My man! You can almost hear Jason Momoa, as Arthur Curry, say these words as Bruce Wayne pulls up in one of his outrageously expensive cars to help his buddy Aquaman with a new problem.
That’s right, Bruce Wayne is re-teaming with Arthur Curry in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.
Momoa has revealed that Ben Affleck is returning as Bruce Wayne/Batman for the Aquaman sequel, revealing the big news after some fans on a Warner Bros. bus tour had figured out that Affleck was filming with him. Momoa took to Instagram to share the news:
It looked like Affleck was done playing Batman back in 2019 after he officially retired, citing the toll the role took on his mental and physical health, yet when the Snyder Cut of Justice League came out, there was a ton of renewed interest in Affleck’s take on the Caped Crusader. Then word came that Affleck was not only coming out of retirement and putting back on the cape and cowl but that he had a role alongside Michael Keaton’s version of Batman in The Flash, due out in 2023. Now that surely seemed like the last time Affleck would play Batman. Until now.
We currently have three versions of Batman in the DCEU—Affleck and Keaton’s, set to appear in The Flash together (at least, in the same film if not in the same universe), then Keaton will go on to take his Batman into the upcoming HBO Max film Batgirl, while Affleck reunites with his old pal Arthur Curry in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, due in theaters on March 17, 2023.
Then there’s Robert Pattinson’s Batman, who wowed audiences earlier this year in the standalone The Batman and will appear in Matt Reeves’ sequel.
That’s a lot of Batmen, but it’s a situation that’s not built to carry on into the future. So for now, let’s enjoy this embarrassment of Batman riches while we can.
For more on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, check out these stories:
For writer/director Anna Gutto’s feature debut Paradise Highway, a trucker named Sally will do whatever it takes to keep her brother Dennis (played by Frank Grillo) alive long enough so that he can get out of prison and restart his life. This means she’ll take on jobs that are hardly legal, but she believes victimless, in order to make a little extra money and placate the powers that be that hold his life, while behind bars, in their hands. The siblings were once the victims of abuse themselves, and their connection is of the “us against the world” variety. This is what makes life for Sally that much worse when the job at the heart of Paradise Highway is revealed—instead of moving some contraband across state lines, Sally’s being told she needs to help move a young girl, Leila (Hala Finley) in what turns out to be a child sex trafficking ring.
And who did Gutto manage to land for the role of the foul-mouthed, truck-driving Sally? Juliette Binoche, of course, one of the most beloved French actresses alive and possibly the last person you might imagine in the role. Still, it took about nine seconds to believe Binoche as Sally, the second you watch the way she moves, both out in physical space and within the confines of her beloved truck, you forget you’re watching a famous French actress and are entirely drawn into Sally’s world. Watching Binoche transform herself into a credible trucker plying the American highways is but one remarkable feature of Paradise Highway, a film that reveals how that American highway system is used to support one of the ugliest, most heinous crimes imaginable.
We spoke to Binoche about her preparation for playing a truck driver, what drew her to Gutto’s thriller, and what it was like performing with young Hala Finley.
What was it about the script for Paradise Highway that most connected with you?
Child sex trafficking is important to talk about it, to be aware of, so we can see with new eyes that it can happen in the western world, where people think we’re protected and it can’t happen here. We’re not protected. This film helps us to understand that. I didn’t know that sex trafficking happens with truck drivers, and that’s how they move from one state to another. It also touches on the topic of choosing a new family. Choosing your heart family over your blood family. This film shows how difficult it is to unplug an unhealthy blood family situation and how you take the risk when you choose your heart family, because it can be terrifying. So I liked that topic as well. And I was excited to work with Morgan Freeman and Frank Grillo, and to help Anna Gutto. It was her first feature film, and I was very happy to be a part of it.
Paradise Highway‘s subject matter is difficult; how was the filming process itself?
I could never imagine myself being a truck driver in America, first of all. That would be like, what? If someone told me that’s what I’d do in 2021! So it’s a small film that we made with very little money in a time period that was very condensed in Mississippi, where it was hot with a lot of mosquitos, and we had night shoot to day shoot to night shoot to day shoot, back and forth for or five times. We had a young actress in Hala Finley who could only work a few hours a day, so there were challenges. But we made it, and we made it with passion and a lot of belief in it.
Hala Finley as Leila and Juliette Binoche as Sally in Paradise Highway. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate
You really carry yourself like a truck driver, to say nothing of how intimate with the truck you appear. What was that process like for you in becoming comfortable in the role of Sally?
Well, thank you. I ate in truck stops [laughs]. That’s the start. It’s such unhealthy food, being stuck on these highways where they drive nonstop. I was appalled to see the food, which is not good. I spent time with female truck drivers and observing what it felt like being in the heat. I studied maps, trying to understand where I was, and give the intensity the story needed because otherwise, you wouldn’t believe it.
L-r: Writer/director Anna Gutto and Juliette Binoche. Courtesy Lionsgate.
The details you get in this movie about child sex trafficking are harrowing, and there’s an early sequence in the film in which you need to physically restrain Hala’s character. How did you approach that sequence?
The good news is that Hala is such a good actress that I just believed what I was seeing in front of me and feeling in front of me, so that made our journey easier. We could listen to each other and be with each other. Hala is so raw and truthful when you act with her, so that also helped. As an actress, you jump into what you need to do, so I don’t take things personally, I’m selling you what I’m doing. I remember several times with Hala, the scene when she kills the man and we’re struggling with that weapon, it was quite rough between us. I remember opening my arms so we’d cuddle and calm down the intensity. I think that’s when she probably trusted me, when I opened my arms to her. I think before we started shooting, she was a little distant because she’d had some experiences in the past where she felt the actors weren’t always generous. So when she felt like I was taking care of her, both physically and emotionally, that’s when we could laugh and cry together.
Hala Finley in “Paradise Highway.” Courtesy Lionsgate.
There’s quite a bit left unsaid in Paradise Highway, which deepens the sense that Sally has created her life on the road to get away from an unspeakable past. We edge towards a specific horror when Dennis (Frank Grillo) puts Leila in a dress Sally once wore—did you and Anna speak about the specifics of her past, the stuff we only get hints of?
We talked about that dress. With Anna, we had lots of discussions about Sally, and what was the most beautiful thing is she trusted me, which gives you wings because it makes all the possibilities happen.
Paradise Highway is available on demand now.
Featured image: Juliette Binoche as Sally in Paradise Highway. Photo Credit: Nick Burchell
There was a moment when writer/director Jordan Peele and production designer Ruth De Jong realized they were going to shoot Nope practically. Tucked in the Agua Dulce area of California’s Santa Clarita Valley is the Firestone Ranch, which would become the setting for the Haywood home where OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) discover an unexpected visitor living in the sky above them.
“The property is this huge basin surrounded by these hills, which makes it even scarier because there’s no way out,” says De Jong, who reunites with Peele after their work on Us (2019). “When we found this ranch, we knew it was epic and decided to shoot everything practically.”
Daniel Kaluuya as OJ Haywood in Nope, written, produced, and directed by Jordan Peele.
De Jong designed the ranch from the ground up, researching mid-1800s to 1900s farm houses up and down the California coast and central valley. The end result is a mash-up of different homes that influenced her and set designer Jim Hewitt. “It has a bit of an East Coast vibe, but it’s very true to ranches in California,” she notes. “I wanted it to melt into the landscape but be iconic.”
(from left) OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.
Every detail of the home was grounded in authenticity. De Jong also designed livable places for all the horses within existing arenas and stalls found on the property. “I came up under Jack Fisk (The Revenant, There Will Be Blood) as his art director for ten years, and he is so enthralled about his approach to making things real and true to life. I think that’s now ingrained in my DNA. When I was building the house, the first person I went to was our cinematographer Hoyte [van Hoytema], and I asked if there are any constraints I needed to consider. He was like, ‘Ruth, you design the house you want, and I will shoot the house you design.’ That was really freeing and incredible because it allowed the house to be completely real. We went six feet into the ground and made everything completely structurally sound for the crew to bring dollies up to the second and third floor.”
(from left) Daniel Kaluuya and writer/producer/director Jordan Peele on the set of Nope.
