Lionsgate revealed the first footage from director Francis Lawrence’s The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, offering glimpses of new faces portraying iconic characters from novelist Suzanne Collins’ dystopian world. Those faces include Elle Fanning as a young Effie Trinket, Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman, and Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee. The ensemble is large and filled with excellent performers, including Ralph Fiennes as President Coriolanus Snow, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Beetee Latier, Lili Taylor as Mags Flanagan, Joseph Zada as Haymitch Abernathy, Glenn Close as Dursilla Sickle, Billy Porter as Magno Stift, Ben Wang as Wyatt Callow, Iris Apatow as Prosperina Trinket, and Maya Hawke as Wiress.
Lawrence directs from a script by Billy Ray, with Sunrise on the Reaping set to be the sixth film in a franchise that began back in 2012 with the Jennifer Lawrence-led The Hunger Games.
Collins’ book “Sunrise on the Reaping” is once again set in Panem and begins on the morning of the reaping for the 50th Hunger Games, 24 years before the events in her 2008 debut novel “The Hunger Games.” The first four films in the franchise were led by Lawrence as Katniss, Josh Hutcherson as Peeta, and Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne. Woody Harrelson played Haymitch Abernathy, Donald Sutherland was Coriolanus Snow, Elizabeth Banks was Effie Trinket, and Stanley Tucci was Caesar Flickerman.
Perhaps the biggest news surrounding the film is that Lawrence and Hutcherson are reprising their roles. This marks the first time they’ve appeared in a Hunger Games film in over a decade—their last trip to Panem was in 2015’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2. That ended with the two survivors married with children, a rare happy ending in Panem.
The Hollywood Reporter reported late last year that Lawrence and Hutcherson will reprise their roles in the new movie. Their most recent entry in the franchise was 2015’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2, which ended with the pair married with children.
Check out the footage below. The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping arrives in theaters on November 20, 2026.
Featured image: Whitney Peak and Joseph Zada in “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.” Photo Credit: Murray Close