Gemma Arterton will be playing a grown up Gretel opposite Jeremy Renner’s Hansel in director Tommy Wirkola’s Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. The film will see the now adult fairy tale sibling heroes going on the hunt to make sure that no other children go through the same traumatic experience that they did. Arterton reportedly beat out Diane Kruger, Eva Green and Noomi Rapace for the role.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Paramount is on the verge of giving the project a greenlight, to the point where filming is expected to start on March 7 in Berlin. If Paramount doesn’t give the go ahead, they will have to wait until Renner finishes his work on The Avengers, which is scheduled to begin in late April. Renner is currently in production on Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol.
If Paramount doesn’t get the film rolling this March, they won’t be able to get it into theaters before the end of the year. Getting pushed into 2012 would put Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters into direct competition with Twentieth Century Fox’s similarly-themed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter from director Timur Bekmambetov.
