The Hunger Games stage play is heading to London in 2024

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will not be the only film releasing based on the the dystopian world of Panem written by Suzanne Collins’s best-selling novels. The first-ever live stage adaptation of the novel is in the works and will debut in London next year.

Olivier Award-winning playwright Conor McPherson, known for his impactful plays such as the musical Girl From the North Country and The Weir, is adapting it for a live theatrical production. McPherson is collaborating with director Matthew Dunster, celebrated for works like 2:22 - A Ghost Story and Hangmen. The play is all set to debut in London's West End in autumn 2024.

The play will be based on the first book in Collins’ dystopian series revolving around a televised battle royale in which young tributes are selected via lottery to fight to the death. The story picks up as Katniss Everdeen, a role that propelled Lawrence to stardom, volunteers to take her younger sister’s place in the 74th annual Hunger Games. A press release calls the stage version a “gripping tale of courage, defiance, and the unbreakable human spirit.”

“I’m very excited to be collaborating with the amazing team of Conor McPherson and Matthew Dunster as they bring their dynamic and innovative interpretation of The Hunger Games to the London stage,” Collins wrote in a statement.

Meanwhile, the prequel film The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will examine how Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) navigates his path from a family that's fallen from grace after the Panem's First Rebellion and the civil war, to the iron-handed president of Panem.

The upcoming film takes place 64 years before Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) volunteered as tribute in The Hunger Games, and decades before Coriolanus Snow became the tyrannical President of Panem.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes features an ensemble cast including Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage, Hunter Shcaefer, Josh Andres Rivera, Jason Schwartzman, and Viola Davis.

The film premieres in theatres on November 17.