Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is a 2013 dark fantasy action horror comedy film written and directed by Tommy Wirkola. It is based on the fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel", in which the titular siblings are now grown up and working as a duo of witch exterminators. The film stars Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Janssen, Peter Stormare, Thomas Mann, Pihla Viitala and Derek Mears.

Plot
Abandoned by their father deep in a forest, young Hansel and Gretel enter a gingerbread house and are captured by a cannibalistic witch. The witch forces Hansel to continuously eat candy to fatten him up, and enslaves Gretel by ordering her to prepare the oven. The siblings outsmart her and incinerate her in the fire of the oven. In the fifteen years that follow, Hansel and Gretel become famed witch hunters, slaying hundreds of witches. The pair find that they are somehow immune to spells and curses, but the incident in the gingerbread house has left Hansel forever changed with a form of supernatural diabetes. He needs a shot of a insulin potion every few hours or he will get sick and die.

Now adult, witch hunters Hansel and Gretel arrive in the town of Augsburg and immediately prevent Sheriff Berringer from executing a beautiful young woman named Mina for witchcraft. Mayor Englemann tells the crowd that he has hired the siblings to rescue several children presumed abducted by witches. Berringer hires trackers for the same mission in the hopes of disgracing the mayor and cementing his power. All but one of the sheriff's party are killed that night by the powerful grand witch Muriel, who sends one man back to the town tavern as a warning to the locals. Hansel and Gretel, along with the Mayor's deputy Jackson, capture the horned witch and interrogate her. They discover that the witches are preparing for the coming Blood Moon, where they plan to sacrifice twelve children to gain immunity to fire, their greatest weakness.

Muriel, accompanied by her witches and a troll named Edward, attacks the town and abducts the final child. Muriel kills Jackson and launches Gretel out a window, rendering her unconscious. Gretel is rescued by Ben, a local teenager who is a fan of theirs and plans to be a witch hunter himself. Hansel grabs onto a fleeing witch by her broomstick, but falls and is lost in the forest.

The next morning, Mina finds Hansel hanging from a tree. She takes him to a nearby spring where she heals his wounds and has sex with him. Gretel searches for Hansel in the forest, but is attacked by Berringer and his posse. The men capture and beat Gretel before being stopped by Edward who kills Berringer and his men. Edward tends to Gretel's wounds and tells her that he helped her because trolls serve witches. Hansel and Gretel reunite at an abandoned cabin which they discover is both a witch's lair and their childhood home. Muriel appears in front of them, telling them the truth of their past. She reveals that Hansel and Gretel's mother was a grand white witch named Adrianna who married a farmer, explaining the siblings' immunity to black magic. On the night of the last Blood Moon, Muriel planned to use the heart of the white witch to complete her potion. She found Adrianna too powerful and decided to use Gretel's heart instead. To get rid of Adrianna, Muriel revealed to the townspeople that Adrianna was a witch. The resulting angry mob burned her alive and hanged Hansel and Gretel's father. Following this revelation, the siblings battle Muriel before she stabs Hansel and abducts Gretel for the ceremony.

Hansel wakes up with Mina, who reveals herself to be a white witch. She heals his wounds again and uses a grimoire to bless Hansel's arsenal of weapons. Hansel, Mina, and Ben head out to disrupt the Blood Moon Sabbath. Mina begins slaughtering dark witches with a Gatling gun, while Hansel squares off against Muriel's witches and frees the children. Edward defies Muriel's orders and releases Gretel before Muriel throws him off the cliff. Muriel flees on a broomstick, but Ben manages to shoot her and forces her to crash. Hansel goes after Muriel while Gretel stops to revive Edward. Hansel, Ben, and Mina follow Muriel's trail to the original gingerbread house. Muriel wounds Ben and kills Mina before Hansel shoots her several times, knocking her into the house. Gretel arrives and the pair engage Muriel in a brutal fight that ends with Gretel decapitating her with a shovel. They burn Muriel's body on a pyre and collect their reward for rescuing the children. They head out on their next witch hunt accompanied by Ben and Edward. During the credits, Hansel and Gretel are able to slay a Desert Witch.

