Joseph Zada Is the Search: the New Haymitch Takes 'Sunrise on the Reaping' Toward Its November 20 Opening
Nine days before the fifth Hunger Games film opens, its unknown lead is a top-10 American search - a 16-year-old Haymitch, 48 tributes in the second Quarter Quell, and a Madrid screening that put Joseph Zada and Mckenna Grace in front of 1,000 fans.
The search board does not lie about where attention is going: 'joseph zada' sat at No. 10 on the U.S. Google Trends board this morning, nine days before most Americans could pick the actor out of a lineup. That is the bet Lionsgate made - the fifth Hunger Games film, Sunrise on the Reaping, opens in theaters on November 20 with Zada, an Australian newcomer, carrying the franchise as the 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy, the role Woody Harrelson made famous.
The story is the darkest draw in the series' deck. The film begins on the morning of the reaping for the 50th Hunger Games - the second Quarter Quell - when the Capitol doubles the number of tributes to 48, and follows Haymitch from District 12 into the arena. It adapts Suzanne Collins' 2025 novel of the same name, with a screenplay by Billy Ray and direction by Francis Lawrence, who has directed every Hunger Games film since Catching Fire. The cast around Zada runs deep: Mckenna Grace as fellow District 12 tribute Maysilee Donner, plus Jesse Plemons, Ralph Fiennes, Glenn Close, Kieran Culkin, Elle Fanning, Maya Hawke, Whitney Peak and Kelvin Harrison Jr.
The tour is already doing its work. On November 5, Zada and Grace headlined a special event screening at the Kinepolis Ciudad de la Imagen in Madrid, part of a global fan tour ahead of release, and the cast explainers published this week have become the week's reading for a fan base that has had the book since March 2025. The film is rated PG-13 for strong violence, bloody images and disturbing material.
The commercial dates are set: IMAX and premium large-format early-access screenings begin Wednesday, November 18 at 6 p.m., with the full theatrical opening - in theaters only - on Friday, November 20. For Houston readers, that is the whole file: the search spike is a young actor becoming a franchise lead in public, and the opening weekend is when the bet gets graded.
