The Hunger Games will be coming back in a new prequel movie, based on Suzanne Collins's upcoming novel.

Lionsgate has confirmed The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (out on May 19) will be developed into a movie by returning director Francis Lawrence, alongside screenwriter Michael Arndt and producer Nina Jacobson who both worked on the original series.

The prequel novel focuses on Coriolanus Snow at the age of 18, a long time before he would become the tyrannical Panem President we know and hate from the novels and the movie series.

It's not surprising that the novel is being adapted when you consider The Hunger Games is one of the highest-grossing movie franchises of all time, having earned almost $3 billion worldwide.

The four established movies took minor liberties with the books, but on the whole, the narrative very much stuck to Collins' blueprint, so we can safely assume that the same will be done with the prequel.

Mags was the female tribute from District 4 during the 75th Hunger Games, where she volunteered to take the place of Annie Cresta, eventually sacrificing herself to save Katniss in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

View this post on Instagram

Lionsgate confirmed the long-anticipated 'The #HungerGames' prequel movie is in the works. What we know so far, at the link in bio.

A post shared by Hollywood Reporter (@hollywoodreporter) on Apr 21, 2020 at 9:15am PDT

The development of the prequel is exciting for a multitude of reasons, not least because we get to finally see what goes down during the dawn of the titular games. But it also means there's a chance Collins is planning to take the story further. Could this be the start of an entirely new series?