Thirteen years is a long time. In thirteen years, a child can start and finish school. In thirteen years, two individuals can court one another, get married, and have three kids. A person can build a wildly successful company in thirteen years.
It’s been thirteen years since Nina Jacobson produced the first Hunger Games film. She tells Variety how she’s gearing up for the film adaptation of Sunrise on the Reaping.
Readers learned of the forthcoming film on the same day the latest book in Suzanne Collins’ popular dystopian series was revealed. Sunrise on the Reaping is a prequel to the Hunger Games and features Panem’s fiftieth Hunger Games. District 12 is uneasy as word spreads that twice as many tributes will be taken in honor of the Quarter Quell. Haymitch Abernathy is trying to channel happy thoughts when he is selected to compete in the Games. He is set up to fail but refuses to go down without a fight.
Unlike many film adaptations that come years after a book’s initial release, Sunrise on the Reaping has come to readers months before its expected film debut.
“This is a very different process for us,” Nina Jacobson tells Variety. “I’ve never actually worked on an adaptation like this, where you’re so far ahead of the book, and yet people are waiting for it,” the producer shares.
“We had to do a whole secret thing where I went to [Suzanne Collins’] longtime agent’s house and read it,” Jacobson explains. “There was one copy of the book that lived at his house. I had to go have my turn. Francis went and had his turn. We were so thrilled. It wrecked me so much as a person who loves to read and who wants to fall headlong into a book that won’t let you go.”
“I was on the edge of my seat, crying. I just was so moved by it and so energized by it, and then could not talk to anybody except for Francis, Suzanne, and our studio partners. And many of them hadn’t even read it yet – we just had the one copy to keep it secure and safe! To finally get to share that and get to hear what other people think, I’m just so excited for the fans. I’m just a huge fan who gets to be lucky enough to make the movies.”
Sunrise on the Reaping is available in bookstores nationwide. The film adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ latest book is expected to come to theaters in November 2026.