comScore
  1. Mediaite
  2. Gossip Cop
  3. Geekosystem
  4. Styleite
  5. SportsGrid
  6. The Mary Sue
  7. The Jane Dough
  8. The Braiser

hold on to your butts

Universal Taps Jurassic Park Screenwriter to Give Us More Snow White and the Huntsman

by Jamie Frevele | 1:59 pm, June 8th, 2012


After hitting the top of the box office last week — and following the sisterly lovefest between its two female leads — Universal is looking into its magic mirror and seeing more Snow White and the Huntsman movies. While there is no official word yet on which of the titular stars will be returning or if Rupert Sanders will come back to direct, but we can tell you that David Koepp, who wrote the first two Jurassic Park movies, Sam Raimi‘s first Spider-Man movie, and almost everything else, has been chosen to write the sequel. Maybe Koepp’s efforts will make for something a little less, er, confusing.

Reviews of the highly-anticipated Snow White and the Huntsman, including our own, were pretty mixed. For many, there were good parts and bad parts, but mostly it was a festival of “meh.” A “meh-stival,” if you will. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t potential for more, at least according to Universal. They would like to see more of this warrior Snow White, played by Kristen Stewart, and the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) who was sent to murder her.

Enter David Koepp, prolific Hollywood screenwriter and occasional director, who has taken on everything from dinosaurs to superheroes to aliens (War of the Worlds, Men in Black III), spies (Mission: Impossible) to adventurous history professors (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), mostly to positive results, but not always (see: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). Either way, he is pretty trustworthy as a screenwriter of big, gigantic movies, and it looks like Universal is bent on turning Snow White into another big, gigantic franchise.

And maybe a second pass is what Snow White and the Huntsman needs. Deadline says that Sanders is still interested in directing again, he just didn’t sign anything guaranteeing him the gig. And it might cost Universal a bit more than it did the first time to win him back; Snow White was actually his feature film directing debut.

Sanders is interested; he had a great time making the first movie. But unlike most first time directors, he doesn’t have to come back. That’s because Snow White And The Huntsman was sold in an auction by CAA that included a presentation by Sanders of how he was going to shoot the film. Sanders was part of the package, as was producer Joe Roth, and that gave the agency leverage to make a much better deal than a first timer usually gets. The filmmaker is in demand now, but he hasn’t chosen his next film and a sequel might well be it.

That’s very insidery, we know. Also insidery, but more visible to audiences: apparently Stewart and Hemsworth have options for two sequels. Charlize Theron, who played the evil queen Ravenna, however, will probably not appear again. (Spoiler that is not a spoiler unless you don’t know the centuries-old Snow White fairy tale: She dies.)

But the hiring of someone as huge as Koepp indicates that Universal has some big plans for Snow White and the Huntsman, probably to make up for rushing it into theaters to compete with the lesser Mirror Mirror from Relativity Media. Hey, some sequels are even better than the original, like Spider-Man 2 … which was not written by David Koepp. (Alvin Sargent wrote that one.) But who’s keeping score, really?

(Deadline via Empire)

Previously in Snow White and the Huntsman

TAGS: | | | | | | |


  • Terence Ng

    Is there really anything interesting to tap in a continuation of this tale? The movie kind of secures it. What? Is Snow just going to become some battle queen with the huntsman?

    On a separate note, did anyone else notice that some of the coolest scenes in the trailer never appear, or were altered in the film?

    SPOILERS

    * The giant raven never dissolves into a cloud of normal ravens
    * Snow White doesn’t eat the apple in a desolate field circled over by some ravens
    * The apple never “melts”
    * There’s no front shot of Ravenna disappearing into a cloud of ravens
    * Ravenna never says “Lips red as blood, hair black as night, bring me your heart, my dear, dear Snow White
    * The mirror never explodes into multiple shards while Ravenna shrieks

    For me, these were some of the cooler aspects of the movie that made me want to see it. They were clearly filmed in some way. So why were they not included?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_R7GVNIKWG3S2UTHEQOMSZXT4M4 Anna B

    “Meh-stival” is my word du jour.

    Haven’t seen Snow White, so I’m trying to figure out how they could have a part two, but that sounds kinda interesting. I’d go see that (if I manage to see the first one, that is).

  • Anonymous

    lol how was the charlize/kstew lovefest sisterly. i recall lots of mentions of wanting to make out. or maybe i’ve just got my queer googles on and everyone else has their heteronormativity goggles on… w/e, charsten is totes my otp.

    i really liked the movie. i thought kstew was perfect (i am a bit biased when she’s concerned though), chris hemsworth was charming, and charlize was great as the high camp evil queen. prince william or whatever was totally awful though, and in non-action scenes the dialogue was pretty terrible. william and snow white had zero chemistry so any scene with them was super awkward. snow white and the huntsman were great together though, so i look forward to the sequel especially if it has better writing and develops their relationship more.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1509070894 Heather Anderson

    I really liked the movie. I was meh when I watched it at first, but as I sat and re-ran it in my mind I realized I was extremely taken by the sound design, the costumes, the art direction and the effects (and actually the score, there was only one scene where I said to myself “really, did you have to make it so obvious”)….now…I know that the sum of these do not a movie make, but the not-terrible plot + the rest of those, make a better than average movie in my book.

    That being said. Please don’t make a sequel. It will make all that I love about the weirdness of the first one not so weird.

    Also, I hope it garners some awards for the obscure “artsy” categories that really make movie making fantastic.

  • Anonymous

    I’m glad this was a hit even if it’s just for one weekend. I don’t think it was an exceptional movie but I did like it overall. It also makes me cautiously optimistic that maybe some people will realize, ‘hey, a movie doesn’t have to be phenomenal amazing to be acceptable with a female lead!’

    Um but I am a little puzzled about how they can pull a sequel out of this.

  • Anonymous

    I did notice now that you mention it, explaining some of my vague “did I miss something?” feeling after the movie was over. Dangit movie why you do that?

  • Frodo Baggins

    I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power you’re using here: it didn’t require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done, and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you, you’ve patented it, and packaged it, you’ve slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you’re selling it. You want to sell it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003265351933 Wytse de Jong

    SPOILERS
    *Yes I thought the same, on a certain moment that the mirror is still normal when she eventually dies it’s just right behind her.
    *Or where she struggles in the milk bath in 1 of the trailers or video of “Florence and the Machine Breath Of Life”.

    And ofcourse all the things you point out aren’t there which is kinda sad which looked like some awesome special effects.

  • Terence Ng

    …?

  • Karan DoubleYooJay

    If 
    Charlize  Theron isn’t in it, I’ll not go see the sequel.  Kristin Stewart utilizes the one look she’s mastered in every film and I’m not interested in seeing it any more.  Chris Hemsworth…blah.

X