Francis Lawrence is sending the new Hunger Games movie into theaters in 3D, then into Meta VR Glasses after the cinema run. Lionsgate and Meta are pairing The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping with DNEG on the conversion, and the move gives the franchise a second viewing path built around the same release.
November 20 and spring 2027
The film opens in theaters November 20, with Meta VR Glasses availability set for spring 2027. The gap matters operationally: cinemas get the first window, while the headset version turns the same title into a later-format release rather than a day-and-date experiment.
That schedule also puts a number on the studio’s confidence. Sunrise on the Reaping is expected to mint $60 million-$70 million in its North American opening, and The Hunger Games movies through five features have grossed more than $3.3 billion worldwide. Lionsgate is not treating this as a one-off title so much as another way to keep a proven IP moving across formats.
DNEG and the 3D conversion
DNEG handled the 3D conversion, which makes the theatrical version the key production step before the Meta VR Glasses rollout. Francis Lawrence’s prequel is the film carrying that work, so the 3D presentation is tied to one specific release rather than a broader franchise-wide remaster.
Meta unveiled the Meta VR Glasses at Meta Connect 2026, and each pair weighs about 100 grams. That makes the spring 2027 release less about a gimmick and more about whether a major studio title can hold attention in a lightweight headset format after its theatrical life ends.
Meta and Lionsgate
The collaboration is not AI related, which separates it from the recent noise around Meta Image AI and Lionsgate’s activity with Runway. That distinction matters because the companies are using a traditional studio-to-platform deal here: a movie conversion, a theatrical run, and a later VR window, not an AI-generated short-form play.
The open question is whether Lionsgate and Meta extend this beyond The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. If they do, the next test will be whether other Lionsgate feature titles can move into Meta VR Glasses with the same 3D-to-VR structure, or whether this stays a single-title experiment built around Francis Lawrence’s film.
