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Hunger Games

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Suzanne Collins is taking us back to Panem with a fifth installation in The Hunger Games book series, but this time, she’s taking us back in time to 24 years prior to the events of the main trilogy. The Hollywood Reporter announced the news this week, stating the upcoming book titled, Sunrise on the Reaping, won’t be released until March 18, 2025, but that means you have plenty of time to catch up on the series — including watching the most recent movie online, which also gained recognition for debuting an Olivia Rodrigo song.

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This time around, readers won’t be following President Snow’s point-of-view, but will get to hear from another familiar face: Haymitch Abernathy — Katniss and Peeta’s mentor and the only other person from District 12 to win the Hunger Games. His experience is also significant as it marked the Second Quarter Quell to take place.

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Instead of counting down the days until the book comes out, new and seasoned fans of the Hunger Games world can read every book to help pass the time. Right now, you can even score 39% off a boxed set from Target, Amazon and Walmart, which drops the price down to less than $40. Keep reading to shop the deal below.

“The Hunger Games” Books 1-4 Box Set

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Enter the world of The Hunger Games with this boxed book set that includes every single book currently published in the series. You can choose from paperback or hardcover editions and enjoy a display-worthy box that won’t just keep your collection dust-free, but also looks great placed on a mantle.

How Many Books Are in The Hunger Games Series?

There are four books published as of now including The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay and The Ballad of the Songbirds & Snakes. Once Sunrise on the Reaping is published there will be a total of five books within the series. If you look at the movies though, the third book, Mockingjay was split into two movies, which expanded the movies into five total.

If you’d also like to watch The Hunger Games films, you can stream all four movies online through Starz, which has a 7-day free trial through Prime Video. After the free trial is over, you’ll be charged $9.99 a month on top of your Prime membership subscription. You’ll need a Prime membership in order to watch The Hunger Games series online for free. If you don’t already have a membership, Amazon offers a 30-day free trial for new users who sign up.

How to Read The Hunger Games in Order

The best way to read the books is in the order the series was released in, which would start with The Hunger Games followed by Catching Fire, Mockingjay and The Ballad of the Songbirds & Snakes. While the fourth book is considered a prequel to the main trilogy, you could still read Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes first, to understand all the Easter eggs that will likely be placed within Sunrise on the Reaping.

Fans can also look forward to seeing book five on the big screen as it was reported that the upcoming book has already scored a movie deal.

For more product recommendations, check out ShopBillboard‘s roundups of the best female musician memoirs, country music books and books about jazz.

You may not be able to catch her now, but the Oscars just might be able to.
As awards season kicks into high gear, Olivia Rodrigo has her sights set on the Academy Awards. At the Academy’s 14th annual Governors Awards on Tuesday, the Grammy-winner dished on the Oscar chances for her song “Can’t Catch Me Now” from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and her plans for her upcoming 21st birthday.

“It’s so incredible,” Rodrigo gushed to Access Hollywood of her Hunger Games prequel track making the Academy’s shortlist for best original song. “There’s just so many people on that list who I’m inspired by, so many songs that I think are incredible, so it’s an honor.”

Rodrigo, alongside go-to collaborator Dan Nigro, co-wrote and performed “Can’t Catch Me Now” for the box-office-topping Hunger Games prequel starring Rachel Zegler, Viola Davis, Hunter Schafer and Tom Blyth. The haunting Americana-inflected track reached No. 56 on the Billboard Hot 100. At the 2023 Hollywood Music in Media Awards, “Can’t Catch Me Now” won best original song in a sci-fi, fantasy or horror film.

In addition to “Can’t Catch Me Now,” other notable songs on the Academy’s shortlist include Billie Eilish‘s “What Was I Made For?” (from Barbie) — which won the equivalent Golden Globe Award on Sunday — Fantasia‘s “Superpower (I)” (from The Color Purple), The Osage Tribe’s “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” (from Killers of the Flower Moon) and Jon Batiste‘s “It Never Went Away” (from American Symphony).

Although she finds herself among stiff competition, Rodrigo didn’t write her Hunger Games track with the intention of entering the Oscar race. “I think that if I was writing a song and thought about how other people were gonna hear it, I just would be so overcome by anxiety that I couldn’t write at all,” she told Access Hollywood. “So I try to kind of block that all out and just write for me.”

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Later on the red carpet, the “Traitor” singer spilled her birthday plans to Entertainment Tonight. “It is a big birthday,” she said. “I think I’m gonna have a party with my friends and pop some champagne, you know? It’s the 21st!” The multihyphenate turns 21 next month (Feb. 20), but she says Vegas isn’t quite in her line of sight yet. “I’ll save that. I’ll save that for later,” she said.

Shortly before her birthday, Rodrigo will enjoy the 66th annual Grammy Awards, where she boasts six nominations, including in album of the year (Guts) and record and song of the year (“Vampire”). The High School Musical: The Musical: The Series alum already has three Golden Gramophones to her name; she took home best new artist, best pop vocal album (Sour) and best pop solo performance (“Drivers License”) at the 2022 ceremony.

