Lionsgate revealed the first footage from director Francis Lawrence\u2019s\u00a0The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, offering glimpses of new faces portraying iconic characters from novelist Suzanne Collins\u2019 dystopian world. Those faces include Elle Fanning as a young Effie Trinket, Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman, and Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee. The ensemble is large and filled with excellent performers, including Ralph Fiennes as President Coriolanus Snow, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Beetee Latier, Lili Taylor as Mags Flanagan, Joseph Zada as Haymitch Abernathy, Glenn Close as Dursilla Sickle, Billy Porter as Magno Stift, Ben Wang as Wyatt Callow, Iris Apatow as Prosperina Trinket, and Maya Hawke as Wiress.<\/p>\n
Lawrence directs from a script by Billy Ray, with\u00a0Sunrise on the Reaping\u00a0set to be the sixth film in a franchise that began back in 2012 with the Jennifer Lawrence<\/a>-led\u00a0The Hunger Games.\u00a0<\/p>\n Collins\u2019 book \u201cSunrise on the Reaping\u201d is once again set in Panem and begins on the morning of the reaping for the 50th Hunger Games, 24 years before the events in her 2008 debut novel \u201cThe Hunger Games.\u201d The first four films in the franchise<\/a> were led by Lawrence as Katniss, Josh Hutcherson as Peeta, and Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne. Woody Harrelson played Haymitch Abernathy, Donald Sutherland was Coriolanus Snow, Elizabeth Banks was Effie Trinket, and Stanley Tucci was Caesar Flickerman.<\/p>\n