Fans of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games franchise got a major surprise on Thursday, with the announcement of the new prequel The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. The story, which will first be told in a novel in March 2025 before earning a movie adaptation in November 2026, will further flesh out the lore of the 50th Hunger Games, and how a young Haymitch Abernathy became District 12’s first male victor. The announcement of Sunrise on the Reaping comes after years of fans campaigning to learn more about Haymitch’s story, if the franchise chose to expand into more prequel novels following 2020’s Coriolanus Snow prequel, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Now that Haymitch’s story is on the horizon, some of the Hunger Games fandom has already begun to wonder — could a prequel surrounding Finnick Odair eventually be next?
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The previous fan fervor surrounding more Hunger Games prequels has largely advocated for both Haymitch and Finnick solo stories — and it’s easy to see why. Both are previous Hunger Games victors tied to consequential past games in the franchise’s canon, and both have backstories that were only incrementally revealed across the series’ second and third books, Catching Fire and Mockingjay. While an entire chapter of Catching Fire was devoted to an abridged retelling of Haymitch’s games, Finnick’s experience of winning the 65th Hunger Games is not as fleshed out. We do know that he was a Career Tribute who became one of the youngest-ever victors of the games, only to soon be forced into a life of sex trafficking by President Snow and the Capitol. Just five years later, Finnick mentored — and then fell in love with — the newest District 4 victor Annie Cresta, with the pair eventually marrying during the events of Mockingjay.
Granted, the bulk of Finnick’s story is set within the decade before the events of The Hunger Games, which could make it harder to justify a full-fledged prequel exploring that era of Panem. But it’s safe to say that, between the games themselves and his romantic and personal relationships after the fact, there could be narrative potential in expanding on Finnick’s history. This, combined with the fondness many fans have for Sam Claflin’s portrayal of Finnick in the Hunger Games movies, has led the charge for a prequel — but the question remains of whether or not it would happen.
Collins has repeatedly stated that her Hunger Games entries are a way for her to “examine” a real-world topic, with Sunrise on the Reaping already being inspired by the exploration of propaganda and implicit submission by Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume. If a Finnick prequel story were to fully be told, it’s safe to assume that Collins would want to find a specific angle to justify its existence, and to parallel the story with real themes. In terms of a Finnick movie, franchise director Francis Lawrence has indicated that it wouldn’t happen without Collins having a specific narrative in mind.
“If Suzanne has another thematic idea that she feels fits into the world of Panem — whether that’s with new people [or] familiar characters [like] Finnick, Haymitch, whoever — I’d be really interested in looking at it and being a part of it,” Lawrence told Entertainment Weekly in an interview last year. “But I don’t have any pull of just going, ‘I would love to do Finnick’s games.’ He’s a great character, but what’s the thematic underpinnings that make it worth telling and relevant?”
Claflin, meanwhile, has been open to the prospect of a prequel for years, but has more recently indicated that he would only return if he could pass the torch to a younger actor.
“I don’t know if there’s room for me to go back. I’m too old now,” Claflin told Variety earlier this year. “I’ve heard rumors that people are asking for a Finnick prequel, and all I’m gonna say is that I would be all in for Finnick’s dad.”
Ultimately, time will only tell if Collins decides to write and release a Finnick prequel, but given the surprise of Sunrise on the Reaping, anything is possible.
