← Betty Gilpin
goes knives out as
Crystal, one of
the “deplorables”
in The HuntMOVIES/ TV/ MUSIC/ B O O K STOUR DE FORCEHOLLYWOOD’S BUSIEST PUBLICIST IS ALWAYS LOOKING
FOR THE NEXT BIG THING—EVEN WHEN IT’S LITTLEBy Jaxx Blum, Licensed PR ProfessionalAHH, APRIL IN LOS ANGELES.
The Academy Awards are officially
once upon a time in Hollywood,
the jacaranda trees will soon be
blooming, and it’s Aries season,
which means that your favorite
kombucha-fueled publicist is at
his full power. (I’m an Aries sun,
Scorpio moon, and Blanchett ris-
ing, in case you couldn’t tell.)
Spring-cleaning is in full swing, so
everyone is Kondo-ing their con-
dos and looking for new repre-
sentation, whether they’re the hot
young thing who just got their own
Quibi show or the room-tempera-
ture older thing whose 2019 awards
season ended worse than the birth-
day party in Parasite.
And not to Taron my own
Egerton, but everyone wants to
work with yours truly, the guy who
fooled the world into thinking
Joker was an Oscar movie and
squashed the Olivia Colman bur-
rito scandal. (What Olivia Colman
burrito scandal, you ask? Exactly.)I’ve signed a dozen new clients in
the past few weeks, including
Coach Monica and the CG dog
from that Harrison Ford movie.
(Not Shia LaBeouf, the other one.)
But I’m mostly gearing up for
this summer’s biggest project:
Baby Yoda’s Emmy campaign. I’m
this close to booking my green-
est client for the cover of Variety’s
Aliens on Aliens issue, but we can’t
agree who to pair him with; I nixed
the Na’vi ( blue and green clash),
so it’ll probably be that thing from
Annihilation or Rooney Mara.
And Simone, make sure to ask
about the catering for Lil Yoyo’s
photo shoot—it’s been hell trying
to get fresh frogs in this town after
Kermit led that crusade, and you
know how bad he gets when his
blood sugar drops. I’ve worked on
enough quixotic Oscar bids to
know how and when to duck, but
it’s hard to dodge a Veja sneaker
(toddler size 2) that’s been Force-
chucked at your head.HOLLYWOOD DIARY1.
“Donald Trump’s tweets about
The Hunt were (surprise, surprise)
ill-informed.”
On Aug. 9, 2019, the president
tweeted about horror film The Hunt,
which at the time was set for
release last September: “Liberal
Hollywood is Racist at the highest
level,” he wrote in reaction to
learning of the film’s plot, which
hinges on liberals hunting conser-
vatives for sport. Following the
controversy, Universal shelved
the film. Rather than an anti-red-
state action-drama, however,
the satire mocks extremism on
both the right and the left. “If
you don’t laugh, we have failed,”
says co-writer (and Watchmen
showrunner) Damon Lindelof of
the film, which stars Betty Gilpin,
Hilary Swank, and Ike Barinholtz.2.
“Pizzagate inspired the movie.”
Lindelof and co-writer Nick Cuse
came up with the idea in the wake
of 2016’s Pizzagate, a debunked
conspiracy theory about Demo-
crats’ involvement in human
trafficking. “We [wanted] to see
how ridiculous a conspiracy
theory could be,” says Lindelof.3.
“There could be a sequel.”
“It would require a different idea,”
says Lindelof of a possible Hunt
follow-up. “There’s a lot of fodder in
the world of conspiracy theories—
that’s more interesting to me than
‘Oh, this time around it’s a bigger
hunt: The Huntier!’ ”The HuntDINNER-PARTY PRIMEREW GIVES YOU THREE SMART
THINGS TO SAY ABOUT THE
CONTROVERSIAL, TRUMP-PANNED
HORROR MOVIE. By Clark CollisILLUSTRATION BY KIRSTEN ULVE EW ● COM APRIL 2020 53THE HUNT: UNIVERSAL PICTURESAPRIL2020.MOVIES2.LO C.indd 53 FINAL 3/3/20 12:46 PM