The Hunger Games Upcoming Prequel Has Bigger Mystery Than Haymitch’s Casting

Less than a year after the latest movie’s release, The Hunger Games universe is getting bigger, and fans just can’t get enough of all the exciting suggestions they already have for the next installment.

Suzanne Collins has recently announced a new book titled The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, which is set to arrive at the bookstores in spring of 2025, and the happy news was followed by another exciting update from Lionsgate that officially greenlit the upcoming book-based movie adaptation.

Not so many plot details have been revealed about the next installment, though it’s clear that the movie will take viewers back to the events of the 50th Hunger Games when Haymitch Abernathy, Katniss Everdeen’s mentor in the original trilogy, became the first male winner from District 12.

Now that fans are reassured that the whole storyline will now revolve around young Haymitch, many are wondering if another big character will also show up in yet another spinoff.

First introduced in the original movies, President Snow has recently received his own installment starring Tom Blyth as the character’s younger version at the time of his first participation in the Hunger Games as Lucy Gray Baird’s mentor.

Having later on come from an Academy student to Panem’s President, Snow had a direct impact on Haymitch’s tragic life story as, when the latter won the 50th Hunger Games thanks to manipulating the force field surrounding the Games’ arena, he ordered to punish the winner by killing his entire family and his girlfriend, which eventually resulted in Haymitch’s infamous passion for alcohol that has stayed with him all those years.

As a curious coincidence, young Snow’s actor Tom Blyth has recently reflected on his chances to ever reprise the relentless dictator’s role, saying that he personally finds Coriolanus’ story rich enough to dive deeper into even after the events that The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes covered.

While Blyth would seemingly be more than happy to return to his to-date most fascinating role, so far such an option seems unlikely, given that the 50th Hunger Games take place some 40 years after Lucy Gray Baird’s victory, thus suggesting that President Snow will be significantly older by the time the next movie will arrive.

Considering that Snow’s original actor, Donald Sutherland, is also an unlikely choice as the actor will turn 91 by 2026, Sunrise on the Reaping film adaptation may consider someone completely new to the franchise to portray the middle-aged President.