Panem is calling us back to the Capitol, and this time the odds are definitely not in anyone’s favor. A new poster for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping has arrived, announcing that the prequel will drop a new trailer tomorrow and reminding us that Suzanne Collins’s dystopian universe still has plenty of horrors left to show us.
This isn’t the story of Katniss Everdeen. Sunrise on the Reaping travels back to the 50th Hunger Games—also known as the Second Quarter Quell—where the Capitol doubled the number of tributes to forty-eight instead of the usual twenty-four. Our guide to this particular bloodbath is Haymitch Abernathy, the surly, alcoholic mentor from the original trilogy who won these Games and spent the next twenty-five years drinking to forget them. Played in the original films by Woody Harrelson with the energy of a man who had seen too much and cared too little, Haymitch finally gets his origin story.
The new poster, released by Lionsgate, features the familiar iconography of the franchise—golden flames, the mockingjay symbol, the promise of violence dressed up as pageantry. But there’s a darker tone here, appropriate for a story that takes place decades before Katniss’s rebellion. This is the Games at their most brutal, before the subtle rebellions of the later years, when the Capitol’s control was absolute and the tributes were truly disposable.
Joseph Zada stars as the young Haymitch, taking on the unenviable task of portraying a character we know primarily as a broken middle-aged man. The 50th Games are legendary in the books for their cruelty—the double-tribute rule meant that Haymitch had to outlast not just one arena of opponents, but essentially two. His victory came at a cost that would define the rest of his life, and the film promises to show us exactly what happened in those woods to turn a confident teenager into the damaged survivor we meet in the original trilogy.
The Quarter Quell twist adds a layer of mathematical horror to the proceedings. Every twenty-five years, the Capitol introduces a special edition of the Games to remind the districts that no one is safe, not even the victors. The 50th Games featured twice the tributes, meaning twice the carnage, twice the alliances, and twice the heartbreak as Haymitch watched his fellow tributes fall. It’s Survivor meets Lord of the Flies meets the Stanford Prison Experiment, with better costumes and worse survival rates.
Director Francis Lawrence returns to the franchise after helming Catching Fire, Mockingjay Part 1, and Mockingjay Part 2. He knows this world intimately—the visual language of the Capitol’s excess, the brutal efficiency of the Games themselves, the quiet moments of humanity that make the violence sting. Sunrise on the Reaping represents a return to form after the mixed reception to The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which focused on Coriolanus Snow’s rise to power.
The new poster suggests a film that will bridge the gap between the Capitol’s golden-age decadence and the brewing rebellion that would eventually erupt in Katniss’s lifetime. We know Haymitch survives—we’ve seen the older version—but the tension comes from watching how the Games break him, piece by piece, until he’s the cynical drunk who first greets Katniss and Peeta with a bottle of white liquor and a warning that they’re probably going to die.
The trailer drops tomorrow, promising our first real look at the 50th Games in action. If the poster is any indication, we’re in for something darker than the original trilogy, a film that remembers these are child murder games even when they’re dressed up with parades and interviews. The flames are rising. The tributes are assembling. And somewhere in the Capitol, a young Haymitch Abernathy is about to learn that winning is just another way to lose.
May the odds be ever in his favor.
Prepare for the Reaping—mark your calendars for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping and catch up on the original trilogy to understand the full tragedy of Haymitch Abernathy.
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