The Playlist

'Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters' Sequel Is Actually In The Works

By Kevin Jagernauth
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March 18, 2013 4:46 PM
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3 Comments

News

This is why we can't have nice things. So, "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters" -- a total piece of crap, dumped into January, receiving scathing reviews and then disappearing forever, right? Hardly. This past weekend, the movie quietly passed $200 million worldwide. Wha? That's right, international audiences have been gobbling this movie up, with it earning nearly three times what it did in North America, which means one thing: sequel!

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Box Office: 'Warm Bodies' Tops Super Bowl Weekend, While 'Bullet To The Head' Flops

By Gabe Toro
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February 3, 2013 12:29 PM
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1 Comment

Box Office

Pale young leading man dreamboat? Check. Playing a cannibalistic monster who holds his predatory instincts in check? Check. Falls in love with a girl who looks like Kristen Stewart? Check. Based on a best-selling book, from Lionsgate/Summit? Double check. “Warm Bodies” took dead (har!) aim at the “Twilight” fanbase, with a little spillover from the “The Walking Dead” acolytes, coming together like a demographic stew to score the number one movie on Super Bowl weekend. Even if it drops next weekend, “Warm Bodies” should hold steady for Valentine’s Day, where it will be an ideal date night opportunity for couples who aren’t brave enough to come to the Swingers Mixer we have planned.

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Box Office: 'Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters' Tops Slow Weekend

By Gabe Toro
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January 27, 2013 11:53 AM
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3 Comments

Box Office

So, did the big fairy tale boom happen? “Alice In Wonderland” burst out of the gate with a billion dollar gross, leading the way for two Snow White movies that performed respectably, if not powerfully. And here in January, we have another, the R-rated “Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters.” The fact that it was this weekend’s number one box office attraction still clouds the question as to whether the fairy tale movement actually happened, is happening, or was nipped in the bud: this was a January dump, and it’s doubtful the picture’s going to have legs at all. But hey, for three days, they’re number one!

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What Are You Seeing This Weekend? 'Parker' & 'Hansel & Gretel' Have A 'Knife Fight' For 'The Taste Of Money'

By Emma Bernstein
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January 25, 2013 5:26 PM
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2 Comments

News

Park City may be aflutter with cinematic thrills, but it's still January in the rest of the country. Which means we have another weekend of lackluster studio releases banking on the bevy of visuals distracting you from the fact that they were written by a robot without feelings. On the other hand, the schedule is punctuated by a few vibrant indies and flicks from overseas. Emphasis on the few, but still: beggars, and all that jazz. So, fellow panhandlers -- what's getting your hard earned dollar bills this weekend? Tell us in the comments below!

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Review: 'Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters' Isn't Boring, But It Is Unrelentingly Stupid

By Katie Walsh
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January 25, 2013 9:00 AM
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8 Comments

Reviews

Do you want the good news first or the bad news? Let’s start with the good. Firstly, “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” is less than 90 minutes long. That’s good. Also, Gemma Arterton is really pretty and wears a lot of awesome leather pants and gloves and vests and things. Those are also good. The title sequence was neat. And, it’s not boring. It is however, unrelentingly stupid, suffering from the worst screenplay this side of “The Room.” Do not pass go, do not collect $200, proceed directly to The Playlist’s Worst Of The Year 2013 List. In the words of Gretel: “Are you fucking kidding me?”

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The Delayed Films Of 2013: Why They Were Pushed Back & Which Ones Will You Be Seeing?

By Oliver Lyttelton
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January 23, 2013 2:07 PM
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14 Comments

Features

This Friday sees the release of "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters "starring Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton as the fairy tale brother/sister duo. The film shot in March 2011 (before Renner filmed either "The Avengers" or "The Bourne Legacy"), and was originally set to be released in March 2012, before Paramount pushed it back ten months to its current slot in the January wastelands. But 'Hansel & Gretel' is hardly the only case of a long-delayed film making it to theaters in 2013. For instance, "Gangster Squad" was pushed back from September 2012 to January 11th after the Aurora shootings, though it would have been a horrible film whatever time of year it was released. And the two are set to be followed by a fairly staggering twenty-five films from major studios that have already been pushed back somewhere between five and thirteen months, many of them accompanied by serious production troubles and well-publicized reshoots.

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Watch: Ninjas Go Flying, Stuff Explodes In New 'G.I. Joe: Retalation' Spot; 4 Minutes To Screen In Front Of 'Hansel & Gretel'

By Kevin Jagernauth
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January 23, 2013 1:13 PM
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0 Comments

News

For those of you dreaming about more Channing Tatum in "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," guess again. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura recently revealed that despite all the rumors that the movie was undergoing reshoots to beef up the role of the suddenly hot star of "The Vow," "21 Jump Street" and "Magic Mike," that simply isn't the case. So what are we getting? Ninjas. Lots and lots of ninjas.

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Watch: Don't Eat The Candy In 2 Clips From 'Hansel And Gretel Witch Hunters'

By Kevin Jagernauth
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January 6, 2013 2:28 PM
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6 Comments

News

It's coming on five years since "The Hurt Locker," and whether or not Jeremy Renner has truly ascended the way some might have predicted is debatable. Yes, he was great in "The Town" but since then he's logged a throwaway role in "Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol," played a brainwashed zombie for half of "The Avengers," and while it was successful, there doesn't seem to be much clamoring for Aaron Cross to return after "The Bourne Legacy." So what's next for Renner? Uh, this...

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Watch: New Red Band Trailer For 'Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters' Reveals Another Crappy Looking January Movie

By Rodrigo Perez
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January 4, 2013 5:40 AM
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6 Comments

News

Aside from say, "Kill List" "Haywire," to a more lesser, subjective extent "The Grey," good films are not meant to be released in January and 9.999999 times out 10 they are not. It's a dumping ground season for bad romantic comedies that have tested poorly ("Bride Wars"), lame spoof movies ("Meet the Spartans") horror-action dreck ("My Bloody Valentine 3D" and the like), wackjob oddities starring Nicolas Cage ("Season of the Witch") and whatever else needs to be released, but the studio has pretty much zero confidence in other than appealing to those that actively look at a bail-bond business rom-com starring Katherine Heigl and go, "Wow, that looks tremendous." And let's face it, January might be critical death, but it always does decent business at the box-office.

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Gemma Arterton On The "Dirty, Filthy Underworld" Of 'Runner, Runner' & The Difficulty Of Finding Quality Roles For Women In Hollywood

By Jessica Kiang
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December 13, 2012 3:18 PM
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1 Comment

Festivals

Last week at the Marrakech Film Festival, we got to sit down in a small press group with jury member Gemma Arterton. She’s an actress who for a while seemed to be following a fairly standard route, especially for a British starlet, following up her first film “St Trinian's” with some period TV before landing a Bond girl role in “Quantum of Solace.” However, since that breakout, while she’s done studio fare (“Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” the upcoming “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters”), we’ve also seen her skew more eccentric with some of her choices, taking small, British films like “Tamara Drewe” and “Song for Marion" along with edgy indie thriller "The Disappearance Of Alice Creed," and she boasts a forthcoming lineup that promises much more interesting fare to come.

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