Sunrise on the Reaping first reactions are in — and one young star is stealing the whole movie

Here we go again — Capitol costumes, rebellion, and more moody archery than most of us have seen since 2015. If you thought that was it for The Hunger Games, think again: Sunrise on the Reaping has arrived, and it’s instantly kicked off a round of ‘wait, Jennifer Lawrence is back?’ speculation, plus the franchise’s most glowing early reactions in years. Let’s dig in — it’s surprisingly juicy for a prequel.

Sunrise on the Reaping lands in UK cinemas 20 November 2026.

Lawrence Returns (Also: She’s Team Gale, Apparently?)

The big headline: Jennifer Lawrence will be turning up as Katniss Everdeen in this new prequel — and yes, she’ll share the screen with Woody Harrelson and Josh Hutcherson. If you’re a Katniss die-hard you get your fix, but, to the heartbreak of large chunks of the audience, she’s apparently always been ‘Team Gale’. (We’ll just ignore that little incitement to civil war for the sake of nostalgia and keeping the peace.)

All three OGs will have their cameos — which is bound to set the internet on fire the first weekend — but the real attention is on who’s front and centre. Don’t expect Katniss to suddenly turn up and take charge; this time, it’s about someone else entirely.

Haymitch Takes the Spotlight

It’s about time, frankly. After years of people clamouring for a Haymitch Abernathy origin story, Joseph Zada steps in as young Haymitch for Sunrise on the Reaping. He’s got big shoes to fill — Woody Harrelson's version of the character basically stole every scene in the original films — but the casting was so spot-on that even critics and book purists are (for once) united in their approval.

• Jennifer Lawrence, Woody Harrelson, Josh Hutcherson: Back for brief cameos as their legendary characters
• Joseph Zada: Steps up as Haymitch, with basically everyone raving about his performance and resemblance to Harrelson

Film Twitter and early reviews are full-on obsessed with Zada — apparently he’s not just doing a Harrelson impression, but ‘making the character his own, while keeping that signature edge’ (paraphrasing the many, many tweets and reactions).

Matt Neglia praised the casting, calling it "some of the best casting of the year", adding that several actors "breathe new life into familiar characters, making them their own, while preserving the qualities that made them so compelling in the first place."

The Prequel Problem (And Signs This One Breaks the Curse)

We’ve been down the prequel road before. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes dropped in 2023, and despite peeling back the layers on President Snow’s backstory (back before Katniss ever picked up a bow), it didn’t exactly light up the box office. Lowest opening weekend, lowest overall gross of any Hunger Games film so far — even with a solid 89% Rotten Tomatoes audience score. Good enough, but it faded faster than expected, especially with fans complaining it deserved more attention.

This time around, the studio’s doing a better job of hyping things up — early casting news, reminders that it’s been 14 years since the original film (cheers, I feel ancient), and a truckload of nostalgic content dragging the now-adult original fans back into the fold. Plus, by finally showing us Haymitch’s own Games, they’re giving the audience what it’s been begging for since 2012.

First Reactions: Why Fans Are Buzzing

The first verdicts from critics and superfans are already rolling in, and for once, almost all of them are going big. Film Speak’s Griffin Schiller compared Sunrise on the Reaping to those Star Wars spin-offs that turned out better than expected:

Speaking after the early screenings, Schiller said Sunrise on the Reaping is "the Rogue One/Andor of the franchise. A sobering, yet powerful story of devastating loss and the necessary cost of rebellion for a sunrise we may never see."

Other critics echoed that, saying the film delivers exactly what book readers (finally) wanted: a proper focus on Haymitch, powerfully acted and properly grim when it needs to be. The cameos from Lawrence, Hutcherson, and Harrelson are a crowd-pleaser, but the spotlight stays firmly on Zada’s Haymitch throughout — one reviewer summed it up as ‘easily the best film in the Hunger Games franchise... Zada is electrifying as Haymitch, and the cast is true to the book’. Another called Zada ‘heartbreakingly radiant’ in the lead role. The short version: it’s not just a nostalgia mill; they’ve actually pulled it off this time.