Sunrise on the Reaping teaser brings us a Second Quarter Quell

The Hunger Games franchise, based on the bestselling novels by Susan Collins, has grossed over $3.4 billion at the global box office across five films and shows no sign of slowing down any time soon. Lionsgate just dropped an extended teaser for the sixth film, Sunrise on the Reaping—a sequel to 2023’s Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and a prequel leading into the events of the first film, The Hunger Games (2012).

(Some spoilers for prior films in the franchise below.)

Confession: While I was a fan of the first two films, my interest in the Hunger Games franchise flagged a bit after that. It didn’t help that the first prequel, Ballad, was the weakest film in the franchise, although it still raked in $349 million globally at the box office. That film told the backstory of future Panem President Coriolanus Snow (played by the late Donald Sutherland in the first four films) as a young man (Tom Blyth). Set in the earliest days of the Games, we see his gradual transformation from well-meaning mentor to a tribute named Lucy Gray (Rachel Zegler), to conniving villain willing to do pretty much anything for power.

But my hopes have been much higher for Sunrise on the Reaping; the novel, published last year, was a return to top form and sold 1.5 million copies the first week alone, dwarfing sales of Collins’ prior novels in the series. This time, the main protagonist is a young Haymitch Abernathy, future District 12 mentor to Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson). Woody Harrelson’s older Haymitch is a fan favorite, and who wouldn’t want to hear the story of how he became his jaded, drunkenly cynical (yet secretly hopeful) self?

Joseph Zada stars as young Haymitch, who is selected as one of the tributes for the 50th Hunger Games, aka the Second Quarter Quell. Each district is required to send twice as many tributes to the Capitol to compete to the death. Haymitch’s fellow District 12 tributes are Maysilee (Mckenna Grace), Wyatt (Ben Wang), and Louella (Molly McCann). If you’ve read all the books and seen the films, you already know Haymitch wins his Games; the suspense (and the emotional stakes) lies in how he pulls it off—and what he loses in the process.

The cast also includes Jesse Plemons as a young cameraman named Plutarch; Ralph Fiennes as a middle-aged President Snow; Glenn Close as District 12 chaperone Drusilla Sickle; Kieran Culkin as a young Caesar Flickerman, host of the Games; Elle Fanning as the young Effie Trinket, a stylist; Billy Porter as another stylist, Magno Stift; Maya Hawke as a young Wiress, winner of the prior year’s Games; Lili Taylor as the young Mags Flanagan, winner of the 11th Games; Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Beetee Latier, another prior winner and father to District 3 tribute Ampert (Percy Daggs IV); and Whitney Peak as Haymitch’s girlfriend, Lenore Dove Baird.

We’ll also meet Asterid March (Grace Ackary), BFF to Maysilee and future mother to Katniss, as well as Burdock Everdeen (Scot Greenan), future father to Katniss. Lawrence and Hutcherson will reprise their respective roles in the film as Katniss and Peeta, most likely in a flash-forward cameo to set up the segue into the original film.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping opens in theaters on November 20, 2026.