Tommy Wirkola’s debut Hollywood feature had a less than conventional route to theaters. Originally due in March 2012, Paramount failed to ever really get the marketing campaign for "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters" going, which meant no one was all that surprised when in was pushed back to the January dumping ground of 2013. The studio then toyed with the idea of releasing a PG-13 cut, but eventually settled for an R-rating, and the picture beat out “Parker” to a spot at the top of the box office on an admittedly slow weekend. 'Hansel & Gretel' has actually already gone on to gross upwards of $125 million worldwide despite being pretty awful (or “unrelentingly stupid” as we said in our review) and having a few major territories still left to hit, so it’s probably the quality of the thing rather than its performance that has Wirkola retreating back to his native Norway.
The 34-year-old made his name there as the writer-director of “Dead Snow,” the horror-comedy about a group of medical students who are attacked on their ski vacation by a marauding horde of Nazi zombies. The film was relatively well-reviewed and gained U.S. distribution after playing at Sundance, and it's now being reported that Wirkola will be directing a sequel to his cult hit. “Dead Snow: War of the Dead” will be released in both English and Norwegian, and will follow the sole survivor of a Nazi zombie attack, who this time will battle an even larger group of zombies. Luckily, they’ll be assisted by the Zombie Squad – a professional gang of zombie killers from the U.S.
“Ever since we premiered Dead Snow at Sundance 2009, I’ve been getting questions on a sequel, and now, after Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters has been released, the time is finally right,” said Wirkola of the follow-up. “We have a script that I am super excited about, which is bigger, scarier, funnier, more action-filled and gorier than the previous one, and I can’t wait to unleash another horde of undead Nazi zombies onto the world again,” he added. Maybe this is just something Wirkola wanted to do all along, but the dreadfully low scores for 'Hansel & Gretel' also suggest that Wirkola’s Hollywood experiment hasn’t quite worked out. [Screen Daily]
Wirkola's efforts previous to his foray into Hollywood moviemaking are really, really terrible. I know the effect of exoticism and reading the dialogue (instead of hearing it) can quite often make a movie seem a little bit better than it is, but trust me, as a Norwegian I can tell you that 'Død Snø' (a retarded title chosen solely because 'Rød Snø' (Red Snow), which makes more sense, was already taken) and (OH GOD NO, PLEASE!) 'Kill Buljo' are terrible movies. Of course it's difficult to argue about matters of taste, but an element that might get lost in translation is how ridiculously clunky they are. The editing is terrible, they're shot with all the artistic flair of a AFV-submission, and the jokes are so stale that it makes Seltzer & Friedberg seem like comedic geniuses. 'Kill Buljo' is kind of like 'The Room' or 'Birdemic' of Norwegian comedy, but just, y'know, less funny. He also made 'Kurt Josef Wagle og legenden om fjordheksa', which nobody saw and/or liked. So all in all he has made zero good movies.
The only thing that had people talking about 'Død Snø' was a scene were a guy chainsaws of his dick after it gets bit by a nazi zombie. Which I can agree is kind of fun, but doesn't really excuse the rest of that wet fart of a movie.
In Norway most movies are governmentally funded (at least in part) with taxpayers' money. They are especially generous towards projects produced outside of Oslo, as they're trying to broaden and strengthen the national industry. Since Wirkola has been to Hollywood aaand probably will make 'Død Snø 2: Reckoning/Dæy åf thø Dææd/Up the Khyber' in Northern Norway, he'll get all the moneys. But I wants Joachim Trier to gets all the moneys. Please, lissen 2 meh, no encourage Wirkolas. Rent 'Oslo, August 31st' instead. End of rant.