Editor's Note: The Hunger Games is coming back! Scholastic officially announced that Suzanne Collins will pen a prequel to her best-selling trilogy, set 64 years before the start of The Hunger Games trilogy, during the 10th annual Hunger Games. “With this book, I wanted to explore the state of nature, who we are, and what we perceive is required for our survival," Collins said in a statement. "The reconstruction period ten years after the war, commonly referred to as the Dark Days—as the country of Panem struggles back to its feet—provides fertile ground for characters to grapple with these questions and thereby define their views of humanity.”

With that in mind, we're bumping our list of Hunger Games prequels we actually want to see, first published after the theatrical release of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - Part 2.

The Hunger Games is dead, long live The Hunger Games. The film adaptation of Suzanne CollinsThe Hunger Games trilogy has finally come to a close. From a fan point of view, that means saying goodbye to a cast of characters you’ve come to love and the entire fictional world that they live in. From a studio point of view, that means saying goodbye to a guaranteed once-a-year box office hit. Naturally, that means Lionsgate isn’t too keen to let the franchise go, and studio Vice Chairman Michael Burns made as much clear when he said they believe the franchise “will live on and on” through prequel films that will return to the arenas.

While that sounds like a somewhat shady idea for continuing a franchise that explicitly condemns violence against children for entertainment, it doesn’t have to be. Part of what made The Hunger Games such a success was the detailed dystopian culture of Panem, the compelling (if somewhat vague) history behind it, and the wealth of micro-stories told through the characters that inhabit it. Any one of which, if done correctly, could be filled out into an entertaining film of their own that doesn’t diminish the integrity of the series as it stands. While Lionsgate has yet to share any details about where they’d take the franchise aside from the fact that they’d like to return to the arenas, we’ve got some ideas we think could work. Warning: Here be spoilers; book spoilers, movie spoilers, all the spoilers.

The First Quarter Quell

Every 25 years, the Capitol hosts a special edition of the Hunger Games, a Quarter Quell. Each Quarter Quell a new rule is added to the game, making it even more of a spectacle. For the 75th Hunger Games, tributes were reaped from the pool of victors and for the 50th Games, four tributes, not two, were chosen from each district. They’re both pretty sick, twisted ideas, but the worst spin on the Games of all was for the first Quarter Quell. That year the citizens were forced to vote on who to send into the Hunger Games. It’s one thing to pick names out of a bowl, but could you imagine having to choose who to sacrifice? Perhaps that wasn’t much of a problem in districts with career tributes, but for the rest, it’s essentially the worst kind of popularity contest. -Perri Nemiroff 

Haymitch and the Second Quarter Quell

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This is probably the most talked about and desired Hunger Games prequel, and for good reason. Haymitch Abernathy is a strong, lovable character, and while the movies breeze by it a bit, he’s got a fascinating backstory that would make rich material for a spinoff film. Until Katniss and Peeta came along, Haymitch was the first and only victor from District 12 — a district whose meager means and mining culture made for weak tributes without applicable skills (unlike the fishing district four, where they at least learned to swim, or lumber in 8, where they learned to wield an ax). Not only was Haymitch an unlikely victor because of his background, but because he was reaped in the 50th Annual Hunger Games, aka The Second Quarter Quell, which saw double the amount of tributes in the arena. As an added cinematic bonus, the arena for the 50th Hunger Games is described as “the most breathtaking place imaginable”: a sunlit meadow where every beautiful flower and glistening dew drop was a poisonous death trap in disguise. It would be a stunning setting for a film, filled with opportunity for set-pieces and surprises.

So there’s Haymitch, in the center of the most deceptively beautiful setting of all time, and instead of defeating 23 other kids, he had to outlast 47 of them, and his eventual victory came with a surprising twist. See, Haymitch is usually the smartest guy in the room, which means he was able to turn a technical glitch in the forcefield against his competitors. He won the games, but the Capitol saw his cleverness as an act of rebellion and murdered his family and girlfriend as punishment. And thus, young Haymitch; orphaned, terrified, and forced to become a killer, devolved into the booze-soaked curmudgeon we met at the beginning of The Hunger Games. Of course, by the end of the franchise, we know there’s a whole lot more to Haymitch than meets the eye, and a prequel film would be the opportunity to give the beloved character his moment in the spotlight. -Haleigh Foutch

Dark Days/The Destruction of District 13

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If there’s one thing that looms over the current run of The Hunger Games stories – and there are quite a few things looming, to be fair – the first one that comes to mind should be the disastrous result of the previous rebellion against the Capitol. Known as the “Dark Days”, the collapse of this rebellion supposedly led to the obliteration of District 13 and doomed the other Districts to more than 70 years trapped under the Capitol’s thumb.

What actually happened was this: District 13, which housed one of the Capitol’s nuclear arsenals, used this to their advantage to bring about a cease-fire deal for their District only, abandoning the other Districts to their failed rebellion. Cut off from the rest of Panem’s resources, the leaders thought that District 13 would crumble and die, but they survived underground long enough to help the Second Rebellion gain freedom. If it’s action they’re looking for, the prequels would do quite well to revisit this first rebellion, the staged destruction of District 13, and their subterranean lives in the years that followed. -Dave Trumbore

The Rise of President Snow

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Based on what we’ve seen in the four Hunger Games films, President Coriolanus Snow is the ruthless dictator ruling over Panem, but how’d he get the position in the first place? Was he elected or did he use violence and manipulation to claim the title? Snow was just a kid when the government started the Hunger Games, so did growing up watching the Games have something to do with his transformation into such a heartless, power-hungry leader? There’s also Snow’s granddaughter. She was only mentioned in the books but she gets screen time in some of the films. Who’s her mother and what happened to her? And, better yet, what happened to Snow’s wife? Perhaps the loss of his own family made him want to see the district residents lose theirs. -Perri Nemiroff

Finnick Odair, The Capitol's Captive Victor

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Finnick Odair, initially introduced as sleazy, scrupulous victor relishing in the fame and opulence of a victor’s life, turned out to be one of the heroes of the Second Rebellion and one of the series’ most beloved characters, full stop. Everything Finnick presented himself as during his years “luxuriating” in the capitol was a facade, a ruse to conceal the deeply nasty truth behind it all.

