How the “Scream” Team Created The Best Film in the Franchise Since The Original

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How do you create the fifth film in a beloved slasher franchise that’s both a nod to everything that’s come before, a clever meta-commentary on horror films and toxic fandom, and something that’s entirely your own? This was one of the questions we put to Scream directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and their producing partner and the third member of their Radio Silence triumvirate, Chad Villella. The trio has once again brought the same passion that imbued their last outing, Ready or Not, with such razor-sharp wit.

In tackling Scream and titling their film simply Scream, they delivered a “requel,” a hybrid reboot/sequel that is as spiritually linked to Wes Craven’s seminal 1996 original, while delivering a deliciously brutal evolution on the themes Craven and original Scream writer Kevin Williamson explored. To make matters even more complicated, they were creating a new installment of the franchise in the midst of a moment where the horror genre is attracting some of the brightest filmmakers in the game, including Jordan Peele and Ari Aster. Their Scream doesn’t shy away from acknowledging this moment of elevated horror. In fact, it doesn’t shy away from the question of why this film needed to exist in the first place.

Their Scream explores the arrival of a new Ghostface, a game cast of newcomers, and the return of Westboro’s legendary survivors, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), and Dewey Riley (David Arquette) returning.

We spoke with the Radio Silence team about legacy, layered commentary, and going for the jugular with a laugh.

L-r: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Chad Villella, and Tyler Gillet. Courtesy Paramount.
L-r: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Chad Villella, and Tyler Gillet. Courtesy Paramount.

How did you do the difficult work of honoring Wes Craven’s original while also not losing your own style, voice, and vision?

Matt: I think one of the things we realized through this process is so much of our DNA and our voice comes from growing up on Wes Craven movies and movies like that. It sort of formed who we are. When we made Ready or Not, we were talking about Scream a lot. So it feels like a weird, sort of surreal dream come true, and the exact thing we would want to do if we could just choose something. The balancing act was one of the main tenets of our entire process. How do we make sure this is a love letter to the original movies, and also in the same way those movies constantly subvert your expectations and still create something that takes a step forward and doesn’t get stuck in the past. That’s something we talked about a lot. Scream kind of gave us that permission just by the way those movies did that.

Tyler: There’s also something about the process of making movies. It feels like it happens really quick, but it’s really pressure over time. When you’re in the making of something, you’re showing up every day, you’re making thousands of tiny little choices that ultimately cumulatively become the thing that people see. Our process is just ours, we’re three people who have been working together for a long time, we’re ultra collaborative, and we have a very specific shared taste. I think over the course of the hundreds of days it takes to put something together, your sensibilities naturally steer you towards your thing. It’s intentional, but it’s a collection of choices you’ve made over a long creative process.

How did you view the challenge, Chad?

Chad: It’s hard to explain what we do every day, but it’s also very difficult to remove ourselves from that process. Our fingerprints are all over this, but of course it’s heavily influenced by Wes Craven, and not just with Scream but with everything that Wes did. It’s so vital for us and the reason we became filmmaker sin the first place. We started off with more of a comedic sensibility in the early days when we were doing YouTube things, then we found our comedy got darker. That was our gateway into our horror present and what we bring to the genre.

I’m curious how you construct a scary moment? What’s the Radio Silence team’s DNA of a scare?

Tyler: We come from action-adventure comedy. We talk a lot about how crafting a joke and crafting a scare are really similar. The mechanics of building each of those are really in parallel with each other. For us, we certainly have a shared taste about what’s scary. We think a really grounded approach to those moments is going to yield a surprising break in tension, and also that feeling of wanting to laugh. That reaction is at the absolute nexus of what we love and what we think our unique tone is. That moment where you’re scared and you’re laughing at the same time, those two things can coexist in a single moment. When we’re on set actually crafting a scare, it’s always funny. There’s this idea that when you’re shooting a scary movie that everyone on set is really scared, but for us, it always feels like you’re shooting a comedy. The make believe is at such a high level and there’s a level of absurdity in what you’re creating, you can’t help but just have fun when you’re creating a scary sequence.

Chad: We have a very dark sense of humor, I guess. [Laughs].

Jenna Ortega (“Tara”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group's "Scream." Photo by Brownie Harris.
Jenna Ortega (“Tara”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Scream.” Photo by Brownie Harris.

I imagine you’ve analyzed other horror movies beat-by-beat?

Matt: Yeah, that’s a part of the process for a few reasons. First, you want to see what’s been done and make sure you’re not doing that again. Then, just as students of films we want to study the greats, so we spent a lot of time doing that. And then I think there’s just something important for us to constantly remind ourselves why things work, what works about them, and use that, hopefully, to our benefit. In this process, we watched the original Scream films a million times, but part of it was finding out what makes them unique because the Scream scares are slightly different than some other genre movies, because they live in that heightened, one inch above grounded level. I feel like you can do the scary stuff that’s really f**king terrifying, but our goal is to always do the scary stuff that’s hopefully terrifying but allows you, moments later, to be relieved. To not live in a two-hour pounding of your emotions, but live in something you can have fun with.

Tyler: Not to get too granular, but that’s a thing that’s so tuned in the edit. In the process of making this, there were certain music cues where you’re cutting something and you’re always using temporary music, and it was really a challenge to find the right piece of temp music to make the sequences not feel cruel. To make the Ghostface kills feel like they’re scary and thrilling but not cruel. We kept telling ourselves that if it’s cruel, it’s the wrong thing. It should be horrifying and thrilling, but it can’t feel cruel, it can’t feel mean. It’s a real granular distinction, but it’s something you feel, like, oh, the movie’s not having fun anymore, it’s too serious, we’re not in a popcorn movie now.  There are a million little ingredients to that.

Melissa Barrera (“Sam”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group's "Scream." Photo Courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group.
Melissa Barrera (“Sam”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Scream.” Photo Courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group.

We’re in such a different era for horror films, as you guys touch upon in the film, with horror movies now as singular and elevated as Jordan Peele’s work, Ari Aster’s movies…

Matt: They’re incredibly well made.

Tyler: They’re brutal, as intended. You survive the experience of watching those movies.

Matt: I have one quick point, though, which is I feel like Jordan Peele gets lumped in with elevated horror a lot, but to me, his movies are wildly fun. Which is interesting, I just wanted to throw that out there.

Jasmin Savoy Brown (“Mindy”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group's "Scream." Photo by Brownie Harris.
Jasmin Savoy Brown (“Mindy”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Scream.” Photo by Brownie Harris.

Casting is obviously so huge. You’ve got the legacy characters coming back, but walk me through the process of finding the newcomers.

Chad: I think that goes right back to us approaching making this movie and having the most fun we possibly can. Obviously, we sat down with our casting director Rich Delia and were like, these characters are going to be carrying on the legacy of Scream, and when first started sitting down with everybody, we just wanted to have conversations with them and see what their feelings were about horror movies and the Scream franchise specifically. Did they approach it as fans? Or, was it something that wasn’t really in their wheelhouse but they were willing to do because they’re all professional actors? I think what we ended up with our new cast, they all approach it with this admiration and love for everything that is Scream. We basically had conversations with them and not auditions, hearing their stories about what Scream means to them and how horror has changed their lives. So we got into their characters more that way, which is super beneficial when we’re making a meta-movie about horror and the current state of horror.

Tyler: This is weirdly similar to Ready or Not, and part of that I think is the sensibility we share with the writers, Jamie [Vanderbilt] and Guy [Busick] who we know really dearly. We owe so much to the script. The characters in the script, the tone of the movie, it’s all on the page. We can’t stress how valuable that is in the process. Because the thing that’s getting sent out, the thing that people are responding to, how they approach a read during an audition, that sense of fun is actually in the writing. So when somebody gets it and you just know, oh right, they totally understand what this weird thing is trying to achieve at its best. It makes the target really small and really specific, and we love that about Guy and Jamie’s words.

Chad: What’s meta on top of this is the script comes from people who loved Scream. So it’s fans writing a Scream movie about fans talking about movies, there are so many layers.

Matt: I’d also just say that Scream in its inception is about a love of movies. That’s the foundation that all of this is built on, what Kevin Williamson first wrote. We got to make a movie that is not only a love letter to the Scream franchise and to Wes Craven, but also to movies in general. We love movies. I know that sounds basic and corny, but it’s true, we’ve dedicated our lives to movies.

For more on Scream, check out these stories:

“Scream” Early Reactions: A Razor Sharp Return To Woodsboro

First “Scream” Trailer Unleashes a Brand New Ghostface

Featured image: Ghostface in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Scream.” Photo Courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group.

“West Side Story” Music Supervisor Matt Sullivan on The Cast, Spielberg, and Capturing Magic

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When we interviewed West Side Story‘s music producer David Newman, he made clear not only how massive of an effort was required to pull off Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece musical, but how personal it all felt. “There were hundreds of us involved in it, and I loved it. It just was a completely pure feeling,” Newman told us. “We were all just doing it for the love of it. That is the feeling I get with this movie. We’re all professionals, but it’s like that wonderful feeling of something that’s new to you, that brings this feeling of love, and just wanting to be involved in it all the time, and for it to go on forever.”

This sentiment was seconded by music supervisor and musical veteran Matt Sullivan. Sullivan added a lot to our understanding of the technical wizardry, musical precision, and the colossally difficult balancing act that Spielberg’s vision for West Side Story demanded.

We spoke to Sullivan about how he helped balance the iconic music of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s original 1957 Broadway show with finding a fresh approach that would speak to today’s audiences.

I was hoping you could start with a very general explanation of your role and unpack the work you did on the film.

I think this is my 14th or 15th musical, and most of the time, my job really starts at the script level and then the beginning of casting. For West Side Story, I didn’t need to get involved during the script because Tony Kushner wrote a beautiful screenplay, so I wasn’t involved there, but then I came in and helped out with casting. As the executive music producer and music supervisor, I’m kind of like the captain, so from casting, rehearsals, pre-records, being on set every single day, and then post-production, I’m guiding the music and any kind of edits and new score. I’m like the thread that follows the film from inception to the final playback.

On the casting front, how do you balance acting ability and singing chops?

For West Side Story, it’s like 95% stage people. Steven really wanted to have people that were the triple and quadruple threats that could do everything. So [casting director] Cindy Tolan did a great job finding people that were from the stage and that really could sing the parts, act the parts, and dance the parts. I think it’s one of the best ensemble casts that I’ve ever been a part of. In many other films, as long as the acting is good, you go with it. If someone’s not the best singer we can train them, and as long as they have the acting and sell the songs convincingly through their acting, for me, acting always leads the charge. On this film, they could do it all.

Ariana DeBose as Anita in 20th Century Studios’ WEST SIDE STORY. Photo by Niko Tavernise.
Ariana DeBose as Anita in 20th Century Studios’ WEST SIDE STORY. Photo by Niko Tavernise.