De Jong also dove into the background of the characters to develop the design. “Because a ranch like this would be pretty pricey in this day in age, we thought about how the Haywood’s could have afforded this on a horse wrangler salary,” she says. “We said that their father [played by Keith David] bought the house but didn’t fix it up. It has the same vintage wallpaper from the owner’s back 50-60 years ago. The furniture is kind of schlubby and the kitchen has a vintage stove and standard appliances.” Set decorator Gene Serdena filled the home with minimal pieces that had come with them through life – a not too little, not too much approach.
Another key aspect of the ranch was giving Peele and van Hoytema the opportunity to shoot 360-degrees interior and exterior. “I get involved in all aspects of filming, not just how to build the house, but how the crew is going to use it,” says De Jong. “I didn’t want any bogies or base camp to be seen from any angle. To make your movie, every minute of everyday matters. Jordan is such a great proponent of that and said everything on the entire ranch is a hot set.”
The approach paid off, especially for a climactic scene near the end of the movie where the house becomes covered in blood because of the entity in the sky attacking them. To pull off the sequence, a vast rain bar system was created along with gallons of food-grade blood that would be dumped onto the house. Over the course of several days, production shot all the interior house shots where Emerald and Fry’s electronics guru Angel (Brandon Perea) are stuck inside as the entity circles above OJ, who is hiding out in a van. Then working with special effects and visual effects, they saturated the earth and house with blood to show the aftermath of the following morning. “All of that was practical,” notes the production designer. “Even the stuff we strapped on the roof. We were throwing everything up there, a wheelchair, and an ice cream machine. It was a lot of fun to shoot.”
Keke Palmer as Emerald Haywood in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.
Looking back, De Jong is proud that they never skimped out on doing things practically. Even all the Sky Dancers that were placed in the field to alert the characters of the entity were practical. The electrical department came up with a way to control each one through an iPad. “It’s so satisfying to do a movie as practically as possible,” she says. “It’s an achievement.”
Putting together the irresistibly gripping story of writer-director Jordan Peele’s third film Nope was picture editor Nicholas Monsour, who has a shorthand with the auteur, having collaborated on Us (2019) and a number of episodes of Key and Peele.
Set in the outskirts of Hollywood, OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) find themselves up against a mysterious entity living in the sky above their home. The editor had a tremendous amount of footage to work with, shot by cinematographerHoyte van Hoytema, a first cut that ran close to four hours. Monsour sat down with The Credits to share how the final story found its way to the silver screen.
What was your initial reaction to the story reading the script?
I read a pretty early draft, but even before I read the script, Jordan had briefed me on what he was thinking about writing and talked about the broad strokes. When I read it, I really loved the specificity of the characters and the setting and how many layers you could already bring just to the basic facts of the story – about being a brother and sister and about their relationship to Hollywood and moviemaking. With it being about this family business set outside of Los Angeles around this sibling story, I hadn’t seen that done very much, and that was immediately interesting because it felt familiar but new at the same time. It was a really interesting starting place that felt grounded in a real setting to then launch into this unbelievable sci-fi and supernatural world that unfolds in Nope.
(from left) OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.Pee
Did Peele reference any films for you to consider as examples of story or pace going into the project?
Jordan, by and large, may think that way, but he doesn’t talk about a project too much in terms of references. He’s incredibly collaborative and interested in what everyone he chooses to work with brings from their own backgrounds and ideas. Between us, we have a common area for things we both love, but we also love things that are different. I think that’s true for all his collaborators. We will bring a slightly different mixture of stuff. Jordan likes having his actors really inhabit their roles and bring what they want. There is a kind of rawness, but he was thinking about ‘70s American maverick filmmaking as well as the origin of the blockbuster and the big creature feature and big epic sci-fi movies. It really went without saying that we’d think about movies like Close Encounters and Alien.
Writer/producer/director Jordan Peele on the set of Nope.
Close Encounters and Alien are two classics. Any others?
Before production Jordan did gather all the key crew and had us watch the original King Kong [1933]. He kind of put it to use that this is the movie we had to make now with everything we know about movies and everything we could do. It was kind of a benchmark of what this could accomplish.
The backbone of Nope is this wonderful brother-sister dynamic. How did you want to approach their personalities to let them shine through on screen?
My job as an editor is made so much richer when you have actors like Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, and Steven Yeun. Even Keith David, who plays OJ’s and Emerald’s father, makes an amazing impact in a short amount of screen time. They are all living in their roles and finding these non-verbal ways as well as through the dialogue to create interesting dynamics between their characters. It means that rather than hunting for the one moment you’re trying to communicate, you instead have so many choices. It’s obviously richer and more fun and engaging working with actors of this caliber, but some things emerged very clearly with their characters.
Keke Palmer as Emerald Haywood in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.
Like what?
Jordan talked about how he always wanted to see how characters with diverse backgrounds would really feel and deal with these situations of sci-fi and otherworldly encounters. How would they emerge in these moments of crisis, excitement, and action? With OJ and Emerald, OJ is the one who stayed on the ranch and followed in his father’s footsteps but was never really a natural performer. He’s more internal, and you have to see what’s going on behind his eyes. In contrast, Emerald is the natural performer of the family but never got a chance to shine. There’s friction between them, but behind it, there’s this very specific history they both share and a relationship to their larger-than-life father.
The Gordy chimp storyline makes its mark on the themes of the movie. How did the alternating timeline play out in the cutting room?
The interesting thing with Jordan is he’s developing everything simultaneously from when he starts. He’s thinking about casting, music, where he might shoot all the way through the preproduction, production, and post. It’s never a fixed object where he stops thinking creatively. Somewhere around halfway through the edit, Jordan had this notion of bringing Gordy’s storyline up to the beginning of the movie. It wasn’t in the script that way, but it was based on a number of things. The biggest one, and I think Jordan was correct in it, was in deciding to lay in the deeper layers and the meanings in the film in an abstract way that you don’t totally understand earlier in the movie. To invite the audience into the more complicated, interesting layers of entertainment, spectacle, exploitation, and horror.
Hoyte van Hoytema and Jordan Peele on the set of “Nope.” Glen Wilson/Universal Pictures
Peele really knows when to invite us into a moment. It seemed as if you stayed on certain shots to allow the viewers to sink into the environment or what a character is looking at.
Initially, there was an instinct we both shared to linger on some of the shots. There are so many embedded, interesting things in the locations and the characters’ qualities; staying on the shot a little longer allows you to explore what’s in the frame. The level of detail in the production design and costumes really rewards you with more to think about as nothing is there by accident.
Keke Palmer as Emerald Haywood in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.
The ending of Nope is this beautiful crescendo of action and change in the characters. How did you approach everything that was going on?
There are a number of things happening, so it was very important we gave the visual effects team the right timing to apply all their incredible work. We were in constant dialog with each other, and once we found the right mechanical timing and the experience of the spectacle, we were able to lay in the relationship with the characters, especially the brother and sister story, in non-verbal ways. We wanted to make sure that the moments and the performance we were using felt right for the characters subjectively and what we wanted the audience to feel.
How did you achieve that balance?
It was a very interesting balance. In a big, epic sci-fi film, you can often become detached because you’re seeing these massive events unfold. The camera can often show you all the cool stuff but lose a sense of being rooted in the characters’ psychology and experience. Finding the right balance really pays off when you feel more affected by the events.
Were there any moments in the film you think best speak to finding these more grounded, human moments?
One of the most beautiful things in the script is this hand-off in the third act from the brother to the sister, where it becomes almost her story where Emerald becomes this female protagonist. It works on a meta-level and a specific story level where this character, who is a bit of an outsider in her family, earns this moment and runs with it at the end of the movie. We really wanted it to feel earned and satisfying and show how these characters negotiate what’s at stake for them.
(from left) OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya), Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.
Featured image: (from left) OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya), Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) and Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.
We can think of no filmmaker better suited to adapt Carlo Collodi’s iconic story about a wooden marionette who’s magically brought to life to help heal the soul of a grieving woodcarver than Guillermo del Toro. And now, at long last, we have our first really good look at what the visionary behind Nightmare Alley, The Shape of Water, and Pan’s Labyrinth has done with the material.
The trailer introduces us to Sebastian J. Cricket (Jiminy Crickett in the original story), our Orthopeteran guide through this new take on Pinocchio, and voiced by Ewan McGregor. “I have so much to say,” Sebastian J. Cricket says as the trailer opens, “about imperfect fathers and imperfect sons.” Sebastian is here to tell us the story of the woodcarver Geppetto who lost his son and, in his howling grief, carved a new one out of an old tree.
