'Gretel and Hansel' trivia and fun facts
Cast
It was announced in October 2018 that Sophia Lillis would star in "Gretel and Hansel" with Oz Perkins directing the film from a screenplay he co-wrote with Rob Hayes. In November 2018, Charles Babalola was casted as The Hunter. In April 2019, Alice Krige, Jessica De Gouw and Sam Leakey joined the cast, with Leakey making his acting debut.
Horror adaptation
The film is an adaptation, in the form of terror, of the classic tale of the Brothers Grimm.
Dublin
On November 9, 2018, filming started in Dublin, Ireland.
'The Juniper Tree'
At one point a song floats over the soundtrack: "My mother, she killed me, my father, he ate me, what a pretty bird am I!" This comes from another Grimm fairy tale, 'The Juniper Tree', which this film borrows some thematic elements from.
Title change
According to director in an interview, the title was changed because this version focuses on Gretel, who is older: "It's awfully faithful to the original story. It's got really only three principal characters: Hansel, Gretel, and the Witch. We tried to find a way to make it more of a coming of age story. I wanted Gretel to be somewhat older than Hansel, so it didn't feel like two twelve-year-olds -- rather a sixteen-year-old and an eight-year-old. There was more of a feeling like Gretel having to take Hansel around everywhere she goes, and how that can impede one's own evolution, how our attachments and the things that we love can sometimes get in the way of our growth."