Cast

 * Jeremy Renner as Hansel, the brother of Gretel and a witch hunter who takes insulin following an incident at a witch's gingerbread house.
 * Cedric Eich as young Hansel
 * Gemma Arterton as Gretel, the sister of Hansel and a witch hunter.
 * Alea Sophia Boudodimos as young Gretel
 * Famke Janssen as Muriel, an evil grand witch who rules over a coven of dark witches. Unlike lesser witches, she has the ability to change her appearance into that of a normal human woman.
 * Pihla Viitala as Mina, a beautiful white witch who befriends Hansel and Gretel.
 * Thomas Mann as Benjamin "Ben" Walser, a teenage fan of Hansel and Gretel.
 * Derek Mears as Edward (in-suit performer), a troll that is in the services of Muriel.
 * Robin Atkin Downes as Edward (voice)
 * Peter Stormare as Sheriff Berringer, the power-hungry and brutal sheriff of Augsburg who does not trust Hansel and Gretel.
 * Ingrid Bolsø Berdal as Horned Witch, a member of Muriel's personal coven with a lot of horns on her head.
 * Joanna Kulig as Red-Haired Witch, a red-haired member of Muriel's personal coven.
 * Bjørn Sundquist as Jackson, Mayor Engleman's deputy.
 * Rainer Bock as Mayor Englemann, the Mayor of Augsburg who hires Hansel and Gretel.
 * Thomas Scharff as Hansel and Gretel's father, an unnamed farmer.
 * Kathrin Kühnel as Adrianna, the grand white witch who was Hansel and Gretel's mother.
 * Zoë Bell as Tall Witch, a forest-dwelling witch who is captured and killed by Hansel and Gretel.
 * Monique Ganderton as Candy Witch, the old, child-eating witch who lived in the gingerbread house.

Production
Wirkola got the idea to create a film based on the adult lives of Hansel and Gretel in 2007 while at film school in Australia. After being discovered by Gary Sanchez Productions, Wirkola pitched the idea at a meeting with Paramount Pictures and won a contract. Production began in March 2011 at the Babelsberg Studios in Germany and included extensive use of traditional special effects. In addition, Renner and Arterton had a month of training beforehand to prepare for the physical demands of their roles. In terms of the weapons and wardrobe, Wirkola wanted an old-world look with a modern touch, and he was adamant about filming outdoors in European nature rather than in a studio. The project was filmed in Germany and featured an international cast and crew.

Development
Blood and gore and action, all the stuff that I love ... It's definitely an R-rated movie, the first draft has a lot of blood and guts. First and foremost, it's an action movie, I think, with horror elements. And of course some dark humor as well. But the action and horror are the most important feelings I want.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is the first English language film and the first big studio production of Norwegian writer and director Wirkola, up to this point best known for his 2009 Nazi zombie-themed, independent horror comedy film Dead Snow. Wirkola said he was contacted by producer Kevin Messick from Gary Sanchez Productions after the screening of Dead Snow at the Sundance Film Festival: "So my first meeting, my first day in LA was with those guys and I pitched Hansel and Gretel and they loved it. And they took me to Paramount two days after and we sold it." In 2013, Wirkola commented, "I'm still surprised that they went for it, because it's a crazy, rock n' roll script. It's full throttle, there's lots of blood and gore and bad language, I often wonder how I got this movie made. It's all across the world now. But people really seem to respond to it, which is what we hoped, that people would enjoy this ride."

An announcement of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters sparked a production of several other "Hansel and Gretel"–based films made by different studios, including The Asylum's mockbuster Hansel & Gretel, Syfy's Witchslayer Gretl, and Lionsgate Home Entertainment's Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft. The film was also a part of an overall Hollywood trend of witch-themed films, among them Beautiful Creatures (which also stars Thomas Mann) and Oz the Great and Powerful, set to be released that same season. The project was given a budget of $50 million, co-financed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Concept and design
I loved fairy tales growing up. I used to listen to them on tapes and "Hansel & Gretel" scared the hell out of me and it always stayed in the back of my head. I always wondered what happened to those characters.

Wirkola said that he originally came with that idea in 2007 while studying film and television at Bond University in Australia, when he wanted to make it as just a short film, and that the film school director Simon Hunter advised him: "Tom, don't ever speak of the idea again until you are in front of a Hollywood producer and I guarantee you will sell it."

Gary Sanchez Productions' Adam McKay said in 2010, "The idea is, they've grown up and they hunt witches. 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!'" Dante Harper was hired to rewrite the script, aimed for "having a gory-but-funny Shaun of the Dead vibe." McKay said inspirations included Sam Raimi's early horror comedy films like Army of Darkness but also "John Carpenter's movies, which we all love [and] we're all hugely influenced by the first Matrix—obviously a really big one—also the Bourne Supremacy movies and the way Oliver Woodshot those. You kind of throw in all those, mix 'em up in a pot and that's what you get." Wirkola also credited Quentin Tarantino for influencing him "in many ways" and singled out Peter Jackson's Braindead for having been "a game-changer" for him.

