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Stick with us on this one - Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson are reprising their respective roles as Katniss Everdean and Peeta Mellark in the Hunger Games franchise... in a story that technically takes place before either of their characters were born. No, The Hunger Games' next movie isn't introducing a time-travel element to the saga (we think?), it's likely something else is going on - something that may make their return a little bit less exciting than it seems at face value.

The story comes to us via The Hollywood Reporter, who broke the news in an article published December 10. In case you don't know, the next Hunger Games movie is Sunrise on the Reaping, a continued prequel tale that began on the big screen with 2023's The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. the film will be set about a quarter-century before the events of the first Hunger Games film, and is slated for release in 2026.

Now to be clear, THR is playing dumb about what the Lawrence/Hutcherson casting means since, as we clarified, neither of their characters were born at the time the Suzanne Collins novel that inspired Sunrise on the Reaping takes place. The outlet ventures a guess that the characters will appear "in a flash-forward," while we feel the need to step in at this point and remind fans that the Sunrise on the Reaping novel (which came out in March this year) ends with an epilogue set after the original Hunger Games series, in which Katniss and Peeta are seen. 

We have to ask, however - just how active will the roles of Katniss and Peeta actually be in the next Hunger Games? After all, the movie's got to spend time with its already stacked cast - Ralph Fiennes, Jesse Plemons, Kieran Culkin, Elle Fanning, and Glenn Close to name just a few - so how much time will it have left to spare on these two particular faces, familiar though they certain are? How much screentime are our returning heroes going to actually get?

I don't know, maybe we'll get a whole, emotionally satisfying run with ol' Katniss and Peeta once Sunrise on the Reaping hits screens. But those odds, in this writer's opinion, aren't in our favor.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping comes to US theaters November 20, 2026.

Ahead of the Second Coming of Katniss, catch up with Popverse's Hunger Games watch order.