Apple TV has removed the new French thriller “The Hunt” (“Traques”) from its December schedule, and now we know why. Creator and director Cedric Unger has been accused of plagiarizing the series’ storyline from Douglas Fairbairn’s 1973 novel Shoot, on which the 1976 film Shoot was based.
According to Apple Insider, which reported the news on Tuesday, the allegations were first surfaced by French media expert Clement Garin.
French producer Gaumont confirmed in a statement Tuesday that “The Hunt” has been postponed while the allegations are investigated. With the show in limbo, Apple TV has removed all material about the show from its site.
“The broadcast of our series ‘The Hunt’ has been temporarily postponed,” Gaumont said in a statement shared with Variety. “We are currently conducting a thorough investigation to address any questions regarding our production. We take intellectual property matters very seriously.”
‘The Hunt’ was originally scheduled to make its world premiere on Apple TV on Wednesday, December 3rd, with the first two episodes airing, followed by one episode a week every Wednesday through December 31st. However, Apple TV removed the show from its lineup last week.
Anger is a French-language thriller (Next time I’ll aim for the heart) from Gaumont (Lupin, Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, Totem) and executive producers Isabelle Desgeorges, Clementine Vaux, Alexis Barqueiro and Sidney Dumas. Starring Benoît Magimel and Mélanie Laurent.
“The Hunt” (“Traqués”) also stars Damien Bonnard, Manuel Guillot, Cédric Apiette, Angelina Danabe Mignot, Paul Beauperre, Yann Goven, Sarah Pachaud and Patrick de Valette.
The logline is: “Frank (Magimel) and his longtime friends enjoy spending their weekends hunting together. But one Sunday, they encounter another group of hunters who begin targeting them without explanation. When one of their party is shot, Frank’s friends fight back, sending the assailants to the ground. The four friends manage to escape and keep the incident a secret. Frank tries to return to his normal life with his wife Christelle (Laurent), but over the next few days he begins to feel like he and his friends are being watched, or worse, tracked by vengeful hunters.
“Rex is a super-macho hunter who sets off on a hunting trip in the Canadian wilderness with four fellow testosterone-fuelled buddies. But their weekend is cut short by a group of hostile hunters they meet in the woods, and one of them inexplicably takes a potshot at Rex’s party, grazing one of his buddies in the head. Another of Rex’s friends fights back, killing his buddies.” From there, Lex and his buddies scurry off and return to civilization. To confirm this, he investigates the identity of the murdered man and reveals that he claims to have been killed by a “stray bullet”. However, Rex is not completely satisfied with this and becomes convinced that the dead man’s cronies will come after him and his friends. Rex plans to return to the crime scene the following Saturday, where he is sure rival hunters will be waiting for them. He recruits a small army and powerful firepower to accompany him. The fateful day is coming. Rex and his mini-army readied their guns and set off into the snow-covered forest. It looks quiet. But looks can be deceiving, and before the day is over, as Rex predicted, many guns will be fired. ”
Fairbairn is a writer who passed away in 1997. The 1976 film Shoot, based on his novel, was directed by Harvey Hart, written by Richard Berg, and starred Cliff Robertson, Ernest Borgnine, and Henry Silva.
