The Hunger Games made a huge splash in 2008, but Suzanne Collins’ YA dystopian thriller posed a big problem when it came time for Collins to write a sequel: how do you get Katniss and Peeta back into the Arena after they’d won once already? Catching Fire revealed the answer: a Quarter Quell, essentially an All-Star Hunger Games, where all previous victors were forced to compete again. But that was the Third Quarter Quell.
The upcoming prequel movie, Sunrise on the Reaping, jumps back in time to focus on the Second Quarter Quell and the only other District 12 victor in history: Haymitch Abernathy. Now, a brand new look at the movie reveals why this is the Hunger Games that changes Panem as a whole. Check it out below.
This trailer focuses on a young Haymitch (Joseph Zada), who’s chosen as a tribute for the Second Quarter Quell, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Hunger Games by selecting twice as many tributes. That means twice as many opportunities for Panem to meddle in events, and from body doubles to malicious editing and flat-out murder, there are plenty of moments where President Snow (Ralph Fiennes) plays puppet master.
Meanwhile, future Head Gamemaker and secret Rebel spy, Plutarch Heavensbee (Jesse Plemons), appears as a mere cameraman. With him, Haymitch finds something increasingly difficult to find during the Quarter Quell: hope.
It’s not all grim dystopian intrigue, and there are also plenty of cameos from familiar faces alongside brand new flamboyant foils. We get to see a fresh-faced Caesar Flickerman (Kieran Culkin, taking on the role from Stanley Tucci) presenting his talk show, and there’s an extended look at fashionista Effie Trinket (Elle Fanning, formerly Elizabeth Banks).
This trailer claims that these are the Hunger Games that change things forever, but it goes a little deeper than that. These are the Games that change the Games themselves, as it’s the first time the Gamemakers exert their full power to manipulate events. That plants the first seeds of rebellion that Katniss and Peeta will pick up a quarter-century later, all wrapped up in an epilogue that ties these two timelines together.
