Kelvin Harrison, Jr., who voiced Taka, AKA Scar, in Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King, has joined the ever-growing cast of Lionsgate’s latest installment of The Hunger Games franchise, the adaptation of the latest Suzanne Collins bestseller, Sunrise of the Reaping.
Glenn Close is also said to be circling a role in the feature, although sources say it’s unclear whether a deal can me struck on that front.
Reaping stars Joseph Zada as Haymitch Abernathy, with Whitney Peak playing Haymitch’s girlfriend, Lenore Dove Baird. The prequel story is focused on fan favorite Haymitch, who in the original Hunger Games book trilogy (and movie quadrology) acted as a mentor to heroine Katniss Everdeen. (Woody Harrelson played Haymitch in the original Hunger Games films.)
Mckenna Grace and Jesse Plemons are also on the roll call of the production that has Francis Lawrence in the director’s chair.
Harrison has been cast as Beetee, champion of the 34th Hunger Games. In the original movies, the character is played by Jeffrey Wright. Reaping revisits the world of Panem twenty-four years before the events of the initial story.
Billy Ray wrote the script. Color Force’s Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson are producing. Cameron MacConomy will executive produce.
Lionsgate has high hopes for Reaping as the book has been a massive publishing success upon its March 18 release. It sold 1.5 million copies in its first week on sale in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The company points out that the 1.2 million copies sold in the U.S. were twice the first week sales of previous Hunger Games novel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, and three times the first week sales of Mockingjay, the last book of the original trilogy.
Meredith Wieck and Scott O’Brien are overseeing the project for Lionsgate.
Harrison portrayed slain pollical activist Fred Hampton in Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 and musician B.B. King in Baz Luhrman’s Elvis. He also portrayed Martin Luther King in Nat Geo’s miniseries Genius: MLK/X and will star as Jean-Michel Basquiat in Samo Lives, in which he will also serve as executive producer.
He is repped by WME, Anonymous Content, and Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein Lezcano Bobb & Dang.
The InSneider newsletter first reported the Reaping castings.