May the odds be ever in Elle Fanning’s favor.
The Maleficent star, 27, has officially joined the cast of The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, according to a May 20 announcement on the film’s official social media channels. Fanning will portray a younger version of Effie Trinket, the iconic Capitol escort originally played by Elizabeth Banks in the first four Hunger Games films.
Also joining the cast are Iona Bell as Lou Lou and Molly McCann as Louella McCoy, expanding the ensemble for this much-anticipated prequel. 
This role adds another major franchise to Fanning’s growing filmography, following her work in the upcoming Predator: Badlands. She also appeared alongside Timothée Chalamet in the Oscar-nominated Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown last year.
Sunrise on the Reaping is based on the upcoming novel by Suzanne Collins and is set 24 years before the original Hunger Games trilogy. It focuses on the 50th Hunger Games—also known as the Second Quarter Quell—a pivotal chapter in Panem’s violent history. The original story, and its 2012 film adaptation starring Jennifer Lawrence, revolved around the 74th Hunger Games.
Joseph Zada will play a young Haymitch Abernathy, the eventual mentor to Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, originally portrayed by Woody Harrelson. The film will also include younger versions of characters such as Beetee Latier (originally played by Jeffrey Wright), Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and President Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland).
A younger Coriolanus Snow, played by Tom Blyth, was the protagonist of the 2023 prequel The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, which explored the 10th Hunger Games and starred Rachel Zegler.
