Casting News for Sunrise on the Reaping

After the huge box office successes of the five films based on the Hunger Games novels by Suzanne Collins, it should come as no surprise that the Hollywood Gamemakers are already champing at the bit for their chance to bring  Sunrise on the Reaping to the big screen. A release date for the film, in November of 2026, is already set, and, with the novel only out for a little over a month, casting rumors are beginning to coalesce into actual contracts. We now have actors in place for three characters, and the media response is lively, if often misguided. Join me after the jump for a few thoughts about the choices surrounding Hollywood’s choices for Haymitch, Lenore Dove Baird, and Maysilee Donner.

Haymitch Abernathy

Despite a number of excellent and well-known young actors competing for the role (I was partly hoping for Maxwell Jenkins after his great work as Will Robinson in the re-boot series of  Lost in Space), Australian actor Joseph Zada has been cast as young Haymitch. With only a few credits, including another anticipated book adaptation due out this summer and a  controversial Australian series that will probably now have more views than it could ever have expected, he is largely unknown, which could be positive or negative.

He does seem believable as a younger version of Woody Harrelson, who played Haymitch in the original films (and who may return for the epilogue of this one), but, once again, we see plenty of evidence of Hollywood Gamemaker nonsense. Like Jennifer Lawrence, Hollywood’s Katniss, Zada, at 20, is much older than his 16-year-old character. Many actors can play younger characters convincingly, but, like Lawrence, he looks much too old for the part, and, also like Lawrence, he already looks like his stylists have shaped him into the Capitol package. It will be hard to imagine him as a boy from District 12.

The biggest concern is the fact that he is Australian. While he may be perfectly capable of doing a plausible accent other than his own (a la British Tom Holland, who makes a very convincing American SpiderMan), I was really hoping for someone who  really is from District 12. When I picture these young characters, I tend to see my students, who not only look the right age, but sound like they are from District 12, because they are. I am generally disappointed with the depiction of Appalachian people, particularly with accents, so I am not optimistic. Harrelson is Texan, but he is at least close in the accent department.

Maysilee Donner

Speaking of Texans, we have Mckenna Grace cast as Maysilee Donner. Although she has been a brunette in the past, her newest headshot on IMDB shows her blonde and right on the money when it comes to looking like Maysilee. Although she’s nineteen, she’s believable as younger, and, at five feet tall, will be able to pull off the role of pretty little thing who is much tougher than she appears at first.  She’s also very experienced, with plenty of film credits.

I have to say that I am quite optimistic about this choice, not just because she looks(at least with her current hairstyle) like the Maysilee in my head, but because she has a great voice that I think can really give us both mean-girl Maysilee and the deeper side of her that emerges in this installment. She also has wonderful facial expressions and is an animated speaker, at least in casual interviews, so I can see her as the make-over specialist with much more to her than a pretty dress and a familiar pin.  She’s also done some heavy-duty special effects work with a Ghostbusters movie, so she should be able to hold her own as a performer with the army of CGI demon-creatures that Hollywood is surely looking forward to launching in this film.

Lenore Dove Baird

The media articles swooning over these first casting announcements keep presenting Lenore Dove Baird as the film’s leading lady, but those of us who have read the book know better. We know she is important but really has very little time in the story, outside Haymitch’s head. Her role is to be his lost love, his Lenore, whose tragic death haunts him and contributes to his spiral into the PTSD-ridden chronic alcoholic we meet in The Hunger Games twenty-four years later. Cast in this role is another older, international actor, Whitney Peak, a 22-year-old Canadian.

She does appear to have charisma that will help justify Haymitch’s fixation on her, both in life and death, and she is lovely. While the text states her mother died in childbirth and her father is a mystery, I suspect Lenore Dove is the child of Maude Ivory, whose tombstone appears in the Covey cemetery and who, as a little girl in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, would have only been around 30 at the time of Lenore Dove’s birth. Her mysterious father would have to have been quite interesting if that is the case.

Peak has solid experience, although primarily in Hallmark movies and mildly scary Disney films. It does appear she is good at screaming, but I’m hopeful she also has a lovely singing voice and is good with geese. Since she is attractive, I suspect that, like Liam Hemsworth who played Gale in the films, she will get more screen time than written, and that the movie people will continue to promote her as a lead.

There are still many roles to cast. I am eager to see if we can get an actual Appalachian boy, one who can sing, as Burdock Everdeen. If they can’t find one, I have a passle I can recommend. I also look forward to seeing our younger versions of  Effie, Mags, Beetee, and Wiress.

We’ll have some commentary on the additional casting decisions as they are made, especially since they often show how the Gamemakers who make movies have a playbook that seldom changes.

What are your thoughts on the cast so far? Wildly enthusiastic? Horrified? Completely disinterested?