One of the more interesting stories of the last year was the decision by Universal and Blumhouse to pull the controversial thriller, “The Hunt,” from the release schedule. The timing of the original release was unfortunate, as the mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso happened approximately a month before the violent film was expected to hit theaters. And with folks like President Donald Trump tweeting negative things about the film, the studio and production company agreed that it wasn’t right to release the film.
However, time has passed. And apparently, according to a new interview with producer Jason Blum and co-writer/producer Damon Lindelof, “The Hunt” is ready to hit theaters in March. Speaking to THR, it appears that both men think the whole controversy surrounding the film was blown out of proportion and there’s no reason why “The Hunt” should as hated as it is, considering no one has really seen it.
Blum said that the decision to pull the film from the schedule was a mutual decision between Blumhouse and Universal after politicians (including Trump) publicly shamed the film for its “racist” views and other folks talked about how the film was in bad taste. For those that don’t know the basics of “The Hunt,” the film follows a group of strangers that are taken to a mystery location where they’ll be hunted by the “elite.” As you might surmise, folks on the Right called the film Hollywood propaganda about taking joy in the killing of “deplorables.” Whereas folks on the other side of things saw the film as a “both sides are right” film.
“For us there was just a fundamental frustration that nobody was talking about the movie,” said Lindelof. “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.”
When the decision was made to produce the film, Jason Blum said that he saw “The Hunt” as nothing more than satire, similar to some other popular films.
“It was read as a satire, no different from ‘The Joker’ or other movies that are violent,” Blum said. “It was read as a movie that didn’t take sides.”
He continued by comparing the movie to “The Purge” and said, “The audience is smart enough to know that what they’re seeing is a satire and it’s preposterous.”
Well, we are one month away from the audience getting a taste of the film. “The Hunt” is set to be released by Universal on March 13. Earlier we shared the new trailer for the film, which you can check out here.