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Olivia Rodrigo just proved that her song “Can’t Catch Me Now” sounds gorgeous with and without instruments. Sitting on the floor with three of her friends harmonizing behind her, the 20-year-old pop star performs the ballad a cappella in a video posted Wednesday night (Nov. 29). “But I’m in the trees, I’m in the breeze/ […]

Olivia Rodrigo is the Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes head songbird, but she says that writing “Can’t Catch Me Now” for the franchise’s new film wasn’t as easy as she made it look. On the red carpet for the Hollywood premiere of the latest Hunger Games installment Monday (Nov. 13), Rodrigo revealed […]

Olivia Rodrigo is here, she’s there, she’s everywhere — and now has a music video to go along with her powerful The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes track, “Can’t Catch Me Now.” Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The clip, which was released on Monday […]

Just two albums into her career, Olivia Rodrigo is proving impossible to catch.
The U.S. pop star is a perfect two-from-two atop the Billboard 200 chart, and the Official U.K. Albums Chart. In her homeland, she’s bagged three No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100, most recently with “Vampire” sinking its fangs in for two weeks in July.

On the other side of the Atlantic, she became the youngster solo artist to history to claim the U.K. chart double when, at 18 years and three months, she led both main charts in May 2021 (with Sour and “Good 4 U”). The next month, in June 2021, Rodrigo became the first female solo artist to claim three simultaneous U.K. top 5 singles with “Good 4 U,” “Déjà vu” and “Traitor.”

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Add to that a hattrick of Grammy Awards, including best new artist; a BRIT Award for best international song at the BRIT Awards in February 2022; and in August of this year, at the age of 20, she became the youngest artist receive a BRIT Billion Award by the BPI.

Before she bent charts to her will, Rodrigo was high-profile piece of the Disney machine, starring in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.

Rodrigo adds another feather to her cap with “Can’t Catch Me Now,” from The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (Music From & Inspired By), the official soundtrack to Lionsgate’s latest film in The Hunger Games franchise.

Rodrigo wrote the searing ballad with producer Daniel Nigro, less than two months after the release of Guts, her sophomore LP. It’s one of 17 songs on the soundtrack, including works performed in the film by The Hunger Games star Rachel Zegler, as well as tracks by young artists in the folk and Americana genre.A prequel, set 64 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteered as tribute, and long before Coriolanus Snow became the dark overlord of Panem, The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes arrives in theaters Nov. 17.

The upcoming movie stars Zegler alongside Tom Blyth, Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera, Jason Schwartzman and Viola Davis, and follows the story of Coriolanus (Blyth), who is the last hope for his failing lineage, the Snow family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol.  

The full soundtrack also arrives Nov. 17. Stream “Can’t Catch Me Now” below.

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Olivia Rodrigo is musically joining the Hunger Games universe. The pop superstar announced on Wednesday (Nov. 1) that she wrote a song called “Can’t Catch Me Now” for the upcoming The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (Music From & Inspired By) soundtrack. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest […]

The Hunger Games films are no stranger to haunting musical moments that produce real-life hits, with six singles from four movies hitting the Billboard Hot 100 — including top 20 hits for Taylor Swift and even Jennifer Lawrence. When the prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes hits theaters on Nov. 17, a batch of new songs will take center stage thanks to Rachel Zegler, who delivers a nuanced portrayal of a nomadic balladeer thrown into a dystopian fight to the death.
Almost two years after winning a Golden Globe for Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story remake, Zegler is preparing to show audiences she can deliver gritty country-folk just as deftly as Broadway classics. To ensure the music of the film convincingly conjured her character’s Appalachia-esque milieu, Lionsgate tapped Nashville mainstay Dave Cobb to put melodies to lyrics penned by franchise author Suzanne Collins. Cobb, a nine-time Grammy Award winner, is primarily known for working with country artists including Brandi Carlile and Chris Stapleton. But he has produced music for major films along the way such as A Star Is Born and Elvis — and his latest Hollywood project presented a new challenge.

What about this opportunity made you say yes?

One of the things that was so attractive about working on this film [is that] I don’t think I’ve ever talked to a more intelligent person in my life than Suzanne Collins. She’s an absolute genius. Suzanne telling me the impetus of the story had me captivated. I’m a history buff — I would teach history if I wasn’t in music — and everything in this film, everything she has written for Hunger Games, is derived from real history. She sent me the lyrics, and I had to make them feel like turn-of-the-century, timeless classics. That’s a very hard thing to do.

The songs have a lived-in rawness to them. How did you achieve that?

The big thing for me was to get the ability to be completely unorthodox. We had this crazy idea to come down to my hometown of Savannah, Ga., and rent an old mansion and record in that. So we went to this 200-plus-year-old house, and the sound is very Alan Lomax. Lomax, whom I’m very influenced by, used to go around and capture people on their front porch. It was the real, genuine, authentic article of whatever he was [recording], so we went for that. With all the creaks in the walls, you can hear the history in the recording — it wasn’t like a clinical studio. The old microphones we used looked like they’d been under a bed for 75 years.

Dave Cobb

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And what about the band?

I brought in ringers who I thought were great musicians. Molly Tuttle played a big part — she played the guitar of [Zegler’s character] Lucy Gray. I found this ’30s Gibson that I brought down, and she played on that. I showed it to [director] Francis [Lawrence], and he used it in the film: It’s the one she’s actually playing in the film. It wasn’t just a regular acoustic guitar — it has character. That was a big part of making this come to life. There’s bleed between the bass going into the fiddle going into the banjo. It’s just absolute chaos in a way that makes things dangerous.

Did you work closely with Zegler, coaching her on how to approach the material?

I made the music before the film was made, and Rachel is such an incredible talent that she ended up singing everything live, which we were hoping she would do. She’s so naturally gifted — it was effortless for her. She can sing anything.

Do you have a favorite musical moment in the film?

There’s a song on [the soundtrack] I love called “Pure As the Driven Snow.” Rachel has this beautiful, almost ’30s American voice. The way she sings the last line of that song is so stunning.

This story originally appeared in the Oct. 7, 2023, issue of Billboard.