Hugh Jackman Offered “Snow White and the Huntsman”

In a world of competing "Snow White" feature film adaptations, every studio wants to have the "fairest of them all." Universal's Snow White and the Huntsman took a bit of a hit a couple weeks ago when Viggo Mortensen backed out of the role of the Huntsman. Now, Deadline reports that Hugh Jackman has been offered the part.

Regardless of your interest in Snow White and the Huntsman, you'll probably be interested to know how this might affect Jackman's current project, which would be The Wolverine. Ever since Darren Aronofsky left the project, Fox has been on the lookout for a new director. Universal has obviously taken this as a sign that The Wolverine might not be ready to go for awhile and have probably offered Jackman a fair amount of incentives to stall production a little longer so he can fill their void.

Certainly someone with Jackman's star power would help "Huntsman" tremendously, especially at appealing to an older demographic who might not be so interested in a film starring Kristen Stewart, who is still attached as Snow White. Charlize Theron will also star as the evil queen.

Deadline proposes the theory that The Wolverine could afford to (and should) wait. Fox has a very busy (and fairly impressive) 2012 release schedule that includes Ridley Scott's Alien prequel Prometheus, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and the fourth installment of the ever-dependable "Ice Age" series. Plus, X-Men: First Class should keep the brand alive and hopping this June. Then there's also the aftermath of the Japan disaster, which is where the movie was intended to be filmed.

Meanwhile, Fox has reportedly looked into hiring Source Code director Duncan Jones to fill Aronofsky's vacancy as well as reconsidering David Slade (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse), who lost out to the Black Swan director the first time the job came around. 

Snow White and the Huntsman will start filming under director Rupert Sanders in September for a December 21 release. Relativity's competing film The Brother's Grimm: Snow White from director Tarsem Singh will come out six months prior and will star Julia Roberts and Armie Hammer (The Social Network) with Lily Collins (The Blind Side) as Snow White.