Hot off the success of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Hollywood is adapting Suzanne Collins’s new prequel to the Hunger Games, Sunrise on the Reaping, into a major motion picture. And unlike Ballad, which only had a few characters who also appeared in the Katniss Everdeen saga, this story is full of familiar names with new faces.
For example, Katniss’s future mentor Haymitch Abernathy will not be played by Woody Harrelson but relative newcomer Joseph Zada. The rest of the cast, however, seems to have been dreamed up by the books’ biggest fans. Whoever cast Sunrise on the Reaping must have been looking at TikTok dream casts.
Ready to go back to Panem? Here’s everything we know about the movie so far (without book spoilers).
When does Sunrise on the Reaping come out?
The movie hits theaters November 20, 2026.
What is Sunrise on the Reaping about?
Sunrise on the Reaping is Haymitch Abernathy’s backstory. In the first Hunger Games book and movie, Haymitch is one of Katniss’s mentors, the only living Victor from her district. We find out that part of the reason Haymitch, an alcoholic, is so messed up is that the year he went into the arena was a Quarter Quell, which occur every 25 years, upping the stakes and leading to devastating plot twists.
In Haymitch’s year, the Games demanded not two but four tributes from each district, which meant he had to watch twice as many people die. So imagine the regular Hunger Games trauma, but double it! (And no, it’s not a spoiler that he survives the games, given he’s literally alive in The Hunger Games.)
When does Sunrise on the Reaping take place?
It’s set during the Second Quarter Quell, a.k.a. the 50th Hunger Games, and 24 years before the events of the first Hunger Games book.
Who is in the cast?
Per People, Joseph Zada will star as Haymitch Abernathy, played by Woody Harrelson in the original Hunger Games movies. Meanwhile, Whitney Peak (Gossip Girl) will play his girlfriend, Lenore Dove Baird.
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