The first trailer for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping has arrived, offering the biggest and best look at the prequel. Based on Suzanne Collins’ novel of the same name, Sunrise on the Reaping tells the story of the 50th Hunger Games, in which Katniss Everdeen’s District 12 mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, competed. In terms of timeline, this is 40 years after The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and 24 years before The Hunger Games.
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The first footage naturally puts the focus on Joseph Zada as Haymitch, moving from the reaping of District 12, where he’s selected to take part in the games, through to the 2nd Quarter Quell itself. Check out the Sunrise on the Reaping trailer below!
In addition to Haymitch in the Hunger Games, the trailer offers a glimpse at his rival tributes, as well as several key franchise characters now portrayed by new actors, including Ralph Fiennes as Coriolanus Snow, Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee, and Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping Trailer Is A Great Sign For The Movie
The trailer begins with Glenn Close as the villainous Drusilla Sickle, the tribute escort for District 12, who cruelly delights in their suffering, beginning the reaping. As this is the 2nd Quarter Quell, each district needs to produce double the number of tributes compared to a normal year: two males and two females. In this story, these are Haymitch, Maysilee Donner (the original owner of the Mockingjay pin, and played here by McKenna Grace), Wyatt Callow (Ben Wang), and Louella McCoy (Molly McCann).
From there, we launch into the games themselves, which have a unique arena: it looks beautiful, with huge mountains, lush green valleys, and perfectly blue lakes, but is, of course, as deadly as ever. The action from the games is interspersed with scenes from around the Capitol and wider Panem, such as with Snow and Effie, as well as seeing Plutarch (who at this point is a cameraman assigned to District 12). We also see Haymitch with his girlfriend, Lenore Dove Baird (Whitney Peak), who is a distant cousin of Katniss, and likely related to both Maude Ivory and Lucy Gray from The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Overall, the trailer does a great job of giving us our first look at the story, without revealing too much. There are plenty of familiar characters for longtime Hunger Games fans to be excited about, and it really shows off just how perfectly cast this movie is. There’s still one year before it hits theaters, so dropping the first teaser now is a real show of faith from Lionsgate.
While The Ballard of Songbirds and Snakes performed below expectations at the box office, there’s definitely more of a classic Hunger Games feel to this – helped massively by those returning characters – that should help it become a bigger success. That’s also aided by the fact that not only is movie directed by Francis Lawrence, who has helmed every film in the franchise since Catching Fire, but written by Billy Ray, who co-wrote the screenplay for the very first movie.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping will be released on November 20, 2026.
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