The Huntwon't be making its planned Sept. 27 release, and there's no timeline for when it will hit theaters.
Universal officially shelved the upcoming Blumhouse thriller on Saturday, confirming the decision in a statement provided to Mashable. The story of rich elites capturing "deplorables" and hunting them in some unnamed foreign location is just a bit too raw for the present moment.
"While Universal Pictures had already paused the marketing campaign for The Hunt, after thoughtful consideration, the studio has decided to cancel our plans to release the film, ” the statement reads. "We stand by our filmmakers and will continue to distribute films in partnership with bold and visionary creators, like those associated with this satirical social thriller, but we understand that now is not the right time to release this film."
"Now" not being the right time to release a movie about Americans hunting their ideological opposition probably has a lot to do with the recent shootings in Dayton, Ohio; El Paso, Texas; and Gilroy, Calif. At least one of those incidents has a strong alleged link to online hate speech propelled in part by President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric.
If Variety's report is accurate, the shelving may not be permanent. The site notes that, according to insiders (but in Variety's own words), "studio leadership ultimately determined that the film could wait."
It's possible that Trump himself played a role in the decision as well. While there's almost no chance anyone at Universal consulted with the U.S. president directly, the decision to shelve The Huntcomes almost exactly one day after Trump turned his angry Twitter gaze on Hollywood.
Tweet may have been deleted
I'm not going to bother unpacking the tweets or explaining where and how Trump is distorting reality and outright misapplying the word "racist." It's 2019. We all know how this man operates by now.
Nevertheless, pressure from the Oval Office could have played a role in Universal's decision. The trailer (which appears to have been pulled from Universal's YouTube channel but can still be found elsewhere) makes it seem like the story turns on the movie's hunted southerners and midwesterners realizing what's happened to them and turning the tables on their captors.
SEE ALSO:Trevor Noah has a thoughtful take on the real impact of mass shootingsNot that it matters, beyond making the president's angry tweets look idiotic. Universal made the right choice here. The ideological divisions in the U.S. are a big source of strife these days, but releasing a movie like The Huntjust a month after the summer's spate of grisly shootings would've been tone-deaf. Especially given the movie's premise and its connections to at least one shooting's alleged motivator.
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