Watch ‘The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping’ trailer
The next chapter in Panem’s history is coming into focus. Set four decades after The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and nearly a quarter-century before Katniss ever volunteers, the first trailer for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping teases a brutal return to the arena. Within hours of dropping, the footage was already racking up views in the millions, signaling that fans are more than ready to revisit the Capitol’s deadliest spectacle.
A darker reaping, a deadlier arena
The preview opens on a chilling ceremony in District 12, where Glenn Close—draped in strict yellow finery—presides over a reaping that looks anything but routine. Her address sets the tone for a supersized bloodbath: double the tributes and, in the Capitol’s words, “twice the glory.” The camera then cuts to the newly revealed arena as fearful, defiant faces scan their surroundings and the countdown ticks toward zero. It’s the Second Quarter Quell: the fiftieth Hunger Games, engineered to be bigger, crueler, and impossible to forget. When the call to begin rings out, the crowd erupts—and the arena answers back.
New faces, legacy roles
The trailer spotlights a slate of standout performances. Jesse Plemons steps in as a younger Plutarch Heavensbee, long before his future as a master of Games. Ralph Fiennes embodies an earlier iteration of President Snow, projecting cold calculation beneath a polished exterior. Elle Fanning shows up as a youthful Effie Trinket, teasing the origins of Panem’s most flamboyant chaperone.
Leading the charge inside the arena are Joseph Zada and Whitney Peak, portraying Haymitch Abernathy and his girlfriend, Lenore Dove Baird. As the footage builds to a fever pitch, Haymitch’s voice cuts through the chaos with a grim realization: “I think these games are going to be different.” The line lands as the landscape itself seems to revolt—culminating in a volcanic eruption that hints at an arena designed to punish every step.
A franchise still on fire
The momentum behind Sunrise on the Reaping extends beyond the screen. The novel hit shelves on March 18, 2025, and moved roughly 1.5 million copies in its first week across multiple English-speaking territories. Meanwhile, the film series as a whole has soared past $3.3 billion worldwide, a testament to the staying power of Suzanne Collins’s dystopian saga and its big-screen adaptations.
When to watch
Francis Lawrence returns to direct The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which is slated to arrive in theaters on November 20, 2026. If the trailer is any indication, the fiftieth Games won’t just revisit the past—they’ll rewrite the rules.
