Ok, it's become pretty obvious at this point that the Norwegian filmmaker
Tommy Wirkola is a genius for tantalizing concepts. His Dead Snow, a contemporary Nazi's rising from the dead as Third Reich uniformed Zombies movie set in a wintry Norwegian ski-resort was a delicious and unique mix of outrageous blood and guts, with cool and camp visuals. It was pure, unadulterated fun. He was also the man responsible for a fine parody of Kill Bill with the ruckus
Kill Buljo: The Movie. And now Wirkola's putting together an awesome sounding follow-up. Titled
Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (is there a further explanation really required?), his original idea is set 15 years after the Brother's Grimm fable where a witch with an edible house tried to cook the young-lings for stew. Now grown-up, they are shotgun wielding, witch slayers and the concept is cool enough to break out of it's B-movie shackles having courted the duo of Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) and Noomi Rapace (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo). Based on his own pitch that was fleshed out by Dante Harper - Wirkola's English-language debut will be aiming for the funny/gory tone of the genre-bending Shaun of the Dead and Evil Dead 2. Renner announced his and Rapace's potential involvement in Venice, which has loosely been translated from English to Norwegian and back into English and found by
Twitch; I liked Dead Snow, and I like seeing that Scandinavian directors have a combination of horror and humor. I think Hansel and Gretel will be awesome. I play him and Noomi Rapace plays Gretel. They have become adults, are damned and going on witch hunting. No doubt it's a huge coup for Paramount to attract both rising stars who have been offered about 3,000 projects this year between them, I dare say. Renner himself has just landed a sweet deal to star in Mission Impossible 4 as potentially the next break-out star of the franchise. And their attachment certainly elevates this B-movie material into something of a marketable tentpole, especially if they can leech onto productions like Jack And The Giant Killer (Bryan Singer) and Red Riding Hood (Catherine Hardwicke) which similarly are taking fablistic stories into darker corridors. Though having said that - those fables were already grimm to become with. More info soon, hopefully.