The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is an upcoming return to Panem scheduled for November 19, 2026. Its story begins on the morning of the reaping for the 50th Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell, and takes place 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games. The film adapts Suzanne Collins’s 2025 novel Sunrise on the Reaping and follows the period in which Haymitch Abernathy is selected as a District 12 tribute.

The Second Quarter Quell imposes a special rule requiring twice the usual number of tributes, creating a field of 48 competitors rather than the standard 24. Haymitch’s Games therefore become the central event of a Quarter Quell long before he becomes the cynical mentor seen alongside Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark in the original Hunger Games story.

Joseph Zada has been cast as the young Haymitch. Whitney Peak plays Lenore Dove Baird, while McKenna Grace plays Maysilee Donner, another District 12 tribute. Ben Wang appears as Wyatt Callow and Molly McCann as Louella McCoy, completing the announced District 12 tribute group connected to the 50th Games.

The announced cast also includes Jesse Plemons as a younger Plutarch Heavensbee, Ralph Fiennes as President Coriolanus Snow, Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman, and Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket. Maya Hawke plays Wiress, Kelvin Harrison Jr. plays Beetee, and Lili Taylor plays Mags—characters whose later lives are known from the earlier Hunger Games films and books.

Francis Lawrence is set to direct Sunrise on the Reaping. Lawrence previously directed The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, both Mockingjay films, and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Billy Ray wrote the screenplay, with Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson producing through Color Force.