The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the first Hunger Games prequel, had the difficult task of making audiences care about a young Coriolanus Snow — the series’ established villain — without either redeeming him or making the film’s emotional investment incoherent. It largely succeeded, though it polarized readers of Suzanne Collins’s novel who felt the adaptation simplified the political argument the book was making. Sunrise on the Reaping, releasing November 2026, follows Haymitch Abernathy at sixteen during the 50th Hunger Games — the Second Quarter Quell, which is mentioned briefly in the original trilogy as the Games where twice the usual number of tributes were sent.