Universal has unveiled a new release date and trailer for Blumhouse's The Hunt, playing into the controversy around the delayed horror-thriller. For those who've forgotten, The Hunt was originally scheduled to come out in September 2019, but was later delayed indefinitely. A loose re-imagining of Richard Connell's short story The Most Dangerous Game, the movie revolves around twelve strangers who inexplicably wake up in a clearing and find themselves being hunted by wealthy individuals - at least, until one of them (GLOW's Betty Gilpin) starts fighting back.
Directed by Craig Zobel from a script by Damon Lindelof and Nick Cuse, The Hunt's original release date was cancelled in the wake of the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio last summer. Universal released a statement indicating its decision was not influenced by U.S. president Donald Trump's criticism of the film (which he claimed existed "to inflame and cause chaos") at the time, saying it stood by the project's "bold and visionary creators", but realized "now is not the right time" to release it. With the dust having firmly cleared by this point, the studio is moving forward with its marketing for The Hunt once again.
In addition to scheduling The Hunt for a new release date (next month, on March 13), Universal has also released a brand-new trailer and poster for the film. You can check those out in the space below.
Unlike the original trailer for The Hunt, this new preview makes its crystal clear the film is a satirical social thriller and is full of lines that, out of context, come across as meta-commentary on all the hullabaloo ahead of its release. Besides its violence, the other big reason behind the movie's early controversy stems from its subject matter and use of the politically-charged terms "elites" and "deplorables" to refer to its wealthy liberal or poorer conservative characters. But as the latest trailer and poster point out, nobody other than select members of the press and test screening audiences (whose reactions are embargoed for now) have actually seen The Hunt just yet. In other words, the film has yet to be criticized by anyone who has the proper context for its sociopolitical references.
It's more than a tad ironic that, right after The Hunt was delayed, (then, Fox) Searchlight Pictures released Ready or Not, a similarly satirical R-rated horror-thriller that also dealt with class warfare and income inequality. In fact, it's possible The Hunt will be more successful now than it would've been last September, had it opened in theaters as planned. The second trailer certainly does a better job than the first one did of teasing the movie's actual story and the way it examines timely political issues, like how misinformation can easily spread online through internet conspiracy theories. Not to mention, following their acclaimed satirical examination of superheroes on HBO's Watchmen, people will be all the more excited to see what Lindelof and Cuse have cooked up with their script for The Hunt.
Source: Universal Pictures
