hunger-games-stories-rejection-happy-endings\/\">might drive that message home with even more intensity<\/a> than the previous films in the series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cJust because something has happened a hundred times, a thousand times, a million times doesn&#8217;t mean it&#8217;s actually going to happen again,\u201d he says. \u201cBut the faulty logic and how all of those things tie together in a political landscape is very, very relevant. That&#8217;s all tied up in what is a very emotional story, but a completely different world from <em>The Long Walk<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping will be released on Nov. 20, 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Director Francis Lawrence has a thing for dystopias. His next film is The Long Walk, an adaptation of the bleak Stephen King novel set in a brutal, totalitarian future America. That&#8217;s still due in September, but already Lawrence is hard at work on his next movie: The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, the second [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":977920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"dog_exclude_from_homepage":false,"dog_do_not_display_featured_image":false,"dog_external_link":"","dog_product_price":0,"dog_product_button_label":"Buy Now","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[792,756],"article_type":[776],"topic":[8053,4315],"sponsored":[],"feeds":[],"coauthors":[259],"class_list":{"0":"post-977919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"category-movies","9":"article_type-features","10":"topic-francis-lawrence","11":"topic-the-hunger-games","12":"entry"},"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- 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\/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Exclusive: Director Francis Lawrence considers how Sunrise on the Reaping&#039;s themes differ from the other Hunger Games movies while acknowledging how much of it is &quot;informed&quot; by Songbirds &amp; Snakes.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/movies\/hunger-games-director-teases-sunrise-on-the-reaping-connection\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Den of Geek\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-07-25T12:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/the-hunger-games-the-ballad-of-songbirds-snakes.jpg?fit=2000%2C1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Don Kaye\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" 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Get your copy\u00a0here. Fans might have been surprised when author Suzanne Collins announced a new novel in her bestselling Hunger Games series, but director Francis Lawrence was not. Working closely with Collins and producer Nina Jacobson on The Hunger Games:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Movies&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Movies","link":"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/movies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes","src":"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/mag-nycc-2023-hungergames-lead.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/mag-nycc-2023-hungergames-lead.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/mag-nycc-2023-hungergames-lead.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/mag-nycc-2023-hungergames-lead.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/mag-nycc-2023-hungergames-lead.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":122266,"url":"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/books\/julianne-moore-being-reaped-for-the-hunger-games-mockingjay\/","url_meta":{"origin":977919,"position":1},"title":"Julianne Moore Being Reaped for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay","author":"jbindeck2015","date":"September 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"**Julianne Moore's involvement has been officially confirmed** It is time for the reaping and may the odds be forever in Julianne Moore\u2019s favor. The actress, who most recently played Sarah Palin in HBO\u2019s Game Change (with Woody Harrelson who plays Haymitch in The Hunger Games movie trilogy) and Jack Donaghy\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Books&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":117640,"url":"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/movies\/the-fire-rises-an-interview-with-the-cast-and-crew-of-the-hunger-games-catching-fire\/","url_meta":{"origin":977919,"position":2},"title":"The Fire Rises &#8211; An Interview with the Cast and Crew of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire","author":"jbindeck2015","date":"November 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It doesn\u2019t take Jennifer Lawrence long to explain exactly what attracted her to the Hunger Games trilogy of books when asked during a press conference we attended for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.\u00a0\u201cI was personally very excited when I first started reading these books just that there was such a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Books&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":191663,"url":"https:\/\/www.denofgeek.com\/movies\/the-hunger-games-catching-fire-review-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":977919,"position":3},"title":"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire review","author":"jbindeck2015","date":"November 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"You\u2019ve got to feel sorry for Katniss Everdeen. 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