Del Toro has been pursuing the project for years, and this most passionate of directors said in a statement when the project officially got underway in 2018 that no other story affected him as deeply as the one about the wooden boy brought to life. “No art form has influenced my life and my work more than animation, and no single character in history has had as deep of a personal connection to me as Pinocchio. In our story, Pinocchio is an innocent soul with an uncaring father who gets lost in a world he cannot comprehend. He embarks on an extraordinary journey that leaves him with a deep understanding of his father and the real world. I’ve wanted to make this movie for as long as I can remember.”
McGregor joins a star-studded cast voicing Pinocchio’s characters, including Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz (voicing the fox), Finn Wolfhard (voicing Lampwick), Gregory Mann (voicing Pinocchio), and David Bradley (voicing Geppetto).
Check out the immensely wonderful trailer below. Pinocchio arrives on Netflix this December.
Here’s the synopsis for Pinocchio:
Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro reinvents Carlo Collodi’s classic tale of the wooden marionette who is magically brought to life in order to mend the heart of a grieving woodcarver named Geppetto. This whimsical, stop-motion musical directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson follows the mischievous and disobedient adventures of Pinocchio in his pursuit of a place in the world.
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio. Jason Schmidt/NETFLIX
For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:
Netflix’s spy thriller The Gray Man was only the beginning.
The streaming giant has big plans to turn the Russo Brothers’ breathless caper, starring Ryan Gosling as a prodigiously talented assassin for the CIA, into a franchise. With the film bowing this past Friday night, Netflix has already revealed plans to add a sequel starring Gosling and a spinoff, both of which are already in development.
For the sequel, Gosling will return in another Russo Brothers-helmed flick, with screenwriter Stephen McFeely penning the sequel. McFeely not only wrote The Gray Man but also co-wrote Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, all Russo Brothers films.
“The audience reaction to The Gray Man has been nothing short of phenomenal. We are so appreciative of the enthusiasm that fans across the world have had for this film,” Joe and Anthony Russo said in a statement. “With so many amazing characters in the movie, we had always intended for The Gray Man to be part of an expanded universe, and we are thrilled that Netflix is announcing a sequel with Ryan, as well as a second script that we’re excited to talk about soon.”
The Gray Man spinoff film will come from Deadpool screenwriters Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, although the details are still a state secret.
The Russo Brothers and McFeely adapted The Gray Man from Mark Greaney’s book series of the same name. In the film, Gosling plays Sierra Six, a former felon pulled out of prison by the CIA to work at their behest dispatching bad guys around the world. However, when he runs afoul of some unsavory types at the agency for starting to question their motives, they send a sadistic mercenary perfectly named Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans, enjoying himself) to take him out. Thus begins a highly-dangerous cat-and-mouse game through Europe that ends, as it must, with a ferocious showdown.
It will be a while until we know what comes next for Gosling’s Sierra Six, but with how The Gray Man ended, there are plenty of bad guys still looking for him and plenty of danger for him to sort out with his blend of ruthless proficiency and humor.
For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:
After Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige revealed the MCU’s big plans to bring back the Avengers in Phase 5 and 6, the question became who would direct these mammoth super-team epics. The Russo Brothers helmed both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the latter of which closed out what Marvel Studios called their Infinity Saga and ended a definitive chapter in the MCU’s expansionist history. Since Endgame, the MCU has broadened considerably to include new superheroes and even new realms. Now, however, we know who will be leading the Avengers in their first big reunion since they vanquished Thanos—Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton.
The Hollywood Reporterhas the scoop, revealing that after introducing Shang-Chi to audiences in 2021 in an immensely appealing origin story, Cretton will be helming the first Avengers film since 2019’s Endgame. Cretton not only proved his Marvel mettle with Shang-Chi, but he’s also developing a Disney+ series for the studio centered on Wonder Man with Brooklyn Nine-Nine writer/producer Andrew Guest. And he’s working on the Shang-Chi sequel.
A follow-up question on Avengers: The Kang Dynasty might be who, exactly, will be in the Avengers at that point. The team has undergone some major personnel changes—no more Iron Man or Black Widow, a new Captain America (Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson), and who in the world knows if Elizebeth Olsen’s Scarlett Witch will be invited back. To say nothing of the potential new recruits, including Shang-Chi himself.
Avengers: The Kang Dynasty will be the first of a two-Avenger film release that will close out Phase 6. The Kang Dynasty arrives on May 2, 2025, followed by Avengers: Secret Wars on November 7, 2025. We know that Kang himself is being played by Jonathan Majors, who first appeared in the Disney+ series Loki and will next feature as the villain in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, due on February 17, 2023. Quantumania officially launches Phase 5, and the lead-up to The Kang Dynasty.
Yet there’s still the rest of Phase 4 to contend with first and one mega final film to cap it off—Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
As always, the Marvel Cinematic Universe keeps on expanding.
For more on Marvel Studios, check out these stories:
Cinematographer Paul Cameron had worked on big pictures like Michael Mann-directed Collateral and Denzel Washington thriller Déjà Vu, so he could afford to be skeptical six years ago when he first heard about a new TV series loosely based on an old Michael Crichton sci-fi novel. Cameron says, “I remember when my agent called and said Jonah Nolan wants to talk to you about Westworld, my first reaction was: ‘Might not be not my cup of tea.'” But once Cameron met with Nolan and partner Lisa Joy, he became a key collaborator, helping to establish the HBO series’ look by shooting Westworld‘s much talked about 2016 pilot. In 2020’s season 3, he helmed the 4th episode, “The Mother of Exiles.” This season, Cameron returned to direct Aaron Paul, Thandie Newton, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, and Jeffrey Wright in “Generation Loss,” the 4th episode, which aired earlier this month.
Speaking from his home outside of Bend, Oregon, Cameron described how he and his cast overcame scorching temperatures, tight schedules, and challenging locations to shape a memorably complicated Westworld episode.
Even by Westworld standards, your “Generation Loss” episode seems mighty complicated, cutting between three timelines, multiple locations, and a half dozen stressed-out characters. How do you organize all of that?
Basically, I cut the scenes in my head before I film them.
The first scene flashes back to when Aaron Paul’s Caleb and Thandie Newton’s Maeve attack the Lighthouse. Where did you film that?
That opening sequence we filmed in Cabo, Mexico, which has this beautiful old lighthouse on the beach there. When I landed at the airport, the producer Mark Tobey said, “Dude, there’s a hurricane coming; we need all the cameras and crew at the Viceroy Hotel,” which is where they were shooting other assets for the show. This flashback scene was actually the last thing I needed to film for my episode, so I said, “Respectfully, if I can have one camera and a drone?”
But wait, there’s a hurricane coming?
Yeah, about 20 hours away. We showed up at six in the morning with the drone and an Arriflex [Alexa] Studio camera with a 1000-foot [film] mag, which I ended up operating in 105-degree weather while my DP was doing lighting set-ups. A few people got heat exhaustion by the end of the day, including me. I was literally foaming at the mouth trying to finish my last scenes. It was supposed to be a two-day shoot, but I convinced the producers I could do it in one.
Caleb gets shot and might die while Maeve tries to comfort him. You need to capture extreme emotions in extreme heat on a tight schedule, so you must have been grateful to be directing actors of this caliber.
Aaron and Thandie are such professionals! Outside, exposed to the heat, 100 percent humidity, of course, you want to keep them from getting heat stroke. Fortunately, the communication was so good between the three of us; I could tell them, “Save your energy for when I turn the camera on,” or I could tell Aaron, “Just give me a little action in the foreground while I focus on Thandie, and that’ll be fine.” They both understand exactly where the camera is and know how to save it for their closeups.
L-r: Aaron Paul and Paul Cameron on the set of “Westworld.” John Johnson/HBO
Cut to a new time frame in Temperance, the 1920s Chicago simulation, where Maeve and Caleb kidnap Tessa Thompson’s evil Charlotte Hale and drive out to a demolition site in the desert where all hell breaks loose: Ed Harris’s Man in Black goes nuclear, there’s a massive explosion plus Hale tries to infect poor Caleb so he’ll do her bidding.
The real challenge there was to keep Aaron in this intense emotional state. We’re shooting at night in this quarry in southern California, the next night, we’re back at the quarry, three weeks later, we shoot in the shed, three weeks after that, we do the “stylized shed” where he’s being held by Hale. As a cinematographer, I’ve often seen directors asking the actor to do the scene from beginning to end, move the camera, and then do it again from beginning to end so they can get coverage. Jonathan was concerned we might be asking a lot, but once Aaron understood what I was doing visually, emotionally, and editorially, he said, “I’ll go there as many times as you need me to go there.”
