Hunger Games Producer Shares How Far Along The Sunrise On The Reaping Movie Is, And The ‘Challenge’ To Recast Haymitch After Woody Harrelson’s Performance

This week, Hunger Games fans have been blessed with another installment of Suzanne Collins’ franchise with Sunrise on the Reaping. With the new novel already soaring to the top of bestseller lists, Lionsgate is in tandem currently working on the movie being one of the upcoming book adaptations with a 2026 release set. But now that fans are opening the pages of the new novel, how are things going with the movie? A producer has just shared the latest.

Nina Jacobson, who has been a vital part of the Hunger Games movies from the beginning, recently spoke to Variety about what’s going on with the Sunrise on the Reaping movie since it was announced to be coming last summer. In her words:

We’re much further along than we would ever have been otherwise, without having this jump, because we went to work right away. None of it has been announced yet, but we have a great draft that we’re still doing work on. We’ve established our locations.

Sunrise on the Reaping marks the first time a new book from Suzanne Collins has been announced at the same time as its book adaptation – which is rather rare in of itself. During Jacobson’s interview, she shared that soon after Collins was done with The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, she called her and said she had “another book” and she wanted the producer to “read it” and tell her whether she thought “it’s a movie or not.”

Jacobson read the novel at Suzanne Collins’ agent’s house before Hunger Games franchise director Francis Lawrence also read the book in the same top secret fashion. Jacobson said she was “on the edge” of her seat “crying” while reading it. Obviously, from there Lionsgate made a deal with Collins to get rights for the new novel, and now they are in the pre-production phase of the process.

Ever since the book and movie was announced, fans have been curious about who could play the role of Haymitch after Woody Harrelson. Jacobson also spoke to the casting process:

It’s an interesting challenge. Because of this early manuscript not being published, we haven’t even been able to read actors for fear that sides could leak! We’ve been holding our breath for a long time, but I think that what we’re looking for in that role is, you don’t want somebody who’s impersonating Woody, but you want somebody who very credibly feels like they could be a young version of this character, before the trauma and grief and rage that the fallout of the Games create. Nobody can be Woody Harrelson but Woody Harrelson. But you have to find that mischief that he has in him inherently and try to understand, if you turn back time from the man you meet at the beginning of “The Hunger Games,” who he was before all of that, and why he became that.

Hunger Games fans have already been on the case when it comes to fancasting the role, with House of the Dragon’s Tom Glynn Carney being a favorite, along with Cobra Kai’s Tanner Buchanan having the best response to having his name being thrown out as well. As fans get heartbroken over Haymitch’s origin story in Sunrise on the Reaping, we can’t wait for more news to come out regarding the title.

It won’t be long until we meet the young Haymitch. The movie adaptation is set to be released in theaters on November 20, 2026.

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