‘The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping’ taps Ralph Fiennes as President Snow
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The Hunger Games has found its next Coriolanus Snow for its forthcoming prequel film, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.
In a social media post Friday, the franchise revealed Harry Potter star Ralph Fiennes as next in line to take on the role of the hard-hearted autocrat president of Panem.
Fiennes follows in the footsteps of the late DonaldSutherland, who played President Snow starting in 2012 with the first film and in the corresponding three films. Tom Blyth played the character in the 2023 prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
“We wanted to honor Donald Sutherland by having one of this generation’s greatest actors play President Snow 24 years before Katniss Everdeen entered the arena,” producer Nina Jacobson said in a statement. “Working with Ralph has been on my bucket list since he traumatized me for life in Schindler’s List. It’s genuinely a thrill to welcome him to the Hunger Games.”
The announcement of President Snow follows Thursday’s reveal of American Born Chinese star BenWang as Wyatt Callow, a tribute from District 12, as well as a host of other surprise castings shared as Instagram Reels on Lionsgate and The Hunger Games’ pages.
Also joining the cast for the fifth movie are Joseph Zada, Whitney Peak, Mckenna Grace, JessePlemons, Maya Hawke and Lili Taylor.
The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping hits theaters on Nov. 20, 2026.
The writers of Sam Mendes’ upcoming films about The Beatles have just been revealed.
Variety reports that three writers have been hired for the four films: Jez Butterworth, whose resume includes Ford v Ferrari, Edge of Tomorrow and Spectre; Peter Straughan, who won the Oscar this year for writing Conclave; and Jack Thorne, a BAFTA and Tony Award winner who wrote the 2020 film Enola Holmes and the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Mendes’ Beatles films, titled The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event, will be released in April 2028, with each film being told from a different band member’s point of view. They will star Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison.
The Sony films will mark the first time Apple Corps Ltd. and The Beatles have granted a studio the rights to the life stories of band members and their legendary catalog of music.
Charlize Theron is back as warrior Andy in the official trailer for The Old Guard 2.
The trailer for the sequel arrives almost five years after the original The Old Guard film released on Netflix in 2020. It follows Andy and her team of immortal warriors who are back to protect humanity from a new enemy.
“Andy grapples with her newfound mortality as a mysterious threat emerges that could jeopardize everything she’s worked towards for thousands of years,” according to the film’s official synopsis.
This mysterious threat involves new cast member Uma Thurman, who plays the first of the immortals.
“For centuries I’ve watched you fight to protect humanity while forsaking your own kind,” Thurman says in the trailer. “I will destroy you and everything you stand for with a power you can’t even imagine yet.”
The crew of Nile (KiKi Layne), Joe (Marwan Kenzari), Nicky (Luca Marinelli) and James Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) all return for the sequel. They’re joined by Tuah, played by Henry Golding, an old friend who may provide the key to unlocking the mystery behind immortal existence.
Victoria Mahoney directed the sequel, which Netflix describes as “an emotional, adrenaline-pumping” movie based on the world created by Greg Rucka and illustrator Leandro Fernandez.
A spokesperson for Taylor Swift is responding after the pop star was subpoenaed as a witness in Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni‘s legal feud over their alleged conflict on the set of the film It Ends With Us.
The singer was subpoenaed by Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, but a spokesperson for the singer says she was only involved in licensing her song, “My Tears Ricochet,” for the film and was never on set.
According to Deadline, Swift was subpoenaed earlier this week.
A spokesperson for the “Cruel Summer” singer told Good Morning America in a statement on Friday that, “Taylor Swift never set foot on the set of this movie, she was not involved in any casting or creative decisions, she did not score the film, she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film, she did not even see It Ends With Us until weeks after its public release, and was traveling around the globe during 2023 and 2024 headlining the biggest tour in history.”
The spokesperson added, “The connection Taylor had to this film was permitting the use of one song, ‘My Tears Ricochet.'”
“Given that her involvement was licensing a song for the film, which 19 other artists also did, this document subpoena is designed to use Taylor Swift’s name to draw public interest by creating tabloid clickbait instead of focusing on the facts of the case,” the spokesperson added.
Lively and Baldoni have been embroiled in a heated legal feud since December 2024, when Lively first filed a complaint against Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Department, accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of the film, which he also directed.
Baldoni denied the allegations via a statement from Freedman, who called Lively’s actions “shameful” for making “serious and categorically false accusations” against Baldoni. He added that it was “another desperate attempt to ‘fix’ her negative reputation which was garnered from her own remarks and actions during the campaign for the film.”
Lively, represented by attorney Michael Gottlieb, and Baldoni, represented by attorney Bryan Freedman, then launched dueling lawsuits against each other.
In Baldoni’s lawsuit against Lively, it detailed a text message he allegedly received from Lively in which Baldoni claims she referred to Swift and her husband Ryan Reynolds as her “dragons.” According to his complaint, it argues that Lively leveraged her relationship with high profile individuals like Swift and Reynolds to exert her influence over the film.
Reynolds is also being sued by Baldoni. Lively’s lawyers called Baldoni’s lawsuit “another chapter in the abuser playbook” and accused Baldoni of “trying to shift the narrative to Ms. Lively by falsely claiming that she seized creative control and alienated the cast from Mr. Baldoni.”
The actors are due to appear in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on March 9, 2026, with Judge Lewis Liman overseeing the case.
Ahead of their court date, Lively filed an amended version of her lawsuit against Baldoni in February.
In March, Reynolds filed a motion to dismiss Baldoni’s complaint against him. Lively followed and filed a motion to dismiss Baldoni’s countersuit against her.
GMA has reached out to attorneys and representatives for Baldoni and Lively in response to Swift’s subpoena.