When you were first approaching this, what were you thinking about revisiting this material in the political and social climate we live in today?

As soon as I heard Steven was doing it, I went and found the original [1961] film and it costs me like $19 to purchase it on iTunes. It wasn’t on any streamers, meaning it wasn’t so much out there for younger generations to watch. So for me when we’re making it, watching our cast and their enjoyment and excitement and exhilaration on set, it was really infectious. Anytime you’re making a film and there’s that much joy on set, I knew it would translate to a younger audience and introduce this story to them. It’s Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim! To be able to get more young people to witness it, I just knew that was going to be really exciting for people to see.

The casting was brilliant. What was it like to watch these young stars from audition through the production just nail it?

The first time I saw our producer Kristie Macosko Krieger, who works with Steven, she showed me the self-tape that Rachel Zegler sent in at 16 years old, and I was tearing up watching it. We waited for her to turn 18 so we could start rehearsing with her, and she’s just a born performer, a born star, she’s the real deal. Watching this progression, she just got better, but who she is at her core never changed. If you ever interview her, she’s just the most comfortable person in her own skin, she’s a beautiful person, a beautiful performer…actually we were on the set and I saw the news that they were casting Snow White. I said to her, “You’re going to be Snow White.” She’s like, “No, no.” I told her no she was going to be, and she should go for it. Now she’s Snow White.

 

What about Ariana Debose as Anita?

One of the many things Steven is brilliant at is casting, and he saw in her this natural fire, she’s just this strong person standing up for herself with Bernado and the way she wants her life to be, that’s who she is as a person. She’s very strong and really very in charge in where she’s going in her life. When we were doing “A Boy Like That” and “I Have a Love” I knew we were making film history. We did it all live on set with a dead quiet set and they’re listening to the music in their ears, the power between those two actresses, people were crying on the set. It was crazy.

 

When they’re singing live during filming, can you walk us through how this works? They’re listening to the music as they’re singing, right?

We put an earwig or an ear monitor in their ear, and before we go I always look at the camera and the setup and what the actor’s blocking is, and we always go for the ear that will be seen less. If you do catch the earwig, a little CG will remove it. They’re listening to a prerecorded music track in their ear and they’ll just sing along, and we’re booming to get a good recording, or, they’ve got a lavalier hidden in their costume.

And you’re recording this live on sets, or do you ever do this on location?

Anything live we recorded, it’s really tough to do it outside, so most of our live singing is on a set, either a built set or a location. I worked with Todd Matlin, who’s our brilliant sound mixer. For instance, in “One Hand, One Heart,” that’s a real church up in Washington Heights. You sit in those rooms and where the cement ceilings are arched, we put up removable baffling to make the sound a little more contained so we could get a better recording of it.

What’s it like working with Steven Spielberg?

At first, you’re conscious of the fact you’re in a room with Steven Spielberg. But by the time we got to shooting, it’s just Steven. He’s such a collaborator. Along with Steven you have this young cast and most of them have never been on a film before, and their excitement reinvigorates everyone. No matter how many years you’ve been doing films, everyone was there to make this beautiful film. Everyone on set was just so excited.

And I imagine on a Spielberg film, you’re working with the best of the best.

You do get the best people in the business. It’s really a big team effort. To me, I know now this is the new standard of what a musical should sound like. I was lucky enough to work on the film Chicago at the beginning of my career. It had the same sense that every sound has a purpose and a reason and it all drives a story, and we did that again. I walked out after watching it for the first time and thought, I think this is one of the best-sounding movies I’ve ever seen or heard.

 

“The Batman” Drops Two New Posters Highlighting a Different Kind of Gotham

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The look of writer/director Matt Reeves’s upcoming The Batman has a distinct feel to it we haven’t quite seen before. Two new posters released by Warner Brothers highlight this aesthetic, one offering the rare sunny day in Gotham and featuring Batman (Robert Pattison) and Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), and another a darker nod towards the film’s central struggle.

The new posters got us thinking about the ever-morphing look of the entire Batman franchise. While Gotham is always depicted as a dangerous place, you have to remember it’s worn plenty of guises over the years. In Tim Burton’s seminal 1989 Batman, Gotham was a carnival of bright, bold colors, both menacing and mercurial at the same time, embodied by Jack Nicholson’s gleefully insane Joker. In the iterations of Batman’s tortured hometown that followed Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns, Gotham cycled through increasingly cartoonish styles, reaching its zany apogee in Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin, in which Gotham was consciously constructed to look toy-like and lighthearted to appeal to kids (and their merch-buying parents). It wasn’t until Christopher Nolan reinvigorated the franchise in 2008—and superhero films in general—with Batman Begins that Gotham started taking on a more sinister, grittier vibe. Yet Nolan’s Gotham could also be pristine, even beautiful, a colossal metropolis that could be grimy (as it was in Batman Begins during the Scarecrow’s “Fear Gas” attack) and majestic (as it was in both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises).

This brings us to Reeves’ vision of Gotham and Batman’s world, which skews towards a noir palette of blacks, greys, and most notably red. In fact, Reeves and his team have utilized the juxtaposition between black, Batman’s house color (if you’ll allow), and red to great effect. They’ve done this with the new logo and title design, posters, and still images.

Caption: ROBERT PATTINSON as Batman in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action adventure “THE BATMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures/ ™ & © DC Comics
Caption: ROBERT PATTINSON as Batman in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action adventure “THE BATMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures/ ™ & © DC Comics
Caption: ROBERT PATTINSON as Batman in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action adventure “THE BATMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures/™ & © DC Comics
Caption: ROBERT PATTINSON as Batman in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action adventure “THE BATMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures/™ & © DC Comics
The Riddler in a new poster for "The Batman." Courtesy of Warner Bros.
The Riddler in a new poster for “The Batman.” Courtesy of Warner Bros.
"The Batman" logo. Courtesy Warner Bros.
“The Batman” logo. Courtesy Warner Bros.

Back to the two new posters. In the first, the “Bat and the Cat” relationship between Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle/Catwoman is once again put front and center, set against a surprisingly beautiful sky. A second poster utilizes the red title design and a new logline, which reads “Unmask the truth,” a reference to both the Riddler (Paul Dano) and Batman himself.

Theatrical poster for "The Batman." Courtesy Warner Bros.
Theatrical poster for “The Batman.” Courtesy Warner Bros.
Theatrical poster for "The Batman." Courtesy Warner Bros.
Theatrical poster for “The Batman.” Courtesy Warner Bros.

Needless to say, The Batman is one of the year’s most eagerly anticipated films, rebooting a new franchise for arguably the most iconic superhero of them all. From everything we’ve seen, it looks just different enough to offer something fresh, while remaining true to Batman and Gotham’s dark beating heart.

Joining Pattison, Kravitz and Dano are Colin Farrell as The Penguin, Andy Serkis as Alfred, Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon, and John Turturro as Carmine Falcone.

The Batman swoops into theaters on March 4.

For more on The Batman, check out these stories:

Robert Pattinson Hints His Batman Isn’t Straight-Up Heroic

“The Batman” New Images Includes the Riddler, the Penguin, & Catwoman

New “The Batman” Images Tease Catwoman’s Crucial Role

“The Batman” Drops New “Bat and The Cat” Trailer

Featured image: L-r: Robert Pattinson is Batman and Zoë Kravitz is Catwoman in “The Batman.” Courtesy Warner Bros.

“Ray Donovan: The Movie” Writer/Director David Hollander Gets Inside the Anti-Hero’s Head One Last Time

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When Ray Donovan debuted on Showtime in 2013, Liev Schreiber introduced the character as a brooding fixer who uses a baseball bat to make problems go away for shallow celebrities and sleazy Hollywood moguls. But over the course of seven seasons, the one thing Donovan could never fix was his own broken family, headed by the charming but awful con artist father Mickey (Jon Voight).

In February 2020, Showtime dumped the series without warning. Longtime fans were not happy and neither was showrunner David Hollander. Schreiber took to Instagram asking fans to protest the cancellation while Hollander vented his frustrations in a widely circulated interview. One year after the series’ cancellation, Showtime officially announced the return of Ray Donovan in the form of a feature-length finale. Ray Donovan: The Movie, which debuted on Jan. 14, picks up where Season Seven left off: Mickey’s made off with a briefcase filled with ill-gotten gains. Eddie Marsan and Dash Mihok, as Ray’s haunted brothers, deal with their own demons while Kerris Dorsey, playing Ray’s daughter, tries to cope with the killing of her husband. “It’s a murderer’s row of actors,” says director Hollander, who co-wrote the script with Schreiber. “In this film, we’re looking at the idea of legacy, from the father to the son, from the son to his children. Is it possible for these characters to escape a violent past?”

Speaking from his Los Angeles office, Hollander, scheduled to scout locations for his series adaptation of American Gigolo later in the day, talked to The Credits about how he and Schreiber resuscitated Ray Donovan for one last hurrah.

 

One year after Showtime dropped Ray Donovan, the network officially changed its mind and announced Ray Donovan: The Movie. Why’d you get canceled in the first place and how did you manage to bring the show back?

There had been a shift in Viacom leadership and we were an expensive show. In December 2019 Showtime executives told me over lunch what they were thinking. I didn’t feel good about it. I let them know if they did cancel us, I would go to the press and be vocal about the situation. It was very clear to me that as hard as the show is to make, we hadn’t finished it for the audience. It felt weird to just go, “We’re done.”

A few weeks after that lunch, Ray Donovan got officially canceled. You gave an interview expressing your displeasure and Liev rallied the troops on social media.

Ray Donovan fans started canceling Showtime and we saw all this movement on social media after Liev put something on his Instagram account saying we’re fighting to get the show back and can you help us? To Showtime’s credit, they quickly decided to bring the show back, although it was amorphous about what form it would take.

Liev Schreiber as Ray in RAY DONOVAN THE MOVIE. Photo Credit: Cara Howe/SHOWTIME.
Liev Schreiber as Ray in RAY DONOVAN THE MOVIE. Photo Credit: Cara Howe/SHOWTIME.

Once you got the go-ahead to return, what was it that you most wanted to resolve in Ray Donovan: The Movie?

From the jump this show has been about a very simple question: can you escape the violence of your past? In most [crime stories] from the seventies, eighties, nineties, the answer has been no. People just get more and more brutal. We were really interested in exploring which camp we would end up in with the Donovan family. Would there be a change?

Ray Donovan, the series, always featured formidable adversaries portrayed by actors like Ian McShane, James Woods, Susan Sarandon, and Hank Azaria, who won an Emmy as a disgraced FBI agent. Why does this movie sideline heavyweight antagonists to focus almost entirely on Ray and his family?

In episodic television, procedural stories are really useful because you need fresh meat all the time to oxygenate the characters and bring in new colors. But for this, we didn’t need a fresh story; we wouldn’t have enough time to resolve it in two hours. We needed to take what we had and run with it. We wanted to show that the real enemy is inside Ray’s head, so we set up a super-structure that would let the story sit within one man’s struggle.

