'The Hunt' Trailer: The Controversial Blumhouse Film Gets A New Release Date

The Hunt was all set to open in September...and then everything changed. Word that the film was about "elites" hunting "deplorables" trickled-out, leading to intense backlash from several people, including a certain constantly-angry American president who loves to shout on Twitter all damn day. Blumhouse and Universal buckled to the criticism and pulled the film from release. Now, The Hunt is back, with a new trailer and a new release date. As a result, the movie now has a new marketing tactic, urging people to check out "the most talked about movie of the year" that "no one's actually seen."

Remember The Hunt? It generated a whole lot of controversy, even though it never was actually released. The film was due out in September, but the film's premise – in which wealthy liberals hunt down people with right-wing views for sport – incurred the ire of Fox News and other right-leaning media orgs. Even Donald Trump got in on the action, firing off one of his trademark weirdly written tweets. On top of all that, shortly before the planned release, America experienced a wave of mass shootings in Texas, California, and Ohio. Blumhouse and Universal felt like enough was enough, and pulled the film from release. Now, they're giving it another go.

"For us, there was just a fundamental frustration that nobody was talking about the movie," screenwriter Damon Lindelof told THR. "They were all 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."

Lindelof added: "We think that people who see it are going to enjoy it and this may be 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."

The Hunt will now open on March 13. Here's a new-ish synopsis:

The most talked about movie of the year is the one nobody has seen ... yet.

Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don't know where they are, or how they got there. They don't know they've been chosen... for a very specific purpose ... The Hunt.

In the shadow of a dark internet conspiracy theory, a group of elites gathers for the very first time at a remote Manor House to hunt ordinary Americans for sport. But the elites' master plan is about to be derailed because one of The Hunted, Crystal (Betty Gilpin, GLOW), knows The Hunters' game better than they do. She turns the tables on the killers, picking them off, one by one, as she makes her way toward the mysterious woman (two-time Oscar® winner Hilary Swank) at the center of it all.