The Hunger Games franchise deals with heavy thematic material, but its film adaptations remain targeted squarely at teen audiences. This remains true for the upcoming prequel The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which centers on Haymitch Abernathy decades before he becomes Katniss Everdeen’s mentor.
Director Francis Lawrence revealed that to maintain a PG-13 rating, certain explicit descriptions from Suzanne Collins’ book had to be removed off-screen. “The only thing we have to do in the movies is make them PG-13,” Lawrence explained.
“So there’s certain things she describes in the book that I could never put in the movies. There’s a character holding the head of a child at one point in the book, and that’s just not something you can do in a PG-13 movie,” he added.
What is the plot of The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping?
Based on Collins’ 2025 prequel novel, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping serves as a follow-up to The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. Set 24 years before the events of the original trilogy, the story follows an 18-year-old Haymitch Abernathy, played by Joseph Zada, as he is reaped for Panem’s 50th annual Hunger Games.
As established in the original series, every 25th Hunger Games, known as Quarter Quell, adds a twist to the tournament. For the fiftieth Hunger Games, in which Haymitch is competing, twice the number of tributes are required to head to the Capitol and participate in the games.
Despite removing the scenes for the rating, Lawrence has promised that the adaptation will not shy away from exploring the themes of trauma and tragedy that are so prevalent in the books. Regarding how these concepts are treated in the film, he said, “We go full on.”
The ensemble cast includes Mckenna Grace, Ben Wang, Laura Marcus, Jesse Plemons, Elle Fanning, Ralph Fiennes, and Kieran Culkin.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping arrives in theaters on November 20, 2026.
This article was originally reported by Anuraag Chatterjee on ComingSoon.