The movie flashes back to Ray’s traumatic coming of age in Boston decades earlier. Did you feel like you needed to go back in time to show how Ray became so screwed up?

The flashbacks, frankly, started out as a surprising development back in Season Seven when I just felt a strong tug to go in that direction. [With this movie] I knew we’d be going back to Boston and continuing with the flashbacks.

You’ve spent nine years in the trenches with Liev making a show that must have been pretty grueling at times. What does Liev Schreiber bring to the table?

He’s extraordinarily bright. Liev’s sense of drama, his narrative instincts, the breadth of his knowledge, his physical abilities – – he’s really something. It’s been a good relationship throughout the show because I saw a lot of what was f**ked about his character, but Liev always fought very hard for Ray, trying to keep things as simple as possible and fighting against any artifice. He also helped me loosen the reins. I’m a very structured person and Liev lives in a looser domain.

(L-R): Liev Schreiber as Ray and Kerris Dorsey as Bridget Donovan in RAY DONOVAN THE MOVIE. Photo Credit: Cara Howe/SHOWTIME.
(L-R): Liev Schreiber as Ray and Kerris Dorsey as Bridget Donovan in RAY DONOVAN THE MOVIE. Photo Credit: Cara Howe/SHOWTIME.

There’s no Ray Donovan without Mickey Donovan, arguably the most awful father on television. But Jon Voight infuses Mickey with so much personality. audiences want to see what he’s going to do next. In this movie, for example—SPOILER ALERT—Mickey sings the hell out of the 1936 ballad “Can’t Stop Lovin’ Dat Man.” Jon Voight crooning “Fish gotta swim,” a cappella – – that’s a startling moment. How did you arrive at that scene?

That actually came to me by accident from a piece of dialogue Liev and I wrote, where Ray’s trying to explain something he did and says, “Fish gotta swim.” I went, “Let’s grab that!” When you give Jon Voight a scene like that, he comes to play and he likes lots of takes. My job was really to whisper in his ear, go back behind the monitor and watch something that exceeded my expectations.

Jon Voight as Mickey Donovan in RAY DONOVAN THE MOVIE. Photo Credit: Cara Howe/SHOWTIME.
Jon Voight as Mickey Donovan in RAY DONOVAN THE MOVIE. Photo Credit: Cara Howe/SHOWTIME.

Psychological issues drive the Ray Donovan narrative but physical carnage also plays a big role in raising the stakes. Ray Donovan: The Movie includes a humdinger of an action sequence in three acts: beating, car chase, shoot-out. Did Liev have a hand in choreographing that fight?

Liev not only had a hand in it, but he also had a vision for it. He used to be a stunt man and fight choreographer. I’ve never worked with anybody like him in my life because we never had to double him unless he wanted us to. For that fight, we drew a tough straw because it was a hundred degrees in Connecticut when we filmed.

In the series as well as this movie, Ray and Mickey’s scenes crackle with so much tension. As the director, how do you nurture that chemistry?

It’s always an adventure because Liev and Jon are so different as actors but they’re both perfectionists. Jon acts more with his body. He likes to go high, go low, whereas Liev finds these [psychological] nuggets he’s going to hold on to. I just try to let things feel easy and authentic between them. It’s about how Mickey and Liev think of themselves, next to each other. What they want to believe and what may be true are very different things.

Featured image: Liev Schreiber as Ray in RAY DONOVAN THE MOVIE. Photo Credit: Cara Howe/SHOWTIME.

Amazon’s Mysterious “The Lord of the Rings” Series Reveals Title & Release Date in New Video

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Amazon has just released the one true title reveal. Their eagerly-anticipated and almost comically mysterious Middle-earth-set fantasy series is officially titled The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The title speaks to how the series will be centered on the creation of the original rings of power, which ultimately led the darkest of the dark wizards Sauron to blight Middle-earth with his particular brand of malevolent control. So yes, the big bad Sauron will loom over the new series as he did in J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendary stories and Peter Jackson’s films.

The Rings of Power will take viewers back—way back—thousands of years before Tolkien’s iconic “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” were set. We’ll see a once peaceful Middle-earth slowly but surely be turned by Sauron in a realm of darkness and danger. The series, which was shot primarily in New Zealand and is rumored to be the most expensive of all time, is a big, big swing.

“This is a title that we imagine could live on the spine of a book next to J.R.R. Tolkien’s other classics,” said showrunners J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay in a statement. “The Rings of Power unites all the major stories of Middle-earth’s Second Age: the forging of the rings, the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the epic tale of Númenor, and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. Until now, audiences have only seen on-screen the story of the One Ring — but before there was one, there were many… and we’re excited to share the epic story of them all.”

The large ensemble cast includes Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Maxim Baldry, Nazanin Boniadi, Morfydd Clark, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Charles Edwards, Trystan Gravelle, Sir Lenny Henry, Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle, Tyroe Muhafidin, Sophia Nomvete, Lloyd Owen, Megan Richards, Dylan Smith, Charlie Vickers, Leon Wadham, Benjamin Walker, Daniel Weyman, and Sara Zwangobani.

Check out the video below. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power debuts on Prime Video on September 2, 2022, with new episodes streaming on a weekly basis.

Here’s the official, meaty synopsis from Amazon:

Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.

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Featured image: ‘The Lord of the Rings’ COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” Swings to 4th on All-Time Box Office List

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Spider-Man: No Way Home has swung into history. The multiverse-tripping, Spider-Man tripling mega-hit officially became the fourth-highest-grossing film ever on Monday, passing Black Panther to end the day with $702.6 million in ticket sales. No Way Home joins only five films to ever cross the $700 million mark domestically—Black Panther ($700.4m), Avatar ($760.5m), Avengers: Endgame ($858.4m), and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936.7m).

It’s extra incredible that No Way Home has crossed this threshold considering it did so during a pandemic, and during a peak of the pandemic due to the omicron variant. As of now, No Way Home is 8th all-time globally, having amassed $1.63 billion as of Monday.

Fueling No Way Home‘s boffo ticket sales domestically was the coveted 18-34 demographic. Yet it’s clear that tons of people were excited to see the latest adventure starring Tom Holland’s Peter Parker, no doubt intrigued by the promise of all that multiverse madness that brought back villains from previous Spider-Man franchises. There was also plenty of speculation that if villains from other timelines were going to appear, might that not mean that other Spider-Men might make their entrance, too?

If you’re one of the millions of people who have seen No Way Home, you know the answer.

For more on Spider-Man: No Way Home, check out these stories:

How Andrew Garfield Kept His “Spider-Man: No Way Home” Secret Mostly Hidden

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” Co-Writers Talk Villains, Peter Parker & Changing the Script

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” & The Character Sharing Deal That Lets Spidey Swing From Sony to Marvel

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” Review Round-Up: Most Thrilling Marvel Film Since “Avengers: Endgame”

New “Spider-Man: No Way Home” Footage Gives Glimpse of Green Goblin’s New Suit

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” Snags Record Advance Ticket Sale

Featured image: Tom Holland is Spider-Man in “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” Courtesy Sony Pictures.

Ethan Hawke’s “Moon Knight” Villain Might be a Hybrid of Two Very Bad Dudes

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Yesterday Marvel revealed the first trailer for Moon Knight, their next upcoming series on Disney+ starring Oscar Isaac as the titular superhero. The trailer focused on the struggles of Isaac’s decidedly unheroic gif shop employee Steven Grant, a man who seems spooked by just about everything. That’s because Grant soon learns he has another name—Marc Spector—and what’s more, he suffers from dissociative personality disorder. Soon enough Steven/Marc’s enemies arrive, and this hybrid, divided individual is plunged into a dangerous mystery.

It seems Isaac’s character won’t be the only melding of two personalities. One of the enemies Steven/Marc will be facing is portrayed by Ethan Hawke, although in the trailer he comes in the guise of a mentor. Hawke’s unnamed character tells Steven/Marc to embrace their inner chaos. That’s the kind of advice a villain would give (it sounds a bit like what Heath Ledger’s Joker advised a horribly disfigured Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight), and it’s clear by the bowing, fawning people surrounding Hawke’s character that this dude is some kind of cult figure.

It’s been noted widely that Hawke gave some insight into his character’s identity on Late Night With Seth Meyers, where he revealed he’d channeled the late Branch Davidian leader David Koresh, who got a whole bunch of his followers killed in the Siege of Wach in 1993. It’s also been revealed that Hawke’s character’s name is Arthur Harrow, a very bad dude who appeared in a single 1985 issue of “Moon Knight” by Chris Warner and Alan Zelenetz. In that issue, Harrow was revealed to be a scientist eager to carry on the work of the Nazis who had experimented with trying to make a human body immune to pain. Harrow himself had a chronic ailment, and part of his sadistic work was to cure himself.

That issue of “Moon Knight” is very dark. Harrow experimented on Mexican peasants and ended up creating a small army of subjects who he controlled, and who would continue to fight no matter how grievous their injury. Harrow ultimately escaped before Moon Knight could capture him.

Considering Marvel’s deep bench of villains, it might seem weird that they’d pit Moon Knight against Harrow, a minor villain who never appeared again. This is why there’s a ton of speculation going around that Hawke is a hybrid of Harrow and another Moon Knight adversary—The Sun King.

The Sun King appeared in “Moon Knight No. 188” in 2017, known as Patient 86. He was bipolar and is actually the manifestation of the Egyptian god Amon Ra. He can conjure and cover his body in flames, and eventually had followers who worshipped him as he set himself the task of destroying Moon Knight.

The trailer clearly shows Hawke’s Arthur Harrow bowing followers, who may end up being (if they’re not already) his mindless army, immune to pain. And it also seems likely that Harrow is not going to be satisfied merely controlling his followers, but becoming a deity like The Sun King himself.

All of this points towards how different Moon Knight will be from Marvel series (and MCU films) of the past, leaning into mental illness, cults, monsters, the gods of Ancient Egypt, and more. Moon Knight will be Marvel’s most supernaturally inclined project yet and will lead the way for more series and films like it. Three examples of this are Jared Leto’s Morbius, Mahershala Ali’s Blade, and Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness upcoming Disney+. All three will further explore the supernatural, and there’s a lot more where this came from for Marvel. Gael Garcia Bernal has been cast as Werewolf by Night in an upcoming Marvel Studios’ Halloween special, and the Sony Universe of Marvel Characters is rumored to be working on Ghost Rider and Clea.

Leading the charge is Moon Knight, which will bring a very different energy to the MCU when it debuts on Disney+ on March 30.

Here’s the official synopsis from Disney+:

The series follows Steven Grant, a mild-mannered gift-shop employee, who becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life. Steven discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with mercenary Marc Spector. As Steven/Marc’s enemies converge upon them, they must navigate their complex identities while thrust into a deadly mystery among the powerful gods of Egypt.