Aaron Paul is Caleb in “Westworld.” Photo by Photograph by John Johnson/HBO
And it also must be tricky because the actors don’t necessarily know what’s going to happen next to their characters?
The actors have questions. They want to know what’s going on. But the complexity of the show is such that you don’t want to reveal certain things. I didn’t want to give Aaron the pages for the end of the episode because I didn’t want him to know where Caleb was going. And working with Tessa, she’s a fabulous actress, and she has feelings — they all have feelings — about where they hope their characters are going. As the director, part of my job is to keep the actors where they are [emotionally] and “release” them at the time they need to be released. It’s interesting to juggle information and emotional beats because I like to push things left and right a little bit, open some doors and hope new attributes emerge through the actors’ performances. But it’s a thin line. You have to trust the writing and can’t really go off track.
Tessa Thompson and Paul Cameron on the set of “Westworld.” John Johnson/HBO
After the quarry shootout, the timeline jumps ahead once again to New York City, where Hale taunts “Caleb” with devastating information. You shot those sequences in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards complex, which must be challenging.
I hadn’t had the experience of working with four other directors until we did these scenes in New York. Every day you start out saying, “I need three or four hours.” They say, “We’ll give you three.” But then the first director goes over, and now the second director’s gone over, and suddenly you’ve got one hour to film this scene in Hudson Yards. You have one shot to get Aaron running out onto the street.
Tessa Thompson is Charlotte Hale in “Westworld.” Photograph by John Johnson/HBO
There, he’s surrounded by dozens of pedestrians who stop on a dime at Hale’s command.
You read something like that in the script and wonder how you’re going to pull it off. We had 120 practical extras when Hale snaps her fingers and everybody freezes. We used a God mic to explain things to the extras, and it was amazing to see how they welcomed the challenge. We did it in two or three takes.
Jeffrey Wright is Bernard in “Westworld.” Photograph by John Johnson/HBO
Meanwhile, Jeffrey Wright’s Bernard and Caleb’s now-grown daughter Frankie (Aurora Perrineau) search for a weapon buried in the desert. In contrast to all this action, Evan Rachel Wood anchors a scene opposite James Marsden that almost feels like a rom-com. Her new Christina character is completely different from the rancher’s daughter-turned-badass Dolores that Wood portrayed in earlier seasons. What’s it like to direct Evan Rachel Wood?
Rachel’s a highly tuned professional. She understands the camera. She can be on her phone talking to somebody when you tell her you need another take, and to swing the lens and push in a little closer for a look. You go, “Okay, we’re going to roll.” She’ll just turn, step in front of the camera, “Action.” Make the look. Perfect. I don’t know how she does it.
Coming from a cinematography background, how did you develop your vocabulary for talking to actors and steering their performances?
As long as you understand the scene and have an idea of where the story’s going, it just feels natural for me to address performance from that level.But you have to know the script as well as the writers who wrote it, which is something you don’t really do as a cinematographer.
You obviously enjoy a good rapport with Westworld creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. Most recently, you shot her directorial debut Reminiscence last year. How has your collaboration with this couple evolved?
Literally, within five minutes of meeting Jonathan, he and I were talking about what we were going to do on Westworld. I was 100 percent in before I left the room. It was exciting to help Jonathan and Lisa, with production designer Nathan Crowley, conceptualize how to make the western thing feel real for that first season. I was a big advocate for building Westworld in Utah for the ins and outs. I’d shot a lot of things with Tony Scott at Dead Horse Point near Moab, so when I pitched Jonathan, Lisa and Nathan on Westworld being built in Red Rock country, they loved the idea.
Beyond that pilot, you earned another Emmy nomination for shooting the first episode of Season 3. Through cinematography, you’ve continued to shape the look for Westworld, which must be gratifying.
Last season, I went to Singapore and scouted the City of Arts and Sciences in Spain with Jonathan and Lisa, and then I stayed behind and shot plates that could be used throughout the season. It’s rare for a cinematographer to function on a level where you’re invited to come up with ideas because, normally, you don’t get brought in at that level. And then, to be utilized creatively as a director? That’s a great opportunity because Jonathan and Lisa are such amazing storytellers.
With the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever trailer exploding with 172 million views in 24 hours, a lot of people wanted to know, who’s cover of Bob Marley’s iconic “No Woman, No Cry” can be heard throughout it? The answer is the Nigerian artist Tems, and her cover is one of the three tunes that Hollywood Records and Marvel Music have released in a prologue soundtrack.
Tems’ version of “No Woman, No Cry” also includes a Kendrick Lamar sample of “Alright,” with Tems singing “We gonna be alright” from Lamar’s song while the trailer moves through images of the country of Wakanda and some of Wakanda’s most familiar faces—Letitia Wright’s Shuri, Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia, Angela Bassett’s Ramona, Danai Gurira’s Okoye, and Winston Duke’s M’Baku—who are all mourning the loss of Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa. Boseman died tragically in August of 2020 from colon cancer, and how Wakanda Forever handles his tragic passing has long been one of the film’s central mysteries. The trailer gave us a few clues, and set to Tems gorgeous version of the Marley classic with the Lamar motif, revealing a sense of mourning and grief that amplified the first half of the trailer. Then, it was time for Namor the Sub-Mariner (Tenoch Huerta), the film’s villain, to step in, and the vibe gradually changed to one of defiance.
The other two songs on the prologue soundtrack speak to the elegiac and mournful spirit—”A Body, A Coffin” by Amaarae, and “Soy,” by Santa Fe Klan.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever comes from director Ryan Coogler, from a script he co-wrote alongside his Black Panther collaborator Joe Robert Cole. Joining the above-mentioned familiar faces from the original Black Panther and Tenoch Huerta as the film’s villain are new cast members, including Dominique Thorne (playing Riri Thomas, who will soon have her own Marvel series on Disney+, Ironheart), Michaela Coel, Alex Nivilani, and Mabel Cadena.
Have a listen to Tems’ “No Woman, No Cry” below. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever hits theaters on November 11.
For more on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, check out these stories:
The desire to see Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther follow-up Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is immense. In fact, the first trailer for Coogler’s sequel drew one of the biggest responses in Marvel history, nabbing an astonishing 172 million views in its first 24 hours, a source close to Marvel confirmed with Variety.
The trailer was revealed this past weekend as part of Marvel Studios’ massive presentation at Hall H, where Coogler and members of the cast were on hand to give the world its first glimpse at the sequel. There is an undeniable sadness beneath the celebration, however, with Wakanda Forever forging a path forward without Black Panther himself, Chadwick Boseman, who died tragically, at 43, in August of 2020. How Coogler and his talented cast and crew managed to make that work is part of the mystery surrounding the project, and the trailer gave us the first glimpse of how they were going to approach Boseman’s loss. The answer, unsurprisingly, is with a tremendous amount of love and respect. Yet Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will also thrill, and the first look, which revealed the film’s big bad is Namor the Sub-Mariner (Tenoch Huerta), was not short on excitement.
How good is 172 million views? Consider that when the trailer for the original Black Panther bowed in 2017, it gobbled up 88 million views. Variety also tracked its social mentions, which neared a million with 893,000. Trending topics once the trailer bowed included Chadick Boseman, T’Challa, Ryan Coogler, Namor, Shuri, Angela Bassett, and Ryan Coogler. The hashtag #WakandaForever sat in the top spot for more than five hours.
With 172 million views in its first 24 hours, Wakanda Forever is now one of the biggest trailer launches for standalone movies in Marvel history. The reigning king is Spider-Man: No Way Home, which pulled in an unbelievable 355.5 million views, followed by Thor: Love and Thunder‘s 209 million. Unsurprisingly, in the non-standalone category, the last two Avengers movies did gangbusters business, with Endgame and Infinity War netting massive numbers. The first teaser for Endgame drew 289 million, while the first teaser for Infinity War grabbed 230 million.
One key stat for Wakanda Forever is it was likely hampered by the time the trailer dropped—at 9:20 pm ET on a Saturday night. That’s a tough hour to start the clock, rather than, say, a Friday morning at 9 am when people have the entire workday to watch it. Yet the excitement surrounding the film overwhelmed that less-than-ideal starting time.
