Culture 4 min read By Lauren Baxter
Lionsgate's Hunger Games Prequel Presales Top Wicked, Eyeing $80M Opening
Advance ticket sales for Lionsgate’s «The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping» are reportedly running ahead of Universal’s «Wicked», with an opening weekend projected above $80 million.
Lionsgate’s prequel «The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping» is building strong momentum at the box office, with advance ticket sales reportedly running ahead of Universal’s musical «Wicked». According to an exclusive box office report from Deadline, the film’s opening weekend is projected to reach a floor above $80 million, a figure that frames the early buzz around the title in concrete financial terms.
The presale performance is being described as the best of any Lionsgate title in the post-Covid era, a notable benchmark for a studio that has relied heavily on the franchise to anchor its slate. Advance sales are often read as an early indicator of how strongly audiences intend to turn out on opening weekend, and the early numbers for «Sunrise on the Reaping» suggest sustained interest in the story’s return to Panem. The strength of the sales is particularly significant because it arrives ahead of a release window that will put the film in direct competition with «Wicked», another major title drawing audiences during the same stretch of the calendar.
The report does not provide exact presale figures, so the precise size of the lead over «Wicked» remains unclear from the available information. Deadline’s framing is that the film is running ahead, but the margin is not quantified in the text, and that gap is the key number that industry trackers will want to pin down as the weekend approaches. The $80 million figure is described as a floor rather than a final forecast, which means the projection could move up or down as the release date nears and as the film’s marketing campaign continues to roll out.
Box office projections at this stage are inherently provisional. Early presales can signal enthusiasm, but they do not always translate directly into opening weekend totals, since walk-up sales, group bookings and international performance all contribute to the final result. Final opening weekend results for «Sunrise on the Reaping» have not yet been determined, and no official tally has been reported as of the source material’s publication.
The film’s performance will also be closely watched as a test of the franchise’s staying power. The earlier films in the series became major commercial successes, and a strong opening for a prequel would signal that audiences remain eager to revisit the world created by Suzanne Collins. A solid debut would help Lionsgate demonstrate that the property can sustain interest beyond its original trilogy, while a weaker start would raise questions about how much appetite remains for stories set further back in the Hunger Games timeline.
The head-to-head dynamic with «Wicked» adds another layer to the weekend that industry observers are likely to track closely. Two high-profile releases competing for the same audience, with one reportedly holding the early advantage in advance sales, makes the coming frame a useful gauge of how the market is responding to big-budget studio fare. The Deadline report characterizes the presale momentum as a positive sign for Lionsgate, though it stops short of predicting a final ranking between the two films.
A separate Reddit post circulating alongside the reporting contained only a new poster link and no box office figures or sales details, so it adds nothing to the financial picture. For now, the most concrete information comes from the Deadline report, which points to a strong start for Lionsgate’s return to the franchise and a competitive race with one of the season’s other major titles. Further updates on presale totals and the final opening weekend will determine whether the early optimism holds.
Source: deadline.com
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