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Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow is one of the best additions to the Hunger Games universe since they got Sam Claflin to play Finnick in Catching Fire — so it’s a good thing the actor can’t wait to put on that platinum blond wig again.
Blyth spoke to the Just for Variety podcast about missing the franchise, to which he was introduced in 2023 in the prequel film The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. In 2026, the Suzanne Collins post-apocalyptic thriller is returning with another film set four decades after Ballad and 24 years before the Jennifer Lawrence-led original series. As it stands, and by his own admission, Blyth and his screen partner, Rachel Zegler, will not be returning.
Rachel [Zegler] and I are not going to be in this one because the next one takes place 45 years after ours did. It makes me sad because I miss everyone involved,” he confessed.
Titled Sunrise on the Reaping, the fifth film in the series (second in the timeline) follows Haymitch Abernathy, originally played by Woody Harrelson, as he’s selected to enter the 50th annual Hunger Games. By then, Blyth’s Snow was already President of Panem and played a massively important part in shaping Haymitch to become the downtrodden man we meet in the 2008 book and the 2012 film.
Donald Sutherland, the legendary Canadian actor who played the older Snow in the first four movies and was partly, if not wholly, responsible for making people interested in learning more about the character, sadly passed away in 2024. With Collins and director Francis Lawrence left without a 60-something-year-old actor to play the ruthless dictator, Blyth is, well, volunteering.
“I did text Francis the other day, and he said, ‘I miss you.’ And I said, ‘Well, prosthetics are really great these days. It wouldn’t be that hard to make me look 65,’” the 29-year-old actor offered, and it sounds to us like an offer Lionsgate and the team absolutely cannot refuse. I mean, did anyone here watch The Substance? They could easily hire that film’s special make-up effects artist, Pierre Olivier Persin, and he’d knock it out of the park (if it happens, I want credit for that idea, thanks very much).
When it comes to acting chops, Blyth might not yet be at Sutherland’s level (few are), but his turn as Snow in Ballad showed he was not only passionate about the character but also understood his motivations and whims thoroughly.
That book and film focused on Snow’s early years as a student at the Academy, the Capitol’s elite secondary school. Without spoiling too much of the story for those who haven’t yet read nor watched it, it leaves the cunning 19-year-old well on his way to climb the political ladder of Panem. Emotionally, however, it ends on a significant cliffhanger that any fan of that particular book would surely love to see be revisited.
Fans are also hoping Sunrise on the Reaping will provide more Tigris content. The fashionista cousin of Coriolanus was perfectly cast in Ballad with Euphoria‘s Hunter Schafer taking on the role.
There have not been any casting announcements yet for the upcoming movie, which is expected to hit theaters Nov. 20, 2026. If it were up to us, though, we’d get Blyth on the phone and in the makeup chair ASAP.