The Hunt will be coming soon to a theater near you after all.
Universal last year scrapped the planned September release of its political satire The Hunt after controversy erupted over reports about its plot, which The Hollywood Reporter at the time wrote involved elites hunting "deplorables." Ads for the film were pulled in the wake of two mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, and President Trump even went after it on Twitter, writing that it was "made in order to inflame and cause chaos." This was all in spite of the fact that not only had no one seen the movie, but it appeared from the trailer the so-called "deplorables" were actually the heroes.
Six months later, Universal announced Tuesday it's releasing The Hunt in theaters on March 13, dropping the news along with a new trailer that references the controversy and asks viewers to "decide for yourself." The film was recently shown to critics, one of whom, io9's Germain Lussier, writes that it actually "isn't pro-liberal, nor is pro-conservative. If anything, it's anti-both of them." Insider's Jason Guerrasio similarly writes that the focus of the movie is "not liberals versus conservatives" but that it's instead a "sensationalized look at what happens when things are completely blown out of proportion," and "the politics angle is a complete ruse within it."
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In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, producer Jason Blum said that "none of us were interested in taking sides with this movie," while co-writer Damon Lindelof described the film as having been "misunderstood" last year.
"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," Lindelof said. "And we think the movie may actually, ironically, bring people together." Brendan Morrow
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