Ralph Fiennes’ President Snow Gets a Fresh Look Ahead of ‘The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping’ Release

Panem is about to get a new face at the top, and the buildup to that reveal has been building for over a year now. Since Ralph Fiennes was first announced as the latest actor to take on President Coriolanus Snow, fans of the franchise have been dissecting every scrap of footage and imagery for clues about how he’ll make the role his own.

That anticipation traces back to the character’s long screen history. Donald Sutherland originated Snow across all four original ‘Hunger Games‘ films, while Tom Blyth later played a younger version of the character in 2023’s ‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.’ Fiennes now steps in to portray Snow at yet another stage of his life, positioned chronologically between those two prior interpretations.

Entertainment Weekly has now shared a new image of Fiennes as Snow as part of its Fall Movie Preview coverage, giving fans another look at the character ahead of the film’s release. The photo shows Fiennes in character amid the imposing architecture of Panem, continuing the steady drip of official imagery Lionsgate has released throughout the film’s rollout.

That rollout has included everything from set photos to full trailers over the past year. A propaganda-style poster spotted on set last year introduced Fiennes’ version of Snow as “Panem’s #1 Peacekeeper,” styled in military dress with a look meant to bridge the gap between Sutherland’s older, silver-haired portrayal and the younger version fans saw from Blyth. A subsequent trailer gave audiences their first real taste of Fiennes in the role, with Snow menacingly warning, “If you disobey me, we shall open the bloodbath with the longest, most drawn-out death your people have ever seen.”

‘The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping’ is set 24 years before the events of the original ‘Hunger Games’ and follows a young Haymitch Abernathy, played by Joseph Zada, through the 50th Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell. Francis Lawrence, who has directed every ‘Hunger Games’ film since ‘Catching Fire,’ returns behind the camera, working from a script by franchise veteran Billy Ray.

The film is bringing back an ensemble deep enough to rival any prior installment, with Whitney Peak as Lenore Dove Baird, Mckenna Grace as Maysilee Donner, Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee, Maya Hawke as Wiress, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Beetee, Lili Taylor as Mags, and Ben Wang as Wyatt Callow rounding out the younger cast. Elle Fanning takes on a young Effie Trinket, Kieran Culkin steps into Caesar Flickerman, Glenn Close plays Drusilla Sickle, and Billy Porter appears as Magno Stift.

Casting Fiennes carried real symbolic weight for the franchise’s producers. Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Chair Adam Fogelson previously said the studio wanted to honor Sutherland’s legacy by bringing in one of this generation’s finest actors to play Snow more than two decades before Katniss Everdeen ever entered the arena, calling working with Fiennes a personal bucket-list moment tied back to his admiration for the actor’s earlier work.

The source material has already proven its popularity well beyond the screen. Suzanne Collins’ ‘Sunrise on the Reaping’ novel sold 1.5 million copies in its first week of release across the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, a number roughly twice the first-week sales of ‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ and three times that of ‘Mockingjay.’

With a built-in readership already primed for the story and a cast stacked with awards-caliber talent, ‘The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping’ looks positioned to be one of the bigger theatrical events of the fall season. ‘The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping’ arrives in theaters November 20.

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