Suzanne Collins surprised the dormant Hunger Games fandom in the 2020s — twice. Ten years after the last Hunger Games book was released (five years after the last film), she published The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, an unexpected prequel novel exploring the origins of President Snow and the Hunger Games as we know them.
There was no immediate confirmation of another installment following Ballad’s big-screen adaptation. It was still a small surprise when Sunrise on the Reaping was announced in June 2024, with the film’s development reported the same day. So, though Collins has not explicitly said she is working on another Hunger Games novel, fans understandably still believe it could happen.
What character the next Hunger Games prequel could focus on
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was the prequel no one asked for. There was always potential for Collins to go back in time and clarify events only alluded to in the original Hunger Games trilogy, but fans wanted to learn more about characters they liked, rather than the dictator President Snow.
Sunrise on the Reaping is just that, telling the full story of Haymitch Abernathy’s victory in the 50th Hunger Games. Now, people naturally expect to get books focusing on the years Mags Flanagan, Finnick Odair, or Johanna Mason won. Any of these choices could make the world feel bigger by decentralizing District 12.
Mags won the 11th Hunger Games, the year after Lucy Gray Baird, the first District 12 victor and deuteragonist of Ballad. Mags’s perspective would show the Capitol continuing to develop the Games into a full-blown reality show spectacle shortly after they figured out that betting, sponsors, and interviews got Capitol audiences invested.
Mags’s story could also be the very beginning of the victors’ network and attempts to combat the Capitol’s power. Collins may have even teased that Mags is next in Sunrise on the Reaping; during a dinner scene with Haymitch and the other District 12 tributes, Mags shares that she wanted to protect her district partner in the Games but doesn’t elaborate.
On the other hand, it is possible that Collins could cover Finnick, Johanna, and Annie Cresta in one book, given their proximity in the timeline: Finnick won the 65th Hunger Games, Annie the 70th, and Johanna the 71st. Collins could get to all three of them by following separate timelines that eventually overlap, underscored by their probably similar experiences after the Games.
SOTR changed the Hunger Games franchise: What comes next?
Sunrise on the Reaping has the feeling of everything coming full circle, given Haymitch’s importance in the original story and his novel’s relatively wholesome epilogue. It is a good place to end the franchise, but Collins may still have things she wants to say.
Her two prequels so far function well as standalones because each delves into a specific set of political ideas. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is about how what a person believes about human nature leads them to act, while Sunrise on the Reaping investigates methods of propaganda and sheds light on the many failures that preceded the successful rebellion.
Collins will write another book if she has another thematic focus she wants to explore and needs a story to act as a vehicle for it. She could delve deeper into the workings of the early rebellion, as Finnick and Johanna were likely recruited immediately after they won to the inner circle that included Mags, Beetee, and Wiress.
For that matter, Collins could write a Hunger Games installment that doesn’t revolve around another year of the Hunger Games, to flesh out even further what the burgeoning rebellion must do year-round to resist the Capitol. Five books in, Panem is still a disturbing and rich world that readers can learn from, with additional characters’ stories left untold.
Add us as a preferred source on Google