Universal Pictures(LOS ANGELES) — Universal Pictures has set March 13 as the new release date for its violent, R-rated satire The Hunt, along with a new trailer.
The Hunt, starring Hillary Swank, Emma Roberts and GLOW‘s Betty Gilpin, centers on a group of elites who hunt human “deplorables” for sport. It was originally scheduled to hit theaters back in September, but was pulled a month earlier in response to backlash from social media and TV networks following mass shootings in Texas, Ohio and California.
President Donald Trump, while not mentioning the film by name, also attacked the movie in a tweet, accusing it in part, of being “made in order to inflame and cause chaos.”
“It’s probably the most judged movie that’s ever existed that everyone who judged it hadn’t seen,” producer Jason Blum tells The Hollywood Reporter. “We weren’t going to win the conversation around that and so it was our decision, in holding hands with Universal, to take the movie off the schedule.”
Now however, Universal has decided capitalized on on the controversy, rather than shy away from it. “The most talked-about movie of the year…that no one’s actually seen,” reads a graphic in the trailer.
Screenwriter Damon Lindelof defends the film to THR as “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.”
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