Show caption Murder in mind … Glow star Betty Gilpin in The Hunt. Photograph: Universal Pictures Film Ads for ultra-violent satire The Hunt pulled in wake of US mass shootings Promotion for movie, in which humans are hunted for sport, is stalled after El Paso and Dayton killings and studio reported to be rethinking strategy Andrew Pulver @Andrew_Pulver Wed 7 Aug 2019 11.42 BST Share on Facebook

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TV ads for The Hunt, an ultraviolent political satire in which “elites” stalk and kill “deplorables”, have been pulled in the wake of the El Paso and Dayton mass shootings.

A poster for the The Hunt. Photograph: Universal Pictures

According to the Hollywood Reporter, cable network ESPN dropped an ad for the movie that was to air last weekend while studio Universal reassesses its plans for the film, which is due for release on 27 September in the US. The same publication says “a source” at ESPN said that no spots for the film would appear on the network “in the coming weeks”.

Produced by Blumhouse, the studio behind The Purge horror-satire series, and co-written by Lost showrunner Damon Lindelof, The Hunt is being marketed as another such horror, in which a group of 12 “ordinary” Americans find themselves hunted for sport by members of the “global elite” at a remote manor house “in the shadow of a dark internet conspiracy theory”.

The Hollywood Reporter quotes a Universal executive saying that the studio was responding to the politically “fluid situation” amid a wave of protest in the US against gun violence and white supremacism and that it was discussing plans to change direction over the film’s promotion “if people think we’re being exploitative rather than opinionated”.