The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping faces a unique challenge as it nears production on the movie adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ newest Hunger Games prequel novel. Set roughly 25 years before the events of the original trilogy and 40 years after Collins’ first prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Sunrise of the Reaping follows a 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy’s journey in Panem’s 50th annual Hunger Games. Portrayed by Woody Harrelson in the films, Haymitch serves as the mentor for District 12’s Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) during the 74th and 75th Hunger Games, and later supports the districts’ rebellion efforts in Mockingjay. In Sunrise on the Reaping, the Second Quarter Quell decrees that double the number of tributes — 48 instead of 24 — must compete in the Games. Haymitch contends with unimaginable horrors both inside and outside of the arena as he fights to make it back home to his loved ones. Francis Lawrence, who directed the latter four of the five Hunger Games movies, will return to helm Sunrise on the Reaping, which will hit theaters in 2026.
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Every book-to-movie adaptation comes with its challenges. In the case of The Hunger Games franchise, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ biggest obstacle was its source material’s length. The original trilogy — divided into four movies — toned down some of the violence to sustain a PG-13 rating. Like its predecessors, Sunrise on the Reaping exhibits an extreme level of brutality; however, its most significant challenge will be casting numerous younger and older versions of characters from the previous movies. 2012’s The Hunger Games, 2013’s Catching Fire, 2014’s Mockingjay – Part 1, 2015’s Mockingjay – Part 2, and 2023’s The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes feature tons of excellent supporting character portrayals, from Donald Sutherland’s President Coriolanus Snow to Elizabeth Banks’ Effie Trinket to Stanley Tucci’s Caesar Flickerman. To many readers’ surprise, Sunrise on the Reaping includes many of these important figures from the other books and movies, thus presenting a new casting challenge for the franchise.
[The following contains light spoilers for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.]
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping Must Cast 12 Younger Versions of Established Characters
Including Haymitch, 12 characters from other Hunger Games books and movies appear in Sunrise on the Reaping. Readers are introduced to a middle-aged President Snow in the prime of his power, while Plutarch Heavensbee, originally portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, works as a 20-something-year-old Capitol propagandist assigned to District 12. Effie, also in her 20s, unexpectedly takes the place of Haymitch’s stylist, and a younger Flickerman hosts the tributes’ interviews ahead of the Games, as he does in the original novels and films.
Sunrise on the Reaping also incorporates younger versions of Catching Fire‘s Wiress (Amanda Plummer) and Mags (Lynn Cohen) as the District 12 tributes’ mentors. Beetee takes on a pivotal role in Haymitch’s story, as the character, portrayed by Jeffrey Wright in the movies, has a son participating in Sunrise on the Reaping‘s Quarter Quell. Featuring in smaller roles, Haymitch’s friends Burdock and Asterid are revealed to be Katniss’s parents, portrayed by Phillip Troy Linger and Paula Malcomson in the films. Sunrise on the Reaping also brings older versions of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Covey members Tam Amber (Eike N.A. Onyambu) and Clerk Carmine (Konstantin Taffet), who live with Haymitch’s girlfriend Lenore Dove.
[RELATED: 10 Saddest Hunger Games Character Deaths]
On a slightly different note, Sunrise on the Reaping‘s epilogue makes casting matters even more intriguing. The short sequence takes place long after the events of Mockingjay and describes Haymitch living a peaceful future close to Katniss and Peeta. Sunrise on the Reaping‘s epilogue sets the stage for Harrelson, Hutcherson, and Lawrence’s returns if the movie adapts the book’s final scene, and fans should look forward to this exciting possibility.
The aforementioned characters’ returns in Sunrise on the Reaping provide a sense of interconnectivity between all of the franchise’s narratives, even if they don’t all feel necessary. Learning how Haymitch, Plutarch, Effie, and more all became who they are when audiences first meet them in the original Hunger Games trilogy makes for an engrossing read, and will likely please fans of the movies, as well.
The Hunger Games Film Franchise Hasn’t Faced Such a Challenge Before
As of now, casting information for Sunrise on the Reaping has been kept under wraps. The Hunger Games movie franchise has never had to cast numerous differently-aged versions of major established characters, posing a fascinating challenge for Sunrise on the Reaping. Making numerous casting decisions based on actors’ likeness in addition to their ability to deliver an accurate portrayal of the character according to the original actor’s performance will be a tall task. Casting younger versions of established characters is, of course, far from a unique endeavor in filmmaking, but in this case, there exists an unusually high number of overlapping characters in Sunrise on the Reaping and other Hunger Games works. Moreover, while the minor returnees won’t prove as tough to cast, the interpretations of Harrelson’s Haymitch, Banks’ Effie, Tucci’s Flickerman, and Sutherland’s Snow in particular will be difficult to replicate given that they’re outstanding and beloved by fans. If Sunrise on the Reaping can stick the landing with all of these castings, it will have pulled off a truly impressive feat.
Concerning President Snow, Sunrise on the Reaping will debut the franchise’s third version of the character, following Sutherland’s original role and Tom Blyth’s portrayal of Panem’s leader as an 18-year-old Hunger Games mentor to Rachel Zegler’s Lucy Gray Baird in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Still, given Snow’s older age and position as Panem’s president, Sunrise on the Reaping‘s rendition of the villain should appear much closer to Sutherland’s version from the initial set of films. Fans are already clamoring for Kiefer Sutherland to take over the role, as his age perfectly matches that of Snow in Sunrise on the Reaping. Similarly, Cooper Hoffman could represent a possible successor to his father in the role of Plutarch.
Back in December, director Francis Lawrence told ComicBook about the process of casting a young Haymitch and how it compares to finding an actor to portray Snow in The Ballad of Songbirds of Snakes a few years ago.
“It’s a search, and you have to dig down and figure out what are the elements that make Woody 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 and edge. There’s a mischievousness, right? So there’s all these aspects that make Woody so great, so appealing, so watchable, and such a great actor and so interesting,” he said. “And 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. When Tom Blyth played Donald Sutherland, he wasn’t doing an impersonation. We had to find somebody that was believable that you could be like, ‘Oh, okay, I see how this guy over 70 years could turn into Donald.’”
Evidently, casting younger versions of some of The Hunger Games‘ most prominent characters is a complicated undertaking, but the franchise’s past film installments have all succeeded in selecting talented performers who could seamlessly transform their characters from the pages to the screen. While in books, there is rarely a problem with inserting characters in various stories during different parts of their lives, movies encounter the burden of maintaining cohesion when multiple actors must take on the same role. It’s a tricky balance to pinpoint, as the Sunrise on the Reaping director describes, but this venture is one Hunger Games fans are eager to watch pan out. Even though Sunrise on the Reaping‘s casting challenge deviates from the other Hunger Games movies, there’s reason to feel optimistic that the upcoming prequel will deliver a faithful adaptation of Collins’ novel with plenty of impressive acting performances.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping opens in theaters on November 20, 2026.
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