'The Hunger Games' to be turned into London stage play

"The Hunger Games" is set to open at a London theatre next year in the first live stage adaptation of Suzanne Collins' novels and the hugely successful film franchise.

Irish playwright, screenwriter and director Conor McPherson has adapted for theatre the first book in Collins's young adult dystopian trilogy and the first film from The Hunger Games Lionsgate movie franchise, which starred Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence as heroine Katniss Everdeen.

Matthew Dunster, playwright, director and former associate director at Shakespeare's Globe theatre, will direct.

"To receive Suzanne Collins’ blessing to adapt The Hunger Games for the stage is both humbling and inspiring. She has created a classic story which continues to resonate now more than ever," McPherson said in a statement on Tuesday.

"In a world where the truth itself seems increasingly up for grabs, The Hunger Games beautifully expresses values of resilience, self-reliance and independent moral inquiry for younger people especially.

"This is turbocharged storytelling of the highest order and I’m hugely excited to bring it to a new generation of theatre-goers and to Suzanne Collins’ longstanding and devoted fans."

Collins said she was "very excited" to be collaborating with McPherson and Dunster "as they bring their dynamic and innovative interpretation of The Hunger Games to the London stage".

The Lionsgate "Hunger Games" movies, which brought to the big screen Collins' tale of the oppressed residents of Panem, forced to compete in an annual televised gladiatorial contest to the death while the wealthy watched on, grossed more than $2 billion at the global box office.

Prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, set 64 years before the first installment of Collins' trilogy and starring Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth and Viola Davis, is scheduled for release globally in mid-November.