For more on Marvel Studios, check out these stories:

Marvel’s “Moon Knight” Trailer Reveals Oscar Isaac in Wild New Series

“The Marvels” Adds Rising Star Composer Laura Karpman

See How All The Trick Arrows in “Hawkeye” Were Created

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” has a New Villain – Bill Murray

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” Trailer Reveals Scarlet Witch & an Evil Stephen Strange

Featured image: NEW YORK, NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 29: Actor Ethan Hawke attend MoMA’s Contenders Screening of “First Reformed” at MoMA Titus One on November 29, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Mark Sagliocco/Getty Images for MoMA The Contenders)

“Cowboy Bebop” Costume Designer Jane Holland on Creating a Jazzy Outlaw Look

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How do you approach adapting the looks of a beloved Japanese anime series for a live-action Netflix series? This was the challenge for Cowboy Bebop costume designer Jane Holland, who managed to capture the glorious color of the original anime series about a crew of bounty hunters who will zealously pursue even the most dangerous criminals in the galaxy—if you’ve got the money—and do it all in the boldest of styles. Cowboy Bebop stars John Cho as the perenially sad bounty hunter Spike Spiegel, alongside Mustafa Shakir as Jet Black, his loyal partner and captain of their ship, and Daniella Pineda as the amnesiac wildcard Faye Valentine. The series tracks the trio’s adventures through a galactic starscape in 2071, after Earth has been used and abused into a husk and humanity has spread out amongst the solar system’s nearby planets. Life is hard and gets harder still when Spike’s old nemesis Vicious (Alex Hassell) puts a bounty on his head.

Throughout the first season, Holland managed to nail the transition from anime to live-action without losing the original’s vibrant colors and sense of freewheeling madness. We spoke to her about the delicate balance between honoring the original series and creating something that can stand on its own.

What were your initial conversations with the creative team like when discussing how to visually approach adapting a beloved Japanese anime series?

Enthusiastic and wide-ranging. We were all inspired by the storytelling, music, and imagery of the anime. In pre-production, the showrunner and directors screened an episode of the anime every Thursday. It brought us all together and kept the fire of the anime burning, both of which fed into a cohesive vision. Preproduction is so busy, you can easily disappear into the vacuum of your own department. 

I imagine it’s no simple task honoring the anime without merely trying to replicate it?

The anime is dense and layered in references and imagery. In the context of adaptation to live-action, I guess a good way to describe the anime is as concept art. Concept art (in film & tv) is about vibe and feel. To get from concept art to 3-D and a human form is a journey of inquiry. We wanted to embody the spirit of the anime, especially in the core characters and this was the springboard for design. In bringing it to life, we sought to create our own version of this kind of intricacy. The gritty retro sci-fi world was something we were excited about. The anime has a lived-in feel, and that’s what we aspired to, rather than a clean & futuristic high-tech space world. André Nemec is an inspiring showrunner. He has an expansive mind and from the outset was keen to see what we would bring. Cowboy Bebop is one of the most fun creative experiences I have had as a costume designer.

What specific inspirations did you take from the original series, and where did you decide the live-action adaption needed its own specific look?

So many inspirations: the music for sure. Bebop is about breaking free of conventions and improvisation and that was what inspired me creatively to always push a bit further to find an individual and interesting edge to the design. And the anime is imbibed with references. I would harvest these for a character and use them to inform design – for example, the character Asimov [played by Jan Uddin] is named after the writer Isaac Asimov. I took a section of the circuit board off the cover of Isaac Asimov’s book “I, Robot” for the patterning on the character’s trophy belt buckle and stitching detail on the patch pocket of his pants. The peppering of trophy buckles, Wrangler-style jeans made from a surprising fabric like vintage suiting, cowboy boots, and hats with bites taken out of the brims (because that’s what the graphic drawing of a hat brim perspective looks like) throughout the series is a nod to the Cowboy in Cowboy Bebop.

COWBOY BEBOP (L to R) JOHN CHO as SPIKE SPIEGEL, MUSTAFA SHAKIR as JET BLACK, DANIELLA PINEDA as FAYE VALENTINE and EIN in Cowboy Bebop Cr. GEOFFREY SHORT/NETFLIX © 2021
COWBOY BEBOP (L to R) JOHN CHO as SPIKE SPIEGEL, MUSTAFA SHAKIR as JET BLACK, DANIELLA PINEDA as FAYE VALENTINE and EIN in Cowboy Bebop Cr. GEOFFREY SHORT/NETFLIX © 2021

There are a lot of colorful characters, both literally and figuratively, in the series. How did their clothes help tell their individual stories?

If Spike looks like he stepped out of the anime, then I achieved what I set out to do – to capture the essence of the anime and add dimension in bringing it to life. The cut of Spike’s suit is not literally from the anime, it’s an embrace of the adjectives. What I worked towards was the louche nonchalance, effortless style, and cool vibe of the anime designed specifically for John Cho, and functioning for the action and practical requirements of filming. The suit had to work hard for the season. There was a lot to consider in the choice of fabric, and in the execution of the design.

COWBOY BEBOP (L to R) JOHN CHO as SPIKE SPIEGEL in COWBOY BEBOP Cr. KIRSTY GRIFFIN/NETFLIX © 2021
COWBOY BEBOP (L to R) JOHN CHO as SPIKE SPIEGEL in COWBOY BEBOP Cr. KIRSTY GRIFFIN/NETFLIX © 2021

Working in such a fantastical world would, one might assume, give you creative license to get crazy with the clothes. What might readers find surprising about your design choices?

I hope the thing that resonates is the thought and care that went into creating designs with substance. We had a lot of creative freedom, and most costumes are manufactured or vintage with a twist in styling. Everyone on screen has been costumed. Part of making a world real is repetition and extrapolation. If you commit 100% and are consistent in the parameters, it becomes a convincing look of a particular community rather than noticeably crazy costuming! I’ve pushed for non-gendered clothing for years and not always gained traction, but Cowboy Bebop was the opportunity to use things like ties, skirts, and heels universally, particularly with the diversity of casting in our background performers. It was really about clothes for all people and design choices based on character, action, and environment rather than following conventions.

COWBOY BEBOP (L to R) MUSTAFA SHAKIR as JET BLACK in COWBOY BEBOP Cr. GEOFFREY SHORT/NETFLIX © 2021
COWBOY BEBOP (L to R) MUSTAFA SHAKIR as JET BLACK in COWBOY BEBOP Cr. GEOFFREY SHORT/NETFLIX © 2021

Did you have a favorite character to design for? 

Really there are so many. The signature costumes of the core cast, of course. Ana with her incredible fringed coat, a tribute to Cicely Tyson and Miles Davis in the 1960s, the honeycomb motif derived from the logo of the corner store in Ana of the anime and realized in eclectic jewelry inspired by Erykah Badu. I enjoyed Julia and Gren because I created collections for them. They had a lot of changes and there’s a play between them as they have a special connection. Julia is between worlds until the finale when she appears in the trench coat which would have become the signature costume for her going forward. Gren embodies the expression of Ana’s bar, a chameleon and free spirit. Working with Mason was cool. We created a library of garments and put them together in different ways – tailored suits, liquid silk slip dresses, corsets, metallics, and leather – and theatricality grounded it in a language we created for Gren influenced by designers like Margiela and Alexander McQueen and tributes David Bowie with the code from his last album Blackstar spelling out. 

COWBOY BEBOP (L to R) MASON ALEXANDER PARK as GREN in COWBOY BEBOP Cr. GEOFFREY SHORT/NETFLIX © 2021
COWBOY BEBOP (L to R) MASON ALEXANDER PARK as GREN in COWBOY BEBOP Cr. GEOFFREY SHORT/NETFLIX © 2021
COWBOY BEBOP (L to R) TAMARA TUNIE as ANA in COWBOY BEBOP Cr. GEOFFREY SHORT/NETFLIX © 2021
COWBOY BEBOP (L to R) TAMARA TUNIE as ANA in COWBOY BEBOP Cr. GEOFFREY SHORT/NETFLIX © 2021

How did you collaborate with your fellow department heads in the overall look of the show?

I had a close creative relationship with the showrunner, the directors, and the production designer right through the production. We shared and played off each other’s ideas, planting seeds that we would expand in exciting ways to create layered and interesting worlds. What I love most about working in film and tv is the diverse collaboration. The stunt department is close with costume. We had a core group of incredible athletes and martial artists who played multiple roles with multiple fight styles. We had to ensure they could do what they needed to do, but they really embraced the diversity of costuming and character we presented them with. The interface with Hair & Makeup was particularly important for the Bebop twist. We mixed eras and styles, and making that work was about fine-tuning the discord to find resonance. The cinematographers bring everything together, taking our collective work to the next level. The relationship with actors is really important for me. I like to have a preliminary conversation to share thoughts and ideas so we start on the same page and, through the design process, infuse as much as I can to feed into character and performance. A lot happens in a fitting and the moment it all comes together, the moment an actor transforms into the character in front of you – it’s magic!

How Andrew Garfield Kept His “Spider-Man: No Way Home” Secret Mostly Hidden

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How hard did Andrew Garfield work to keep his appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home secret hidden? He lied to his ex-girlfriend and good friend Emma Stone. In an interview with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Garfield admitted that he had to lie to his ex, who was also his The Amazing Spider-Man co-star.

“Emma kept on texting me, and she was like, ‘Are you in this new Spider-Man film?’” Garfield told Horowtiz. “And, I was like, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She was like, ‘Shut up, just tell me.’ I’m like, ‘I honestly don’t know.’ I kept it going, even with her. It was hilarious. Then, she saw it, and she was like, ‘You’re a jerk.’”

Garfield wasn’t just keeping the big reveal that he was going to appear as Peter Parker from a different timeline in No Way Home a secret, he was simultaneously trying to keep Tobey Maguire’s appearance as Peter Parker from his timeline a secret, too. If one of them was revealed to be in the film, obviously the other would be, too. So, the stakes were high. So high, in fact, the ever polite Garfield had a tense moment with a Door Dash driver on his first night of filming No Way Home in Atlanta.

“I open the door. I’ve got my mask on, my hat, and I’m like, ‘Thanks, bro,’” Garfield told Horowitz. “And he’s like, ‘Yo, yo, yo, I need to see your ID,’ and I’m like, ‘Huh?’ He’s like, ‘I need to see your ID.’ And I’m like, ‘No delivery food thing has ever asked me for my ID. This is interesting.’”

The driver claimed he needed to see Garfield’s ID because he’d ordered alcohol, but Garfield had only ordered tacos. Garfield had to politely but firmly tell the driver no photo ID was forthcoming.

Yet the beans were partly spilled when Garfield’s stunt double, William Spencer, posted a photo of himself with one of Tom Holland’s stunt doubles, Greg Townley, on Instagram. Garfield told Horowitz that he adores Spencer, but he had to ask him why he did that considering internet sleuths would quickly connect the dots. “He was like, ‘Oh, come on, man, let me do my thing!’” Spencer eventually deleted the post, but that only seemed to further confirm the rumors that Garfield and Maguire were reprising their roles for No Way Home.

