Francis Lawrence is already thinking about where the Hunger Games series could go next. At the London premiere of Sunrise on the Reaping, he said he would be interested in exploring Plutarch Heavensbee’s backstory in another installment, though the idea is not yet a confirmed project.
The comment is drawing attention because fans already know Jesse Plemons is stepping into the role of a younger Plutarch in Sunrise on the Reaping, and Lawrence praised him in plain terms, saying Plutarch is a really interesting character and that Plemons did a tremendous job. For readers following the franchise, that makes the question obvious: is Lionsgate warming to a prequel built around one of the series’ most elusive figures?
Plutarch has long been one of the Hunger Games universe’s most slippery characters. He is first introduced as a cameraman assigned to District 12 during the 50th Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell, before later emerging as one of the rebellion’s most important figures. Audiences previously saw an older Plutarch in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, where Philip Seymour Hoffman played the role.
Lawrence did not sound like someone pitching a completed plan so much as a filmmaker turning over a character he clearly likes. He said Plutarch is a really interesting character and pointed to Plemons’ performance as the reason the idea feels alive at all. Nina Jacobson was even blunter at the premiere, calling herself a Plutarch obsessive and saying he has been at this for 25 years playing both sides, which captures why the character continues to attract attention.
That still leaves the hard part: a Plutarch prequel is only an idea. Previous Hunger Games prequels such as The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and Sunrise on the Reaping were based on novels by Suzanne Collins, and that is the path the franchise has followed before. Sunrise on the Reaping itself is set 24 years before Katniss Everdeen’s story begins and follows a young Haymitch Abernathy as he enters the 50th Hunger Games, with Joseph Zada, Mckenna Grace, Jesse Plemons, Ralph Fiennes, Glenn Close, Kieran Culkin, Elle Fanning and Billy Porter in the cast.
So the near-term answer is simple: Sunrise on the Reaping is the next confirmed film, due in cinemas on November 20, 2026. A Plutarch-centered follow-up remains a possibility only if Suzanne Collins gives the franchise another story worth adapting, and Lawrence has made clear he would be ready to look.
