The Hunt writer urges Trump not to watch his controversial movie: ‘He’s got his hands full right now’

Film is finally out but Damon Lindelof wants US president to focus on coronavirus response

The Hunt is finally out – but one of the controversial film’s writers doesn’t want Donald Trump to watch it.

The movie, in which liberals hunt conservatives for sport, was initially supposed to come out in September 2019.

Its release was delayed by six months after two mass shootings in the US – and a backlash about the film’s premise.

Donald Trump tweeted in August that “the movie coming out” was “made in order to inflame and cause chaos”.

Damon Lindelof, who co-wrote the movie with Nick Cuse, told The Daily Beast that the film is “over the top and absurdist and even comedic at times” – and that it was not, in fact, a ”serious thriller about liberal elites hunting conservatives for sport”.

But while the US president could now watch the film – and possibly change his mind about it – Lindelof doesn’t want Trump to devote any of his time to The Hunt amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“He’s obviously got his hands full right now, the last thing that I want him to do is watch The Hunt,” he told The Daily Beast.

“I want him to run the country. It is not an easy job by any stretch of the imagination. But if he eventually gets around to it, it’ll just be a relief to me to know that he saw what we made versus what he thought we made.”

Lindelof also told the publication: “I can’t ascribe to say that I hope that the president loves the movie or that I hope that the president hates the movie.

“More importantly, it’s just shifting away from ‘the president was talking about a movie that doesn’t exist,’ a movie that was about something that this movie isn’t about.”

Lindelof didn’t directly reference the pandemuc, but the interview was published on Friday – two days after Trump’s address on the coronavirus.

Major events have shut down in the US as part of efforts to limit the virus’s spread.