The future of The Hunger Games is still in the past, with its latest adaptation taking on Suzanne Collins’ second prequel and diving deeper into the history that shaped Panem. But while the first prequel and its film adaptation sought to explore how Coriolanus Snow became the man ruling over it all as the Capitol’s future president, its second, Sunrise on the Reaping, wants to take a more revolutionary bent.
After a brief tease this weekend as part of a look back recapping the history of the Hunger Games films so far, this morning Lionsgate revealed a much fuller look at Sunrise on the Reaping, and the story of the Second Quarter Quell—the anniversarial edition of the Hunger Games with double the participating “tributes”—and the crucible that forged Haymitch Abernathy and his quest to help bring down the Capitol once and for all decades later.
Played as Katniss’ haunted, surly mentor in the main Hunger Games series by Woody Harrelson, here we meet Haymitch as a young man (We Were Liars‘ Joseph Zada), one of the 48 tributes drawn from across the districts to participate in the 50th Hunger Games. Haymitch is quickly drawn into a growing opposition to the Games and their cruelty, hoping to use the extra pomp and circumstances of the latest tournament to send a message to the Capitol—of course, readers and movie fans alike know that things aren’t going to go all that well, given the state we meet Haymitch in through Katniss’ eyes in the original Hunger Games, but just how it all happens sets the stage for the rest of the series’ revolutionary bent.
Zada is joined by a cast that includes Ralph Fiennes as the third person to take on President Snow, bridging the gap between Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes‘ Tom Blyth and the original series’ Donald Sutherland, as well as Elle Fanning as a young Effie Trinket, Glenn Close as the horrifyingly cosmetically-smoothed Drusilla Sickle, Jesse Plemmons as Plutarch Heavensbeemand Kieran Culkin as host of the Games Caesar Flickerman—as well as, of course, an ample cast of young stars as the participants in the games.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping will hit theaters November 20.
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