Red Rising Is Finally Becoming a Movie, and the Hunger Games Director Is Making It

Paramount is making a Red Rising movie, and Francis Lawrence, the director behind most of the Hunger Games films, is attached to direct.

For fans of Pierce Brown's books, that sentence has been a long time coming.

What's confirmed

• Studio: Paramount

• Director: Francis Lawrence

• Screenplay: Justin Rhodes, who worked with Lawrence on the BioShock adaptation

• Producers: Lawrence and Cameron MacConomy for their company about:blank, with Francesco Goedhuis

• Pierce Brown: executive producer

• Source: the first book, Red Rising (2014)

No cast, no release date, no production start.

What is Red Rising?

It's set on a colonised Mars run by a strict colour-coded caste system. The Golds rule. The Reds work underground, mining, and are told they're preparing the planet for everyone else. Darrow, a young Red miner, discovers the lie, loses the person he loves, and is remade to pass as a Gold so he can destroy them from inside their own elite military school.

If that sounds like it was built for Hunger Games fans, that's exactly the point. The comparisons are obvious: a rigged class system, a deadly academy, a hero from the bottom of the pile. The Lawrence hire makes that connection explicit. He has spent more than a decade bringing Suzanne Collins' world to the screen; we looked at the franchise's next chapter in our piece on the Sunrise on the Reaping casting.

Why it took so long

Red Rising has been "about to be adapted" for years. Universal once developed a film, and a TV version was also in the works at one point. Neither got there. Meanwhile the series kept growing: six books so far, with a seventh and final one, Red God, on the way. Brown said in 2024 that the books had sold more than six million copies.

The caste-system question

For Indian readers, one thing in Red Rising is hard to miss: a society where the colour you're born into decides your work and your worth. Brown's caste system is invented, but the echo is obvious. How Paramount handles that, and whether it keeps the books' brutality, will decide whether this becomes a franchise or just another Hunger Games clone.

We'll update this with casting news when it comes.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a Red Rising movie?

Yes, one is in development. Paramount is adapting the first book, with Francis Lawrence attached to direct.

Who is writing the Red Rising movie?

Justin Rhodes is writing the screenplay. Author Pierce Brown is an executive producer.

When will the Red Rising movie release?

No release date or production schedule has been announced.

How many Red Rising books are there?

Six so far, with a seventh and final book, Red God, on the way.