Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters Gets A New Writer

Writer / director Tommy Wirkola got on the map with Dead Snow, his zombie Nazi movie that hit a few festivals over the last year. Now he's looking to follow that up with a film that catches up with Hansel and Gretel fifteen years after a witch tried to turn them into dinner. We heard about this one, called Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, for the first time back in April. The project is still kicking, and it has a new writer, who hails from David Fincher's camp.

Dante Harper worked with Fincher developing the Charles Burns comic Black Hole. (A project I would really love to see, but I thought was dead. Trade report implies that it remains alive, which thrills me.) Now he's working with Wirkola, who pitched and outlined Hansel and Gretel. Hopefully he can push the story to be a bit more effective beyond the basic pitch. Dead Snow got a lot of internet attention thanks to the core idea — zombie Nazis — but didn't hold all that attention once people actually started to see the film. Maybe this will fare better.THR is still reporting that Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is going for the "funny/gory" vibe of Shaun of the Dead, and I smell a whiff of The Brothers Grimm in there, too. (Surprised Brendon didn't mention that when he first covered this project.) The basic premise is that Hansel and Gretel developed a not too surprising hatred of witches after their famous episode in a gingerbread house. Now they, um, hunt them, just like the title says, supposedly with modern-ish tech like pump shotguns. Sounds like a fairy tale version of steampunk, to some extent. In other words, a whole set of Comic Con and Dragon*Con costumes just waiting to happen.