The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping: 10 Things to Know Before the UK Release

By the Filmoria News Desk

Official poster © Lionsgate, via Wikipedia.

Quick Facts

• Film: The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (2026)
• Director: Francis Lawrence
• Screenplay: Billy Ray and Michael Lesslie, from Suzanne Collins’ 2025 novel
• Cast: Joseph Zada, Whitney Peak, Mckenna Grace, Jesse Plemons, Elle Fanning, Kieran Culkin, Ralph Fiennes, Glenn Close, Maya Hawke, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Lili Taylor, Ben Wang, Billy Porter
• Studio: Lionsgate, produced with Color Force
• UK release date: 20 November 2026 (US: 20 November; Australia: 19 November)
• Runtime: Listed at 150 minutes by UK cinema guide Flicks; BBFC rating not yet published
• Latest news: Lionsgate released the final full trailer on 16 September 2026

Lionsgate’s newest trailer for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which dropped on 16 September, closes on a moment fans of the book have been waiting a year and a half to see: a 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy, standing in the arena, slow-clapping President Snow while a young Plutarch Heavensbee watches. It’s a tiny beat. It’s also the whole film in miniature, a kid with nothing left to lose deciding to be rude to the most powerful man in Panem on live television.

This is a list of the 10 things to know about The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping before it reaches UK cinemas on 20 November 2026. We ordered them the way most people actually ask about a film like this: release details first, then story and cast, then the marketing, the production record and the commercial stakes, using studio announcements, trade reporting and published box office and book-sales figures.

1. UK Release Date (20 November 2026, Lionsgate)

What makes it stand out: It lands in UK cinemas the same day as the US, in the slot that has belonged to Hunger Games films for over a decade.

Key data: 20 November 2026 in the UK and US, 19 November in Australia, with IMAX screenings and a 150-minute runtime listed by Flicks.

Why it matters: A day-and-date release means UK fans won’t be dodging spoilers from American opening weekend.

November is Hunger Games month and has been since Catching Fire in 2013. Mockingjay Part 1 and Part 2 both opened in November, and so did The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes in 2023. Lionsgate isn’t being sentimental here. That window sits after the half-term lull and before the Christmas tentpoles crowd in, and this year the tentpoles are unusually heavy: Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three both arrive on 18 December.

That leaves Sunrise on the Reaping roughly four clear weekends to build. It’ll share space with Disney’s Hexed on 25 November and Violent Night 2 in early December, neither of which chases the same audience.

UK cinema guide Flicks lists the runtime at 150 minutes. That would make it a touch shorter than The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, which ran 157 minutes, but the BBFC hasn’t published a certificate yet, so treat the number as provisional. Every previous film in the series was rated 12A in the UK, and nothing in the marketing suggests Lionsgate is aiming any differently, though that’s an expectation rather than a confirmed rating. Odeon already has a film page live for it, so expect bookings to open properly in the next few weeks.

If you’re keeping a list of the season’s big releases, our Upcoming Movies roundup has the full autumn and winter calendar.

2. The Story: Haymitch and the Second Quarter Quell (Panem, 24 Years Before The Hunger Games)

What makes it stand out: It tells the origin of the series’ most damaged adult, the drunk mentor who kept Katniss alive.

Key data: Set at the 50th Hunger Games, a Quarter Quell in which every district sends twice the usual number of tributes, so 48 children enter the arena instead of 24.

Why it matters: For the first time, a prequel shows a Games we already know the result of, so the drama is entirely about cost, not outcome.

Haymitch Abernathy is from District 12. He’s 16, sharp-tongued and newly in love with Lenore Dove Baird when his name is called on the morning of the reaping. The rule change for this Quell is brutal in its simplicity: two boys and two girls from each district. The Capitol bills it as twice the glory. Everyone in District 12 knows it means twice the funerals.

Lionsgate’s own synopsis says Haymitch “forms an unlikely alliance with fellow tribute Maysilee Donner” and joins a coalition trying to challenge the Capitol’s control under President Snow. Anyone who has read Catching Fire already knows two things: Haymitch won the 50th Games, and the Capitol punished him for how he did it. The film’s job is to make the gap between that fact and the man Woody Harrelson played in 2012 feel earned.