So while the operation to keep Garfield and Maguire’s participation in No Way Home a secret wasn’t a total success, they never once admitted they were in the film. “A weird self-preservation thing comes in, where you start to live with the idea of it not happening in your mind and in your body, and then that just ups the want for the thing to happen,” Garfield said. They might not have kept the secret locked up and airtight, but it didn’t seem to matter—No Way Home is the biggest Spider-Man film in history and is on its way to becoming the 4th biggest film at the US box office of all time.

For more on Spider-Man: No Way Home, check out these stories:

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” Co-Writers Talk Villains, Peter Parker & Changing the Script

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” & The Character Sharing Deal That Lets Spidey Swing From Sony to Marvel

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” Review Round-Up: Most Thrilling Marvel Film Since “Avengers: Endgame”

New “Spider-Man: No Way Home” Footage Gives Glimpse of Green Goblin’s New Suit

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” Snags Record Advance Ticket Sale

Featured image: L-r: WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – NOVEMBER 18: Andrew Garfield attends the GQ Men of the Year Celebration at The West Hollywood EDITION on November 18, 2021 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images). Spider-Man (Tom Holland) in “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” Courtesy of Sony Pictures.

Marvel’s “Moon Knight” Trailer Reveals Oscar Isaac in Wild New Series

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Marvel Studios has revealed the first official trailer for Moon Knight, their latest Disney+ series, revealing Oscar Isaac as the troubled Brit Steven Grant. Once again, Marvel has managed to mix up the tone and tenor of their latest series, offering a completely different vibe from what we’ve seen thus far in Hawkeye, Loki, What If…?, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and WandaVision. In Moon Knight, Isaac’s troubled gift shop employee Steven Grant makes a very unsettling discovery—he shares a body with a mercenary named Marc Spector.

The character Moon Knight has had a few iterations since he first burst on the pages of Marvel Comics in 1975. Marvel’s version here is based on more recent versions, which focus on Isaac’s Grant has dissociative identity disorder and struggles to function in society. Those struggles take on epic proportions when he finds out about his little Marc Spector problem, a mercenary with seriously dangerous enemies. One of those enemies is played by Ethan Hawke, who told Late Night With Seth Meyers that his character is modeled on the cult leader David Koresh, who lead the Branch Davidians and died during the Waco siege in 1993. Joining Isaac and Hawke are Gaspard Ulliel and May Calamawy.

Isaac has previously said that the series will be quite different from what we’ve grown to expect from superhero stories. Speaking with GamesRadar, Isaac said: “I thought there was an incredibly unusual story to tell within the world of, you know, the superhero language. But we’re making something that’s quite different, and that doesn’t follow the same… not necessarily even logic of what a lot of superhero films do.”

The series was written by Umbrella Academy‘s Jeremy Slater, with directors Mohamed Diab, Justin Benson, and Aaron Moorhead helming all six episodes. (Intriguingly, George Clooney is listed as a director for episode 5, but that hasn’t yet been confirmed.)

Check out the trailer below. Moon Knight hits Disney+ on March 30.

Here’s the synopsis for Moon Knight:

The series follows Steven Grant, a mild-mannered gift-shop employee, who becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life. Steven discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with mercenary Marc Spector. As Steven/Marc’s enemies converge upon them, they must navigate their complex identities while thrust into a deadly mystery among the powerful gods of Egypt.

"Moon Knight" poster. Courtesy Marvel Studios/Disney+
“Moon Knight” poster. Courtesy Marvel Studios/Disney+

For more on Marvel Studios, check out these stories:

“The Marvels” Adds Rising Star Composer Laura Karpman

See How All The Trick Arrows in “Hawkeye” Were Created

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” has a New Villain – Bill Murray

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” Trailer Reveals Scarlet Witch & an Evil Stephen Strange

Featured image: Oscar Isaac is Marc Spector/Moon Knight in Marvel’s “Moon Knight.” Courtesy Marvel Studios/Disney+.

Robert Pattinson Hints His Batman Isn’t Straight-Up Heroic

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It was never a question that Robert Pattinson would be a different kind of Batman. He’s a wholly different kind of performer from the last two talented men who donned the cape and cowl, Ben Affleck and Christian Bale. What’s more, writer/director Matt Reeves had already promised that The Batman would be less like your typical superhero movie and more of a noir detective film. Add to that the fact that The Batman‘s synopsis calls Bruce Wayne a “desperate vigilante,” and you’ve got the makings for something very different.

Pattison has revealed a bit more about the way he’s approached the character. In an interview with The Daily Record, Pattison painted a picture of the complexity he was searching for in one of the most iconic superhero characters of all time. Unsurprisingly, Pattison was looking to show a version of Bruce Wayne that hasn’t been seen before:

“I needed to know about as much of the history of the character as possible to see what hadn’t really been done … People see Batman as this straight-up heroic character but in our story, it really questions what the nature of a hero is and it gives a lot of different angles to it.”

The Batman no doubt offered Pattison plenty of opportunity to find those angles. The story picks up during Bruce Wayne’s second year of being the vigilante, so it’s not an origin story, but rather a detective story in which Batman is trying to unpuzzle a gruesome series of murders in a crime-riddled Gotham. It appears his main adversary will be the Riddler (Paul Dano), with the Penguin (Colin Farrell) also in the mix. Those two will certainly bring out the rage inherent in Bruce Wayne, but Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz) will likely coax different shades from Gotham’s dark knight.

It’s going to be intriguing to see how a performer as go-for-broke as Pattinson will take on the mantle of this iconic character. All indications point to Pattison delivering a version of Batman we haven’t seen before.

For more on The Batman, check out these stories:

“The Batman” New Images Includes the Riddler, the Penguin, & Catwoman

New “The Batman” Images Tease Catwoman’s Crucial Role

“The Batman” Drops New “Bat and The Cat” Trailer

“The Batman” Drops the Mask in Terrific New Japanese Trailer

Colin Farrell Will Star in “The Batman” HBO Max Spinoff Series About The Penguin

Featured image: Caption: ROBERT PATTINSON as Batman in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action adventure “THE BATMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jonathan Olley/™ & © DC Comics

“The Marvels” Adds Rising Star Composer Laura Karpman

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Director Nia DaCosta’s upcoming Captain Marvel sequel just nabbed composer Laura Karpman, a rising star in the industry. The five-time Emmy-nominee will join DaCosta’s The Marvels, adding yet another ace filmmaker to the talented crew. “I am thrilled to be going on this wild adventure with Nia DaCosta and Carol Danvers and am really looking forward to the collaboration,” Karpman said in a statement. She becomes the second female composer on a Marvel film, following Captain Marvel‘s Pinar Toprak. Karpman leads the Alliance of Women Film Composers and was also the first American woman to be inducted into the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences’ music branch.

The Marvels will of course see the return of Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, arguably the most potent member of the extended Avengers family. Larson is joined by WandaVision star Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau, playing the adult version of the character first introduced in 2018’s Captain Marvel, where she was portrayed by Akira Akbar. Rounding out the top-liners and further explaining the title is Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel, soon to be starring in her own Disney+ series Ms. Marvel. Kamala Khan is a superhero superfan, a 16-year-old Muslim Pakistani-American from Jersey City who writes fan fiction, particularly about Captain Marvel. Her world is turned upside down when she gains shape-shifting powers and becomes a superhero herself.

DaCosta will direct The Marvels from a script from WandaVision writer Megan McDonnell. As for Karpman, she recently nabbed her fifth Emmy nomination for her work on HBO’s excellent Lovecraft Country. She’s also not new to the MCU—she scored the first season of the Disney+ series What If…, and will be returning for season two.

The Marvels is set to hit theaters on February 18, 2023.

For more on The Marvels, check out these stories:

“The Marvels” Title Reveals Next Phase for Captain Marvel

Samuel L. Jackson Shares Image From “Captain Marvel” Sequel

The Intriguing Possibilities For “Captain Marvel 2” With Nia DaCosta Directing

Featured image: Captain Marvel (Brie Larson). Photo: Film Frame. ©Marvel Studios 2019

“Batgirl” HBO Max Movie Adds More Stars to Join Lead Leslie Grace

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The population of Batgirl‘s Gotham is rising. The upcoming HBO Max movie starring Leslie Grace as Barbara Gordon just added three new cast members. Rebecca Front, Ethan Kai, and Corey Johnson have joined the cast in unspecified roles. They’ll be dropping into a Gotham already inhabited by some big names. Along with Grace, Batgirl includes Michael Keaton reprising his role as Bruce Wayne, marking the second big project that Keaton will be donning the cape and cowl for. His first mission back in the role of Bruce Wayne will be for Andy Muschietti’s upcoming The Flash. J.K. Simmons returns as Commissioner Jim Gordon, reprising a role he played in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. And finally, Brendan Fraser is on hand as the villain, we just don’t know who quiet yet.

Front is an excellent performer, with incredible comedic timing and a killer instinct she displayed on the great British series In The Thick of It. Johnson has already had roles in a bunch of excellent films, including Ex Machina, Hellboy, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Kingsman: The Secret Service, and will next be seen in Morbius. His experience in big action flicks makes you wonder if he won’t be playing some kind of superhero. Kai appeared in Killing Eve, and it seems that Batgirl will likely serve as a potential big next step for the young performer.

Meanwhile, Grace is a multitalented performer and a three-time Latin Grammy Award winner. As Barbara Gordon, she’s playing the daughter of police commissioner Jim Gordon, the one character who appears in almost every Batman film, by the way.

Batgirl is expected to debut on HBO Max sometime in 2022. The series is currently in production in London and is directed by Bad Boys For Life filmmakers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. The script comes from Birds of Prey and  The Flash scribe Christina Hodson.

For more on Warner Bros., HBO, and HBO Max, check out these stories:

“Aquaman 2” Has Officially Wrapped Production

“The Batman” New Images Includes the Riddler, the Penguin, & Catwoman

“The Matrix Resurrections” Cinematographer Daniele Massaccesi on His Leap of Faith

“Station Eleven” Costume Designer Helen Huang on a Post-Pandemic World Filled with Art & Humanity

Featured image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – AUGUST 02: Leslie Grace attends the Warner Bros. premiere of “The Suicide Squad” at Regency Village Theatre on August 02, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)

“The Tragedy of Macbeth” Production Designer Stefan Dechant on Joel Coen’s Minimalist Masterpiece

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Production designer Stefan Dechant has worked on detail-packed cinematic spectacles like Jurassic Park, Avatar, Pacific Rim: Uprising, and Kong: Skull Island. When he signed up for Joel Coen‘s black and white adaptation of The Tragedy of Macbeth, Dechant had to embrace a new aesthetic, stripping all decorative embellishments that might distract from the drama at hand. As conceptualized by writer-director Coen in concert with Inside Llewyn Davis cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, Shakespeare’s murderous royal couple, portrayed by Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, would be best served by stark surroundings devoid of extraneous décor. Dechant enjoyed wrapping his head around the minimalistic Macbeth mindset. “You’re used to bringing layers and tapestry in there, so when you’re paring yourself down so much, you might have doubts, Dechant says. “But then I’d have Joel there to guide me: ‘Yeah, it’s fine.: Or, I just need a little bit more. It’s like writing a haiku: There are only so many lines you get to express yourself so you want to make sure that visually, you’re using the right lines.”

