By now, we’ve all noticed the 2010s creeping back into our lives from every angle. In indie sleaze music and The Dare’s wild electroclash vibe, for example. In those military, army, circus-director jackets suddenly marching down every runway. In Isabel Marant’s sneaker heels, of course, and even in the way people post on Instagram again, horizontally, chaotically, and with a concerning amount of filters. So honestly, there couldn’t be a better moment to bring back the one genre that had all of us in a collective chokehold: dystopian, post-apocalyptic, brutally dramatic action movies. And that’s what the new trailer for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping has done.
Balenciaga is also doing it with their PUBG collaboration, but that’s not where we’re going. We’re going straight to the second sequel of The Hunger Games. We’re going to Sunrise on the Reaping. And just yesterday, we finally got our very first look through the official trailer, teasing a film that isn’t coming out until exactly a year later (!!!), on November 20th, 2026.
In case you’re not fully up to date: Sunrise on the Reaping takes place about twenty-four years before Katniss Everdeen enters the arena for the first time. And if you’re really not up to date: The Hunger Games world is set in a not-exactly-defined future, somewhere in North America after wars, people, and natural disasters basically nuked civilization as we knew it. Out of those ashes rose Panem, a dictatorship divided into the wealthy Capitol and thirteen districts. The name Panem comes from the Latin ‘Panem et circenses’, which means bread and games. Because just like the Romans, the Capitol keeps everyone fed enough and distracted enough with deadly entertainment to stop them from rising up. Cute.
Now you’re caught up. In this world, Sunrise on the Reaping tells the story of Haymitch, yes, that Haymitch, the impulsive, bitter, hilarious, begrudgingly lovable mentor we all know from the original trilogy. Except here, he’s not a mentor yet. He’s a tribute. And of course, the year he’s chosen happens to be an anniversary: the fiftieth Hunger Games. Meaning, the Capitol decides to celebrate by doubling the number of tributes. So instead of twenty-four terrified teenagers, there are forty-eight. And, as always, they have to fight until only one is left standing. Happy anniversary, I guess.
From what the trailer shows, we’re in for drama. For epic, brutal, emotional chaos. Maybe even the darkest story the The Hunger Games universe has ever given us. We’ll see. The full movie is still basically a year away, but the cast already looks incredible. Newcomer Joseph Zada, who we recently saw in the Amazon series We Were Liars (2025), plays Haymitch. McKenna Grace, the child actress who at one point seemed to be in every single movie, is also on board. Whitney Peak, known from the Gossip Girl reboot (2021-2023), plays Haymitch’s girlfriend. And then come the big highlights: Elle Fanning as young Effie Trinket. Literally everyone is thrilled about that choice. And for good reason. She is perfect. Let’s see if she also gets to wear Alexander McQueen in this one. And yes, Ralph Fiennes is in it too, you know — Voldemort, Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Conclave (2024). Plus Kieran Culkin from Succession (2018-2023), Maya Hawke from Stranger Things (2016-2026), and Glenn Close, the woman behind the OG Cruella DeVil herself.
So far, everything looks extremely promising. And honestly, it fits the moment so well it almost hurts. If the 2010s really are making their chaotic, glitter-smudged comeback, the music, the fashion, the unhinged Insta energy, then reviving one of the era’s sagas feels less like a trend and more like a full-circle moment. A nod to a time that somehow felt simpler, even though the movies were literally about kids forced to fight to the death. And maybe that is exactly why this trailer hits so hard right now. Because in a time full of propaganda, power abuse, censorship, inequality, and chaos, a return to Panem feels not like escapism anymore. No, it feels shockingly relevant right now. Like a mirror that we need to think about. A very glossy, very brutal, very 2010s style mirror.