The Hunger Games franchise has been a phenomenon since the books began releasing in the late 2000s, and nearly 20 years after the first book, titled The Hunger Games, hit shelves, the franchise is still going strong with new releases of both books and movies. Most recently, a prequel story focused on Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark’s mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, titled Sunrise on the Reaping, was announced in June 2024, with a book release in March of 2025 and a movie slated to hit the big screen this year, on Nov. 20. As with the other prequel story, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (the book for which was released in 2020, and the movie of which debuted in 2023), Sunrise on the Reaping is giving audiences an even closer look at the horrors of the Capitol and fleshing out some of the franchise’s most important characters.
For Sunrise on the Reaping, this means not only an exploration of Haymitch’s younger years—before he was the traumatized, drunken mentor who acted like he didn’t care about Katniss and Peeta only to arguably care about them more than any other adult around them—but also a better understanding of the 50th annual Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell. As Hunger Games fans will already know, this Quarter Quell saw the number of tributes doubled from one boy and one girl per district to two boys and two girls per district. Now, a brand-new image from the upcoming film, shared exclusively with ComicBook, offers a glimpse of Haymitch’s Reaping Day, providing a hint of just how brutal this upcoming movie is going to be.
In the exclusive new image, it appears that Haymitch has just been reaped, meaning his name has just been called as one of the tributes for District 12. This is clear not only because he is shown standing on the stage where Katniss and Peeta will eventually stand (as will Haymitch again, actually, as he is also a potential tribute during the Third Quarter Quell) and where Lucy Gray Baird stood before, but also because he is surrounded by Capitol members as well as the containers filled with the names of those at risk of being reaped that year. Among the Capitol members is Drusilla Sickle, a Capitol escort who is new in Sunrise on the Reaping, along with a very familiar character.
Although he is being played by a different actor, which makes sense given that Sunrise on the Reaping is set about 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games and its two sequels, the character in the foreground is a younger Plutarch Heavensbee. Heavensbee is an interesting character in The Hunger Games franchise, as he initially seemed to be firmly on the side of the Capitol as a Gamemaker only to be revealed as a double agent on the side of the rebels in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. It will be interesting to see Plutarch in this new on-screen era, especially knowing what audiences know now, which is actually the case for multiple characters in Sunrise on the Reaping, from President Snow (now played by Ralph Fiennes) to Effie Trinket (now played by Elle Fanning) and beyond.
Thankfully, fans only have a few more months to wait before this new Hunger Games installment hits the big screen, but it’s sure to be a brutal watch once it arrives. This exclusive image is only the start of Haymitch’s devastating Sunrise on the Reaping Story, which is horrifying and crushing not only while he’s in the games but also because of what awaits him at home.
