Fresh images of two of The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping‘s most anticipated characters surfaced Friday, when entertainment account DiscussingFilm shared a new look at Joseph Zada as Haymitch Abernathy and Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket ahead of the film’s November release.
Set 24 years before the first film, the story follows a young Haymitch Abernathy as he is thrust into the brutal 50th Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell. In the film, Effie serves as stylist for Haymitch Abernathy in the lead-up to those Games.
Taking Over Iconic Roles
Joseph Zada plays a sixteen-year-old Haymitch Abernathy in the film. Woody Harrelson famously portrays the character in the original Hunger Games movies, playing on Haymitch’s dark past that remains mostly a mystery to Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. Zada is from Sydney, Australia, and before being cast in Sunrise on the Reaping, he had a handful of acting credits to his name. He also recently completed production on Netflix’s East of Eden, in which he stars alongside Florence Pugh and Mike Faist.
Fanning’s role of Effie Trinket was previously played by Elizabeth Banks in earlier installments. Fanning portrays Effie before her time as the escort for District 12, twenty-four years before the events of the first film. Most recently, Fanning starred opposite Timothée Chalamet in the Oscar-nominated Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.
The film serves as both a sequel to The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023) and a prequel to The Hunger Games (2012), and will be the sixth installment in the film series. The Second Quarter Quell doubled the number of tributes from each district, making it the bloodiest Games in Panem’s history.
The film’s ensemble cast also includes Jesse Plemons, Kieran Culkin, McKenna Grace, Whitney Peak, Ben Wang, Maya Hawke, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Ralph Fiennes, and Glenn Close. The production reunites director Francis Lawrence with producers Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson. The script is in the hands of Billy Ray, the screenwriter who first brought Suzanne Collins’ original novel to theaters.
The source novel sold 1.5 million copies in its first week on sale across the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — twice the first-week sales of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and three times those of Mockingjay. The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is scheduled to be released in the United States on November 20, 2026.