The majority of the Black Panther cast will return to honor T’Challa’s legacy and forge a new path. They include Lupita Nyong’o, Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira, Angela Bassett, Florence Kusamba, and Winston Duke. Joining Tenoch Huerta in the new faces department are Dominique Thorne (playing Riri Thomas, who will soon have her own Marvel series on Disney+, Ironheart), Michaela Coel, Alex Nivilani, and Mabel Cadena.
If you want to re-watch that trailer or check it out for the first time to see what all the fuss is about, please be our guest. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever arrives on November 11.
For more on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, check out these stories:
This is how Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson) describes his immense, DCEU-shaking abilities in the new sneak peek at Black Adam that was revealed this past weekend at San Diego’s Comic-Con. Johnson’s titular superhero, or perhaps more accurately, super anti-hero, was “born out of rage”—murdered thousands of years ago as a slave, he was resurrected through his son making the ultimate sacrifice. Reborn and next-level powerful, Black Adam is definitely not the warm and electrically cuddly type like Shazam. Black Adam is also no Avenger, or even Batman—he plays for keeps, and he’s not sure he’s equipped to be called a hero at all.
“The world needed a hero,” he says at the end of the teaser. “Instead, it got me.”
The new sneak peek offers some fresh footage of what’s shaping up to be one of the biggest DCEU releases ever. Black Adam comes from director Jaume Collet-Serra, and will feature the Justice Society—Hawkman (Aldis Hodge), Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), and Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo).
“You have two choices,” Doctor Fate tells Black Adam. “You can be the destroyer of this world, or you can be its savior.” Black Adam will tell the story of that choice and will reshape the DCEU in the process.
Check out the new sneak peek below. Black Adam arrives in theaters on October 21.
Here’s the official synopsis for Black Adam:
Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the ancient gods—and imprisoned just as quickly—Black Adam (Johnson) is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world.
Featured image: Caption: DWAYNE JOHNSON as Black Adam in New Line Cinema’s action adventure “BLACK ADAM,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
What would be the most annoying way to be woken up? How about having an airhorn blasted in your ear? This is how Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) wakes up his cousin, Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) in the official trailer for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Bruce is testing Jennifer, seeing what kind of control, or lack thereof, she has over her giant green alter ego. But he’s also doing it because it’s funny. Such is the vibe of Marvel Studios’ upcoming Disney+ series, which centers on Jennifer’s work as a lawyer with a big green dash of MCU magic. In fact, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is being described as a legal comedy, and for those of you old enough to remember Ally McBeal, imagine that tone, but here Ally can throw a two-ton boulder a hundred yards.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law introduces us to Jennifer’s day job, in which she’s tasked with representing some of the “eccentric superhumans” that are popping up all over the world. One of those superhumans is none other than Frog-Man, an obscure member of the Marvel canon making his first on-screen appearance in the MCU. Another is Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), also known as Abomination, who you might remember tried to kill the Hulk a while back.
Our two Hulks, Frog-Man and Abomination are far from the only superhumans involved. Wong (Benedict Wong) is on hand to help instruct Jennifer the best he can. There’s also Jameela Jamil as Titania, She-Hulk’s rival. The trailer also confirms that the series will break the fourth wall, with Jennifer directly addressing the camera from time to time. This decision was inspired by John Byrne’s comic series “Sensational She-Hulk,” which did the same when it appeared in the 90s.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law was created by Jessica Gao, with directing duties led by Kat Coiro and supplemented by Anu Valia.
Check out the trailer below. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law makes its case on Disney+ on August 17.
For more on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, check out these stories:
Still buzzing from that Black Panther: Wakanda Forevertrailer? Us, too. Yet Marvel had more to share during their time in Comic-Con’s Hall H. Three years after Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige unveiled the plans for Phase 4 there, he was back to discuss Phase 5 and even hint at what’s in store in Phase 6.
Before we can get to Phase 5 and 6, however, we need a glimpse of what’s left in Phase 4.
End of Phase 4
Phase 4 carries on in just a few weeks with the August 17 release of She-Hulk: Attorney at Lawon Disney+, which stars Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer Walters (she’s Bruce Banner’s cousin, folks), who reps superheroes in need of a smart lawyer who also happens to be capable of deadlifting a thousand pounds (or more) when she’s green.
Up next is arguably Marvel’s most anticipated film of the year, Ryan Coolger’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which carries on without Chadwick Boseman, who tragically passed away in August 2020. Wakanda Forever arrives in theaters on November 11 and will feature Namor the Sub-Mariner (Tenoch Huerta) as the main villain. Namor will be arriving in a Wakanda still reeling from the loss of its king. Wakanda Forever officially concludes Phase 4.
Phase 5
What better way to kick off Phase 5 than with the quantum realm-messing hijinx of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which arrives on February 17, 2023. Quantumania will find Jonathan Majors reprising his role of Kang the Conquerer from Loki after he runs into Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and his daughter Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton), as well as Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), and Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) in the quantum realm. Majors has a major role to play in how the MCU will be shaped going forward, as you’ll see when we get to Phase 6.
Secret Invasionis up next, premiering in the spring of 2023 on Disney+. The series finds Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and his frenemy Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) teaming up after their adventures in Captain Marvel and also features Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), and Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman). Newcomers include Kingsley Ben-Adir, Olivia Colman, and Emilia Clarke.
Writer/director James Gunn was in San Diego to hype Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, due on May 5, 2023. Footage revealed that Vol. 3 would feature our first look at how Rocket (Bradley Cooper) became the walking, talking raccoon we all know and love. Joining franchise regulars Chris Pratt, Karen Gillan, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, and more are Will Poulter as Adam Warlock and Chukwudi Iwuji, from Gunn’s Peacemaker, who will play the High Evolutionary.
Echo arrives on Disney+ in the summer of 2023 and carries on the story of Hawkeye antagonist Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), with guest appearances expected from Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock/Daredevil and Vince D’Onofio’s Wilson Fisk/Kingpin.
Also arriving in the summer of 2023 is season two of Loki, which wasn’t part of Marvel’s big presentation at Hall H.
Blade is one of the most anticipated films in Marvel’s entire Phase 5, due in theaters on November 3, 2023. Mahershala Ali plays the titular vampire hunter, with Bassam Tariq directing.
Up next is the Disney+ series Ironheart, due in the Fall of 2023. Here we’ll be reintroduced to a character we’re about to meet in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the brilliant inventor Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne). Sam Bailey and Angela Barnes will direct from scripts led by head writer Chinaka Hodge.
Everyone’s favorite lunatic is back in Agatha: Coven of Chaos on Disney+ in the winter of 2023/2024. Kathryn Hahn reprises her WandaVision role as Agatha Harkness and comes from that brilliant series’ head writer Jac Schaeffer.
In the spring of 2024, Daredevil: Born Again will continue Phase 5, with Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock/Daredevil now becoming a full member of the MCU with a brand new Disney+ series. Also, Born Again has a—wait for it—18-episode first season. Cox had a fun cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home, while Daredevil‘s big bad, Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), had an important role in Hawkeye.
Captain America: New World Order arrives on May 3, 2024. Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) has now officially taken on the mantle of Captain America after a long, torturous road in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but Feige revealed little more than the title in Hall H.
Thunderbolts officially ends Phase 5 on July 25, 2024, and features a bunch of MCU bad boys and girls teaming up to do some good. While Feige didn’t reveal the cast, there are plenty of options, including Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, Daniel Brühl’s Baron Zemo, Hannah John-Kamens Ghost, Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster, and Wyatt Russell’s John Walker.
Phase 6
Feige revealed three major titles slated for Phase 6. The first is Fantastic Four, which is slated for a November 8, 2024 release, and will see the resurrection of that supergroup. The second is Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, set to hit theaters on May 2, 2025, and will be the first part of a two-part Avengers epic (think Infinity War and Endgame) with Jonathan Majors’ Kang the Conquerer featuring heavily. The third is Avengers: Secret Wars, which will actually end Phase 6 on November 7, 2025. There are a lot of ways Marvel could go with this film, either borrowing from a Marvel comics series that began in 2015 and featured the destruction of two worlds and the surviving variants of Marvel characters living in a hellscape known as Battleworld or, the mid-1980s “Secret Wars” series that inspired it.
