After delivering a critical and commercial hit with The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and SnakesIn “Panem,” franchise creator and author Suzanne Collins turns back time again for another prequel story. The Hunger Games: Sunrise over the Harvest will be published as a novel in 2025, followed by a feature film adaptation in 2026. This story is set to follow the 50th edition of the Hunger Games and a young Haymitch Abernathy.

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Longtime franchise director Francis Lawrence returns to the helm Sunrise on the harvesta film that comes with the difficult challenge of casting a young Haymitch. The character was played in the original Hunger Games Films by Woody Harrelson, one of the most unique actors ever. How do you even begin to find someone to play a younger version of Harrelson?

As we speak to ComicBook about the upcoming 4K release of ConstantineLawrence admitted that finding a new Haymitch would be a challenge. However, he believes the task is not all that different from the one they faced The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakeswhen Tom Blythe was cast as a young version of Donald Sutherland’s President Snow.

“Honestly, I think the best way to answer that question is to say: If you look at it The Ballad of Songbirds and SnakesWe had to cast a young version of Donald Sutherland, right? “It’s the same challenge,” Lawrence explained. “There are different characteristics of Donald and Woody, very different people. But you ask yourself, “How am I going to cast a young person who can believably become Donald Sutherland?” Who’s going to have that kind of intelligence, sophistication, a little bit of irreverence, seriousness and all that? Who will embody and be believable in the fact that he will turn into this guy and become President of Panem? And it’s the same (with Haymitch).”

“It’s a search and you have to dig and find out what elements make Woody so interesting, right? And some of it is humor. Part of it is intelligence. Some of it is strange. Part of it is that there is a darkness within him that gives him poignancy. There’s a malice there, isn’t there? So it’s all of those aspects that make Woody so great, so appealing, so watchable and such a great actor and so interesting,” the director continued. “And we have to find someone who has all of that. It’s not someone who’s just going to look like him or study Woody Harrelson and just act like him. When Tom Blythe played Donald Sutherland, he didn’t impersonate. We had to find someone who was credible and could say, ‘Okay, I understand how this 70-something year old can turn into Donald.'”

The Sunrise on the harvest The novel is scheduled to hit theaters on March 18, 2025. Lawrence’s film adaptation is not scheduled to hit theaters until November 20, 2026.