It's got kind of like a steampunk vibe mixed with a little bit of a goth edge and hyper-cartoon violence like Kick-Ass and all set in a very specific world ... It's like a Sam Raimi-type horror movie, like Evil Dead II.

Messick said they designed "a fairy tale, mythological fantasy world" that feels like it happened long time ago but is not set in any particular time period. Marlene Stewart created the film's costumes, using traditional leather and linen but without an antique look. Its steampunk-like, retro-futuristic weapons were created by the weapon designer Simon Boucherie and Wirkola, who said they wanted Hansel and Gretel's weapons to look as if the characters hand-made them. Wirkola stated he "just wanted this crazy, mashed-up world where you can't pinpoint where it is, or when it is" and the modern elements are there to "add to the fun and tone of the film." He said, "We wanted the movie to feel timeless and for the movie to feel like a fairy tale, but still grounded. It was a lot of fun coming up with the different weapon designs and ways of killing witches. We mixed old and new elements. But no matter how modern some of the weapons are, they all have an old-fashioned feel and look like they could fit into this world."

The Stone Circle witches' looks were designed by Twilight Creations (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). According to McKay, "the witches are awesome in it. Nasty, mean witches, and we'll get some great actresses for them as well." Wirkola said he wanted to reinvent witches as villains: "I do love Witches of Eastwick. We wanted to try to avoid the classical witch with the long nose stirring the pot. I really wanted them to be ... dangerous, fast – they're stronger than Hansel and Gretel ... It's a good basis for a villain." He recalled that "the most fun was finding their look and sound. For the main witches, we found one animal to represent all of them, like Muriel is a wolf. It just helped us find the witches. In some ways, it feels like they're the spawn of the dark places of nature. It should feel animalistic." Asked if he was worried about "this perception that it might be interpreted as sexist", Wirkola said, "For me, that's a classical villain from hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Yeah, I never worried about that, to be honest." He added, "People forget how truly dark and twisted those stories are. [The original "Hansel & Gretel"] talks about a witch burning alive in an oven, screaming and scratching." Ulrich Zeidler's concept art for some of the witches was released on the Internet.

Casting and characters
Jeremy Renner, who played the film's adult Hansel, has stated that his initial attraction came from a one sheet he was given even before seeing the script, showing Hansel and Gretel walking away and a witch burning at a stake in the background, which he found "incredibly interesting" (this scene was included in the finished film). He added, "When I read the script, my first thought was, 'I can't believe this hasn't been done yet.' It's such a great idea with so much potential. That dynamic was definitely a big thing, I loved that what Tommy [Wirkola] wrote left so much room for character." Wirkola said he wanted Renner in the role after seeing him in The Hurt Locker. Wirkola, who described Hansel as the "loose cannon" of the duo, gave him an additional character flaw of diabetes, in addition to the psychological scars that Hansel shares with his sister (in the original idea for the short film, Gretel was also suffering from eating disorder). Renner said it was a great escape for him "as this was a fairytale with no stress like the other action movies I'd done recently. I was having so much fun hanging on a wire like Peter Pan, hanging onto a broom and doing other crazy stuff." He stated, "That was one of the most fun jobs I've ever had because there's something magical about that old world, fantasy thing."

There's a lot of fairy tale stuff, but that fight is really real and bloody and quite brutal. Women are the villains a lot of the time. Not all the time. There are some horrible male villains as well. But I guess Gretel is very feminist. She's quite full on.

The role of adult Gretel, whom Wirkola wanted to be "a really, really strong and fun female character," was originally planned for Noomi Rapace, who dropped out of consideration for the part prior to early January 2011. Diane Kruger and Eva Green were reported to also be in talks for the role. English actress Gemma Arterton was ultimately cast in the role. She impressed Wirkola with her performance in The Disappearance of Alice Creed, and, after they have met, with her "really filthy sense of humour" as "the humour is essential to this film." Arterton said she was attracted to Wirkola's "strong vision" for the film, calling it "very, very dark, and bloodthirsty and there's a lot of cursing. It's kind of got a Tarantino feel, really." Arterton described her character as "much more in tune with her spiritual side. Hansel is a typical action hero, cheeky, funny, a womanizer. She's much more of a thinker, intense, internal and bit more open-minded than he is." She said that Gretel is "a sexual character but she's not having sex with anybody, which is a change for me because usually in my films I'm sleeping with somebody!" She further explained the characters: "Hansel & Gretel have this unstoppable bond but they're also so different from each other. She's the brains of the operation. He's the brawn. He's the joker and the show-off. She's more the watcher, the researcher, the one who tries to really understand witchcraft." Arterton added, "Jeremy [Renner] and I found within the script moments where we showed the vulnerable side of them. Often in action movies, people are scared to put that in. I think it was important." She said that she "loved every minute" of the production and did not want it to end, also crediting it for helping her overcome her fear of getting hurt.