That’s a different engine from The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, which followed a young Coriolanus Snow and asked how a villain gets made. Sunrise on the Reaping asks how a survivor gets broken. Director Francis Lawrence has said the point of the film is to show Haymitch’s “hope and optimism” before the Games take it away, according to Screen Realm’s write-up of the latest trailer.

One small note for readers of the novel: the trailer already hints at the arena mechanic behind Haymitch’s win. We won’t spell it out here. If you haven’t read the book, stay off the comment sections for a while.

3. What the 16 September Trailer Reveals (Lionsgate, 2026)

Ralph Fiennes plays President Snow. Photo: Steve Disenhof, via Wikimedia Commons.

What makes it stand out: It’s the first footage to show the arena properly, and it doesn’t look like any arena the series has used before.

Key data: Released 16 September 2026; roughly 2 minutes 36 seconds long; the third major piece of footage after the November 2025 teaser and the April 2026 trailer.

Why it matters: It sets the visual identity of the film and confirms how much of the book’s ending the marketing is willing to tease.

The arena is beautiful, which is the problem. Earlier entries leaned on scorched forests, concrete and grey-blue light. Here, the footage shows bright vegetation, flowers and wildlife that look inviting until they start killing people. Screen Realm noted the brighter colour palette is meant to reflect Capitol excess, and that fits the book, where the arena is designed to be lovely on camera and lethal up close.

The trailer also gives real screen time to the force field at the arena’s edge, which matters more than casual viewers will guess. It shows genetically engineered creatures hunting tributes. And it gives the Capitol adults far more room than April’s trailer did, with Ralph Fiennes’ Snow, Jesse Plemons’ Plutarch and Kieran Culkin’s Caesar Flickerman all getting distinct moments.

Then there’s the slow clap. Haymitch, mid-Games, applauding Snow with obvious contempt while Plutarch looks on. It works as a hook for new viewers. For anyone who knows where Plutarch ends up in Mockingjay, it’s a quiet bit of foreshadowing about who’s paying attention to the boy from District 12.

The full trailer is on Lionsgate’s official YouTube channel and the film’s UK site. If you only watch one piece of marketing before November, make it this one.

4. Joseph Zada as Haymitch and Whitney Peak as Lenore Dove (Lead Cast, Announced April 2025)

What makes it stand out: The series has handed its lead role to a near-unknown again, the same bet it made with Tom Blyth in 2023.

Key data: Zada and Peak were announced on 23 April 2025, four months after casting directors Debra Zane and Dylan Jury began the search in December 2024.

Why it matters: Haymitch is one of the series’ best-loved characters, and the actor has to be believable as a younger Woody Harrelson.

Joseph Zada is a young Australian actor with only a handful of screen credits to his name. He doesn’t look like a young Harrelson, and Lionsgate hasn’t pretended he does. What the trailers sell instead is attitude: the smirk, the quick mouth, the sense that he’s the funniest person in any room and knows it. That’s the version of Haymitch you can believe turning into the man Katniss meets.

Whitney Peak, from Gossip Girl and Hocus Pocus 2, plays Lenore Dove Baird, Haymitch’s girlfriend. She’s a new character from the novel, a Covey girl connected to the musical family that Lucy Gray Baird belonged to in The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. That link gives the two prequels a thread, and readers will know that Lenore Dove is the emotional weight the whole story hangs on.

Casting unknowns is a habit with this franchise. Jennifer Lawrence had a single Oscar nomination, for Winter’s Bone, when she was cast in 2011. Tom Blyth was barely known before he played young Snow. The approach keeps budgets on the arena rather than the lead and gives audiences someone who reads as a character before they read as a celebrity.

5. Mckenna Grace as Maysilee Donner (District 12 Tribute)

Mckenna Grace at the WWD Style Awards 2026. Photo: Kevin Paul, via Wikimedia Commons.

What makes it stand out: Grace plays two roles, the tribute Maysilee and her twin sister Merrilee.

Key data: Announced 24 April 2025, the day after Zada and Peak; Maysilee is one of the four District 12 tributes in the Quell.

Why it matters: Maysilee is Haymitch’s main ally in the arena, and her story connects to Madge Undersee and the mockingjay pin from the original books.

If you’ve only seen the films, Maysilee might be a new name. In the books, she’s the original owner of the mockingjay pin that Katniss wears into her first Games, passed down through Maysilee’s family to Madge, the mayor’s daughter. That pin becomes the symbol of an entire revolution, so a character who once wore it is going to carry extra weight on screen, whether the film spells out the connection or not.