For more on all things Marvel, check out these stories:
Featured image: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – JULY 23: Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios, participates in the Marvel Studios’ Live-Action presentation at San Diego Comic-Con on July 23, 2022. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney)
The very first look at co-writer/director Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever pulses with feeling. The teaser opens to Tems’ cover of Bob Marley’s deathless “No Woman, No Cry,” with Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) standing on a gorgeous coastline, silently taking in the beauty of her surroundings and, we imagine, the immensity of her loss. Wakanda Forever was supposed to see Chadwick Boseman reprise his role as T’Challa/Black Panther, of course, but Boseman tragically passed away in August 2020, and the cast and crew, with Coogler leading the way, had to reimagine the world of Wakanda, and the world of Black Panther, without its North Star. This is the first chance we’ve had to see how they managed it.
The first minute or so of the teaser trailer finds many of our heroes from the original Black Panther at a moment of reflection and mourning. T’Challa’s remaining family, little sister Suri (Letitia Wright), and mother Ramonda (Angela Bassett), are all that’s left, and they’ll factor in even more crucially than they did in the first film. Then there’s T’Challa’s most trusted leader of the Dora Milaje, Okoye (Danai Gurira), and his proud, powerful friend M’Baku (Winston Duke), the leader of the Jabari Tribe. The entire country of Wakanda appears to be absorbing the loss of T’Challa, and the beauty that Coogler and his team have marshaled to depict their mourning is astonishing.
Then, subtly, the trailer shifts from a mood of reflection to defiance. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever reveals its villain—Namor the Sub-Mariner (Tenoch Huerta)—a king himself and a villain with immense powers. The trailer doesn’t reveal why Namor is coming for Wakanda, but you could reasonably assume it’s because, with T’Challa’s death, there’s a power vacuum in the country. Namor rules an underwater realm, and the image of his people holding onto the sides of whales as a means of transportation is wonderful. But they do not come in peace.
As the trailer builds to its emotional apex, a devastating speech by Ramonda, who has lost two kings (her husband and her son) in succession, we get a glimpse at the very end of something very special. It’s a new Black Panther. Of course, there’s no knowing, not yet, who’s in the suit.
New cast members include Dominique Thorne (as Riri Williams), Michaela Coel (Aneka), Mabel Cadena (Namora), and Alex Livanalli (Attuma).
Check out the thrilling first trailer below. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opens on November 11, 2022.
For more on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, check out these stories:
San Diego’s Comic-Con is officially underway, and the first major studio film to grace the vaunted Hall H was Paramount’s long-awaited Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. This is the first time in three years that Hall H has been populated, and the Dungeons & Dragons team didn’t disappoint. Nor does the first official trailer, which reveals the star-studded epic led by Chris Pine, Regé-Jean Page, and Michelle Rodriguez.
D&D stars Pine, Page, Rodriguez, and Sophia Lillis were on hand in San Diego to share the first looks at the film. So, too, was Hugh Grant, who plays the film’s villain and was making his first-ever Con appearance. He was enjoying himself. At one point he joked that they’d tried to bring Sense and Sensibility to Comic-Con, but didn’t make it in.
The film comes from directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, the directing pair who helmed the immensely enjoyable Game Night. Daley revealed at Comic-Con that he’s been an avid D&D player since he was 14. “Anyone who plays D&D knows it’s not just a game. It’s the feeling you get when you play the game.”
The trailer opens with Pine’s thief informing us he’s a part of a thieving team (hence the honor among them), and we learn that, in true D&D fashion, each member of the team has specific skills. Rodriguez’s character, for instance, is a barbarian and possesses great strength. Page’s character has incredible courage. Pine’s? Well, he makes plans. (It’s one of the best jokes in the trailer). We also learn this band of merry thieves accidentally unleashed the greatest evil the world has ever known, and the thrust of the film’s storyline will be their attempt to rectify the situation. The trailer is set to Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” includes some impressive creatures, huge fight sequences, and a cast that seems to be enjoying themselves immensely.
In short, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves looks fun, which is the first thing you want from an adaptation of the most iconic role-playing game of all time.
Check out the trailer below. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves opens in March of 2023:
For more films and series from Paramount and Paramount+, check out these stories:
Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema failed to get into two Dutch film schools, so he worked in a soap factory, played in a band, and survived unemployment as a self-described “slacker” before finding his creative footing at a renowned cinema academy in Lodz, Poland. Since then, he’s made up for lost time through collaborations with A-list auteurs, including David O. Russell (The Fighter), Sam Mendes (Spectre), and Spike Jonez (Her). Working with Christoper Nolan on Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Tenet, van Hoytema embraced the director’s passion for big-screen stories enabled by IMAX cameras, and now, he’s teamed with Jordan Peele to shoot the writer-director’s contemporary western-meets-extraterrestrial thriller Nope (opening Friday, July 22).
Hoyte van Hoytema and Jordan Peele on the set of “Nope.” Glen Wilson/Universal Pictures
Speaking for undisclosed reasons from an enormous warehouse in London, van Hoytema talked about capturing the night sky, creating a sense of spectacle, and taking cues from movies that inspired Nope‘s sumptuous visuals.
Over the past ten years, you’ve demonstrated excellent taste in directors, which continues now in your first collaboration with Jordan Peele on Nope. How did you guys get together?
Jordan and I talked about previous projects, but circumstances never timed out. When Jordan came up with Nope, the stars aligned and we started talking. I had a hunch it could be a cool collaboration.
Nope deals in part with the very nature of spectacle, and given your previous IMAX projects with Chris Nolan, you would seem to be well-suited for crafting work on an epic scale. What was Jordan’s creative brief regarding Nope?
Creative briefs are never brief. When you talk to an interesting director, it’s never something where they go, “I want this and I want that.” It’s more of an ongoing conversation. But from the beginning, it was evident that Jordan wanted to expand, to make his canvas bigger, to challenge himself, to understand what spectacle is, to shoot on the big formats for the big screen. He wanted to find the best possible way to shoot this story in an uncompromising way. He never said, “Oh I want to work with you because you shoot with the biggest cameras out there,” but he liked the fact that I’d worked on 65 millimeter.
Hoyte van Hoytema and Jordan Peele on the set of “Nope.” Glen Wilson/Universal Pictures
Biggest cameras out there being IMAX. Roughly how much of the movie is shot in that format?
It’s a lot. Thirty to forty percent. If you see the movie in an IMAX theater, those sequences suck you into the film in a very visceral way.
Nope feels in some ways like a western, with the wide open spaces, the big sky, the horses. To inform that look, did you and Jordan reference Hollywood westerns?
We referenced many films. Of course, we had to watch Lawrence of Arabia. Jordan projected the early King Kong movie for me in black and white We also watched the beautiful uncompromising films from the seventies and eighties. Spielberg’s Jaws and Close Encounters were huge inspirations in the way they presented original stories on a big screen so that they became events and spectacles in that way. We watched Heaven’s Gate because of the horses and the dust! We’d just throw references at each other and explored how you may unconsciously harvest certain things from movies you love. Funnily enough for us, it always came back to spectacle.
(from left) OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.
You filmed Nope in the southern California desert east of Los Angeles, outside of Santa Clarita?
Just past Santa Clarita, inAgua Dulce.
Daniel Kaluuya as OJ Haywood in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.
And that landscape plays an important role in this movie. How did you use your cameras to bring out the power of nature?
The best example I can give you is the night shots. On one of our first [location] scouts, Jordan and I stepped out of the car at night, turned the lights out, and walked into the middle of this valley. There was a tiny red blinking light blinking on a telephone tower in the distance but otherwise, no light. So your pupils start dilating. Suddenly you start seeing details in the hills around you, the stars in the sky — you experience the expanse of nature. We loved that feeling, which also becomes a very scary feeling in the context of the film. We both thought it was very special but also impossible to film because if you light an area at night with conventional lighting, everything around it will be dead. I started obsessing over how to capture the darkness of the night but somehow see through it. We developed a new technology that went through a lot of evolutions, but in the end, we figured out technically how to do it. The result is the look of our night, which I like to believe is unique. And that all came from wanting to re-create the experience Jordan and I had on that first scout.
Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.
In addition to being DP, you generally serve as your own camera operator, and on Nope, you carried this shoulder-mounted IMAX camera, which looks pretty heavy. Was it difficult to handle?
I’m not stronger than any other DP. The myths around this camera are much bigger and heavier than the camera is, and it’s really quite doable. In fact, my incredible B camera operator Kristen Correll did a whole week of operating, and I saw her flying an IMAX camera on her shoulder. I live by the philosophy that as cinematographers, it’s not our job to make things convenient; it’s our job make the difficult and the inconvenient doable so that we can achieve shots that are extra special.
