Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson are to appear in the new Hunger Games movie, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which is in production.
The Hollywood Reporter said it confirmed the pair’s return to the Hunger Games series, in what is the sixth film in the franchise. Both will play the same characters as in the original set of films – Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen and Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark – with the Hollywood Reporter suggesting they will “likely appear in a flash-forward”. At the close of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (released in 2015), Everdeen and Mellark are married with children.
Sunrise on the Reaping is adapted from the 2025 novel by Suzanne Collins, and will be the second prequel film in the series after The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, released in 2023, which was also based on a novel by Collins. Like all but one of the Hunger Games films so far, it is directed by Francis Lawrence.
The events of Sunrise on the Reaping take place 24 years before The Hunger Games (and 40 years after The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes); they centre on Haymitch Abernathy, a tribute for the 50th Hunger Games, who is later to become Everdeen’s mentor (as played by Woody Harrelson in the original films). The film also stars Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee (previously played by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Ralph Fiennes as a younger version of President Snow (originally played by Donald Sutherland).
Lawrence is now appearing in Die My Love, directed by Lynne Ramsay, for which she has been nominated for a Golden Globe for best female actor. Hutcherson is in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, which opened at No 1 at the North American box office on 5 December.
Filming on Sunrise on the Reaping began in summer 2025 and producer Nina Jacobson said on social media that it had “wrapped” in November. It is due for release in November 2026.
