It sounds like a ripe subject for satire. The Hunt is about a group of liberal elites who, angry at some conservatives for posting their ideas, decide to hunt down and kill the conservatives. There were many conservatives who heard about the film and decided it was going to mock rural people, or worse, give liberals dangerous ideas.

The film was set for release last August. But then came the shootings in El Paso and Ohio, along with pressure from no less a person than the president of the United States, who also totally misunderstood what the film was about.

Variety:

Calling it “sick” and “twisted,” Lou Dobbs said the idea of elites hunting deplorables sounded “a little too real.” Trump tweeted: “Liberal Hollywood is Racist at the highest level, and with great Anger and Hate! They like to call themselves ‘Elite,’ but they are not Elite. In fact, it is often the people that they so strongly oppose that are actually the Elite. The movie coming out is made in order to inflame and cause chaos. They create their own violence, and then try to blame others. They are the true Racists, and are very bad for our Country!”

Now, the film is set for release next month. Screenwriter David Lindelof decried the rush to judgment on the film.

Adds Lindelof: “For us there was just a fundamental frustration that nobody was talking about the movie. They were all talking about what their perception of the movie was — a perception that was largely formed based on all the events in the aftermath of the horrific weekend before. [But] we really don’t want to be pointing fingers, and more importantly, we don’t want to be wagging fingers at anyone for overreacting or reacting incorrectly. We just felt like the movie was being misunderstood.”

https://youtu.be/x8IifEu67yU

I find the concept intriguing — sort of a super-bloody The Last Supper without the star power. In that movie, liberals were the anti-heroes. Not so in this film. They are evildoers and conservatives are clearly the heroes. But there’s more to the film than black and white, good vs. evil.

'The Hunt,' the satirical thriller that depicts "elites" kidnapping and then hunting "deplorables," is now set for release https://t.co/wEFPoXS3w7 — The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) February 11, 2020

Salon:

Universal Pictures has announced a new release date of March 13 for its contentious new thriller The Hunt. Described as a “satirical” and “controversial political thriller,” director Craig Zobel’s movie, based on the 1924 Richard Connell short story “The Most Dangerous Game,” was originally scheduled to premiere in September, but its release was canceled in August following a spate of mass shootings in Gilroy, California; El Paso, Texas; and Dayton, Ohio. Adding a political element to Connell’s oft-adapted story, The Hunt features coastal elites hunting “deplorables” and drew considerable conservative backlash, including several tweets from Donald Trump, who used it as an occasion to call the members of “liberal Hollywood” the “true Racists.”

The “cancel culture” failed this time. It doesn’t matter whether the attempt to stifle ideas and speech comes from the right or left. This is a film that deserves release and attempts to squash it were wrong.