Hoyte van Hoytema on the set of “Nope.” Glen Wilson/Universal Pictures
Changing subjects for a moment to your Oscar-nominated work on Dunkirk, there’s a remarkable sequence of British soldiers running along the beach as bombs drop around them, with you and your camera out of frame following right behind. The shot really pulls in the viewer.
It has to do with making the audience feel like they’re participating, and that automatically forces you, as the cinematographer, to be there physically. In the end, the most visceral cinema is very much about intimacy, about being in the middle of things. For me, it’s important to get in there, get closer, go further, be it and live it. Very often, that means allowing yourself to work more with your gut rather than just analyzing things in an intellectual way. But I also love moments that allow for contemplating and mood and distance.
With Nope and your other films, it seems that you move through different types of shots to create a visual dynamic?
Yes. You want a film to be immersive, but there are times when you want to take a breath – and then you get hooked by the next sequence and sucked in again. It’s similar to classical music, where a 20-minute sonata goes through all these different peaks and valleys, moments of sorrow, moments of resolve, less gas on the pedal, then you’re being pushed again. That dynamic is so important in filmmaking, going from being outside, observing, to being sucked in and becoming part of things, then being pushed out again so you can take a breath.
What techniques did you use in Nope to capture that contrast between epic wide shots and individual characters?
I worked with Panavision’s Dan Sasaki, an incredible engineer slash artist who can make whatever you need optically out of metal and glass. He designed custom lenses both for the Panavision and for the IMAX that tweak the focus so the camera can get physically closer to the faces of our actors. I want you to experience that space the same way you experience a landscape, and that’s always sort of been my obsession. Ultimately, I think faces are the most interesting things in film. I’m not so much interested in the expanse of nature if I don’t have the beautiful face to counteract it.
(from left) OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya), Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) and Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.
Classically trained at Oxford University, British-born musician Henry Jackman moved to Los Angeles in 2001. Within five years, he’d landed an apprenticeship gig at Hans Zimmer’s music company, and from there, Jackson quickly rose through the ranks to become one of Hollywood’s most versatile composers. Credits range from Kong: Skull Island and Tom Hanks’s tense, fact-based drama Captain Phillips to half a dozen zany animation features, including Wreck-It Ralph. Along the way, Jackson forged an especially fruitful bond with Joe and Anthony Russo, scoring the brothers’ Captain America: Civil War and Cherry, as well as Marvel Studios’ Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldiers.
For the Russos’ new Ryan Gosling action movie The Gray Man (streaming Friday on Netflix), Jackman spent months obsessing over a 17-minute suite before seeing a single frame of the film. Jackman explains, “If you’re trying to do something original in writing music for movies, I’ve found that if you just get the picture and go straight into writing cues, you often get distracted by the mechanics of the scene. If you really want to develop ideas, it’s useful to work away from picture.”
From his home studio in Los Angeles, Jackman, assisted by a nearby piano, walked The Credits through his creative process for developing the dark, dense Gray Man scoreand explained how he juggled music making with his new role as a first-time dad.
Your suite for The Gray Man plays like a theme and variation master class in the way it builds all these elements on top of this relentless core rhythm.
I pretty much have no excuse because I had an inordinate time to do that piece.
Composing an entire chunk of the score before you even see a rough cut — that’s not the way you would normally score a movie, is it?
I certainly don’t always have nine months to do a sort of mega-suite, as it were. I did write a suite for Winter Soldier as a stand-alone piece, but for this one, I wound up with a 17-minute behemoth that contains almost all the ideas you need for the rest of the movie in some form or another.
Henry Jackman.
What inspired the creation of this suite?
It came about because, with my wonderful partner Victoria de la Vega, I had my first child born in March 2021. Trying to be a good dad, I decided I’ll say no to everything until December, when I’d dive into writing cues for The Gray Man. That way, I could change diapers and spend time with this lovely little creature.
How long did your vacation last?
Until Joe and Anthony called while they were making Gray Man and said, “Hey Henry, we shot a scene today having to do with [Ryan Gosling’s character] Six’s internal damage. There’s this ghost in the machine element showing that he’s inarticulate for a reason.” So I went over to the piano, wondering, “What would that sound like?” And I go [Jackman plays three descending chords]. I recorded this on my iPhone, and after a couple more weeks of changing diapers, I said, “You know what? I’ll record this thing properly on the piano.” Then it became: “Now I’ll produce it properly and just get some backward reverb going on it and finish up this little tune-up so it’s ready when we get going on the movie.
Just as I was finishing the piano part, I got this interesting percussion sound going in my head: doong doong doong, doong DOONG. [Jackman imitates a booming kick drum]. I thought Six would want to get going into the action. Once I had this iconic rhythm going, I figured we’d leave it at that.
But you couldn’t leave it alone?
Of course, I went back, thinking, “Let’s develop the groove a little bit.” I spent weeks and weeks engineering all these sorts of hand-baked percussion sounds, so this period of my life was 50 percent parent care, 50 percent mad scientist in the laboratory coming up with cool sounds. And then I went, wait a minute. What about this bass line? [he plays a driving pattern on the low end of his piano] That sounds cool. And then, after the bass line, it’d be a good idea to get these brass chords going. But after I do the brass, I really will stop fiddling with this thing, but then it all just ran out of control because I kept getting all these ideas.
Meanwhile, Joe and Anthony Russo know nothing about your music for their movie?
I didn’t want to push it until I finished because after all the time I’ve spent on it, what if they go: “We don’t think it’s right.” So in December, they called and said, “We’ve got the first cut done, let’s talk about ideas.” That’s when I told them I’ve actually got a little bit of a secret. I’ve sneakily been working away for eight months on this 17-minute epic. They go “What!? Why didn’t you tell us?” I told Joe and Anthony, “I just want one more night of psychological freedom, and I’ll send it to you in the morning.” And thank God, they loved it.
One thing they must have loved is that propulsive groove. It’s perfect for an action movie and reminiscent in a way of the classic rock and roll Bo Diddley beat, except that you drop a measure.
That’s the interesting thing about the groove, which wouldn’t work if it were a club track: It’s in 5/4 [time]. If you were at a rave, people would go, “What the hell’s going on?” Throughout the whole movie, everything’s in five, which makes it a little more esoteric than if the music were straight up four-four.
So you create these massive rhythm tracks at your home studio in L.A. Where did you record the live instruments?
All the orchestra parts were recorded in London at AIR Studios and Abbey Road.
What kind of instrumentation?
It was a lot. Fourteen first violins, twelve seconds, ten violas, eight cellos, six double basses, six trombones, six French horns, three trumpets, treble woodwinds, piano, a bit of harp, saxophone. Sadly we couldn’t do it all at the same time because of COVID rules, but if you add everything together it’s probably 80 people.
It must be exciting to hear all these classically-trained musicians responding to your wild drum ‘n’ bass rhythm tracks.
Very often what happens is you give them a burst of what they’ll be playing up against, but when you actually record, they tend to want just the click track through their headsets. They have very impressive sight-reading skills. It’s pretty amazing to see these guys — and girls — show up for a 10 o’clock session, pull up these pieces of paper with their music cues, put them on the stand and play. It’s the first time they’ve seen the music, and then they’ve got the nightmare of me on the talkback giving them direction, asking for little nuances right after I’ve hit them with like six minutes of music they’ve never seen.
In Old Hollywood, musicians would play to picture, but not now?
You can do that, but these musicians want to focus on the cue. They haven’t got time to watch the movie.
Earlier, you mentioned “hand-baked” bits of percussion. What do you mean by “hand baked?”
What I mean is I’d get a little bit of a recording going and then kick it down an octave, push it through some 1979 synthesizer to make it sound analog, over-drive it, compress it really hard. You constantly finesse the engineering to create this home-baked set of sounds rather than just using some sample collection of known instruments like a high hat or [cymbal] crash. It’s about using weird tricks to make an unusual sound.
Music scores for contemporary action movies often rely on percussion more than the kind of melodic themes perfected by traditional composers in the John Williams vein. Do you prefer one approach over the other?
It depends on what hat I’m wearing. If I’m doing a movie like Big Hero 6 or the Disney thing I’m working on now, there’s melodies flying all over the place and it’s much more in the James Horner/Alan Silvestri vein. But for The Gray Man, the sounds owe more to a drum ‘n’ bass track. I like both approaches. If I only did contemporary action movies I would miss the lush orchestration. If I only did traditional orchestra, I’d miss the gnarly noise.
