Jessica Chastain Gives You a Bonus Reason to See the Snow White and the Huntsman Sequel

By  · Published on February 25th, 2015

Universal Pictures

Universal is doing a pretty good job of making its Snow White and the Huntsman sequel/spinoff/prequel sound appealing. First, of course, they got rid of Kristen Stewart — that’s now Cesar Award-winning Kristen Stewart, who isn’t bad in the first movie but is still unfortunately a deterrent for many moviegoers.

And they kept Marvel’s Chris Hemsworth, titled the thing to his character as The Huntsman and added current favorite action heroine Emily Blunt as a Frozen-ish Snow Queen character. Now, according to Deadline, the busy and brilliant Jessica Chastain has joined in an undisclosed role.

Perhaps she’ll be another fairy tale figure (see a video of her as a certain Pixar princess below) and also another sister of Queen Ravenna, who will again be portrayed by Charlize Theron. Previously we shared plot details for the follow-up as focusing on Blunt’s villainous character taking revenge on Hemsworth’s Eric the Huntsman, who meanwhile is searching for Ravenna’s magic mirror.

Apparently, though, The Huntsman takes place before the events of the original, with the title character’s dealings with Ravenna prior to Snow White coming into the picture. Maybe Chastain, then, could be playing Snow White’s mother, Queen Eleanor. In the first movie she was portrayed by Liberty Ross, who likely wouldn’t return (let’s not get into the SWATH scandal again).

Reportedly returning for the new movie, however, is Nick Frost, who will reprise his role as the dwarf Nixon. He had been one of the regular-sized actors playing vertically challenged characters not expected to be back, due to some issue with the terms involved. Well, he’s settled that. It’s unknown if he’s now going to be one of only two dwarves in the movie, as is said to be the case for the sequel’s ensemble.

The Huntsman will be directed by SWATH’s Oscar-nominated visual effects supervisor, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan and arrives in theaters on April 22, 2016.

Christopher Campbell began writing film criticism and covering film festivals for a zine called Read, back when a zine could actually get you Sundance press credentials. He's now a Senior Editor at FSR and the founding editor of our sister site Nonfics. He also regularly contributes to Fandango and Rotten Tomatoes and is the President of the Critics Choice Association's Documentary Branch.