Speaking from his home office in Topanga Canyon, Dechant drills into the old movies that helped inform this Macbeth and explains how something called the Moss-o-Matic added oomph to his spartan sets.

The Tragedy of Macbeth looks unlike any other American movie made in recent years and not just because it’s in black and white. The production design is so spare! How did Joel Coen introduce you to the minimalist vision he had in mind?

When I first met with Joel in Santa Monica, he said he’d found his own way into Shakespeare through abstraction. He’d been working with Bruno for several months collecting all this imagery — frame grabs from films, architectural photography, fine art, their own photography. They skewed the images into black and white, pumped up the contrast, and printed them out. By the time I got there, Joel and Fran (McDormand) had assembled these four-by-six print-outs and divided them into sets: This is the crossroads; This is Inverness castle; This is Fran’s bed-chamber.

Joel Coen, Frances McDormand. Photo by: Alison Cohen Rosa
Joel Coen, Frances McDormand. Photo by: Alison Cohen Rosa

Very organized!

The benchmark image was a photograph of a building in Mexico taken by Hiroshi Sugimoto. You see this tower in the background. It’s just a square. It’s not a castle but Joel felt like it was the idea of a castle. Also, Joel introduced me to Edward Gordon Craig, a turn of the century set designer who used geometric shapes for the Shakespeare plays he worked on. We talked about how there’s a rhythm to the text so there also needs to be a rhythm to the imagery. It was an amazing first meeting.

That’s a lot to take in. What happened next?

The following week we went through the script. Joel would draw on a piece of paper, “This is where Denzel walks in, this is where my camera’s going to be.” So now I had the choreography to go with the imagery. At that point, my job was to project all of this back to Joel. We brought in 3-D modelers who sketched the sets on Rhino, an architecture program that creates virtual environments. That allowed us to put a digital lens in there so Joel could frame it up, we could even light it. We could go in there with Photoshop and draw on the frame. It’s very malleable. Joel might say, “I need five more steps on the staircase” and you could easily make the change.

Kathryn Hunter, Joel Coen, Bruno Delbonnel. Photo by: Alison Cohen Rosa
Kathryn Hunter, Joel Coen, Bruno Delbonnel. Photo by: Alison Cohen Rosa

Where did you turn these concepts into physical sets?

We had four soundstages on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank. We built large foam core blocks that we moved around on set. Fran would walk the distance delivering a Macbeth soliloquy, even before Denzel arrived, so we could figure out where we wanted the arches and pillars to land.

Were the architectural elements 3-D printed, or. . .

The digital aspect allowed me to quickly engage the director and DP but we wanted the pieces to feel handmade so everything was built like a traditional set: wood flats, plaster on top. The stonework for the ruins at the crossroads, that’s all sculpted. I wanted the crossroads to feel like the wind had come in and torn away [branches] making the tree bend.

Kathryn Hunter Courtesy of Apple TV+ and A24
Kathryn Hunter. Courtesy of Apple TV+ and A24

The Macbeth interiors often feel as if they’re sculpted from light and shadow. You must have coordinated all of these shades of gray with Bruno Delbonnel?

I’ve never worked so closely with a cinematographer before. These sets only exist for the shot, as spaces to hold the psychology of the characters. While we were filming, Bruno brought up the idea of painting some shadows into the columns. We went gradated from lighter gray at the bottom into darker tones higher on the structure all the way up into black. Spaces like the apparition chamber where the witches hover over Macbeth – – that exists only for the shot. There’s no history to it and the rafters are only there to hold the witches. The way Bruno used light was paramount to how those sets worked.

Joel Coen, Frances McDormand. Photo by: Alison Cohen Rosa
Joel Coen, Frances McDormand. Photo by: Alison Cohen Rosa

One of the most striking sequences happens in this field of tall grass, where a little boy, a potential heir to the throne, is being chased by one of Macbeth’s murderous henchmen.

For that scene, we looked a lot at [F.W. Murnau’s 1927 silent film] Sunrise. We wanted the field to have a geometric quality. We found grasses that had white tufts on top. We had pots and pots and pots of it. We trimmed every plant so each blade of grass was the same height. We pulled the plants apart and painted the bottoms darker, then put them back together to get this horizontal line of white tufts. The way Bruno shot it, was this horizontal line of white, running across the screen.

For a field of grass, that’s a lot of fine-tuning.

Also, for texture, a friend of mine, Richard Bell, worked as a Greens Supervisor on The Mandalorian and he invented this thing called the Moss-o-Matic. It’s a gun hooked up to a tank and it shoots glue and moss at the same time. We brought him in as a quick way to add texture to the set. He said all I’ve got is bright green. I had to call Joel and tell him when you come in tomorrow the grass will be bright green, but it’s going to be okay.

So much of the design evokes a brooding quality, like the wide shot of a castle on a cliff. Filming on a soundstage, how did you craft that landscape?

That comes from a frame grab of [Akira Kurosawa 1985 movie] Ran where the king is about to kill himself. Joel took a sharpie and drew a tower and a cliff edge into that frame. I worked with a concept artist and did multiple paintings until we hit on something that hints of Scotland even though it’s abstract. That’s an example of how I kept working in post with Joel and Bruno with matte painting designs as if it were painted on glass by someone like [mid-century matte painting master] Al Whitlock. For this one, Bruno said, “What if the clouds were like this instead?” Again, it’s this wonderful relationship where the DP can come into the world and design it as well. I’ve been watching the Beatles documentary Get Back and that’s what was like to sit with Joel and Bruno, playing back and forth.

Macbeth uses silhouettes in very dramatic fashion. Did film noir play a role in your thinking?

The director Charles Laughton and his DP Stanley Cortez follow a very similar path in [1957 thriller] Night of the Hunter. There’s a storybook quality to it, where you see this man in silhouette walking against a hillside with a horse. That was a major influence on how we wanted to read the crossroads as this very stark silhouette. Then graduate up from there so that Bruno could get this strong glow over the horizon.

Moses Ingram. Photo by: Alison Cohen Rosa
Moses Ingram. Photo by: Alison Cohen Rosa

The inspirations for this film’s aesthetic seem to be incredibly diverse.

Our idea for showing the handle of the door being a dagger – – that came from a painting of J.P Morgan.

Wait, you mean J.P. Morgan the billionaire industrialist from the early 1900s?

From the gilded age! Joel had a photograph of this painting where Morgan’s holding the end of a chair with his hand. They played with the contrast in black and white and made it look like he’s holding a dagger. That inspired Joel to have us create a door handle that looks like a dagger when it’s lit just so. That’s how obscure the references can be but what’s cool about it is that the door becomes the literal gateway from intent to murder, when Macbeth says “Is that a dagger I see before me?” Then he grabs that handle and enters the darkness that sets everything into motion. I actually cut out that section of the door and framed it. Right now it’s sitting in my office here in Topanga Canyon. Once Covid hit, the basement became my studio so that’s why it looks like I’m in a minimum-security prison.

Denzel Washington Photo by: Alison Cohen Rosa
Denzel Washington. Photo by: Alison Cohen Rosa

Years ago, you worked on the crew for True Grit directed by Joel and his brother Ethan. Prior to Macbeth, they famously made all their films together, Was it a different experience with Macbeth, where you’re answering only to Joel without having Ethan around?

On this show, Bruno Delbonnel was not Ethan, but he’s such a creatively powerful force, that it really became, for me, about learning how to deal with those two guys creatively. But of course, Joel’s the director. It’s not like I came in there and said “I have two words for you: German Expressionism.” Even if he doesn’t always know how we’re going to get there, Joel Coen knows what he wants.

It sounds like you approach production design with a certain amount of humility?

I remember what my mentor Rick Carter once told me when we were going over to Robert Zemeckis’ bungalow to spitball ideas about his movie Contact. Rick said, “It’s your idea and until Bob gets it and then, it’s his idea.” Meaning, as a production designer, you’re not presenting ideas from your own point of view. It’s a director’s medium. I think of being a production designer as if you’re the pitcher and you want to make sure the director can hit it out of the park.

The Tragedy of Macbeth streams on Apple TV+ on January 14. 

Featured image: Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand in “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” coming soon to theaters and Apple TV+.

“Aquaman 2” Has Officially Wrapped Production

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We’re officially one big step closer to seeing director James Wan’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Wan took to Instagram to reveal that production has officially wrapped. The post shows Wan, Aquaman himself Jason Momoa, and Patrick Wilson, who plays Orm, looking pretty thrilled on a beach in Malibu, California. Here’s what Wan has to say in the post:

And finally, finally, finally picture wrap on the actual last day of #Aquaman2 in Malibu with these two gents @prideofgypsies @thereelpatrickwilson Yes, we do get very wet, a lot, on this show.

A THOUSAND THANK YOUs to all the incredible crew who worked so hard and tirelessly on this picture. Especially the UK portion where we shot 95% of the film. Truly some of the finest artisans and craftspeople I’ve had the good fortune to work with. And big shouts to the amazing Hawaiian and Los Angeles units.

I have a very long way to go before it will be ready, but I can’t wait to share this little film with you all.

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A post shared by James Wan (@creepypuppet)

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom isn’t due until December 16, 2022, so we’ve got a while to wait until we see it. If we were the betting sort, we’d say the first official trailer could be released sometime this spring. The sequel to Wan’s 2018 Aquaman returns a lot of the big names. Joining Momoa and Wilson are returning champions Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Black Manta, Amber Heard as Mera, Temuera Morrison as Tom Curry, Nicole Kidman as Atlanta, and Dolph Lundgren as King Nereus. Newcomers include Jane Zhao as Stingray, Indya Moore as Karshon, and Game of Thrones’ scene-stealer Pilou Asbæk in an undisclosed role (almost certainly a villain).

While the plot is being kept under wraps, here’s the brief synopsis”

“When an ancient power is unleashed, Aquaman must forge an uneasy alliance with an unlikely ally to protect Atlantis, and the world, from irreversible devastation.”

