"The Hunter," April 6th (Magnolia):
Movies pitting man vs. nature aren't exactly anything new, particularly with Liam Neeson currently in theaters fighting off packs of man-eating wolves with shards of glass and homemade explosives.
With "The Hunter," we get a new twist, as Willem Dafoe stars as a no-nonsense special ops guy who is on a mission to hunt down a Tasmanian tiger, long since thought to be extinct.
As Dafoe heads into the wilderness to track down his beast, he gets wrapped up in a mystery that suggests something sinister is afoot, and he soon becomes unsure who the real enemy is.
With Sam Neill co-starring, "The Hunter" looks like a fairly fresh spin on familiar thriller elements, one that eventually will push Dafoe into survival mode as he looks to complete a mission that has brought his predecessors to their doom.
Dafoe may have played Jesus in Martin Scorsese's brilliant "The Last Temptation of Christ," but he reminds us in the trailer for "The Hunter" that he's perfectly at home in gritty little thrillers such as this one.
The trailer for "The Hunter" can be viewed at the movie's official site.
Box office potential:
With Magnolia releasing "The Hunter" to iTunes a full month before its theatrical release date in April, it doesn't seem that the company is too confident in a big turn-out in theaters.
Having said that, more movies are making plans to skip theaters with digital downloads, something Mel Gibson will be doing with his upcoming thriller "Get the Gringo."
"The Hunter" could end up being an overall commercial success, but it looks like its distributor is expecting fairly minimal appeal to mainstream audiences, leaving it without much of a chance to put up big numbers in theaters.
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June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.