Paramount Picks Up 'Red Rising' with 'Hunger Games' Director Lawrence

Paramount has acquired the film rights to Pierce Brown's "Red Rising" series and attached "Hunger Games" director Francis Lawrence to the movie, The Hollywood Reporter first reported. Lawrence, who has directed every installment of the billion-dollar YA franchise, will helm an adaptation of the original 2014 novel.

The numbers behind the property are substantial. Six books are already published: "Red Rising," "Golden Son," "Morning Star," "Iron Gold," "Dark Age" and "Lightbringer." A seventh and final novel, "Red God," is on the way. That gives Paramount a potential multi-film universe from a single rights deal.

Justin Rhodes will write the script. Lawrence and Cameron MacConomy will produce for About.Blank, alongside Francesco Goedhuis. Brown, the series' author, will executive produce.

What is 'Red Rising' about?

The story unfolds in a colonized future where society is split into a color-coded caste system. The impoverished Reds work as slave labor in the mines of Mars. The super-strong Golds rule the solar system and wage war on each other.

The books follow Darrow of Lykos, a Red miner who suffers a great loss. He is thrust into a rebellion's revenge plot against the Golds. Darrow undergoes a brutal transformation to become a Gold himself and enrolls at a military school, where young adults are tested before joining the highest Gold ranks.

Why Lawrence is the studio's pick

Lawrence brings a track record no other director in the genre can match. He has directed every "Hunger Games" movie to date. His credits include the 2023 prequel "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" and next month's "Sunrise on the Reaping," based on the Suzanne Collins novel.

He also directed last year's Stephen King adaptation "The Long Walk." Adapting dense genre bestsellers into franchise films is, by his filmography, his specialty.

Who represents the team

Lawrence is repped by CAA, Gretchen Rush at Hansen Jacobson and ID. Brown is repped by CAA, Hannah Bowman at Liza Dawson Associates for publishing and Dave Feldman at Brecheen Feldman Breimer Silver & Thompson. Rhodes is repped by CAA, Adam Kolbrenner at Lit Entertainment and Eric Suddleson at Toczek Suddleson.

The takeaway: Paramount is betting that a proven YA franchise director plus a six-book series with a seventh on the way can replicate the "Hunger Games" model. Whether "Red Rising" becomes the next dystopian blockbuster now depends on casting, a start date and how the first film performs against that benchmark.

By Elena Vasquez