Netflix Sets Release Date for Previously Barred Time to Hunt Film

After going through a court injunction and subsequent delay, the anticipated Netflix thriller Time to Hunt finally has a global release date. The highly-anticipated Korean film was originally supposed to debut on the streaming service around the globe on April 10th, but was delayed indefinitely when the production company was hit with an injunction from its original international distributor. Last week, the legal issue was resolved, leaving Time to Hunt once again free to be released on Netflix. On Monday morning, the streaming giant announced that the film would make its debut in just a couple of days, on April 23rd.

Time to Hunt tells the story of a group of young people in the near future who are forced into a life of crime when Korea is hit with a financial crisis. The film is written and directed by Sung-hyun Yoon and first premiered at the Berlinale international film festival earlier this year.

Little Big Pictures produced Time to Hunt and initially had the film set for a bow in Korean theaters on February 26th. However, when the pandemic caused theaters in the country to close, Time to Hunt was moved to Netflix. International sales rep Contents Panda filed an injunction on Little Big Pictures after the Netflix movie, claiming that the company already had a contract to distribute Time to Hunt in at least 30 different markets.

The injunction was lifted last week when Little Big Pictures and Contents Panda reached an agreement on their existing deal, allowing Time to Hunt to be released on Netflix.

“First of all, we are deeply sorry to those who have been interested in Time To Hunt. As the distributor of the film, we feel sorry and responsible for the confusion being caused,” Little Big Pictures wrote in a statement. “We thought the worldwide streaming premiere over 190 countries on Netflix could be a good way to promote Korean films, production staff, directors and actors to the world. However, due to the impractical progress, we unilaterally sent a notice of termination while ignoring the achievement of Contents Panda, the world sales agent, who highly contributed in world sales over a year, and we received the restraining order from the court. We respect the court’s decision and ask for an apology from Contents Panda.”

“Since signing an overseas sales contract with Little Big Pictures in January last year, we have faithfully fulfilled our responsibilities to promote the film to the world,” said Contents Panda. “When the common sense procedure was ignored and the contract was terminated, we confirmed our legitimate rights and obligations with the court, in order to prevent our trust with overseas buyers who signed the contract believing in the legitimate rights of Content Panda and to protect ourselves from being undermined by speculation based on false information. Since then, after renegotiating with overseas buyers, we have reached an agreement with Little Big Pictures to withdraw injunction and to assure that there is no problem to release Time To Hunt through Netflix.”

Time to Hunt will be available on Netflix on April 23rd.