Political thrillers aren't an easy sell at the box office anymore, unless they have an extreme premise. The Purge and its sequels (including The Purge: Election Year, above) and upcoming prequel were successful because they're so over the top. Get Out was a huge hit because it mashed up genres for an original story dealing with race in America. Neither of these properties were necessarily for one or the other side of the political aisle, which means they could make social, cultural and political statements in a fantastical setting without being too polarizing for the real world.
Both The Purge and Get Out were produced by Jason Blum and his company Blumhouse, in partnership with Universal Pictures as a distributor. That same combination of production shingle and studio are now working on another politically tinged thriller called The Hunt. According to The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog, this one is more of an action movie that "takes its cues from the current political climate in America and aggressive nature of right versus the left -- taking it to a more extreme, and violent, level."
Also on board is the reunited team of writer/producer Damon Lindelof, writer Nick Cuse and director Craig Zobel, who recently worked together on HBO's acclaimed series The Leftovers. Lindelof is also known for Lost and Zobel for the movies Compliance and Z for Zachariah (above). Together, they've all got experience in material that makes audiences wince and then think. Presumably The Hunt will also provoke viewers and put them on edge in an entertaining, not-too-preachy political fashion.
Although there are no plot details available yet, the title of The Hunt and the tone description and the people involved make me think the movie will involve a politically motivated hunting of humans, probably in a mysterious island setting in the future. That would mean it's yet another film inspired by Richard Connell's highly influential 1924 novel The Most Dangerous Game, about a big game hunter being pursued by a wealthy aristocrat on his private island, but it also could be more original than that. Either way, it's sure to be intense.
