Set 24 years before the original Hunger Games and 40 years after the events in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Sunrise on the Reaping zooms in on the 50th annual Hunger Games, where a young Haymitch Abernathy (Joseph Zada) was reaped as one of the four tributes from District 12 to compete in the game.

Zada was cast to play the younger version of Haymitch, a role that was popularized by Woody Harrelson. Ralph Fiennes will play President Snow, previously portrayed by Tom Blyth in the prequel and Donald Sutherland in the original quadrilogy. Joining them in the cast are Maya Hawke, McKenna Grace, Kieran Culkin, Jesse Plemons, Ben Wang, and many others.

While none of the previous cast will be returning, Sunrise on the Reaping does feature the return of something familiar.

Sunrise On The Reaping Will Have A Legit Hunger Games Arena Like The First 2 Movies

And It’s Very ᴅᴇᴀᴅly

The upcoming movie will finally see the return of a proper arena, which has been missing since Catching Fire. The first two Hunger Games installments saw Katniss and Peeta competing in the 74th and the 75th Hunger Games, but the rest of the franchise didn’t provide similar conditions.

Taking place in the aftermath of the Third Quarter Quell, the two-part Mockingjay saw the Districts rebel against the Capitol, where the Hunger Games weren’t held in the same fashion as they were before. The fourth installment saw Snow turn the Capitol into an arena.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, on the other hand, took place too early in Panem’s history, where The Hunger Games was still in its developmental stage. None of the factors were present in Sunrise on the Reaping.

A young Snow has devoted his intelligence and time to perfecting the system after he served as a mentor in the 10th Hunger Games. By the time Haymitch entered the arena as a tribute, Snow had already become the President of Panem, and much has changed since Lucy Gray Baird’s game. The arena, in particular, has evolved greatly.

Suzanne Collins’ book depicted the arena for the 50th Hunger Games as a breathtaking place with sweet meadows, forests, and a snowcapped mountain. However, from the sting of a ʙuттerfly to the stream and the smell of flowers, nearly everything in the arena is ᴅᴇᴀᴅly, except for rainwater and food from the Cornucopia.

Similar to the 75th Hunger Games, the 50th Hunger Games was enclosed by a field force, which Haymitch used to his advantage to win the game, though not without consequences. With Sunrise on the Reaping filming very soon, it won’t be long until new images and eventual teasers become available to showcase the beautiful but ᴅᴇᴀᴅly arena of the Second Quarter Quell.