Francis Lawrence might not be a director whose name you know offhand, but you’ve definitely seen his work. Not only has Lawrence helmed projects like “I Am Legend” and “Water for Elephants,” but aside from the first film in the Hunger Games franchise, which was directed by Gary Ross, Lawrence has directed every single film in the franchise, including the first prequel “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” and the forthcoming Haymitch Abernathy origin story “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.” (That character was originated by Woody Harrelson in the Hunger Games trilogy, and is played by Joseph Zada in the prequel.) I recently got the chance to speak to Lawrence about his recent string of dystopian movies focused on teenagers living under fascism, and he talked about his work in the Hunger Games universe, his excellent 2025 Stephen King adaptation “The Long Walk,” and the fact that he’s set to adapt Pierce Brown’s novel series “Red Rising” into a movie.
Lawrence was thoughtful and careful while expressing that “Red Rising” does differ from the other two properties in one important way: the protagonist, Darrow, must penetrate a higher class to discover the truth. As he told me:
“Red Rising, on the other hand, even though there’s similar elements (to Hunger Games and ‘The Long Walk’), to me, is an amazing infiltration story. So I think that brings its own set of parameters and moral choice dilemmas when you are sneaking into a society that you’re not supposed to be a part of, and what happens when you start to like the enemy and you’re not supposed to like the enemy and the choices that you make. So again, they have similar things, but for me, they’re completely different stories.”
Francis Lawrence sees the similarities between his projects, but also the vital differences
As Francis Lawrence told me while we discussed the Hunger Games film franchise, “The Long Walk,” and a future potential Red Rising franchise, even though he can see the similarities — “in competition, youth, high stakes, obviously all those kinds of things” — he sees the stories “completely differently.” “The Long Walk,” as Lawrence tells it, is about the relationship between Ray and Pete, the characters played by Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson. Lawrence continued:
“I fell in love with the relationship between (Ray and Pete) and the rest of the boys and how they became like a brotherhood and fell in love with one another in a way where you’d expect there to be more competition. And so I found a real beauty in the relationships. So for me, it’s less about the games and more about the relationships and what that means and what the long walk means in terms of a metaphor for existence.”
So what about the world of the Hunger Games, where teenagers are forced into an arena every single year so they can fight to the death until one victor emerges, all for the amusement of the all-powerful Capitol of the dystopian state of Panem? Lawrence is spot-on once again. “And Hunger Games are very different in that they tend to be, book to book, about very different kinds of themes,” he told me. “(‘Sunrise on the Reaping’) is about implicit submission and this idea of not being apathetic and finding your voice and standing up and fighting for what you believe in, even if it’s at great cost. So that’s very specific.”
Francis Lawrence is attracted to stories that require films with intense world-building
When I initially asked Francis Lawrence about the narrative overlaps between many of his recent projects, I also asked if he’s comfortable with a large section of his career being tied to fascism, dystopias, and the oppression of young people. Not only did Lawrence say that he was, but he also revealed something fascinating about his preferences as a filmmaker:
“I am. And what’s weird is that I think the dystopian aspect of these worlds, a lot of it, for me, is about the world-building. I like the visual aspect of filmmaking, so world-building is a very, very important part of what I love to do. And so if somebody were to hand me a contemporary heist movie, I wouldn’t do it. I just have no interest in just going out in the streets and shooting some kind of — I just feel like there’s not enough for me to do. So I’d say that’s part of it.”
This is reminiscent of the innovative horror director Robert Eggers telling Rotten Tomatoes in 2025 that “the idea of having to photograph a car makes me ill, and the idea of photographing a cellphone is just death,” putting Lawrence in excellent company here. Throughout his work on projects like the Hunger Games films and “The Long Walk,” Lawrence has handily proven his skill for telling a specific type of story, but his attention to world-building also shouldn’t be overlooked … and it’s great to hear that he hopes to tell stories like this for a very long time.
“The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping” hits theaters on November 20, 2026.
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