Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping Just Dropped New Movie Details, And I'm So Excited About The Franchise's 'Return To Form'

We're at the Lionsgate Panel at CinemaCon Las Vegas, and we just got a first look at the new Hunger Games movie, Sunrise on the Reaping. During the event, director Francis Lawrence, who has also directed every movie out of the franchise (except for the first one) shared with the audience what's going on with one of the most exciting upcoming book adaptations.

Suzanne Collins' Sunrise On The Reaping novel has only been out in the world for (exactly) two weeks, but since the movie and book were announced at the same time over summer, the production has a head start. Take a look at the official animated logo for the 2026 release:

Along with this awesome reveal of the novel's logo come to life, Francis Lawrence also got excited by sharing how the movie is more inspired by the original trilogy. While he loved working on the last prequel Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, he called this upcoming movie a "return to form," especially because it's "much later in the timeline" where the arena is "spectacular" and "visual". Lawrence also called it his "favorite book of the series."

Sunrise On The Reaping takes place during Haymitch's games, which is the 50th Hunger Games, aka the 2nd Quarter Quell. Considering Katniss and Peeta were part of the 74th and 75th games, and the events of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes 10th Hunger Games, it makes a lot of sense that Lawrence will be jumping into the grander visual feast from the original trilogy. It sounds like he's really excited to get out of the early days of Panem and make another huge blockbuster. We'll be seeing a 40-year jump from President Snow's origin story.

In addition to Sunrise on the Reaping being a "return" to the vibe of the first movies starring Jennifer Lawrence, it's also the Quarter Quell, which is the games where twice as many tributes were plucked from the districts to fight to the death. Haymitch Abernathy is a District 12 tribute who must fight for his life and along the way he meets all sorts of names that fans of the original will recognize from the trilogy and prequel.

As someone who's in the middle of the novel, Haymitch's backstory is definitely not what I was expecting and revealed to be much more tragic and different than how we hear about his games during Katniss and Peeta's games. Of course, we're curious about who will be cast as Haymitch, especially after both Cobra Kai's Tanner Buchanan was fancast along with House of the Dragon's Tom Glynn-Carney.

There's also been some past rumors that Chalengers' Mike Faist could have been secretly cast to play Plutarch Heavensbee. We expect casting to be the next step we'll hear about so stay tuned!