The role of the chief witch Muriel, described by Arterton as "the queen bee of witches", was given to Dutch actress Famke Janssen. Janssen too described the film as "Tarantino-esque", with "a lot of blood, gore and exploding witches." Wirkola said he had a crush on Janssen since he saw her in GoldenEye as Xenia Onatopp, "an amazing villain," and that in his opinion her being not only a good actress but also a beautiful woman who is "huge" and "menacing somehow" made her "a perfect combination" of "sexy and dangerous". Janssen said that at first the initial appeal was just money, but she quickly took a liking of the script and of Wirkola personally. She also thought the idea of playing an "evil to the core" witch "was appealing and different", saying, "I hadn't done anything like it ... A character like a witch feels like you would have so much freedom, because there are no restrictions as to what you can do." Later, however, she was constantly being distracted by the special effects work and felt that she "really understood the character" only in one part of the film. She found the time-consuming process of applying such makeup (taking three hours to apply and one hour to remove) "very strange" and also felt restricted and afraid of acting over-the-top in her witch role. In the end, she still had "a lot of fun" playing someone who is completely evil, and felt that it was "so empowering" to have "an inner witch to get in touch with once in a while." Janssen said the film might appeal to women and girls, too: "There's a brother and a sister story. And there's a romance in it too - but obviously not with the witch. Nobody falls in love with the witch."

Edward, a morally conflicted troll enslaved by Muriel, was voiced by Robin Atkin Downes and played by Derek Mears (Jason Voorhees in 2009's Friday the 13th). Mears was using an elaborate animatronic suit that he compared to "kind of like NASCAR where I'm piloting it but I'm not doing it by myself ... I think there's like five guys controlling the individual parts of the character. There's one person who does the eye brows, one person does the feet." Janssen, who could not "say enough things about Tommy [Wirkola]", said she was especially impressed at how he stuck to his specific vision and "fought" hard to hire a number of unknown European actors that would otherwise be unlikely to appear in a big studio American film, in effect making it a much more international production.

Several Scandinavian actors were cast in major roles, including Pihla Viitala, Peter Stormare (who Arterton said had actually inspired her to start acting), Bjørn Sundquist, and Ingrid Bolsø Berdal. In addition, actors from Germany and Poland (including Thomas Mann, Rainer Bock, and Joanna Kulig) and other parts of the world were also cast. Viitala, a self-described "big fan" of Renner, said she was nervous at first, but found him "extremely" easy to approach, made a good connection, and enjoyed working with him. Wirkola said Berdal was chosen for her "piercing" eyes, adding: "There are a lot of Norwegians in the film. Minor parts, but I knew I could get great actors in small parts and Ingrid has a great physicality." Stormare said he was only surprised at "how smart Tom [Wirkola] is, and how broad this fantasy is and the span of his imagination," his favourite aspect being how "some of the witches are so sexy and cool." He compared the film's production to being in Disneyland, saying it felt like a dream to him.

Filming
Wirkola said, "From day one, I was very clear that I wanted to shoot this thing in Europe. I really wanted that European feel of cold mountains, big forests, that sort of spirit was important to me. Luckily we did get to shoot it in Germany which is the homeland of the fairy tale. Shooting in natural outdoor sets is very important to me, compared to working on a sound stage." It took place in Germany, at the Babelsberg Studio in Potsdam-Babelsberg, in a filming location at an old forest near Berlin (production designer Stephen Scott said that he searched for and found what he believed looked like a "medieval forest" free of human interference) and in the city of Braunschweig in Lower Saxony. After the film was delayed to 2013, the crew did a "couple" of re-shoots, including "a little bit" in the deserts of California (filming the post-ending scene, an extended version of which was also released in a promotional clip "The Desert Witch").

Principal photography began in March 2011, using digital cinematography. Wirkola said, "Hopefully – you can see what I'm inspired by: Raimi and Jackson. Actually I'm a big fan of [Steven] Spielberg and the way he shoots action scenes. I think in a lot of modern action movies, it's hard to see what's going on. Shaky cam ... Hopefully what we strived for was to go a little retro in how you shoot action scenes." The film was shot in 3-D and its real 3D shots were done by lead stereographer Florian Maier and his team from Stereotec. Wirkola said: "We shot half of it in real 3D and the other half was post converted. Actually the 3D thing wasn't there in the beginning. It was something the studio suggested later on. We embraced it and I think it actually really helps in getting people into this fairy tale world." The filming process took three months. A 12-minute B-rollfootage was later released on the Internet.

