Lionsgate dropped a new Sunrise on the Reaping trailer on September 16, and it’s the first real look at the Second Quarter Quell arena, Haymitch Abernathy’s allies, and the moment the 50th Hunger Games tips into revolution. Directed by Francis Lawrence, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping hits theaters and IMAX on November 20.
Trailer via Lionsgate Movies on YouTube.
| Title | The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping |
| Release Date | November 20, 2026 (theaters & IMAX) |
| Director | Francis Lawrence |
| Studio / Distributor | Lionsgate |
| Based On | Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (2025) |
| Cast | Joseph Zada, Whitney Peak, Mckenna Grace, Elle Fanning, Jesse Plemons, Kieran Culkin, Ralph Fiennes |
| Setting | The 50th Hunger Games (the Second Quarter Quell), 24 years before the original trilogy |
The Reaping Nobody Wants to Watch
The trailer opens right where the book does: reaping day in District 12, dressed up like a carnival because the Capitol insists it should be. Confetti, smoke in Capitol colors, a parade float pulled by horses, it’s a party thrown by the people about to send two kids to die. A silver-haired Capitol official in a red coat oversees it all, and the trailer doesn’t need to say anything else to make the whole scene feel rotten.
Haymitch, Before He Becomes the Haymitch We Know
Joseph Zada plays Haymitch as a kid who still has something to lose, which is the whole point of this movie. He’s quick, a little cocky, clearly the type who talks back to Peacekeepers for fun. The trailer spends real time on his relationship with Lenore Dove Baird (Whitney Peak), not a flashback, not a footnote, but the reason the ending is going to hurt. Anyone who’s only met Haymitch as the bitter drunk mentoring Katniss is going to have a hard time squaring him with this version.
Meet Maysilee Donner
Mckenna Grace plays Maysilee Donner, Haymitch’s District 12 co-tribute and, in the book, the person whose fate defines how brutal he becomes. The trailer gives her real screen time on both ends: composed and sharp before the Games, then bloodied and desperate once she’s in them. It’s not subtle foreshadowing, it’s the trailer telling you directly that this isn’t going to end well for her, without spelling out exactly how.
The Arena Is a Green Mountain, and the Math Is Worse Than Usual
This is the first real look at the arena, and it’s not the industrial or desert terrain the marketing has leaned on for other Hunger Games entries, it’s open, green, mountainous, almost pretty, which makes the line of launch pedestals sitting in the middle of it more unsettling. The Second Quarter Quell’s twist is the scale: instead of one boy and one girl per district, District 12 reaps two of each, which means Haymitch and Maysilee go in against 47 other tributes instead of the usual 23. The trailer doesn’t spell that number out, but the sheer number of launch pads in this shot makes it visible without a caption.
District 12 Is Already Burning
Away from the arena, the trailer keeps cutting back to District 12 itself, Peacekeepers moving through a field on fire at night, more armed patrols than we’ve seen in any previous Hunger Games trailer. Katniss’s District 12 uprising is decades away at this point in the timeline, but these shots are the clearest hint yet that the Capitol’s grip on the district was already violent long before she was born.
The Capitol’s Idea of a Party
Cut against all of that: a Capitol broadcast stage lit up in red, dancers in feathers, the kind of garish spectacle the Games get dressed up in for television. It’s the same trick the franchise has used since the first film, showing you the party and the horror in the same breath, but this trailer leans harder into the contrast than the April teaser did.
What’s New Here
The first teaser, released back in April, was mostly a mood-setter, faces, District 12, a sense of dread, almost none of the actual Games. This trailer is a different animal. It’s the first footage of the arena itself, the first glimpse of the tributes fighting, the first time the marketing has shown Maysilee wounded, and the first appearance of the trailer’s closing word, splashed over a burning landscape: “Revolution.”
That word is doing a lot of work. Every marketing beat for this film has been building toward the same idea, that Haymitch’s Games are the spark for everything Katniss eventually finishes, and this is the first time the trailer has said it in plain text instead of implying it.
What the Trailer Doesn’t Show
For as much as this trailer reveals, it’s careful about a few things. It never confirms how Maysilee’s arc actually ends, even though it shows her hurt twice. It doesn’t show whatever’s inside the massive, cage-like underground chamber one shot glimpses for less than a second. And despite the “Revolution” card, it never shows what that revolution actually looks like in action, that’s clearly being held back for the film itself.
The Book Behind It
Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins’ fifth Hunger Games novel, sold more than 1.5 million world English copies in its first week after publishing on March 18, 2025, according to Scholastic’s release. In the US alone, it sold roughly twice the first-week domestic copies of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and three times Mockingjay‘s, numbers that go a long way toward explaining the IMAX rollout.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping come out?
November 20, 2026, in theaters and IMAX.
What is the Second Quarter Quell?
It’s the 50th Hunger Games, held 24 years before the original trilogy. As a Quarter Quell twist, each district reaps two boys and two girls instead of one of each, putting 48 tributes into the arena instead of the usual 24.
Who plays Haymitch Abernathy in Sunrise on the Reaping?
Joseph Zada plays a young Haymitch Abernathy, the character Woody Harrelson played as an adult in the original Hunger Games trilogy.
Is Sunrise on the Reaping a prequel to The Hunger Games?
Yes. It’s set 24 years before Katniss Everdeen’s Hunger Games and follows Haymitch’s own Games as a teenager.
Is Sunrise on the Reaping based on a book?
Yes, it adapts Suzanne Collins’ 2025 novel of the same name, the fifth book in the Hunger Games series.
Related Reading
More trailer breakdowns: every trailer we’ve covered lives in our video hub. For the rest of what’s coming to theaters, see our movie news coverage. ComicBook.com’s coverage and IMDb’s full cast list have more on the cast and crew.
