A Hunger Games prequel is coming to cinemas next year

There's more.

Just as we thought The Hunger Games series was officially done and dusted, it's back for another edition. The franchise is making its way back to cinemas for the highly anticipated prequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and you can bet we're going to see a whole new side to the films. While we've known this has been in the works for a while, studio bosses have confirmed that it is set to hit cinemas in November 2023. The film's release date was unveiled at a presentation at the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas on Thursday. While the cast is yet to be confirmed, Francis Lawrence is back at the helm after directing the last three films in the franchise. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is based on the book by The Hunger Games author Suzanne Collins which came out last year. The story is set to follow a young Coriolanus Snow, years before the events of the original films take place. In the original, Snow was the cruel ruler of Panem but in the prequel, he is seen mentoring a young tribute in the 10th Hunger Games. He is given District 12 tribute, Lucy Gray Baird, to mentor but the games are disrupted when one of the mentors, Arachne Crane, is murdered by her tribute.

The Hunger Games films starred Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, with Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark, Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne and Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy.

The first of the films was released back in 2012 with three sequels following, finishing with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 in 2015. It remains as one of the biggest and most successful movie franchises in cinema history grossing a staggering $2.9 billion (£2.3 billion) collectively.