Early Reviews Are Kind to 'Sunrise on the Reaping' as Hunger Games Prequel Opens Previews
Seven Lights
Early reactions to “The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping,” circulated by critics and audience members after advance showings, ran strongly positive this week ahead of the film’s release in theaters on November 20.
The sixth installment in the Lionsgate series, directed again by Francis Lawrence and adapted from Suzanne Collins’s novel, follows the teenager Haymitch Abernathy decades before the events of the original trilogy. Reviewers singled out Joseph Zada, cast in the role played in the earlier films by Woody Harrelson. He was “a revelation,” one wrote — “charismatic, lovable, tender, and honest” — while another called him “beyond impressive in a highly demanding role that pushes him to the limit physically and emotionally.” McKenna Grace plays Maysilee Donner.
Several comparisons placed the film among the best of the franchise. One critic called it “the best ‘Hunger Games’ yet,” citing the cinematography and production design; another judged it “a near-perfect ‘Hunger Games’ movie that is more brutal than you could imagine,” and several measured it against “Rogue One” and its series “Andor” as a prequel that deepens rather than dilutes the original story. Box-office watchers suggested the early word of mouth could lift forecasts for the opening.
The film also binds itself to the series’ later timeline. Ms. Lawrence, Mr. Hutcherson and Mr. Harrelson appear in the credits, and Ms. Lawrence, asked about her return to the world she starred in as Katniss Everdeen, effectively confirmed that Mr. Harrelson reappears in a cameo. She has described her return to the set as emotional, Vulture reported.
The reactions matter commercially as much as critically. The franchise’s previous film, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” opened to modest returns by the series’ standards; “Sunrise” arrives with a built-in readership and, on this early evidence, a case that the prequel strategy has found its footing. The studio’s next step after release will be whether the word of mouth converts into the franchise’s traditional opening-week crowds.