For more on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, check out these stories:

Jason Momoa Reveals New Stealth Suit For “Aquaman 2”

New Image of Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Getting Jacked For “Aquaman 2”

James Wan Reveals Cryptic First “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” Set Photo

James Wan Reveals The Title for “Aquaman” Sequel

“Dune” Writer/Director Denis Villeneuve on Bringing a Sci-Fi Epic to Life

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When writer/director Denis Villeneuve set out to adapt Frank Herbert’s iconic opus “Dune” for the big screen, he was facing some massive obstacles. Herbert’s classic, set in part on the resource-rich, dangerous desert planet of Arrakis, is notoriously dense and massive. It inspired Star Wars creator George Lucas and Star Trek mastermind Gene Roddenberry, but they had the advantage of taking bits and pieces of Herbert’s iconography—the dangerous desert planet, warring intergalactic tribes, young heroes foist into epic journeys—and go their own way. David Lynch famously adapted the entirety of Dune in 1984, to mixed results. Villeneuve, however, decided on a different approach. He split the book into two parts, betting that if he and his vast cast and crew took the time to get it right, Warner Bros. would greenlight part two. In a new video interview with Collider, Villeneuve discusses the journey to getting the first part of Dune made. “Dune took years to be made because it was a challenge to respect Frank Herbert’s book and bring it to the big screen.”

We know how it worked out. Villeneuve’s Dune was a critical and commercial hit—in the middle of a pandemic, no less—and Warner Bros. committed to letting him complete his vision with part two.

“Maybe the most important thing is I wanted the design to be inspired by nature. The light, the wind, the dust, to feel like these worlds were real, natural environments,” Villeneuve says. Filming many of the Arrakis scenes in Wadi Rum, Jordan, as well as the deserts outside of Abu Dhabi, Villeneuve and his team created a fully realized environment in which the drama of his intergalactic epic took place. The video is a reminder of how every movie takes a village to make, and when it comes to a film as big and bold as Dune, it’s more like an entire desert city.

Check out Villeneuve’s interview with Collider here. Dune is available to stream on HBO Max.

For more on Dune, check out these stories:

“Dune” Editor Joe Walker on Cutting Denis Villeneuve’s Sweeping Epic

“Dune” Review Roundup: A Majestic, Astonishingly Vivid Epic Made for the Big Screen

New “Dune” Images Reveal One of the Year’s Most Anticipated Films

Denis Villeneuve Writing Script For “Dune 2” & Zendaya Will Star

Featured image: Caption: (L-r) REBECCA FERGUSON as Lady Jessica Atreides, ZENDAYA as Chani, JAVIER BARDEM as Stilgar, and TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary release. Photo Credit: Chiabella James

“No Time To Die” Costume Designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb on Dressing Bond’s Allies & Adversaries

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In part one of our conversation with No Time To Die costume designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb, we focused on the tall order of outfitting Daniel Craig for his fifth and final assignment as James Bond. In part two, we turn our attention to the allies and adversaries that populate Bond’s world, including two new agents, the love of his life, and a scarred sociopath who has designed a weapon that—spoiler alert—forces Bond to make the ultimate sacrifice. 

While James Bond always manages to look the part, no matter where he is or what mood he’s in, it was equally important for Larlarb to make sure his allies and adversaries were dressed appropriately, whether they were fighting at his side or plotting to create a new world order. Here’s what she has to say about helping to create the world of No Time To Die.

Ana de Armas as the young CIA agent Paloma is decidedly not being overmatched or out-dressed by James Bond. Those outfits paired beautifully.

Yes, in that inky blue dress. And the pairing isn’t just between the protagonists in a scene, but with the background characters as well. Every single person in that Cuba sequence was dressed by us. Some of it we made, in fact, some of the costumes, the showgirl costumes, were made here in New York. Some of them were made in the U.K., we had tuxes for all the Spectre members that were various levels of bespoke and adapted from store purchases. Out of the 1,500 extras or so, every single person was dressed. I’d say a good percentage of that stuff was made in-house. In my head at the time was not only the to-do list of the numbers of people, but I’m also thinking about how the shirts the band on stage are wearing, about the red dress for the singer, and more. I remember going into a men’s store while we were filming the Italy sequence and found this amazing black and white graphic shirt, and thought they’d be great for the band members when we’re in Cuba. So we contacted that designer and got every single one of those shirts that existed in the world so that two months down the road we could put them on the band members. So I’m puzzling the whole thing together, and I have a great team that, if I’m missing something, they’ll always know what else is going on so we can put this big jigsaw puzzle together.

Ana de Armas stars as Paloma in NO TIME TO DIE, an EON Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios film Credit: Nicola Dove © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Ana de Armas stars as Paloma in NO TIME TO DIE. Credit: Nicola Dove © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Paloma (Ana de Armas) in NO TIME TO DIE an EON Productions and Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios film Credit: Nicola Dove © 2020 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Paloma (Ana de Armas) in NO TIME TO DIE. Credit: Nicola Dove © 2020 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

There are three main characters in Leá Seydoux’s character Madeline Swann, Lashana Lynch’s double-O agent Nomi, and Rami Malek’s villain Safin who are all styled very differently and serve vastly different functions. I’d love your take on dressing these characters.

On the one hand, you have your tried and true stable of Bond characters, but then, the great thing is of course the new characters. The new 007, the new villain, these are tropes within a Bond film, but you have more scope to color outside the lines because they’re new and they don’t have established history. And both of those actors, Lashana Lynch and Rami Malek were just so incredibly receptive, collaborative, and excited about our discussions and what I’d been thinking. I started riffing off what they were thinking, and it was a great opportunity to add new, iconic characters to this Bond universe that pay a little homage to what came before, but also push it forward. And they’re both different kinds of foils to Bond himself.

L-r: Lashana Lynch and Léa Seydoux in "No Time To Die."
L-r: Lashana Lynch and Léa Seydoux in “No Time To Die.” Credit: Nicola Dove. © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Lashana Lynch’s Nomi is a different kettle of fish as an agent. 

Yes, Nomi is a new 007 is a version of Daniel Craig’s spy, but the opposite in terms of how she operates within MI6, the expectations of her, how she comports herself, and how she wants to move up the ladder. And she’s a woman of color, so you have all these great new avenues to explore for someone who needs to tick the same boxes that you’ve come to know and expect from the top of MI6’s arsenal as one of the 007 agents.

Credit: Nicola Dove © 2019 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Nomi (Lashana Lynch) is ready for action in Cuba in NO TIME TO DIE. Credit: Nicola Dove © 2019 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM.

And how did you tackle Rami Malek as the sociopathic Safin?

In some ways, you have more scope with the villain. They’re always in these beautiful lairs in some exotic place and have tried to create a universe for themselves where they take over the real world. I remember taking a tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright “Falling Water” house, and I paid a little extra to see some parts usually not available. And one of the things the docent told me was that when he was commissioned to do that house, Frank Lloyd Wright was also trying to dress the family, telling them how they should dress to live in this house. I always remembered that when I think about Rami’s character because I feel like the world he’s creating is one in which he’s creating a universe that he thinks is a utopia and he needs to feel like this architect everything, including how people look.

Rami Malek (Safin) on the set of NO TIME TO DIE, an EON Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios film. Credit: Nicola Dove © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Rami Malek (Safin) on the set of NO TIME TO DIE. Credit: Nicola Dove © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

I almost wonder if your next projects won’t seem like a little bit of a layup after the scale of this.

I went from the Bond film onto a Star Wars project, so actually you’re really right that you get used to a certain level of challenge and responsibility of shepherding an iconic character and a world into being, so this Star Wars project was a good one to step into for that reason because it’s different but it’s also the same level of responsibility.

I know you can’t talk about the Star Wars project, which is the Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney+, but I take back what I said. That’s a franchise with an extra vocal and canon-obsessed fanbase.

Yeah, exactly. That’s always another voice in the process. Even with the Bond film, I try to be as truthful as possible to the needs of the script, and in the case of Bond, you’re working with a group of actors, led by Daniel [Craig], who have inhabited these roles for so long that it’s not like we’re creating them out of nothing. There’s a good amount of research you can do, but you also have those actors, Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes, Rory Kinnear, Ben Whishaw, to be able to talk to them about their characters and what they want to say this time around in these circumstances, it’s fun being able to come into a design job with characters who are fully fleshed already, so you’re adapting their looks to whatever the circumstance at hand of your current script are.

Daniel Craig stars as James Bond, Naomie Harris as Moneypenny and Ben Whishaw as Q in NO TIME TO DIE, an EON Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios film Credit: Nicola Dove © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Daniel Craig stars as James Bond, Naomie Harris as Moneypenny and Ben Whishaw as Q in
NO TIME TO DIE. Credit: Nicola Dove © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

For more on No Time To Die, check out these stories:

“No Time To Die” Costume Designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb on Building the Apex Tuxedo

“No Time to Die” DP Linus Sandgren on Daniel Craig’s Epic Sendoff as James Bond

“No Time To Die” Has Record-Breaking International Opening

“No Time To Die” Gets the Widest U.K. Theatrical Release Ever

“No Time To Die” Review Roundup: A Thrilling, Emotional Conclusion to the Daniel Craig Era

Featured image: Rami Malek stars as Safin in NO TIME TO DIE, an EON Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios film. Credit: Christopher Raphael. © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

“No Time To Die” Costume Designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb on Building the Apex Tuxedo

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“Before Daniel, the Bond style, which was always very definitive, was being worn by someone who was more of a superhero character,” says No Time To Die costume designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb about the tall order of outfitting Daniel Craig for his fifth and final assignment as James Bond. “We didn’t really get the emotional landscape. We got the look, we got the icon, but we didn’t delve that much deeper. Daniel is a consummate actor and I really felt this responsibly to be able to costume him in a way that would live up to that Bond stratosphere, but also give him what he needed to be able to make the character more three-dimensional, more serious, more somber.”

Larlarb succeeded in giving Craig’s final turn as her Majesty’s most moody, haunted double-o agent looks that fit his shifting stations in life, from lovestruck in Italy to a heartbroken retiree in Jamaica, to a be-tuxed and back-in-action Bond in action in Cuba. It was no small task honoring the decades-long career of one of cinema’s most iconic characters while simultaneously cementing Craig’s iteration of the most thoughtful, most tortured, and inarguably the noblest Bond of them all.

We spoke to Larlarb about the demands of history when designing the costumes for a character that has been as reliable as death and taxes, while making sure to stay true to Craig’s vision for the role.

James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) in NO TIME TO DIE, an EON Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios film Credit: Nicola Dove © 2020 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) in NO TIME TO DIE. Credit: Nicola Dove. © 2020 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Clothes are as big a part of the Bond mystique. How did you being the process of decoding the costumes for the 25th Bond?

You’re right, it comes with a lot of iconic responsibility. As the longest-running character franchise, spanning so many decades in which clothes have been defined in each decade, Bond as a franchise and a character has always been the apex of every stylistic moment that’s happening in whatever decade he resides in. It’s a lot of responsibility. It felt very important to look back at everything that had been done before and really understand what made something essentially Bond, in terms of a DNA of style or approach. Not so that we merely pay homage or replicate or regurgitate anything, but really to understand the unifying factors that define the design of all the previous films.

