Sunrise on the Reaping Trailer: Every Hunger Games Trailer

The Sunrise on the Reaping trailer is the full length trailer for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which TheWrap reported on April 13, 2026, and the Lionsgate post that accompanied it gave the release as "in theaters & IMAX November 20, 2026". That date has not changed since Lionsgate first announced the film in June 2024, so the trailer and the calendar agree. If you are after the next chapter of the saga, the Sunrise on the Reaping page holds the full status, cast and release details.

Is there more than one trailer? Searches for a second trailer, a third trailer or a teaser are common, but the only trailer reported so far is the full trailer in TheWrap's April 13, 2026 story. A second cut, a trailer song or hidden footage should be tied to a Lionsgate or trade announcement before anyone repeats it.

Who is in the film behind the trailer? Lionsgate announced Joseph Zada as Haymitch Abernathy and Whitney Peak as Lenore Dove Baird in April 2025, and Jesse Plemons was confirmed as Plutarch Heavensbee days later. Glenn Close (Drusilla Sickle) and Billy Porter (Magno Stift) were confirmed in June 2025. Variety Australia reported further names in December 2025, among them Ralph Fiennes as Coriolanus Snow, Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket and Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman, and those roles stay labeled as reported. Billy Ray wrote the script, and the producers are Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson. Film Music Reporter says James Newton Howard returns as composer, which would make him the scorer of every Hunger Games film so far. For the full list, see the Hunger Games cast page.

How does the trailer connect to the earlier films? Francis Lawrence directed The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (2014), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (2015) and the prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023), so Sunrise on the Reaping is his fifth Hunger Games film. Gary Ross directed The Hunger Games (2012), released on March 23, 2012 in the US. Haymitch is the drunken mentor Katniss meets in that first film, and Panem, the nation the Capitol rules, is the setting throughout. Where the new film sits in the story is laid out on the Hunger Games timeline.

The prequel gives a precedent for how Lionsgate handles a trailer. TheWrap reported that the trailer for The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes carried a new version of The Hanging Tree and confirmed a November 17, 2023 release. The song had first appeared in Mockingjay Part 1, where Jennifer Lawrence performs it. It could be argued that the franchise likes to reuse a familiar song to tie a trailer to the older films.

What should a viewer look for when watching the trailer? In my opinion, the most useful way to read it is to compare each face with the person who held the role before. Haymitch is the clearest case. In The Hunger Games (2012), Woody Harrelson plays him as the past winner who coaches Katniss and Peeta through their styling in the Capitol, and he is a drunken, weary figure from the first scene he appears in. Joseph Zada now plays the same man at a younger age, so the trailer is the first time the franchise shows what that weariness grew out of. Perhaps that is why the studio built its pitch around Haymitch rather than around a returning face.

The supporting roles repeat that pattern. Donald Sutherland played President Coriolanus Snow in the first four films, Tom Blyth played the young Snow in The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, and Variety Australia reports Ralph Fiennes in the role for Sunrise on the Reaping, which would make three actors across the saga. Plutarch Heavensbee was Philip Seymour Hoffman's part in Catching Fire and both Mockingjay films, and Jesse Plemons now takes it. Caesar Flickerman, played by Stanley Tucci in the original four, is reported as Kieran Culkin's role. Effie Trinket, Elizabeth Banks in those films, is reported as Elle Fanning's. Because those last three are reported rather than confirmed, a trailer frame is not proof of any of them.

How does it compare with the prequel's approach? The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes followed Snow as a student in the 10th Hunger Games, about ten years after the First Rebellion, and its trailer leaned on a rebuilt song. Sunrise on the Reaping returns to a mentor the audience already knows from the original saga, which gives the trailer a different job: it has to make viewers care about a character whose fate they may already expect. That is a harder sell than introducing Snow and Lucy Gray Baird to a fresh audience, and it could be argued that it explains the focus on one familiar name.

What can the trailer not tell you? It cannot confirm whether Katniss Everdeen appears, because Jennifer Lawrence's return is reported by Variety Australia and not confirmed by Lionsgate. Each trailer for the earlier films promised more than a single scene could deliver, and the safest habit is to treat footage as a mood piece and the announcements as the record.

If you are new to the saga, start with the Hunger Games movies in order guide before the new film opens, and the Hunger Games movies hub lists every title in one place.