A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight, walking in a winter wonderland….or at least we would be, if it wasn’t for those two pesky Evil Queens hanging about! 

Hot off the heels of the posters introducing the new arrivals Jessica Chastain and Emily Blunt as the Warrior Sara and The Ice Queen Freya, respectively, and giving us our first glimpse of returning stars Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron as the Titular Huntsman and the Evil Queen Ravenna, Universal pictures have released the first trailer for the upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman Sequel, titled The Huntsman: Winters War. 

The trailer gives a basic summary of the plot, thanks to Emily Blunt’s Ice Queen Freya delivering an eery and evil voice over informing us all about the army she’s raising, which features none other than The Huntsman himself, and Jessica Chastain’s Sara, the warrior and love interest of Hemsworth’s Huntsman.

The voice ever is somewhat poetic, and the trailer gives us a chance to see Emily Blunt as we’ve never seen her before; deliciously evil, and out to cause trouble! She raises her sister Ravenna from the depths of the Magic Mirror to help her cause havoc and rule over the kingdom, but somewhere in the midst of it The Huntsman and Sara decide enough is enough, and set out on a quest to stop them!

“A pair in love defy a wicked queen, with twice the power the world has ever seen” soothes Ice Queen Freya, setting up the love story and threatening to snatch it away all at once and proving herself to be a foe that isn’t going to bow down easily, much like her sister!

The film teases some incredible action sequence, including large scale battles with weaponry and more intimate attacks from the pair of Evil Queens and their magical powers. It also gives us the first glimpse at some fantastical monsters that don’t look like they’re going to be one of the good guys…

Perhaps the most telling thing about the trailer, though, is it’s tone. This film seems to be more child-friendly than it’s predecessor, which was a darker film that relied heavily on the conventions of horror, whereas the sequal is an abundance of colour and looks more like your traditional fantasy, more Chronicles of Narnia in style than the dark Lord of the Rings style of adult fantasy that inspired the first one. Although this will have the benefit of reaching a more child friendly audience than the first attempt, a  big part of the reason in the change of tone will be the hiring of a new director, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan. Nicolas-Troyan is taking the helm after Rupert Sanders was not invited back after his controversial affair with the first films star, Kristen Stewart, that saw the decline of both of their relationships. Nicolas-Troyan was one of the visual effect artists on the first film, and so helped to create the darker tone that resonated throughout, but has clearly decided to take it in a different direction in his first attempt at directing.

The film is schedules for release on April 22nd 2016 in the US, with international dates as of yet unconfirmed.

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