007 star Daniel Craig, director Cary Fukunaga and the Bond 25 crew were out and about in the sunshine today shooting across a number of central London locations, including Whitehall, where Daniel filmed a scene with a classic Aston Martin V8, first seen in a Bond film in 1987’s The Living Daylights. Photo credit: Nicola Dove ©2019 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
007 star Daniel Craig. Photo credit: Nicola Dove ©2019 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Daniel Craig’s iteration of Bond is much more emotionally evolved, and haunted, than any past version of the character. How did that translate into designing the character’s looks?

Bond as a character has changed over the course of history, and I felt like Daniel Craig’s version is arguably the most vulnerable and emotionally available to the audience. It’s interesting because I think there were a lot of choices that we made and clothes that he wore that wouldn’t necessarily feel very Bond-esque. But when you break down what the scene is, where he was prior to that scene, what he was going through and the practicalities of getting from point A to point B, it meant we had to make decisions about his clothes that were not going to get in the way of the emotional charge of the scene.

Like when the film opens and he’s in love…

Yes, when we first meet him in Italy, it’s basically a continuation of what came became before the love story that emerges at the end of Spectre. We are introduced to Bond in love. He’s in a romantic place, in a romantic relationship, and he’s just going for it. We think he’s left the service behind. I think it would have been a disservice to him to look like a Bond you expected because that Bond is the field agent to the max, always ready, always sharp, beautifully styled. But only having him suited and booted perfectly lies in the same parallel as him being emotionally unavailable. He’s compartmentalized every other part of his life so he’s this perfect icon to be able to do this job at a very high level. But at the beginning of No Time To Die, we see he’s softened a bit, his heart is open, he’s with the woman he loves, so the clothes are a reflection of that.

Daniel Craig stars as James Bond and Léa Seydoux as Dr. Madeleine Swann in NO TIME TO DIE, an EON Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios film Credit: Nicola Dove © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Daniel Craig stars as James Bond and Léa Seydoux as Dr. Madeleine Swann in NO TIME TO DIE. Credit: Nicola Dove © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Then Bond’s relationship with Madeline Swann literally blows up, and we’re in Jamaica. How did you approach his looks there?

When we’re in Jamaica, he’s really renounced the service. He doesn’t think too much about what he wears because he just has instinctually right decisions and looks great in everything. But, the lifestyle is one in which he gets up in the morning, goes fishing, hangs out in his beach hut—not such a hut, but a beautiful beach house—and is part of that locale. He’s off the grid. So his clothes need to telegraph that there’s no sense of urgency there. He’s lived in that tee shirt and shorts for however long he’s done that, five, six years. There’s no need to be at the apex of style there, although, arguably, anything you put on Daniel Craig just will inevitably look stylish [laughs.]

Daniel Craig stars as James Bond in NO TIME TO DIE, an EON Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios film Credit: Nicola Dove © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Daniel Craig stars as James Bond in NO TIME TO DIE, Credit: Nicola Dove © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

And then, after things in Jamaica go off the rails, Bond’s back in action again. How did you approach the more suited and booted looks?

The really fulfilling thing about working on this project was there is so much investment in the character, and so much appreciation and respect for what costumes can do. At some point, we know he’s going to show back up at MI6 and he’s gotta look the part. The funny thing there, of course, is he’s in this beautiful Prince of Wales checked Tom Ford ensemble which we designed together with Tom Ford and Daniel [Craig]’s input. I put forward the Prince of Wales check because it’s such a classic suiting material. So in that first meeting when Bond has reentered MI6 but not as a fully-fledged double-O, he doesn’t have his status anymore, he even has a visitor’s badge. That’s one version of the full 360 of Daniel, playing with what he needs to telegraph when he’s in the service. And of course, the other moment is the tux moment.

Daniel Craig in "No Time to Die."
Daniel Craig in “No Time to Die.” Credit: Nicola Dove © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

The tux is an iconic part of the Bond mystique. What was special about the one he wears on his mission in Cuba with Ana de Armas’s young CIA spy Paloma?

The tux is always going to be an apex for a Bond film. You have to make decisions that allow that apex to be the apex. If you’re at that level the whole film, in these sharply tailored suits, you’re robbing the emotional complexity that Daniel does so beautifully. So I really felt like it was an amazing opportunity to give a fuller picture of a man in various levels of crisis [laughs].

I’m going to go ahead and assume this tux doesn’t come from Men’s Warehouse?

The tux is another Tom Ford collaboration. It’s specifically made for this film. David Bamber, who was my contact at Tom Ford, and Tom Ford himself, were very generous to have provided the opportunity for us to get these important, iconic looks for Daniel in the time that we had. We didn’t have as much time as we normally would. Tom Ford’s line is operating with factory schedules and mills in Europe, so they’re not going to be able to just clear out everything so that they can squeeze out 33 bespoke tuxedos for you. So we really worked very closely together on all the decisions to make it right for Daniel. We had multiple fittings together in New York and then in the U.K. We didn’t have the tux in our hands until probably about 24 hours before filming. You want to give a designer and a design house like Tom Ford as much time as they need to get the suit right. It’s gotta look perfect, it is so scrutinized, Daniel’s very exacting, and it’s the tux. So we had to give them as much time as they needed to get all the details right.

James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Paloma (Ana de Armas) in NO TIME TO DIE an EON Productions and Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios film Credit: Nicola Dove © 2020 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Paloma (Ana de Armas) in NO TIME TO DIE. Credit: Nicola Dove
© 2020 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

What materials were used? 

We used a stretch, silk-wool blend fabric which was great for all the stunts. We’d learned the fabric that I wanted, this stretch black, was manufactured in Italy, and there was only enough in the world to make a certain number of tuxes, and we had to have fewer tuxes than we needed. You have to split them up between the beautiful picture version for Daniel Craig, the stunt versions for Daniel Craig, the versions for the stunt double, the photo double, and each performer needed a battery of tuxes to be able to be fit stunt padding or harnesses, so they’re all slightly different sizes to accommodate those technical requirements, imperceptible to the eye but necessary for the look. Then, on top of that, you have all the layers of distress and aging. So we’re seeing Bond after he’s gone through an immense firefight in the streets of Cuba, so he’ll be wet, shot at, so the first time we see the tux it’s stage three distress, so, within each person’s lists of available tuxes, you have the perfect picture one, then you have stages of distress. And then you need spare ones because what if something happens on the day? So we worked out that we could have 33 tuxes, and how to distribute them to all the performers. I have a binder about three inches thick of all the emails going back and forth about just the tux.

 

For more on No Time To Die, check out these stories:

“No Time to Die” DP Linus Sandgren on Daniel Craig’s Epic Sendoff as James Bond

“No Time To Die” Has Record-Breaking International Opening

“No Time To Die” Gets the Widest U.K. Theatrical Release Ever

“No Time To Die” Review Roundup: A Thrilling, Emotional Conclusion to the Daniel Craig Era

Featured image: Daniel Craig stars as James Bond in NO TIME TO DIE. Credit: Nicola Dove. © 2021 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Final “Scream” Trailer Suggests the Rules of The Game Have Changed

Posted on by babrams

We’re just a few days away from the fifth Scream to hit theaters, and it’s already earning plaudits and raves. Paramount Pictures has delivered one final trailer to whet your appetite for a return trip to Woodsboro, and the gist of this last look is that it’s not enough to simply know the rules of the game to survive the new Ghostface.

The final Scream trailer focuses on how the return of the franchise’s stalwarts—Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Dewey Riley (David Arquette), and Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox) mean that the new kids on the (chopping) block at least have some season Ghostface experts in their corner. The problem, as explained by Dewey, is that something about this version of Ghostface feels different. That point is hammered home when Sidney tells Ghostface (voiced again by Roger L. Jackson) that “I’ve seen this movie before,” and he counters, “Not this movie.” With a new Ghostface back terrorizing Westboro, the question now becomes whether knowing the old rules will help Sidney, Dewey, Gale, and the newcomers survive the new game? The trailer wants you to believe that it won’t.

Those newcomers are played by Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jack Quaid, Dylan Minnette, Jasmin Savoy Brown (a potential breakout star), Sonia Ben Ammar, Mikey Madison, Mason Gooding, and Kyle Gallner. The film is directed by the Ready or Not helmers Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillet, from a script written by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick. Original Scream scribe Kevin Williamson is on hand as a producer.

Check out the final trailer below. Scream slashes into theaters on January 14.

For more on Scream, check out these stories:

“Scream” Early Reactions: A Razor Sharp Return To Woodsboro

First “Scream” Trailer Unleashes a Brand New Ghostface

Featured image: Ghostface in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Scream.” Photo Courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group.

See How All The Trick Arrows in “Hawkeye” Were Created

Posted on by babrams

Well, this is fun. Over the weekend, Marvel Studios released this video showing how the trick arrows in Hawkeye were created. Marvel’s most recent Disney+ series was arguably the lightest on its feet of all their series thus far, leaning into the comedic chemistry between Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld). Part of the fun was how much of a fangirl Kate was for Clint, the least beloved Avenger (she told him it’s a branding issue) insofar as he’s quiet, wears drab clothing and doesn’t have any superpowers. What Clint does have, along with incredibly good aim, is a slew of amazing trick arrows. Now we get to see how they’re created.

Greg Steele, Hawkeye‘s VFX Supervisor, spoke to Lorraine Cink about how they created all of Clint’s potent, sometimes hilarious arrows. One aspect that’s really cool is that the arrows are not just purely computer effects. In fact, Steele says right at the top that the props department plays a huge part in designing Clint’s arrows. “They’re like little pieces of artwork in terms of the complexity and design aesthetic,” he says.

It’s during a car chase in episode three when Clint and Kate are trying to escape the tracksuit mafia where we get to dip into the lion’s share of Clint’s quiver of trick arrows. In one fantastic moment, Clint has Kate shoot a regular arrow so that it’ll arc high in the sky and then come down on top of the Tracksuit mafia’s oncoming truck. Clint then uses one of his “Pym Arrows,” which, of course, come from the laboratory of Hank Pym (Michael Douglass), the brilliant scientist who can shrink or enlarge anything, and shoots it at Kate’s arrow. When it makes contact, it enlarges Kate’s arrow so that it comes down on the truck like a giant sledgehammer. (The folks at Screenrant believe that, while this moment was awesome, it created an MCU plot hole.)

The video gives you insight into just how much work, and how many people, it takes to pull off a single episode of Hawkeye, let alone an entire series or an MCU film. Needless to say, they hit the bullseye.

For more on Hawkeye, check out these stories:

“Hawkeye” Director & Executive Producer Rhys Thomas Hits His Mark

New “Hawkeye” Clip Shows Clint Barton Meeting the Parents

New “Hawkeye” Video Takes You Behind-the-Scenes of Marvel’s New Dynamic Duo

Featured image: Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios.