Gemma Arterton takes on the Lead Role in HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS
Actress Gemma Arterton (Clash of the Titans) has landed the lead feamle role in a new film that reimagines the classic tale of Hansel and Gretel as a badass action adventure film called Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. It explores what happened to Hansel and Gretel 15 years after the gingerbread house incident. They have become bounty hunters that specialize in tracking down and killing witches! This is the film being developed at Paramount Pictures by Dead Snow director Tommy Wirkola who hopes to start shooting the film in March.
Other actresses up for the role included Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds), Eva Green (Casino Royale) and Noomi Rapace (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) is already attached to the film in the role of Hansel.
Will Ferrell and Adam McKay thought the idea was so awesome that they helped push it into production. McKay said in a previous interview:
The idea is, they've grown up and they hunt witches. It's a hybrid sort of "old-timey" feeling, yet there's pump-action shotguns. Modern technology but in an old style. We heard it and we were just like, 'That's a freakin' franchise! You could make three of those!'
According to THR "Paramount is also hustling H&G forward to try and get ahead of Fox’s adaptation of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which director Timur Bekmambetov will begin shooting in 3D this year for a June 22, 2012 release."
I think this movie is going to end up being awesome, and I'm looking forward to watching it.