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Lionsgate is headed back to Panem, where a star-studded cast — including Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket, Maya Hawke as Wiress, Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman, and Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensby — is ready to turn the new “Hunger Games” prequel into one of this year’s most anticipated films.
On Monday, the studio unveiled its latest trailer for “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping,” with a theatrical release date set for November 20. It’s an adaptation of author Suzanne Collins’ newly released prequel novel, which just hit shelves last month, and based on the footage, director Francis Lawrence (“The Long Walk,” “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) isn’t planning a nostalgic victory lap so much as he is calculating a meticulous expansion of this infamous dystopia’s bleakest lore.
Set 24 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteered as tribute, “Sunrise on the Reaping” centers on the Second Quarter Quell (i.e. the 50th Hunger Games). The anniversary match features a brutal twist on the Capitol’s favorite bloodsport — forcing twice as many children to fend for their lives in a brutal fight to the death. If earlier installments flirted with spectacle as a form of survival, this trailer leans even harder into the media machinery backing this fascist government.
From pageantry to politics, the normalization of violence is what made “The Hunger Games” such an enduring multi-generational touchstone in the first place. Actor Joseph Zada leads the charge Haymitch Abernathy, as one of four District 12 tributes. The character, who eventually becomes Katniss’ mentor in the books and movies, was originally played by Woody Harrelson. Mckenna Grace co-stars as Maysilee Donner, a fresh face also from District 12.
Despite a punched-up color palette, Lionsgate is banking on mostly familiar creative DNA to carry the YA series forward. Franchise producer Nina Jacobson returns alongside Brad Simpson, while Lawrence — who has directed every “Hunger Games” installment since the first sequel, “Catching Fire” — teams with the original screenwriter Billy Ray (also “Richard Jewell,” “Overlord”) to design the new game at hand. That continuity is promising, but it also raises the question of whether “Sunrise on the Reaping” will meaningfully evolve a world that has already grossed more than $3.3 billion.
The latest trailer offers a glimpse of a younger, more volatile Panem, still codifying the lethal rituals that came to define its authoritarian grip. There’s an intoxicating dreaminess to the imagery that recalls the early films, but with a sharper focus on the menace Collins has always infused in her work. This time, we know who wins, but what did Haymitch have to do to make his competitors fall? That tension is key to “The Hunger Games” longevity, and if “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” proved anything, it’s that audiences like to see old strategies shift.
From Lionsgate, “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping” is in theaters on November 20. Watch the new trailer below.
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