Stunt coordinator and second unit director David Leitch compared it to a "Jackie Chan hybrid of comedy and action." Prior to the filming, Leitch organized a month-long boot camp in order to prepare Renner and Arterton (who said she was also glad that at least she could use her prior training that she received while studying at RADA) with extensive weapons, fight and stunt training. Janssen said she enjoyed "flying", something that she always wanted to do, adding that despite her reputation as an action star it was the first film where she really had to do something physical (including suffering a minor accident on the set), because she could not use a double in the close-up scenes where she had the makeup on. During one of the scenes, where Gretel is thrown through a wall and falls down several meters, a stunt double for Arterton was dangerously injured when a nail got lodged in her skull close to the brain; Arterton said she initially wanted to do this stunt herself but Wirkola would not let her. Arterton herself suffered an injury when she sprained her ankle while running through the forest. Stunts for the more aggressive witches were done by New Zealander stuntwoman and actress Zoë Bell. Renner did practically all of his stunt scenes himself.

Visual effects and post-production
Most of it is all practical, even the witches flying on the brooms – it was pretty much all practical. They were all on wires, it was awesome! There's a scene [where] I come down around and literally there's 60 witches there. The rock structure was maybe 70 or 50 feet tall, it was massive, and I'd be shooting these witches and they'd just be flying off on wires.

The film's visual effects were created using mostly practical effects, supplemented by computer-generated imagery (CGI) created by Hammerhead VFX for about 15% of the film's special effects, such as the transformations. Wirkola said: "I'm a big believer in just using CGI to polish what you get on camera. For me that's the ideal use of CGI. We have a troll in the film that is animatronic. I loved him. It took some convincing to get the studio along with the animatronic creature. There have been bad experiences with animatronics throughout various productions but I saw this company Spectral Motion. They did the Hellboy movies and I just loved it." Wirkola added: "I come from Norway where we can't afford CGI. But this is a fantastical world of witches and trolls and I wanted to ground the movie where I could. The blood should look real." Janssen, however, despite Wirkola's warnings, "was not entirely prepared for how involved and long that was going to be" and "actually wanted to burn the prosthetic make-up by the end of the movie." She recalled being "so overwhelmed by what this prosthetic business was all about", saying: "Acting has been so specific for me and what I've learned - eyes, facial expressions, all of that stuff - and with something like this, you're robbed of all of this. Or I could no [longer] rely on things I've done in the past. It was different and frustrating at times because I had this circus of people around me in case something became unglued." Muriel and the other principal witches were prepared by Mike Elizalde's Spectral Motion, who also created and handled the animatronic troll. Jon Farhat was the visual effects supervisor and aerial second unit director.

Conceptual design and production studio Picture Mill collaborated with Wirkola and Messick to create the title and opening credits sequence telling some of the early adventures of Hansel and Gretel as they grew up to become famous witch hunters. It was created with Stereo3D Toolbox through a combination of hand-drawn illustrations, practical fire effects and CGI animation. The digital color correction was supervised by Stefan Sonnenfeld.

Dead Snow is my love letter to [Sam] Raimi and this is kind of its own thing. In the beginning, they said go crazy. But if you go too far with the humor, it becomes spoofyand loses its impact. Too gory and it just takes you out of it.

Janssen said the film is "definitely played with a bit of a wink and doesn't take itself too seriously." Wirkola himself described it as "a little more grounded" and action-centered than Dead Snow. He recalled that he has tried to downplay comedy elements: "If you go too far, it can turn into a spoof almost ... We shot a lot more than what is in the movie of course and it's just balancing it when you're cutting." Speaking of graphic violence, he said that "the first version we tested was for sure the most extreme. Some stuff stayed in, some stuff got cut out." By August 2012, Paramount was reportedly test screening two versions of the film, rated R and PG-13, and the R-rated cut received the positive feedback. Wirkola said, "I was afraid. I actually made sure they could never cut it to PG-13 ... We always knew it was going to be R." McKay said that Paramount's Adam Goodman "was perceptive enough to see the same thing and got behind it as well." Wirkola said, "The pre-production and shooting went very smooth, but the post-production was very new to me and how they do things here with testing and the studio." He said about the test screenings in particular: "I can see why they do it – there's a lot of money involved and they want it to hit as broad as possible. But I think it's a flawed process, I really do." McKay said that Paramount executives might nevertheless regret the film's R rating.