The Complete Guide to ‘Sunrise on the Reaping,’ The Newest Movie in ‘The Hunger Games’ Series

There is a unique situation surrounding the announcement of the film adaptation for Suzanne Collins’s upcoming book, Sunrise on the Reaping, a prequel to her popular Hunger Games series.

This new book serves as the second prequel in Collins’s series, following the release of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in 2020. Following the publication of the latter, plans for a film adaptation were set in motion. The movie premiered in 2023, featuring Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler, and surprisingly became a box office success, grossing nearly $350 million globally.

The Sunrise on the Reaping book came out on March 18, 2025, but what can we expect about the film adaptation?

Given its nature as an adaptation, we can anticipate that the film will mirror the book to a considerable extent. The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping is positioned 24 years before the original Hunger Games plotline, focusing on a youthful Haymitch Abernathy, the mentor of Katniss Everdeen, as he participates in the 50th Hunger Games, also dubbed the Second Quarter Quell. The narrative will also delve into Haymitch’s bond with a character named Lenore Dove.

In a press release, Collins said that the book “was inspired by David Hume’s idea of implicit submission and, in his words, ‘the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.’ The story also lent itself to a deeper dive into the use of propaganda and the power of those who control the narrative. The question ‘Real or not real?’ seems more pressing to me every day.”

Good news! We do have a release date for the film, as it is currently set to release on November 20th, 2026.

Francis Lawrence, who has directed the last four films in the Hunger Games franchise, will return to direct this movie. Nina Jacobson will also return to produce the film.

Lawrence said in an interview last month that he wants to shoot the film later this year.

As of now, no official casting has been confirmed for Sunrise on the Reaping. Woody Harrelson played the character in the original movies.

When asked about casting a young Haymitch, Lawrence said “It’s a search and you have to dig down and figure out what are the elements that make Woody Harrelson so interesting, right? And some of it is humor. Some of it is intelligence. Some of it is quirk. Some of it is, there’s a darkness in him that gives him an edge. We’re going to have to find somebody that has all of that. It’s not somebody that just looks like him, or is going to study Woody Harrelson and just act like him,”

Troy Juhn is a 21 year old journalist originally from Minneapolis but currently residing in NYC. He can be found @JuhnTroy on X probably ranting about Minnesota sports.