The first reactions to The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping are in, and Panem apparently still knows how to put an audience through the wringer. Francis Lawrence's return to Suzanne Collins' dystopia, set 24 years before Katniss Everdeen ever volunteered, has early viewers buzzing about Joseph Zada's take on a young Haymitch Abernathy - the drunken mentor we met all those years ago, now seen as a frightened District 12 teenager on the morning of the 50th Hunger Games.
That's the Second Quarter Quell, for the uninitiated, and if the early word is anything to go by, it's every bit the bloodbath fans of the book have been bracing for.
Zada's Haymitch steals the show
The loudest praise so far is reserved for Zada, who steps into a role that Woody Harrelson turned into one of the franchise's most beloved characters. Early viewers say he nails the impossible job of making us forget Harrelson for two hours while quietly planting the seeds of the broken, sardonic man we already know he becomes.
"He's not doing an impression - he's showing you exactly how that guy got built," one early viewer reportedly said after the screening. Others described his performance as the emotional engine of a film that, at 158 minutes, has plenty of room to sit with the quiet horror of the reaping before the arena turns everything up to eleven.
The supporting bench is getting plenty of love too. Ralph Fiennes, back as a younger President Coriolanus Snow, reportedly brings icy menace while reminding everyone that this villain didn't appear fully formed. Jesse Plemons slots in as Plutarch Heavensbee, and Elle Fanning's Effie Trinket is said to be a welcome jolt of unnerving cheer. Whitney Peak, Mckenna Grace, Maya Hawke and Kelvin Harrison Jr. round out a cast that viewers are calling one of the franchise's deepest.
A darker, quieter Panem than the originals
If there's a throughline in the reactions, it's tone. Several viewers describe the film as leaner and more melancholy than the previous four, with Lawrence leaning into character work and dread rather than wall-to-wall spectacle. The games themselves are still described as brutal - this is the Quell that gave us the force field and the double-homicide finale, after all - but the lead-up is reportedly where the movie earns its stripes.
One recurring comparison is that the film plays less like an action blockbuster and more like a tragedy with a countdown clock. Whether audiences who came for arena chaos will embrace that pacing remains the big question, and reaction so far is positive but not unanimous. A few early viewers noted the runtime and said the middle stretch drags for anyone who hasn't read the source material.
A franchise testing its future
There's more riding on this than one movie. Sunrise on the Reaping arrives on November 18, 2026, deep into a wave of prequel-mania, and it's the first Hunger Games film since The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes proved the franchise could survive without Katniss. Bringing back Lawrence, who directed three of the original four, signals that Lionsgate wants continuity rather than reinvention.
The early reaction consensus suggests that bet is paying off - with the caveat that "reactions" and "reviews" are very different beasts. TMDb's score still sits at a placeholder 0/10, so there's no aggregate data to lean on yet. The real test comes when full reviews land and the film faces an audience that has spent over a decade holding these books close.
For now, though, the mood out of early screenings is best summed up by one widely shared sentiment: people went in expecting a nostalgia trip and came out quietly devastated. Which, honestly, sounds about right for a story that starts on reaping morning and only goes one direction.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping opens in theaters on November 18, 2026.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
