Katniss and Peeta Make a Shocking Return at Sunrise on Reaping Day

Image: Lionsgate/Everett Collection

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping ranks among the most eagerly awaited films scheduled for 2026 — and excitement spiked after The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson will return to portray Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark.

Lawrence and Hutcherson first embodied those roles in the 2012 adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ dystopian saga, The Hunger Games, directed by Gary Ross. The film follows Katniss after she volunteers to take her sister’s place in a televised, deadly contest that pits adolescents against one another in a struggle for survival.

Sunrise on the Reaping, Collins’ most recent novel published in March 2025, is set in Panem on the morning of the 50th Hunger Games — roughly 24 years before the events that would eventually cast Katniss and Peeta as emblems of resistance. The book also serves as a narrative follow-up to 2023’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, which featured performers including Rachel Zegler, Tom Blyth, and Hunter Schafer.

Image: Lionsgate

Beyond the confirmation that Lawrence and Hutcherson will reprise their characters, The Hollywood Reporter did not disclose additional specifics about their roles. Considering the franchise’s established timeline — in which Katniss and Peeta are later depicted as spouses with children — it’s reasonable to expect their screen time to take the form of flashforward sequences rather than scenes set alongside a younger Haymitch Abernathy (portrayed by Joseph Zada), who is the protagonist of Sunrise on the Reaping.

Whatever shape their appearances take, fans will surely welcome Lawrence and Hutcherson’s return to the series they helped define on screen. The film is slated to open in theaters on November 20, 2026.

Source: Polygon