Though Katniss Everdeen’s story ended a while ago, there are plenty of Hunger Games tales still to be told. Author Suzanne Collins still has much she wants to say – given the state of, well, everything right now – and has continued to explore the dystopia she created in various prequel novels, themselves adapted for the big screen. Now, after The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, which dialled the clock back to the 10th Hunger Games, Sunrise On The Reaping will be presenting the 50th edition of the kiddie death-match – perhaps its most brutal ever, and the one that gave us victor Haymitch Abernathy, Katniss’ District 12 mentor, played in the original films by Woody Harrelson. Here’s the new trailer:
There’s one key reason why this Hunger Games lives in infamy: as a ‘Quarter Quell’, it’s a ‘special’ edition of the games with an additional rule: this time, double the amount of tributes are picked from the districts. So, Haymitch is one of 48 children battling for survival, the biggest bodycount of any edition, in a beautiful and brightly-coloured arena. That’s the immediate difference to any of the other films here; after Ballad rendered Panem in a post-War aesthetic, Sunrise is going full block-colour ‘’70s/80s look, reflected in its world and clothing, while the arena is a verdant nightmare.
Returning director Francis Lawrence – who helmed every Hunger Games film but the first, and recently squeezed in The Long Walk too – has assembled a stellar cast for this one, many of whom are playing younger versions of characters from Katniss’ stories. Relative newcomer Joseph Zada is playing Haymitch, with Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character), Kieran Culkin as presenter Caesar Flickerman (later to be Stanley Tucci), with Maya Hawke as victor Wireless, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as fellow former victor Beetee, and Lili Taylor as another victor Mags – played, respectively, by Amanda Plummer, Jeffrey Wright and Lynn Cohen in Catching Fire. Elle Fanning looks perfectly cast as the young Effie Trinket. Oh, and Ralph Fiennes is our latest Coriolanus Snow; far older than Tom Blyth in Ballad, but a bit younger than Donald Sutherland, too, in the Katniss era.
Sunrise On The Reaping also has Mckenna Grace and The Long Walk’s Ben Wang as fellow District 12 tributes Maysilee Donner and Wyatt Callow, with Whitney Peak as Lenore Dove; a Covey girl that Haymitch loves, and yearns to be reunited with beyond the Games. And that’s a near-unrecognisable Glenn Close as reaping host Drusilla Sickle.
It’s a stacked cast, and a tantalising bit of Panem history – and fans won’t be waiting long. The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping comes to cinemas on November 20. May the odds be ever in your favour.
