Here is our first look at Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, starring Jeremy Renner as Hansel, and Gemma Arterton as Gretel.
The story is a revisionist take on the classic fairy tale, and a trailer should be out this week.
Arterton recently spoke about the film and revealed that the tone of the film is a mix of Pulp Fiction and fairly tale.How does this movie incorporate the original Brothers Grimm tale? Is that story kind of a prologue?
Yes, it continues it. You see a series of flashbacks with their experience of killing that first witch, which is brilliant. I remember being on set for the final few days of that. The candy house, and the witches are really repulsive and quite frightening. The make-up is out of this world. It’s this bone-chilling scene. Very dark. The girl who plays my character is brilliant, with the horrified expression she has.Folk-tales like this have been told over and over again, changing every time.
What’s the constant that your movie picks up?
They resonate with your fears, that’s how these fairy tales worked. They scared you into behaving. This one in particular is about abandonment and being lost and parents leaving you. The heart of it is that these kids grow up to be bloodthirsty witch hunters. It’s a bit tongue in cheek, really.
What would Hansel and Gretel be in 15 years time?
Though it’s comedic, deep down it’s about abused kids becoming kind of hyper-responsible?
But it’s also very, very dark, and bloodthirsty and there’s a lot of cursing. It’s kind of got a [Quentin] Tarantino feel, really.
Interesting. So instead of Jules and Vincent, we have Hansel and Gretel. And beyond being killers, they’re siblings who feel they need to protect each other?
We spent a lot of time thinking about that and behaving like brother and sister, making it detailed so it wasn’t just two actors kicking butt, really. Thget boring. In our minds, these are two people who grew up with no parents and they only have each other and the bond they have, and with the complexities of that, some resentment.
You can catch Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters in theaters on March 2, 2012.
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