“The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping” unleashes a new trailer as the 50th Hunger Games draw closer

Panem is calling audiences back into the arena.

Lionsgate has released a new trailer for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, offering another look at one of the most anticipated franchise releases of 2026. The prequel takes audiences 24 years before Katniss Everdeen’s story and into the 50th Hunger Games — the infamous Second Quarter Quell that changed Haymitch Abernathy forever. The film arrives in theaters and IMAX on November 20.

This time, however, the Games are even more brutal. The Second Quarter Quell doubles the usual number of tributes, sending 48 children into the arena instead of 24. At the center is a young Haymitch, played by Joseph Zada, decades before he becomes the cynical District 12 mentor audiences first met through Woody Harrelson in the original films.

A deeper look at Haymitch's Games

The latest footage continues expanding the scale of the Second Quarter Quell while placing greater emphasis on the people Haymitch will lose along the way.

Mckenna Grace stars as fellow District 12 tribute Maysilee Donner, while Whitney Peak plays Lenore Dove Baird, Haymitch's girlfriend and one of the emotional anchors of his life before the Games. The story is based on Suzanne Collins' 2025 novel Sunrise on the Reaping, which explores not only what happened inside the arena, but the Capitol's manipulation of information and the machinery used to turn violence into entertainment.

For longtime fans, that makes Haymitch's story particularly significant. Audiences already know the man he eventually becomes. Sunrise on the Reaping instead asks them to watch the experiences that shaped him.

A massive cast brings a younger Panem to life

The prequel has assembled one of the franchise's largest casts.

Alongside Zada, Grace and Peak, Ralph Fiennes takes over the role of President Coriolanus Snow, with Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee and Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket. Kieran Culkin portrays Caesar Flickerman, Kelvin Harrison Jr. plays Beetee Latier, Maya Hawke appears as Wiress and Lili Taylor takes on the role of Mags Flanagan. Glenn Close and Billy Porter also join the ensemble as Drusilla Sickle and Magno Stift.

The movie will also reconnect Sunrise on the Reaping with the original Hunger Games era. Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson are set to appear as Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, marking their first return to those roles since Mockingjay – Part 2 in 2015.

Francis Lawrence returns to Panem

Francis Lawrence once again directs after previously helming Catching Fire, both Mockingjay films and The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Billy Ray, who co-wrote the screenplay for the original 2012 Hunger Games film, returns as a screenwriter for the adaptation.

That continuity arrives at an important point for the franchise. Sunrise on the Reaping is not simply another origin story; it revisits characters and institutions audiences already understand while revealing how an earlier generation experienced the Capitol's control.

Recent marketing has leaned heavily into that idea. Capitol-style propaganda posters have appeared in cities including New York, Los Angeles, London and Mexico City, blurring the line between traditional movie advertising and the propaganda audiences would encounter inside Panem itself.

The countdown to November begins

With just over two months remaining until release, Sunrise on the Reaping is entering the final stretch of its campaign.

The film has a theatrical runtime listed at approximately two hours and 30 minutes, giving Francis Lawrence considerable room to adapt Collins' story and the enormous scale of the 50th Games.

More importantly, Sunrise on the Reaping returns to one of the darkest ideas at the heart of The Hunger Games: that the arena is only one part of the Capitol's system. What happens to Haymitch — and how Panem is told to remember it — could make this prequel feel considerably different from simply watching another Games unfold.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping arrives in theaters and IMAX on November 20, 2026.