Chris Hemsworth swaps Thor's hammer for an axe as the Huntsman

The Huntsman: Winter's War (Allstar/UNIVERSAL PICTURES)

But when the Hollywood movie Snow White and the Huntsman took £270 million at the worldwide box office, the money men at Universal Studios were soon working on ways of dispensing with tradition and coming up with a sequel.

The result is The Huntsman: Winter’s War, part prequel, part sequel which brings the characters from the Brothers Grimm’s Snow White fairy tale (minus Snow White) and joins them with those from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen.

Avengers Assemble star Chris Hemsworth once again swaps Thor’s hammer for an axe as the huntsman, and says the idea of playing the character a second time was already forming with him before the release of the first movie.

“I was standing on set of Snow White and The Huntsman one day with Joe Roth, the producer, and he’s known for bringing to life a lot of the fairy tales and classic stories that we’d seen years ago,” explained the Australian actor.

“Jokingly, I said the Huntsman could go rescue Rapunzel or Cinderella and so on.

“It started with us kind of humouring each other. But then we started thinking about it more seriously and going: ‘OK, what would that story be?’

“A lot of the feedback I got from people about the first film was — as far as my character, Eric, goes — about the scene in the church.

“He was talking about his past and talking about his wife, and people said to me: ‘I wish we could understand a bit more about all that.’

“There seemed to be interest, so that was where this idea came from.”

Long before the evil Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) became obsessed with the youthful beauty of Snow White, she committed the unforgivable act of freezing her good sister Freya’s heart to love and unleashing in her an icy power she never knew she possessed.

Retreating to a kingdom far to the north, Freya (played by Emily Blunt) raises an army of Huntsmen to protect her from her sister harming her further.

However, that comes with the rule that no two of them should ever fall in love.

As a war for domination steadily escalates between the two queens, the hero standing between them is Freya’s most elite Huntsman, Eric (Hemsworth).

Alongside fellow warrior Sara (Jessica Chastain) — the only woman who has ever captured his heart — Eric must help Freya vanquish her sister or see Ravenna’s wickedness rule for eternity.

Chris, who’s 32 and lives in picturesque Byron Bay with his wife, Spanish actress Elsa Pataky, and their three children, says it was a particular joy working with Zero Dark Thirty star Chastain, who is not known for her action roles.

“The first thing she said was: ‘Do I get to kick ass?’” he laughed.

“I said: ‘If you’re interested in doing it, we’ll make sure that happens.’”

The Huntsman: Winter’s War is at cinemas now.