Where does your versatility come from?
I’ve done everything from 12th-century plainsong to the classical repertoire, plus I went off the rails and got into rave music so I have all these different influences, and that’s been useful. If you know how to use an orchestra and how to put beats together and understand harmony, it potentially doesn’t matter what kind of movie it is because you have all these tools. We’re talking about The Gray Man now, but if you think about an animated film like Wreck-It Ralph, that couldn’t be farther away. As long as I get to do both, I’m a happy varmint.
You broke into film music when you got a job at Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions company in Santa Monica. That’s a plum gig. How did you catch Zimmer’s attention?
Loads of people try to get their music to Hans, but the reason he took notice of me is that I made an album called Transfigurationwhen I was 29 or 30. At the time I loved Vespertine and Homogenic and whatnot, so I spent a long time on this record that was basically half classical and half re-mix. Hans’ fantastic music editor Bob Badami heard the record and said, “Hans, you should listen to this.”
What did you learn from maestro Zimmer?
I was very green and hadn’t done any music to picture when I got hired, so I had a lowly function that I was very grateful for. The most important thing about that experience was that, unlike any kind of tutorial or college course, I could just sit in a room watching Hans hang out and talk with some of Hollywood’s best directors. That was invaluable.
For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:
The deadliest tournament on the planet is returning.
Deadlinereports that a Mortal Kombat sequel is in the works with director Simon McQuoid returning. The original film did quite well at the box office when it was released simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max in April 2021. In fact, Mortal Kombat was one of the first films to lure folks back into theaters, and can credibly claim, along with F9 and A Quiet Place Part II, that it goosed the film industry right when it needed it most. While it was among the top titles ever on HBO Max, the number of people who wanted to see the bloody adaptation of the classic video game in theaters had surprised many in the industry. Now, a sequel is in the offing.
McQuoid will direct the sequel from a script by Jeremy Slater (the original film was scripted by Greg Russo and Dave Callaham, from a story by Oren Uziel and Russo). McQuoid is especially perfect to continue the adaptation of the mega-popular video game series, as his work for Xbox, PlayStation, Halo 3, and Call of Duty have won him many awards. Mortal Kombat was his feature debut.
Mortal Kombat followed the development of Cole Young (Lewis Tan), a young dad and failed MMA fighter unaware of his inheritance: as a direct descendent of 17th-century Japanese fighter Hanzo Hasashi (Hiroyuki Sanada), he’s one of Earthrealm’s pre-destined champions in a violent tournament regularly held between different universes known as Mortal Kombat. One of the most well-known aspects of the original game are the brutal kills that end a fight, and when we spoke to McQuoid, he talked about embracing them:
“If you look at each of those fatalities, really what’s happening is they’re propelling a character forward, the one who gets the kill,” McQuoid told us. When champion Kung Lao (Max Huang) finally engages his metal coolie hat, a personal if otherwise impractical seeming accessory, to slice an invader, length-wise, in two, the grotesque visual is only half the point. “I think ultimately, the most satisfying thing about the hat in that sequence is Kung Lao’s skill,” the director said.
For more on Mortal Kombat, check out our interview with McQuoid:
Featured image: Caption: (L-r) MEHCAD BROOKS as Major Jackson “Jax” Briggs and JOE TASLIM as Sub-Zero/Bi-Han in New Line Cinema’s action adventure “Mortal Kombat,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Ahead of House of the Dragon‘s appearance at Comic-Con, HBO released the series’ official trailer, and it doesn’t disappoint.
House of the Dragon, set 200 years before the events in Game of Thrones will focus on the volatile House Targaryen in the lead-up to the civil war that tore Westeros apart. House of the Dragon‘s Comic-Con appearance marks the first time the Game of Thrones franchise has graced San Diego’s marquee summer event since the series’ final season back in 2019. House of the Dragon is the result of a long, hard-fought internal struggle within HBO to make sure their first Game of Thrones spinoff was worthy of the original, with creators vying for the chance to continue the saga. We recommend you check out The Hollywood Reporter‘s deep dive into the long road to getting to House of Dragon.
House of the Dragon‘s main creative minds are co-creators and showrunners Miguel Sapochnik, a Game of Thrones alum, and Ryan Condal. The series arrives, at long last, on August 21.
Here are the main cast’s character descriptions:
Paddy Considine as King Viserys Targaryen, chosen by the lords of Westeros to succeed the Old King, Jaehaerys Targaryen, at the Great Council at Harrenhal. A warm, kind, and decent man, Viserys only wishes to carry forward his grandfather’s legacy. But good men do not necessarily make for great kings.
Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen, younger brother to King Viserys and heir to the throne. A peerless warrior and a dragonrider, Daemon possesses the true blood of the dragon. But it is said that whenever a Targaryen is born, the gods toss a coin in the air…
Olivia Cooke as Alicent Hightower, the daughter of Otto Hightower, the Hand of the King, and the most comely woman in the Seven Kingdoms. She was raised in the Red Keep, close to the king and his innermost circle; she possesses both a courtly grace and a keen political acumen.
Emma D’Arcy as Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, the king’s first-born child, she is of pure Valyrian blood, and she is a dragonrider. Many would say that Rhaenyra was born with everything… but she was not born a man.
Steve Toussaint as Lord Corlys Velaryon, “The Sea Snake.” Lord of House Velaryon, a Valyrian bloodline as old as House Targaryen. As “The Sea Snake,” the most famed nautical adventurer in the history of Westeros, Lord Corlys built his house into a powerful seat that is even richer than the Lannisters and that claims the largest navy in the world.
Eve Best as Princess Rhaenys Targaryen, a dragonrider and wife to Lord Corlys Velaryon, “The Queen Who Never Was” was passed over as heir to the throne at the Great Council because the realm favored her cousin, Viserys, simply for being male.
Fabien Frankel as Ser Criston Cole, of Dornish descent, the common-born son of the steward to the Lord of Blackhaven. Cole has no claim to land or titles; all he has to his name is his honor and his preternatural skill with a sword.
Sonoya Mizuno as Mysaria, who came to Westeros with nothing, sold more times than she can recall. She could have wilted… but instead she rose to become the most trusted — and most unlikely — ally of Prince Daemon Targaryen, the heir to the throne.
Rhys Ifans as Otto Hightower. The Hand of the King, Ser Otto loyally and faithfully serves both his king and his realm. As the Hand sees it, the greatest threat to the realm is the king’s brother, Daemon, and his position as heir to the throne.
For more on House of the Dragon, check out these stories:
Paramount has shuffled its upcoming film slate a bit.
First up, A Quiet Place: Day One—kudos for them nailing that title, by the way—will hit theaters on March 8, 2024. This is a slight move from the original release date of September 23, 2023. John Krasinski has ceded the directorial duties to Michael Sarnoski, who directed 2021’s deliciously wild Pig, starring Nicholas Cage. Krasinski will produce A Quiet Place: Day One alongside Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller.
The title suggests that Day One will be a prequel to Krasinski’s original A Quiet Place, which caught up with the Abbott family after they’d settled into a life-saving routine of total silence, having survived the first day of the alien attack. There was a glimpse of the first moments of the attack in A Quiet Place Part II, which was both thrilling and quite tonally different than the quiet menace that Krasinski had built with the franchise. With Day One, one imagines Sarnoski will get to lean a bit more heavily into pure action.
For Krasinski’s next directorial effort, IF, Paramount has set a new release date of May 24, 2024, moving it from its original release date of November 17, 2023. The film, starring Ryan Reynolds, will also include Krasinski himself, as well as the great Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Louis Gossett Jr., Fiona Shaw, Cailey Fleming, Alan S. Kim, and Steve Carell. Krasinski wrote the script for IF and serves as producer alongside Reynolds and Allyson Seeger.
Paramount will also release The Tiger’s Apprentice, an adaptation of Laurence Yep’s fantasy novel, on Jan 19, 2024, moving it back from its original December 20, 2023 release date. The animated film will be directed by Raman Hui and features a voice cast that includes Michelle Yeoh, Henry Golding, Lucy Liu, Brandon Soo Hoo, Sandra Oh, and Leah Lewis.
For more on A Quiet Place: Part II, check out these stories:
Featured image: Emily Blunt, left, and John Krasinski on the set of Paramount Pictures’ “A Quiet Place Part II.” Photo by Jonny Cournoyer. Courtesy Paramount Pictures.
