'The Hunger Games' Set to Play This October in Brand New London Theater
Lionsgate's stage adaptation of Suzzanne Collins' best-selling novel (and eventual blockbuster movie) will premiere at the Troubadour Canary Wharf Theater
The Hunger Games is making its way to the London stage, for real this time. The adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ novel, which of course led to two sequels and a prequel, as well as a blockbuster film franchise, was first announced in October 2023 to debut in the West End in the fall of 2024. However, life intervened, and the show, written by Conor McPherson and directed by Matthew Dunster, was postponed initially to January of this year and now to October of 2025. Additionally, the production will premiere at The Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre, a new venue built specifically for this show. Tickets will be available starting at 5:00 a.m. P.S.T. on March 27.
As you almost certainly recall, The Hunger Games concerns a dystopian future hellscape where young children from impoverished communities are plucked from their homes to battle each other to the death for the bread-and-circuses amusement of the decadently rich. The first book concerns Katniss Everdeen, from District 12, who shockingly volunteers to participate and presumably perish in place of her younger sister. The later books — spoiler she survives the first tome — detail her reluctant and often unwilling participation as a popular contestant and eventually a symbol of violent defiance and inspirational rebellion. The first four films, released from March 2012 to November 2015, earned $2.96 billion.
They stand alongside the Harry Potter films and The Twilight Saga as the most successful YA fantasy franchises of the 2000s and early 2010s. I argued at the time that Katniss’s rise from doomed child soldier to world-famous rebel seemed to ironically coincide with Jennifer Lawrence being anointed the “it girl” and an aspirational success story for those advocating for more diverse and less “just the girlfriend” roles for actresses during the early 2010s. Conversely, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, a shockingly good prequel released in November 2023, grossed $337 million (on a $100 million budget) “despite” Rachel Zegler being arbitrarily anointed as “public enemy #1” within the YouTube Troll Industrial Complex. All told, the series has sold
Collins’ Sunrise on the Reaping will be published by Scholastic on March 18, 2025, with Lionsgate’s film adaptation scheduled for November 20, 2026. From a commercial perspective, there’s a certain logic in Lionsgate transforming at least the first novel into a stage production. The first half features introductions and character-focused intrigue amid the razzle-dazzle of Capitol-set pageantry, which partly unfolds on a stage. How the show will portray the latter half, with young children chasing and evading one another while occasionally slaughtering one another in a forest landscape, remains a question for the director and producer. I suspect it will involve the Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre’s in-the-round venue. Dare they go full- Tony n' Tina’s Wedding?
Sure, this might be an example of excessively exploiting a once-successful IP. However, I honestly have no stake in the stage adaptations of literary works that primarily exist in live theater form due to the success of their film counterparts. As long as studios can find fortune and glory by leveraging a newly successful cinematic franchise— not just through spin-off films but also through adjacent adaptations (like Broadway, video games, etc.) and related merchandise— it only encourages them to at least attempt to develop and release either entirely original films or new-to-cinema adaptations that aren’t merely rehashes of previously successful theatrical productions. Now I need to find an establishment with a John Wick pinball cabinet.
