"Oh, Lionsgate want a prequel series? Hmm what have I not stolen from the Battle Royale novel yet?"

You should give it a try! It's some goooood shit

If you haven't read Battle Royale, I highly recommend it! It's got great world-building and characters, and it's a real gut punch when they have to start killing each other after we learn about them as people.

A "Battle Royal" is a wrestling term for a Free-for-all fight. The Whole video game genre is named after Battle Royale the franchise (which was named specifically to differentiate from the wrestling term to begin with), which started with PUBG. The whole thing originated from BR, specifically.