The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping deaths: the movie trailer already gives away three of them
Suzanne Collins wrote a Hunger Games where everyone already knows who wins. Lionsgate's second trailer goes a step further and shows you three of the people he loses.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping opens in theaters on November 20, 2026, with Joseph Zada as the young Haymitch Abernathy in the 50th Hunger Games, the second Quarter Quell. Francis Lawrence directs from a script by Billy Ray and Michael Lesslie, and the movie runs 158 minutes. Collins' 2025 novel sold more than 1.5 million copies worldwide in its first week, the biggest debut in the series.
Since Haymitch shows up alive and drinking in The Hunger Games, the book's suspense was never about whether he survives. It's about what it costs him. Lionsgate's second official trailer, released September 16, gives a few of those costs away early.
The three deaths in the trailer
Each of these takes about a second of screen time, and each one tells book readers exactly what's coming:
- Louella McCoy (Molly McCann): The District 12 chariot crashes at the Tribute Parade, the horses bolt and Louella is thrown. In the book, she dies from the fall before the Games even begin.
- Lou Lou: The trailer gives her a few moments next to Haymitch, along with him shouting, "Enough! She's not your toy!" The Capitol sends Lou Lou, a little girl, into the arena as Louella's stand-in, and she dies from a poisonous plant in the arena with Haymitch beside her.
- Maysilee Donner (Mckenna Grace): A brief shot shows her surrounded by the arena's bright pink birds. In the book, they're mutts sent to punish her, and one drives its beak through her throat while Haymitch fights them off.
All three are girls Haymitch knows, and two of them die with him beside them. That's the emotional engine of the whole novel.
Everyone knows Haymitch wins the 50th Hunger Games. The trailer is busy showing you who he can't save.
Every major death in the book, in order
Spoilers for the novel from here on. These are the deaths that shape Haymitch's story:
- Woodbine Chance: Shot by a Peacekeeper at the District 12 reaping when he tries to run. Haymitch is taken in his place.
- Louella McCoy: Killed in the chariot crash at the Tribute Parade.
- Wyatt Callow: He dies on the first day of the Games protecting Lou Lou.
- Lou Lou: Poisoned by a plant in the arena.
- Ampert Latier: Beetee's son, attacked by a pack of carnivorous squirrel mutts. Haymitch finds him too late.
- Panache Barker: A Career, killed by one of Maysilee's poison darts.
- Maysilee Donner: Killed by the waterbird mutts after she and the Career Maritte kill three Gamemakers.
- Wellie: Killed by the Career Silka while Haymitch is away getting firewood.
- Silka Sharp: The last tribute between Haymitch and the crown. Her axe bounces off the arena's force field and kills her.
Then Haymitch goes home. His house has burned down, and his mother and brother are dead. Lenore Dove Baird (Whitney Peak), the girl he loves, dies in his arms after he unknowingly gives her a poisoned gumdrop, a murder arranged by President Snow (Ralph Fiennes in the movie).
What the trailer leaves out
Lionsgate kept the hardest losses out of the footage. The trailer only hints at the fire that kills Haymitch's family and avoids directly showing Ampert's death. Those are the losses that turn the boy from District 12 into the mentor Katniss meets.
The movie also has a much bigger cast than the trailer has time for: Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee, Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket, Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman, Glenn Close as Drusilla Sickle, and Maya Hawke, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Lili Taylor as the mentors Wiress, Beetee and Mags. Everyone knows how Haymitch's story ends. On November 20, audiences find out how much of it Lionsgate puts on screen.
Previously we wrote: If Dune is this generation's Star Wars, Paul Atreides is its Anakin — and Part Three is his Revenge of the Sith