The Hunger Games Box Office: Can Sunrise on the Reaping Reverse the Franchise's Decline?
By Kieran Burt - November 11, 2026
Movies - Features - Box Office
Hunger Games is a long and storied franchise, based on the YA novels by Suzanne Collins. Lionsgate won the rights to adapt them into films, starting with the 2012 adaptation The Hunger Games. Yearly releases would follow, along with splitting the final book into two parts. The franchise stalled in 2015, in large part because Lionsgate did not have any more books to adapt. The box office decline was also becoming evident. Collins released a new book, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, in 2020, which Lionsgate adapted in 2023, and the upcoming film, November 2026 adaptation of The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, is based on the March 2025 novel of the same name, showing Lionsgate’s appetite for Hunger Games adaptations.
Before the new film hits cinemas, it’s worth recapping the box office performance of the films in the franchise. It’s worth noting that Lionsgate sells some of the international distribution rights to foreign studios, so while international performance is important (after all, no one would buy the rights if the films performed poorly), as far as Lionsgate and profitability is concerned, domestic performance is far more important, alongside the territories it handles distribution in, such as the UK.
The Hunger Games
Released in cinemas on March 2012 The Hunger Games lit a fire in audiences, with it bringing in $152.5 million in its opening weekend, an extremely good opening as the film’s budget stood at $78 million. This sealed the film as a money-maker, and it went on to collect a whopping $408 million by the end of its domestic run, accounting for 58.8% of its worldwide gross.
Internationally, the film didn’t quite have the same appeal, as it topped out at $286.4 million, 41.2% of its worldwide gross. Worldwide, the film collected a total of $694.4 million, more than enough for the following adaptations to be greenlit.
Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The success of the first Hunger Games movie gave Lionsgate the confidence to almost double the production budget for the sequel, Hunger Games: Catching Fire, to $130 million. Their gamble was broadly successful, as Catching Fire opened to $158.1 million domestically in November 2013, and finished with a total of $424.7 million for 49.1% of the film’s worldwide total. So while domestic audiences liked the film just as much as the previous one, the doubled budget made it less profitable overall.
International audience interest picked up, however, as the film finished its international box office total of $440.3 million, enough for 50.9% of the total worldwide gross. But it’s hard to know how much Lionsgate profited from this increase, as, internationally, most distribution rights were sold to foreign distributors. Lionsgate would have only made what they sold the rights for, a cost determined by the international performance from the first movie, which was less than this. The total worldwide gross came to $865 million, driven by a big increase in the international box office.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
The penultimate chapter for the initial Hunger Games films, Lionsgate was still confident that the third film would give the same box office success at the 130 million budget point. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 released a year after Catching Fire in November 2014. The film sagged domestically to $121.8 million, and the domestic total failed to break the $400 million of its predecessors, at $337.1 million. More damningly, this was only 44.6% of the worldwide gross. Despite what Part 1 made internationally, less of that went to Lionsgate. This started the domestic decline in interest that didn’t stop.
Internationally, the film made $418.2 million. Audiences broadly liked the film as much as Catching Fire. The total accounted for 55.4% of the worldwide gross, which was still a respectable $755.4 million, but not as profitable for Lionsgate due to the aforementioned international distribution deals.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 debuted a year late in November 2015, and Lionsgate once again upped the production budget, this time to $160 million. Unfortunately, domestic appeal did not match this increase; it went the opposite direction, falling to $102.6 million. The film topped out domestically at $281.7 million, again falling compared to even Part 1. Worse still, this was only 43.1% of the film’s worldwide total, a further fall from Part 1.
Internationally, the film finished with a total of $371.7 million; those audiences caught up with falling domestic interest. This made up 56.9% of the worldwide total of $653.4 million. It served as a good lesson, as while Part 2 brought in roughly the same amount of money as the first film, several aspects served to make Part 2 less profitable: it's now more than double the budget, and most of its gross came from overseas, which Lionsgate collects less of.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Now, here is the latest film in the franchise, the prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (BSS), which was released in November 2023 after a long hiatus (the fact that there were no more books to adapt immediately after Mockingjay was probably a good thing, as audience interest had waned), but it failed to recapture the box office interest of even Mockingjay Part 2. Its budget was the smaller $100 million; Lionsgate now finally learned to bring them down after seeing no reasonable gain. Domestically, the film opened to a weak $44.6 million, and its final total was $166.4 million, 45.7% of its worldwide total, a very slight recovery.
Its worldwide opening was $100 million. Vice chairman of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Adam Fogelson said, “We were a little lighter [than projections] domestically and a little over [projections] internationally, so we’re thrilled with the result,” and “It’ll be a great business result for the studio.”
Analyst Jeff Bock at Exhibitor Relations said: “Prequels never do as well as direct sequels.” “It’s not going to be a massive hit for Lionsgate, but it’ll be a moderate one.”
By the end of its worldwide run, it was indeed only a moderate hit. Internationally, the total came in at $197.6 million, 54.3% of the film’s worldwide gross of $364 million, making the film less profitable than if it had made more domestically. The film was likely just profitable theatrically; ancillary revenue would have made up any difference. There’s no hiding this is the worst-performing film in the franchise, and accounting for inflation would only make this more stark.
Where does this leave Sunrise on the Reaping?
If what Bock said is true, then the indirect sequel to The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes/second prequel to The Hunger Games, Sunrise on the Reaping, isn’t in the best position. Both domestic and international audiences have shown less interest in the franchise than previously, but Lionsgate seems to have forgotten its reasonable budgeting skills from BSS, as Deadline sources say the film’s budget is between $150 and $200 million. Sunrise On The Reaping will either prove Lionsgate’s folly or genius when it opens on November 20.
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Kieran Burt
Writer
Kieran is a freelance writer, covering entertainment news. He loves everything about the cinema - especially when it comes to Star Wars and the box office.
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