ESPN have pulled trailers for Universal’s upcoming movie The Hunt, which features murderous liberal elites hunting red state “deplorables” for sport, in the wake of mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, that left over 30 dead and several dozen injured.
Over the weekend, ESPN pulled the previously cleared TV advert for the movie from their network while AMC aired a trailer during the season premiere of their TV drama The Preacher.
The violent, gun-toting film revolves around a group of MAGA types from predominately Republican states being kidnapped and hunted for sport by liberal elites.
The film, which has been described as a gory satire featuring actresses Hilary Swank and Betty Gilpin, follows a group of hunters who are fueled by their hatred of the “MAGA-type” characters and their right-leaning positions. While the term “deplorables” may not be explicitly stated in the trailer, Daily Mail notes that the “hunted” were, in fact, described as “deplorables” in the screenplay.
An ESPN source confirmed that the film’s trailers will no longer air on the network, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Over the Aug. 3 weekend, ESPN pulled an ad for the film that it had previously cleared, while AMC ran the spot during the season premiere of its drama The Preacher. It’s unclear whether the ads were identical, but the one yanked by ESPN opened with a sound resembling an emergency broadcast signal. A rep for ESPN parent Disney declined to comment on the move, but an ESPN source says no spots for the film will appear on the network in the coming weeks.
DailyMail reports: ESPN’s parent company Disney declined to comment on the situation, but a source from ESPN says trailers for The Hunt will not appear on the network in the weeks leading up to the film’s release.
A source told The Hollywood Reporter that even before the devastating mass shootings that transpired in El Paso, Texas, Dayton, Ohio and Gilroy, California, some reshoots were done.
GLOW’s Betty Gilpin stars opposite Hilary Swank, the two leads playing women on different political divides in an exaggerated re-imagining.
In the trailer, Swank’s character says: ‘We pay for everything, so this country belongs to us.’
In the screenplay for movie, the hunted are described as ‘deplorables’.
The film was originally called Red State Vs. Blue State.