Grace has the most screen credits of the young cast, from Ghostbusters: Afterlife and its sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. She’s also the only one of the four District 12 tributes many casual viewers will recognise. The trailers pair her with Zada constantly, and their dynamic of mutual distrust that slowly turns into something closer to loyalty looks like the film’s central relationship inside the arena.

The other District 12 tributes are Ben Wang as Wyatt Callow and Molly McCann as Louella McCoy. Ben Wang broke through in Karate Kid: Legends and the series American Born Chinese, so the District 12 group is stronger on paper than any tribute line-up the franchise has fielded before.

6. The Capitol Cast: Plemons, Fanning, Culkin, Fiennes and Close (Announced May–June 2025)

Jesse Plemons plays a young Plutarch Heavensbee. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

What makes it stand out: Almost every Capitol adult is a younger version of a character played by a famous actor in the original films.

Key data: Jesse Plemons (25 April 2025), Ralph Fiennes (16 May), Elle Fanning (20 May), Kieran Culkin (21 May), Glenn Close and Billy Porter (16 June).

Why it matters: It’s the starriest supporting line-up the series has fielded, and it gives older audiences a reason to show up.

Here’s who’s playing whom:

• Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee, the Gamemaker played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in Catching Fire and both Mockingjay films. Gizmodo singled out his physical resemblance to Hoffman after the latest trailer.
• Ralph Fiennes as President Coriolanus Snow, the role Donald Sutherland made iconic. Fiennes plays Snow in middle age, between Tom Blyth’s young version and Sutherland’s.
• Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket, originally played by Elizabeth Banks.
• Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman, the host Stanley Tucci played across four films.
• Glenn Close as Drusilla Sickle, a new Capitol character from the novel.
• Billy Porter as Magno Stift, the District 12 escort before Effie.

Elle Fanning plays a young Effie Trinket. Photo: Harald Krichel, via Wikimedia Commons.

There’s a second group worth noticing. The mentors include Maya Hawke as Wiress, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Beetee Latier and Lili Taylor as Mags Flanagan. All three are characters fans met as older victors in Catching Fire, played there by Amanda Plummer, Jeffrey Wright and Lynn Cohen. Seeing them 24 years younger, already trapped in the Capitol’s machine, is one of the novel’s sharpest ideas.

Culkin’s casting got the most attention online, mostly because it came a few months after his Oscar win for A Real Pain. Caesar has to be charming and hollow at the same time, which is a sweet spot for him.

Kieran Culkin plays a young Caesar Flickerman. Photo: Eva Rinaldi, via Wikimedia Commons.

7. Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson Return (Confirmed December 2025)

What makes it stand out: It’s the first time Katniss and Peeta have appeared on screen since Mockingjay – Part 2 in 2015.

Key data: Their return was confirmed in December 2025, after principal photography had already wrapped on 28 November 2025.

Why it matters: It ties the prequel directly to the original films and gives lapsed fans a reason to come back.

Don’t expect a big role. The story is set 24 years before Katniss volunteers for her sister, so neither character can be part of the main action. Every outlet that has covered the casting describes the appearances as limited, and Lionsgate hasn’t said otherwise. The most likely shape is a framing device, which would match how the novel opens and closes.

Still, it’s a meaningful move. The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes had no link to the original cast and earned less than any of the four main films. Bringing back the two leads, even briefly, signals that Lionsgate wants this one to feel like a full Hunger Games event rather than a side story.

8. Francis Lawrence and the Crew Behind It (Fifth Hunger Games Film)

Francis Lawrence. Photo: Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons.

What makes it stand out: One director has now made five of the six Hunger Games films, which is rare continuity for any franchise.

Key data: Directed by Francis Lawrence; produced by Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson and Lawrence; shot by Jo Willems; edited by Mark Yoshikawa; scored by James Newton Howard.

Why it matters: The same core team has shaped the look and sound of Panem since 2013, so the tone is unlikely to wander.

Gary Ross directed the first film in 2012. Since then it’s been Francis Lawrence (no relation to Jennifer) every time: Catching Fire, both Mockingjay films, The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and now this. Lionsgate greenlit the adaptation in June 2024 on the same day Suzanne Collins announced the novel, with Lawrence already in talks to return.

