In many cases, controversy can turn out to be a good thing for a movie, oftentimes leading to a nice bump in box office earnings and buzz as audiences decide to see for themselves what all the fuss is about.
However, that most certainly was not the case for Blumhouse thriller The Hunt, which proved so contentious that it risked the ire of Home Alone 2 star and reality television personality Donald Trump. The former commander-in-chief decried the film as being deliberately designed to cause chaos and unrest, so clearly he didn’t know much about it at all.
The high concept setup is simple; a dozen strangers wake up in a clearing with no idea where they are or how they got there, only to discover that they’re being hunted down by the wealthy elite for sport. In a matter of unfortunate circumstance, several mass shootings occurred shortly after the first trailer was released, causing Universal to pull The Hunt from the schedule altogether.
It eventually landed in the middle of the pandemic, before being hurled onto VOD just three days after premiering. Jason Blum was vocally upset by how The Hunt was treated, but the good news it that it’s rocketed by almost 30 places on the Netflix most-watched list as per FlixPatrol, so it’s at least getting a second lease of life on streaming.