Name: The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping
Director: Francis Lawrence

Hollywood has spent years treating life after the multiplex as a streaming problem. Lionsgate is answering it with hardware. Its next Panem prequel, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, has been given a stereoscopic conversion in partnership with Meta, and once its run in cinemas ends it will play in that format on Meta’s new VR Glasses. It is the first time Mark Zuckerberg‘s company has teamed with a Hollywood studio to convert a film into three dimensions.

As Deadline first reported, the partnership covers both ends of the release. Meta is behind the stereoscopic version that reaches theaters, with the conversion completed alongside DNEG, the Oscar-winning visual effects and animation house, and that same version then migrates to the headset after the theatrical window. Lionsgate says more of its features will follow on the device, with titles and availability still to be announced.

The glasses are the pitch. Meta unveiled them at Meta Connect 2026, touting a 5K “Infinite Display”, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos spatial audio and Imax Enhanced support in a frame of roughly 100 grams. A franchise tentpole gives that spec sheet a showcase title instead of a demo reel. Francis Lawrence, who directed Catching Fire, both Mockingjay films and The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, returns behind the camera for the adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ novel, with Joseph Zada as a young Haymitch Abernathy opposite Ralph Fiennes as President Snow and Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket.

Deadline stresses that nothing about the collaboration involves AI, yet it still puts the most AI-forward studio in town in business with a company racing ahead in that space. Meta launched its personal AI agent, Meta Muse, in September, and over the summer drew backlash from Hollywood, CAA above all, over Meta Image AI, a feature that let users generate an AI photo of a person from their public Instagram handle. Lionsgate has been far less cautious than its rivals: it partnered with Runway two years ago on a custom model built to help its filmmakers augment their work, and in June took an equity stake in the AI company, with plans to mine its library for an AI-generated short-form series.

The logistics are tighter than the ambition. The prequel, tracking for a $60 million to $70 million North American opening, reaches theaters on November 20 as Lionsgate’s Thanksgiving play, while the VR Glasses, and with them the 3D home version, debut in spring 2027. The five previous Hunger Games films have grossed more than $3.3 billion worldwide.

Lionsgate has already pushed Panem off the screen, into a stage production in London and a theme-park attraction in Dubai. Its next venue weighs about 100 grams and sits on the viewer’s face.