Here’s Gemma Arterton and Jeremy Renner in Entertainment Weekly‘s first look at Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (whose trailer is set to hit this Thursday). Now, if you take this as a serious movie, say, in the vein of Snow White and the Huntsman, a wholly unsatirical film in which Chris Hemsworth plays an axe-wielding medieval swordsman who teaches Snow White (played by Kristen Stewart) “the art of war” so that she might do battle (complete with swords and armor and sh*t) with her enemy the evil queen, it sounds like the stupidest thing ever (and yet telling that it’s still totally believable). However, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters comes from Tommy Wirkola (the guy who directed Død Snø, that movie about the blood-puking Nazi zombies) and Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s production company (Gary Sanchez productions); so I’m going to assume that it’s at least a semi-parody. In which case it’s a brilliant idea. Isn’t it amazing how just making something a satire can turn things around like that? Someone should try it with Billy Bush.

Here’s what Gemma Arterton told EW:

Folktales 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.

I hope it’s more than a “little” tongue in cheek, but it’s probably good to have the actors taking it seriously anyway. Once those spazzes start hamming it up, it’s just a short, slippery slope to Kenan Thompson-land. I also enjoy that their costumes look like they could’ve just as easily come from Paul WS Anderson’s 3D, steampunk Three Musketeers movie. Is Jeremy Renner wearing… a sundial wrist watch with a big brass cover over it?? Amazing.

“What time is it?”

“DAMN! I don’t know! I can hardly get service with all these trees!”

Yo, son, these classic fairy tales are like hella boring!   HOLLYWOOD, DROP SOME PHAT BEATS ON THIS BITCH!

The studio is on the cusp of triggering production on the Gary Sanchez project Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, a dark action movie that picks up with the fairy tale siblings years after the traumatic childhood incident has turned them into bounty hunters. Jeremy Renner, who has been attached for some time, finally has his sister in James Bond babe Gemma Arterton.

Director Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow) is hoping to begin shooting the project in Berlin March 7. [THR]

They say “dark action movie”, but Gary Sanchez is Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s production company, and Tommy Wirkola made a movie about nazi zombies that puke blood, so I’m hoping the secret is that this is tongue in cheek or overtly comedic.  Otherwise, look for this tale to LOSE THE FAIRIES AND ADD RAP ROCK!  Yo, Gretel, drop some Red Bulls on the ground so we can find our way back from BASE jumping, TICK TICK TICK… SLUTS!

Play us out, parkour dog.

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I’ll take pretty much any excuse I can to post this video, but today I have a good one: the writer/director behind Død Snø (the movie this clip comes from, which opens in June) has a new project in the works.

Tommy Wirkola has an idea: “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.” Wirkola pitched Will Ferrell’s production company on the idea of exploring how things played out for the poor siblings 15 years after that whole gingerbread house incident. Simply put, they’re now specialized bounty hunters looking to put down the cackling black-hat set.

“The idea is, they’ve grown up and they hunt witches,” Adam McKay said. “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!’” [Yahoo]

Okay, settle down, spaz.  In the original, Hansel and Gretel burned the witch alive in an oven.  But if I know anything about bounty hunters, it’s that the worst thing they do to anyone is shoot them with mace or paintball guns.  Oh, and they hate black people. So basically, this is a modernized version of a germanic fairy tale in which the protagonists burn people in ovens and hate black people.  Talk about The Reader all over again.