Prime Fast Tracks After the Hunt

Prime Video is adding psychological thriller After the Hunt to its November slate barely a month after it was “slain” at the US box office.

It stars Julia Roberts as a college professor who’s at a personal and professionals crossroads when a star student (Ayo Edebiri) levels an accusation against a colleague (Andrew Garfield) that threatens to expose a dark secret from her past.

Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevigny co-star, Luca Guadagnino (Challengers, Suspira) directs the Nora Garrett screenplay.

Along with The Smashing Machine, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere and A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, After the Hunt was one of a slew of adult, upscale dramas that bombed this year at the box office.

“Most can also be described as either a star-driven dramatic vehicle, a festival darling or primed as an awards contender,” Deadline reports — prompting The Guardian to ponder: “Why are Hollywood A-listers flopping at the box office?” It concluded:

The truth is, it now requires an onslaught of inescapable hype to get people out to theaters in any kind of decent numbers, and being susceptible to hype is not necessarily the same thing as being a discerning viewer who only sees the good stuff.

The reviews also didn’t help After the Hunt. The best professional critics were split while the public panned it on sites like Rotten Tomatoes.

Empire praised it as “a decidedly grown-up thriller that will surely be torn to pieces by teens on TikTok” while the Wall Street Journal said it “feels like a messy first-draft script, shoddily directed, rather than an accomplished feature from a veteran filmmaker”.

In NZ it’s bypassing cinemas to go straight to streaming. Here’s the trailer.