The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is now tracking toward a $100 million-plus opening weekend, according to the latest box-office forecasts — a dramatic climb from the $55 million to $65 million long-range forecast published only two weeks ago. Box Office Theory’s current forecast is $105 million-plus, with a $116 million pinpoint and a $140 million high end, and the firm says the film is “trending evermore toward” a nine-figure debut.
Deadline, cited by Fiction Horizon, has raised the film’s floor to $80 million-plus, up from $60 million to $70 million last weekend. The presales back it up: the film’s advance ticket sales are ahead of Universal’s Wicked, the best Lionsgate has seen for any title since COVID, and ahead of Michael, which opened to $97.2 million in North America. Prediction platform Polymarket puts the chance of a debut north of $100 million at 75 percent.
The Jennifer Lawrence effect
The first presale read landed on October 28, when tickets went on sale, and it is the kind of number Lionsgate has not seen since Katniss was the lead. The BBFC quietly listed Jennifer Lawrence in the cast when it rated the film, and the returning cameo — fans are buying tickets for a few minutes of screen time, according to Startefacts — has become the biggest talking point of the campaign.
The four original films opened at $152 million, $158 million, $122 million and $103 million. The previous prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, opened to $44.6 million in 2023 with no legacy cast. At $103 million, Sunrise on the Reaping beats the last Mockingjay; at the $120 million some trackers are seeing, it is within $2 million of Mockingjay – Part 1.
The stakes — and the wild card
The film needs a big result. Its budget is reported at between $170 million and $200 million, with The Numbers tracking it at $185 million. It opens in US cinemas and IMAX on Friday, November 20, with early-access screenings on Wednesday, November 18 at 6 p.m. — exactly 11 years after The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 was released.
The one wild card sits the day before: GTA VI launches on November 19, and the game has already taken an estimated $751 million in digital pre-orders — about 7.71 million units on PlayStation 5 and Xbox — according to Sensor Tower data reported by TalkEsport. Box Office Theory itself flags the film as “volatile to forecast”. But with two weeks to go, the momentum is clear, and the numbers keep moving in one direction.
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