Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

1/9/12 - Paramount and MGM are moving back the release of Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters by almost a year, from March 2, 2012, to January 11, 2013, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  The move comes on the heels of the successful opening of Paramount's micro-budgeted horror pic The Devil Inside and Christmas tentpole Mission: Impossible--Ghost Protocol, which has already earned $458.1 million worldwide. The two films almost guarantee that the studio will have a good fiscal quarter.  There are two other reasons for the move, according to an insider. The 3D materials for Hansel and Gretel are only now coming in, and Paramount wants time to market the 3D aspect, particularly overseas.

2/17/11 - Paramount has set a March 2, 2012 release date for Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, which MGM will co-finance.  Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton star.  Tommy Wirkola will direct.  D.W. Harper will pen the script. Will Ferrell, Chris Henchy, Adam McKay and Kevin J. Messick are producing through their Gary Sanchez shingle.  The fairy tale retelling is set 15 years after the siblings killed the witch who kidnapped them, and the siblings have evolved into bounty hunters who pursue witches.

2/8/11 - Famke Janssen has joined Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton in the Paramount film Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Tommy Wirkola is directing the film.  Janssen will play the leader of the witches.  The Gary Sanchez-produced project is scheduled to begin shooting in Berlin in March.

1/4/11 - Paramount may begin production on the Gary Sanchez project Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, a dark action movie that picks up with the fairy tale siblings years after the traumatic childhood incident has turned them into bounty hunters.  Gemma Arterton will assume a lead role.  Director Tommy Wirkola is hoping to begin shooting the project in Berlin March 7.  Paramount may try for a Halloween release.  If not, January 2012 opening could be possible.

11/12/09 - Writer Dante Harper has been hired to sprinkle a few more bread crumbs on the script for Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Director Tommy Wirkola is helming the project for Gary Sanchez Prods. and Paramount.  The Norwegian pitched and plotted out the story line, which picks up the fairy-tale siblings 15 years after their traumatic gingerbread house incident, which provoked them to become witch bounty hunters.  Sanchez execs Kevin Messick, Adam McKay, Will Ferrell and Chris Henchy are producing the horror-action comedy, which is pitched as having a gory-but-funny "Shaun of the Dead" vibe.

6/23/09 - Director Tommy Wirkola tells ShockTillYouDrop that he's put a Buffy spin his new film Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.  "It's an action-adventure horror movie that finds Hansel and Gretel 15 years, and they've grown up to become merciless witch hunters," Wirkola said. "Blood and gore and action, all the stuff that I love. I'm working on the first draft now so it's a little ways off, but it's going to be a lot of fun. It's definitely an R-rated movie, the first draft has a lot of blood and guts. First and foremost, it's an action movie, I think, with horror elements. And of course some dark humor as well. But the action and horror are the most import feelings I want."

4/30/09 - Tommy Wirkola, the Norwegian director of the Nazi-zombie movie Dead Snow, is developing Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, exploring how things played out for the poor siblings 15 years after that whole gingerbread house incident, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

AlienAlmanac.com  -  Living Among You Since 2004