As one of the youngest, most telegenic, and charming tributes in the history of the Hunger Games, Finnick was showered with gifts and supplies in the arena, including trident that won him the games. As a victor, Finnick became a revered heartthrob and the apple of the Capitol’s eye. But beneath the glitzy exterior, Finnick was forced into prostituting for the upper echelons of Panem’s elite. A top rate strategist, Finnick traded in secrets instead of money, gaining a wealth of information from Capitol insiders that he later put to good use in the rebellion’s propaganda war. Here’s the thing. Sex slavery is some dark shit. But so is child-on-child murder for entertainment, so it’s not without the boundaries of The Hunger Games purview. And as we know from dark genre material like Jessica Jones, when the mater of sexual abuse is handled thoughtfully and tastefully, there’s room for incredibly powerful storytelling. As a protagonist, Finnick’s got more than a little in common with Katniss given his specialized fighting ability, strategic prowess, and ultimate survivor mentality, making him and ideal choice to lead another film if not a few more films. On that note… -Haleigh Foutch

Finnick and Annie

Finnick and Annie have been through quite a bit together, and their story might actually be worthy of more than one film. Suzanne Collins never explicitly broke down the details of their relationship but here’s what we do know; first, Finnick won the 65th Hunger Games and then Annie was reaped for the 70th. Finnick served as her mentor and Annie managed to win the Games by taking the "run and hide until everyone else is dead" approach. After that, she was left with a serious case of PTSD and Finnick did what he could to help her through it. See? They’ve been through a lot, and what makes their romance especially interesting is, one, it was forged during such a malicious event and, two, they had a far different experience than Peeta and Katniss. -Perri Nemiroff

Plutarch's Backstory

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For what it’s worth, something doesn’t feel quite right about developing prequels that bring us back into the arena after everything Katniss just went through to spare future generations from the Games, but hey, it’s entertainment and has a shot at keeping the cash cow running, right? (Spoken like a true Capitol citizen right there!) However, there are ways to make prequels without them being all about arena bloodshed. Even though we first met Plutarch Heavensbee in Catching Fire when he replaced deceased Head Gamemaker Seneca Crane, there’s no way his efforts to take down Snow and his regime started then and there. It’d be interesting to see where he began his political career in the Capitol and perhaps what turned him. This scenario could also provide the opportunity to reveal how Plutarch first connected with Alma Coin. -Perri Nemiroff

Legendary Victors' Backstory

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Once a citizen of Panem survives the devastating emotional and physical torment of the Hunger Games, they don’t exactly get to retire to a life of luxury. The lucky ones are used as pawns of the Capitol, rolled out for speaking engagements or tasked with training new Tributes; but many succumb to addictions, desperation, and crushing guilt. If that wasn’t bad enough, the surviving victors were then reaped once again for the 75th Annual Hunger Games - a game to end all games – only to be hunted down and executed in the resulting Victors’ Purge.

But what were the Victors like before victory in the games set them on their path? Who was Haymitch Abernathy before he became a drunken mess? How did Beetee Latier and Wiress grow so close? What has Mags seen over her many years? For that matter, how did Cinna rise to his impressive position without the aid of being a Victor? There’s a lot of backstory to mine here, so hopefully, the prequels will give fans a sense of how these characters grew to become legends. -Dave Trumbore

The First Hunger Games

If Lionsgate is looking to go deep and dark (and they probably should if they want to head back into the arena), the first ever Hunger Games would be an ideal pick. Part of the franchise’s entire hook is that the whole concept is so egregious and inconceivable. A society in which the government demands annual child death matches is so far out of our perceived realm of reality that we can watch it as fictional entertainment. The in-world Hunger Games as we know them are the result of 75 years of downtrodden acceptance of the unthinkable. Imagine being in the society where such a thing was still incomprehensible and then watching it unfold before your eyes for the very first time. What would it take for the Capitol to enforce such a law? What might have happened in the streets? Fresh off the rebellion and the dark days, there’s no way it could have gone down easily. What would the wrenching, probably soul-shaking experience of watching it happen for the first time be like?

It’s also fascinating to think about how the state of technology would have shaped the arena and the game-making. Because the history of Panem is shrouded in mystery, we don’t know how far in the future the Hunger Games take place. Would their technology have been more like ours? Even if they had advanced, think about how different our technological landscape is today from 1940. 75 years is a huge time to advance. Would they have had mutations yet, or would they have simply sent trained dogs on the tributes? It’s not hard to imagine that the whole affair would have a more rudimentary, primal edge to it. And what would it be like to be in the arena for the first time with no precedent? How would you bring yourself to kill or be killed in a culture where none had gone before you? Or perhaps even more alarmingly, would it simply have been the same? -Haleigh Foutch