James Newton Howard is back for his sixth Hunger Games score, and his eighth project with Lawrence overall. Cinematographer Jo Willems has shot every Lawrence-directed entry, which helps explain why the films feel of a piece even as their colour palettes shift.

The screenplay is credited to Billy Ray, who co-wrote the 2012 original with Ross and Collins, and Michael Lesslie, who co-wrote The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Producers Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson run Color Force, the company that has been Lionsgate’s partner on every film.

That’s a lot of the same people. It’s a strength on a project like this. Fans have seen what happens when a franchise changes hands mid-stream and loses its voice. This one hasn’t had that problem.

9. Production Timeline and the Bestselling Source Novel (Spain and Berlin, 2025)

Glenn Close plays Drusilla Sickle. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

What makes it stand out: The film went from announcement to finished shoot in about 17 months, unusually fast for a $170m-plus production.

Key data: Novel published 18 March 2025; filming from late July 2025 in Somiedo and Teverga in northern Spain, wrapping in Berlin on 28 November 2025.

Why it matters: The book’s sales proved demand before a single frame was shot.

Suzanne Collins’ novel came out on 18 March 2025 and sold 1.2 million copies in the US in its first week, and more than 1.5 million in English worldwide, according to Scholastic figures reported by the Associated Press. Scholastic said that was more than double the opening pace of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and more than triple the debut of Mockingjay in 2010.

Cameras rolled about four months later. The arena scenes were shot in Asturias, in the mountains and valleys of Somiedo and Teverga. On 6 August 2025 the official Hunger Games social accounts posted what they called the first look at the deadly arena. Elle Fanning and Glenn Close finished their scenes in November, and the shoot wrapped in Berlin on 28 November 2025.

Lionsgate then did something cheeky with the marketing calendar. It released the first teaser on 20 November 2025, exactly a year before release and before filming had finished. Deadline reported that teaser drew 109 million global views in its first 24 hours.

The campaign since has been steady rather than loud:

• 6 April 2026: a statue of a metal snake and songbird surrounded by flowers appeared in Chicago’s Millennium Park, followed by 31 more statues across 30 countries.
• 13 April 2026: the first full trailer.
• 4 July 2026: a “Meet Haymitch” featurette with behind-the-scenes footage.
• 21 August 2026: the in-universe Capitol.tv site came back online with a two-minute video narrated by Fiennes as Snow.
• 16 September 2026: the final full trailer.

10. The Box Office Stakes (Lionsgate’s Biggest Franchise)

What makes it stand out: It’s reportedly the most expensive Hunger Games film yet, chasing a franchise that has dipped since its peak.

Key data: Reported budget of $170m–$200m (not officially confirmed by Lionsgate); The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes cost $100m and grossed $347.9m worldwide, according to The Numbers.

Why it matters: A budget roughly double the last prequel’s means this film has to perform closer to the original quartet than to Ballad.

The numbers tell a clear story. The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes opened to $44.6m in North America in November 2023 and finished with $166.4m domestic and $181.5m internationally, per The Numbers. That was a solid return on a $100m budget, but well below the original four films, which together grossed close to $3bn worldwide.

The UK matters more than you might think. Ballad took $23.1m here, its biggest international market by some distance, ahead of Germany’s $13.2m. British audiences have stuck with this series, and Lionsgate knows it.

So what would success look like? Nobody outside the studio has a firm target, and we won’t invent one. A reported budget of up to $200m, plus a global marketing push of this size, means the film needs to land well north of Ballad. The signals are encouraging: the book outsold Ballad’s opening week by more than two to one, the teaser’s 24-hour view count was enormous, and the cast is stronger.

The risk is the calendar. Four weekends is a decent run, but once Doomsday and Dune arrive on 18 December, premium screens like IMAX will be hard to hold on to. Sunrise on the Reaping needs to make most of its money before then.

The Bottom Line on Sunrise on the Reaping

This is the most promising Hunger Games film since Catching Fire, at least on paper. It has the series’ best-selling prequel novel behind it, the most recognisable supporting cast the franchise has assembled, and a director who knows the world better than anyone. It also has a story fans already know the ending of, which shifts the tension from who wins to what winning costs.

The 16 September trailer suggests Lionsgate understands that. It sells a brighter, stranger arena, gives the Capitol adults room to be unsettling, and closes on a kid clapping at a tyrant. If the film delivers on that, 20 November is an easy date to circle. We’ll have a full review closer to release.

Last updated: 1 October 2026.

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