'The Hunt' Is Back On Track, Gets March Release Date

After going through a rough patch last summer, “The Hunt” production is now going full throttle with its marketing. It can be recalled that Universal halted its marketing campaign for the film in August following a deluge of backlash from internet users.

“The Hunt,” Universal’s take on the controversial short story “The Most Dangerous Game,” will feature a liberal elite class hounding red state “deplorables” for sport. Execs announced in August that they would temporarily discontinue their marketing campaign for the film following a series of mass shootings in the country, but it wasn’t long before they announced that they were cancelling its release altogether.

Earlier that month, the film also came under fire due to its allegedly racist and violent themes. Even U.S. President Donald Trump did not spare “The Hunt” from his online rants, saying that the film would only instigate chaos in the U.S.. “Liberal Hollywood is racist at the highest level, and with great anger and hate!” tweeted Trump. “They like to call themselves elite, but they are not elite. In fact, it is often the people that they so strongly oppose that are actually the elite. The movie coming out is made in order to inflame and cause chaos. They create their own violence, and then try to blame others. They are the true racists, and are very bad for our country!” he added.

Six months since Universal’s cancellation announcement, the studio is now ramping up its marketing efforts to build the hype around the now-un-cancelled movie. Turning the previous backlash into a marketing campaign, the studio released a new poster teeming with pull quotes from various entertainment sites. “The most talked-about movie of the year is one no one’s actually seen,” the poster read.

In a recent interview, “The Hunt” producer Jason Blum and screenwriter Damon Lindelof also defended the film and described it as an over-the-top, satirical take on a divided nation. “It’s probably the most judged movie that’s ever existed that everyone who judged it hadn’t seen,” said Blum.

Lindelof also aired his frustration over how people kept talking about their perception of the movie, not the movie itself. “For us there was just a fundamental frustration that nobody was talking about the movie. They were 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 said.

“The Hunt” is set for release in theaters on March 13.