When Does Sunrise On The Reaping Take Place In The Hunger Games Franchise?

November 20, 2025

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The Hunger Games franchise is expanding with a new movie, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. After following Katniss Everdeen’s transformation from District 12 leader to the symbol of a rebellion for four films and going back to the early days of the games to show President Snow’s origin, the series is turning its attention to Haymitch Abernathy.

Woody Harrelson’s often inebriated mentor of District 12’s tributes in the original Hunger Games movies is now the centerpiece of the franchise’s second prequel. This time, Joseph Zada is taking over the role, showing Haymitch as a 16-year-old when he’s selected to participate in the 50th Hunger Games, also known as the second Quarter Quell.

The continued growth of this series means more eras in the Hunger Games timeline are coming into focus. Sunrise on the Reaping shows an entirely new part of Panem’s history, removing itself from being too closely tied to any previous stories in this world.

How Sunrise On The Reaping Fits Into The Hunger Games Timeline

Mckenna Grace as Maysilee in Hunger Games Sunrise on the Reaping

The Hunger Games franchise began with the 74th Hunger Games, continuing in Catching Fire with the 75th Hunger Games, which also served as the third Quarter Quell and the last of this deadly competition to ever take place. The two-part film adaptation of Mockingjay advanced the world further another year or so, prior to the epilogue jumping several years forward to show Katniss and Peeta happily married with two kids.

Haymitch’s prequel takes place many years before these events. Since it is about the 50th Hunger Games, Sunrise on the Reaping is set 24 years before the original Hunger Games movie and book. That is why the film had to cast an actor to play such younger versions of returning characters Haymitch, Effie, Snow, Plutarch, Wiress, Beetee, Mags, and Caesar Flickerman.

This placement in the timeline also means that the film comes decades after the franchise’s last film, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. That movie focused on the 10th Hunger Games as Snow mentored District 12’s Lucy Gray Baird. Sunrise on the Reaping takes place 40 years after Songbirds and Snakes, where District 12 had its first true victor.

To recap, the Hunger Games movies in timeline order would look like this:

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes — 10th Hunger Games
Sunrise on the Reaping — 50th Hunger Games
The Hunger Games — 74th Hunger Games
Catching Fire — 75th Hunger Games
Mockingjay Part 1 — post-75th Hunger Games
Mockingjay Part 2 — post-75th Hunger Games

Thanks to this placement in the timeline, Sunrise on the Reaping will bridge the two eras of the franchise so far. It will hold major connections to Songbirds and Snakes based on the book, but it’s also a more standard prequel to the Katniss-centric story, bringing back multiple characters and setting up future events.

Yet, with so much time before and after it in the timeline, there’s room for the franchise to keep expanding beyond The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping should author Suzanne Collins write more books.