Last fall, Universal Pictures pulled Craig Zobel’s The Hunt from release following protest from conservatives and even Donald Trump himself. Written by Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse, the film follows a group of globalist elites who hunt down humans for sport. It seems the conservatives that were offended weren’t looking too closely at The Most Dangerous Game-inspired story, as one of the hunted fights back and starts killing the elite. Now, the studio has announced plans to release the film next month in 3,000 theaters and the controversy it stirred up has only helped its marketing campaign.
As one can see in the materials below, “the most talked about movie of the year [that] one that no one’s actually seen” is now using quotes from numerous outlets when the blacklash occurred. “For us there was just a fundamental frustration that nobody was talking about the movie,” Lindelof tells THR. “They were all talking about what their perception of the movie was–a perception that was largely formed based on all the events in the aftermath of the horrific weekend before. [But] we really don’t want to be pointing fingers, and more importantly, we don’t want to be wagging fingers at anyone for overreacting or reacting incorrectly. We just felt like the movie was being misunderstood.”
He added, “We think that people who see it are going to enjoy it and this may be a way to shine a light on a very serious problem in the country, which is that we’re divided. And we think the movie may actually, ironically, bring people together.”
Starring Ike Barinholtz, Betty Gilpin, Emma Roberts, Justin Hartley, Glenn Howerton, and Hilary Swank, see the new trailer and poster below ahead of a March 13 release.
The most talked about movie of the year is the one nobody has seen … yet.
Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don’t know where they are, or how they got there. They don’t know they’ve been chosen… for a very specific purpose … The Hunt.
In the shadow of a dark internet conspiracy theory, a group of elites gathers for the very first time at a remote Manor House to hunt ordinary Americans for sport. But the elites’ master plan is about to be derailed because one of The Hunted, Crystal (Betty Gilpin, GLOW), knows The Hunters’ game better than they do. She turns the tables on the killers, picking them off, one by one, as she makes her way toward the mysterious woman (two-time Oscar® winner Hilary Swank) at the center of it all.
The Hunt now opens on March 13.