Anna Daniels
While even cooler heads wondered if it would ever not be in poor taste to release a film about Americans hunting each other with guns, Lindelof — at a recent press screening of the movie — made a few excellent points. The producer admitted that it had never crossed his mind that the flick would register as “controversial,” but noted that its 2019 marketing campaign didn’t exactly do the job of conveying just what kind of film The Hunt really is (via Collider).
“In my brain, it always felt so over the top and absurd that [the fact that] it was entering into a dangerous space, you know, or a controversial space, that just completely threw me for a loop,” Lindelof said. He noted that test screenings for The Hunt had gone very well, and that the opinions of those who got the chance to see the flick didn’t line up well with those of critics who prematurely passed judgment based on a single trailer.
“None of the conversations that happened with people who had not seen the movie happened with people who had seen the movie,” Lindelof said. He also noted that the movie’s strong satirical streak simply wasn’t played up in that first round of marketing, and he admitted that Universal’s decision to pull the plug without an attempt to rectify the situation, well, teed him off — but he also recognized that opening his mouth in the middle of the maelstrom would have amounted to a losing battle.
“We had to balance our frustration with, what was the route to pursue to get the movie out,” he said. “So we had to bite our tongues, until now.”
Written by: Looper
