Soundtrack to ‘Hunger Games,’ Featuring The Decemberists and Neko Case to Likely Debut at No. 1

The 'Hunger Games' is about to conquer its third medium. In addition to being a best-selling series of science fiction books, the film adaptation is set to open Friday, March 23 and will undoubtedly be a blockbuster. Today Billboard announced that the soundtrack, 'The Hunger Games: Songs from District 12 and Beyond,' released on March 20, will probably debut at No. 1 atop the Billboard 200.

Billboard's projections indicate a first-week sales total between 150,000 and 170,000 copies, which should easily qualify for the top spot. The soundtrack features a diverse array of artists, including Arcade Fire, Neko Case and the Decemberists. Glen Hansard, the Low Anthem and the Civil Wars are other indie acts whose work will get greater exposure through the album's success.

If the T-Bone Burnett-produced soundtrack, which Billboard describes as "a folk-leaning study of a child struggling to overcome her unfair circumstances," tops the charts as expected, it will be the first one to do so since 'Michael Jackson's This Is It' entered at No. 1 for the week of Nov. 14, 2009.

This news makes three consecutive weeks that an album debuted at No. 1. This week, U.K. boy band One Direction bowed at the top with their debut, 'Up All Night.' Before that, Bruce Springsteen broke Adele's hold on the charts with his new album, "Wrecking Ball.'