Summary
- It has been confirmed that a new Hunger Games book and film are on the way, set to focus on the 50th Annual Hunger Games.
- Fans will recognise this as the year where Haymitch Abernathy emerged victorious, then swiflty spiralled into an alchoholic depression.
- In a series that is known for asking deep questions and exploring new characters, this new entry doesn't feel that necessary.
It has just been announced that we’re getting a new 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hunger Games book and movie, which will take place 40 years after Lucy Gray Baird’s Games. This makes it the 50th Games, AKA The Second Quarte💜♏r Quell, AKA Haymitch’s Games. This is the one everyone wanted. It’s also a very bad idea.
We have embraced a need to know everything attitude to pop cultur🤪e these days. It’s why we have so many spin-offs and origin stories. It’s not enough to know that Haymitch won the Games and sunk into a deep depression🧸, we need to see it in minute detail. But this strips away the mystery of Haymitch, robbing us of the ability to let our imagination fill in the gaps of his trauma. It’s also really boring.
We know what happens in Haymitch’s Games. He wins. Yes, The Hunger Games has always been less about the results and more about the surrounding stories, but knowing the destination so obviously feels dull. L🤪ucy Gray’s story was interesting because we knew only Haymitch had won from District 12 prior to Katniss and Peeta, so we were left to speculate. Would Lucy Gray die? Would the Games be cancelled? Would her victory be stricken from the records? Could it be all three?
There is some intrigue with Haymitch, sure. We don’t know who he♛ killed or how many, and there is tragedy in meeting characters we know are predestined to die. But it feels as if this has been done because fans have said it would be cool, not because it adds any depth to the series. Doesn’t it make Haymitch a less interesting character to see these games play out?
It also means, yet again, we’re in District 12. This worked for Lucy Gray, as the antithesis of Katniss and a core reason for Snow’s unusual respect for her. In Rachel Zegler’s own words about playing Lucy Gray, Katniss was a fighter forc⛄ed to perform, and Lucy Gray was a performer forced to fight.🐬 Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes also gave us a new insight into Snow, the changing relationships between Districts, the reason for the reapings, and why Tigris turned traitor. Haymitch’s Games are too close to Katniss’ for all that much to have changed.
As a Quarter Quell, the Games themselves may be interesting. We know that it contained double the number of usual tributes, with 48 rat๊her than 24. That offers more gory kills, but while that is some of the draw with the series’ popularity, it’s not the focus. The Hunger Games was inspired by author Suzanne Collins seeing the glorification of war and teenagers being deified as🃏 heroes for dying in Iraq, and the ways governments use that messaging for power. 24 extra murders is not really a selling point for those themes.
Welcome to the Second Quarter Quell.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reap꧂🃏ing – in theaters November 20, 2026.
— The Hunger Games (@TheHungerGames)
While the book and movie deal is inevitable, it also seems more rushed. The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is my second least favourite of the movies, only saved from last place by the decision to split Mockingjay into two parts. I hope we get the best version 🌸of the book foll🎃owed by the best version of the movie, but such a truncated timeline (the book is due 2025, the movie 2026) doesn’t fill me with hope.
Some of these ‘unnecessary’ spin-offs and sequels end up being very good. Rogue One came from a supposed plot hole in Star Wa🐎rs: A New Hope, which itself then spawned Andor. Wonka, as a musical origin story for Willy Wonka, was better than it had any right to be and a major commercial success. But these are rare exceptions to a current media landscape that relies on safe slop. Despite its mass popularity, The Hunger Games has always been able to ask probing questions, but I don’t know what’s left to answer with Haymitch’s Games.
Follow▨ing a fallen tribute, a time between Games, the fall of District 13, a conflict ‘career’ tributeℱ from Districts 1 and 2, or even just a different District from 12 would have been more interesting, especially if we didn’t know the outcome. Sure, there’s a certain plot armour to the protagonist in any book, but we explicitly know the outcome here. 47 characters die, Haymitch lives.
Maybe there’s a twist. Maybe some tributes get away, and Haymitch either helps them but stays behind, gets caught, or regrets his cowardice. Maybe it’s not Haymitch who wins, but someone who assumes his identity for some reason and never brings it up again. There will clearly be something personally tragic for Haymitch considering how his w꧟in affected him, and how disadvantaged District 12 contestants are. But it’s more interesting to imagine this reason than to know it.
Splitting Mockingjay aside, The Hunger Games has never felt like a cash grab. It was a fitting trilogy, has fairly minimal merch for its popul⛎arity, and Ballads was a fresh angle after a lot of time away. Haymitch’s Games do feel like a cas🦂h grab. I wonder if fans will still be happy they got their way when they see the result.