Lionsgate has officially greenlit another return trip to Panem, confirming that production begins this summer on The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. The film adapts Suzanne Collins’s newest prequel novel and drops audiences twenty-four years before Katniss Everdeen ever volunteered as tribute. By zeroing in on sixteen-year-old Haymitch Abernathy and the infamous Second Quarter Quell, the studio hopes to deliver both fresh spectacle and connective tissue that deepens our understanding of one of the saga’s most popular characters.
The casting roll-out is already grabbing attention. Australian newcomer Joseph Zada (Invisible Boys, Total Control) has secured the coveted lead, playing a younger, un-scarred Haymitch—long before cynicism and alcoholism became his armor. Opposite him is Whitney Peak (HBO Max’s Gossip Girl) as Lenore Dove Baird, the girlfriend whose faith in Haymitch offers fleeting hope amid Capitol cruelty. Mckenna Grace (Captain Marvel, Ghostbusters: Afterlife) appears as fellow District 12 tribute Maysilee Donner, while Academy Award–nominee Jesse Plemons inhabits an early-career Plutarch Heavensbee, foreshadowing the political gamesmanship that eventually pits him against President Snow.
The creative brain trust remains largely intact. Director Francis Lawrence, who guided four previous installments and turned the property into a $3 billion phenomenon, returns to the director’s chair. He’ll work from a script by Billy Ray, whose screenplay for the 2012 original blended YA intensity with grounded political allegory. Long-time franchise stewards Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson are again producing under the Color Force banner, ensuring tonal continuity even as the timeline rewinds.
Story-wise, Sunrise on the Reaping tackles one of the lore’s darkest chapters. The Second Quarter Quell doubles the number of tributes from each district, forcing Haymitch and Maysilee to navigate an arena twice as crowded and exponentially more lethal. The novel explores Capitol cruelty in visceral detail, from genetically engineered “mutt” predators to environmental traps that make the later 74th and 75th Games look almost restrained by comparison. Crucially, the film will dramatize Haymitch’s ingenious use of the arena’s force field—an act of defiance that etches his name into Capitol memory and shapes President Snow’s vindictive streak.
These harrowing events also explain Haymitch’s adult disillusionment, giving Woody Harrelson’s older portrayal retroactive weight. Lionsgate Motion Picture Group co-president Erin Westerman says audiences will finally see “the exact moment Panem broke him, and the relationships that nearly saved him.” Casting Zada and Peak was therefore essential; the studio reportedly auditioned hundreds worldwide before the duo emerged with “the right mix of vulnerability, intelligence, and fire.”
With on-location shoots planned for Poland’s crooked limestone ravines, British Columbia’s rain-soaked old-growth forests, and soundstage work in Atlanta, production aims to capture both the gritty realism and nightmarish pageantry that define Collins’s Quarter Quell. Veteran cinematographer Jo Willems returns, re-teaming with Lawrence to blend handheld tension with operatic wide shots, while composer James Newton Howard is expected to reprise his musical duties to weave haunting whistle motifs into new percussive war drums.
Commercial prospects look strong. Last year’s Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes turned a $100 million budget into $349 million worldwide, even without Jennifer Lawrence’s star power. By featuring the franchise’s most recognizable mentor and revisiting District 12’s coal-dust despair, Sunrise on the Reaping has a built-in hook for longtime fans. Marketing will emphasize Haymitch’s scrappy ingenuity, his doomed bond with Lenore, and a Quarter Quell twice the scale of anything previously seen on screen.
Lionsgate has staked out November 20, 2026 for the theatrical launch, timed to dominate Thanksgiving weekend and kick off holiday box-office legs. Industry watchers predict another global haul north of $500 million if reviews match audience nostalgia. Should the film succeed, it could pave the way for additional side stories—perhaps chronicling Finnick Odair’s Games or delving into President Snow’s stealthy rise before Songbirds & Snakes. For now, cameras roll this summer, and Panem prepares once more to reap its children for the Capitol’s blood-soaked pageant.