Much gossip was had over Kristen Stewart's time on Snow White and the Huntsman and her absence from its sequel The Huntsman: Winter's War. Now that the film has crashed and burned, Stewart is happy to clear the air on why she wasn't involved. And no, it wasn't her relationship with the director.
The Huntsman did surprisingly poor at the box office (it's yet to make back its production budget) considering its star power. Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt, Jessica Chastain and Chris Hemsworth just couldn't revive interest in the franchise that was launched with Twilight star Stewart in the lead. HitFix's Chris Eggertsen even wrote, “Kristen Stewart's absence was the fantasy sequel's greatest weakness.”
But she wasn't always meant to be missing. In fact, the actor was originally supposed to reprise her role for the sequel. So what happened? She explains in a recent Variety cover story:
Stewart found out about the sequel in a press release. “I was like, ‘OK, cool,”??” she says with a laugh. “We hadn”t spoken in a long time, but I didn”t know we had broken up.” The studio did reach out to ask if she would appear in a cameo as Snow White. She told them, “I might just leave that be. I was really into that, but – ” she adds with a smirk. “So now I”m like … ‘Thank God.”??” (Universal declined to comment.)
Stewart also touched on the time just following the release of the first film, when paparazzi photos surfaced of her and director Rupert Sanders kissing. It was a scandal for both of them as Sanders was married and Stewart was still attached to Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson. Sanders was not asked to direct the sequel and many assumed Stewart's absence was also directly related. It wasn't.
Stewart doesn't give an exact timeline for her meetings with the studio, but she explains the gossip columns weren't a factor in the end. “It wasn”t a situation where I got kicked off a movie because I got in trouble,” she told Variety. “We had been in talks months after that about making something work, and it never came together.”
“I read a few scripts,” Stewart told them. “None of them were good. None of them were greenlight-able. And I had a meeting with Universal about the places where the story could go. Maybe Chris was more into it. I actually don”t f-ing know.”