The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping has revealed the name of the person who won a role in the film in an open fan casting call.
Lionsgate announced an official open casting call for fans in May this year, where they could act out a scene, perform a song, or an improv to be selected for a role in the franchise’s prequel.
The odds turned out to be in Florida-based actor Devon Singletary’s favour, as Lionsgate announced that he would be playing Blair, a friend of protagonist Haymitch Abernathy.
“I’m blown away,” Singletary said in a video posted on the film’s social media. “I’m really just speechless. I’m super excited.”
“I love the Sunrise on the Reaping book. Being selected into the Hunger Games is a great honour.”
The Hunger Games franchise, based on a series of bestselling dystopian novels by Suzanne Collins, focused on 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who ends up in the 74th Hunger Games, a punishment designed to keep districts surrounding the cruel and exploitative Capitol from rebelling again, by forcing them to send a boy and girl selected by a lottery to participate in a reality television show-type contest that makes them fight to the death until one remains.
Sunrise on the Reaping will focus on Katniss’s mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, as he is chosen as one of the four tributes from District 12 to compete in the 50th Annual Hunger Games, also called the Second Quarter Quell.
Cast members McKenna Grace, Whitney Peak, and Joseph Zada, who are playing Maysilee Donner, Lenore Dove Baird, and Haymitch respectively, joined Singletary over a video call to congratulate him and tell him who he would be playing.
“Your video was actually mindblowing,” Peak told Singletary in the video.
Other members of the cast include Ralph Fiennes as President Coriolanus Snow, Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman, Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee, Kelvin Harrison Jr as Beetee, Maya Hawke as Wiress, Lili Taylor as Mags, Ben Wang as Wyatt Callow, Molly McCann as Louella McCoy, and Iona Bell as Louella’s body double Lou Lou.
The original film series ran from 2012 to 2015, grossing over $3.3bn worldwide. In 2023, a prequel starring Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler (The Ballads of Songbirds & Snakes) hit theatres, grossing over $300m.
This prequel will take place 24 years before Katniss volunteered in lieu of her sister, and 40 years after the events of The Ballads of Songbirds & Snakes, which followed the evolution of antagonist Coriolanus Snow.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is slated to be released on 20 November 2026.
