Lionsgate has released a teaser trailer for the highly anticipated The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which revisits the world of Panem.
The teaser, coming one year before the prequel’s release on Nov. 20, 2026, has Joseph Zada playing young Haymitch Abernathy on the morning of the reaping of the 50th Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell.
The first footage (below) has Zada’s character showing his fight game as he competes in the Hunger Games a generation before Woody Harrelson played Abernathy in the original franchise movies. “I think these games are gonna be different,” young Abernathy says at one point.
The trailer also follows Lionsgate launching a stage adaptation of The Hunger Games in London to extend a successful film franchise that has grossed over $3.4 billion at the global box office.
Francis Lawrence is directing a screenplay adaptation by Billy Ray for Sunrise on the Reaping. The star-studded cast includes Ralph Fiennes as the ruthless Panem dictator, Glenn Close, Kieran Culkin, Elle Fanning, Billy Porter, Whitney Peak, Mckenna Grace, Jesse Plemons, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Maya Hawke, Lili Taylor and Ben Wang, adapting Suzanne Collins‘ best-selling novel.
The book Sunrise on the Reaping returns readers to Panem on the morning of the reaping for the 50th Hunger Games, before the events of the franchise’s first book The Hunger Games, initially published in 2008. The franchise’s first five movies were led by Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen.
Color Force’s Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson are producing, with Cameron MacConomy executive producing.
