I’m hopeful that our global society never has a sufficient reason to enter World War III, but some news coming out of Paramount this even may push us over the edge. After being delayed from a spring bow last year, the studio dropped their revisionist fairy tale movie Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters in the dead zone of January this year and while it didn’t land with critics, the United States forked over a modest $50 million or so.
But the rest of the world ponied up a hefty additional $150 million and so with that, Paramount is developing a sequel the film. Crossing the $200 million worldwide mark today, The Hollywood Reporter lets us know that that producers Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Kevin Messick and Beau Flynn are all set to return. Unless it went into spin-off territory, we’d have to expect Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton to also show up again, despite their busy schedules.
There’s also no mention if the original’s director Tommy Wirkola will be heading back, but he’ll next be returning to his native land for a sequel to his break-out cult hit Dead Snow. In the meantime, as Paramount develops a sequel to his Hollywood hit, one can find some blame in the following countries, who contributed the most to the Hansel & Gretel‘s gross: Brazil ($24.1 milion), Russia $19 million), Mexico ($14 million) and Germany ($12.8 million). Granted, in the end, it was more of a worldwide team effort on this one.
Did you like the original? What do you want to see from a sequel?