Trivia / The Huntsman: Winter's War

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Jessica Chastain had done a series of intense roles back to back, and took the role of Sara to do something lighter; also drawn to the idea of playing an Action Girl.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $115 million. Box office, $47.5 million (domestic), $160.6 million (worldwide). The poor box office showing in the U.S. was due to both lower ratings from critics than the original film and it opening in the wake of Jon Favreau's The Jungle Book, which actually managed to be more critically acclaimed than Walt Disney and Wolfgang Reithermann's version. This is one of two fairy-tale sequel bombs for Joe Roth in 2016; Disney's Alice Through the Looking Glass followed a few weeks later.
• Contractual Obligation Project: Jessica Chastain was given a starring role in Crimson Peak provided that she would also later appear in this film.
• Fake Brit: South African Charlize Theron puts on a British accent for Ravenna. Northern Irish Colin Morgan does likewise for his small role as Freya's lover.
• Fake Scot: Aussie Chris Hemsworth and American Jessica Chastain adopt Scottish accents. Ditto for Conrad Khan (British) as the young Eric.
• Franchise Killer: Universal scrapped plans for a fairy tale franchise centered around Snow White after predicting it would lose $70 million due to the film's poor box office numbers.
• Money, Dear Boy: A disagreement between Charlize Theron and producers of this film was made public as of the Sony Email Hacks. When she discovered Chris Hemsworth was being paid $10 million for his role, she demanded the same amount to appear in the film (as she is a proven Box Office draw).
• Playing Against Type: In the Japanese dub, Freya is voiced by no one else than Nana Mizuki, and, while not the first time playing a villain, she's a voice actress well-known for voicing very heroic roles like Hinata Hyuga or Fate Testarossa.
• Typecasting: Right in the middle of Emily Blunt's typecasting as mean or villainous characters later revealed to have extremely sympathetic backstories.
• What Could Have Been: The film was planned as a more direct sequel to the first one. Kristen Stewart was dropped from the project not long after the affair scandal between her and director Rupert Sanders. While she claimed she simply turned down a lot of script ideas she didn't like, she later admitted she was let go because Universal wanted to avoid the backlash from the affair scandal. Frank Darabont was in talks to direct for a while before ultimately leaving.

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