Raya and the Last Dragon is ready to take flight. Well, almost ready. The upcoming Walt Disney Animation Studios film, from directors Don Hall (Moana) and Carlos López Estrada (Blindspotting) has released a new trailer ahead of its theatrical and Disney+ Premiere Access release on March 5. The epic action-adventure story is set in the mystical world of Kumandra, where at one point in time, dragons and humans coexisted peacefully. In fact, their bond was so close that the dragons sacrificed themselves to save humanity from an evil force some 500 years ago. That force is back. And not only that, but Kuamanda is a place where nobody seems to get along very well.
The film is set 500 years after those events. Your heroine is the titular Raya (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran), and she’ll need to assemble a crack team in order to face down the threat. As for that last dragon in the title, her name is Sisua, and she’s voiced by none other than Awkwafina. Raya’s crew will need to find Sisua if they’re going to prove successful, and one of the members, an extremely clever baby, seems capable all her own.
If you wanted to mask up and catch the film in theaters, you’ll be able to. If you’d rather watch at home, it’ll be available on Disney+’s Premiere Access program to rent for $29.99. Coming from the same studio that brought you Moana, Raya and the Last Dragon has a similarly lush look. It also boasts a terrific voice cast. Joining Tran and Awkwafina are Gemma Chan, Daniel Dae-Kim, Sandra Oh, Benedict Wong, Izaac Wang, Thalia Tran, Alan Tudyk, Lucille Soong, Patti Harrison, and Ross Butler.
Behold the new Raya and the Last Dragon trailer below.
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When we talked to Lovecraft Country director Cheryl Dunye and cinematographer Michael Watson, both of them enthused about working with the show’s creator, Misha Green. Green had assembled an incredible cast and crew to work out her vision for what turned out to be one of 2020’s best series. Now, Green’s career continues its ascent as she’s about to make the jump to feature directing. Deadlinebroke the story and The Hollywood Reporterconfirms that she’ll be helming the next Tomb Raider installment for MGM, taking the reins and leading Alicia Vikander’s indomitable Lara Croft on her next adventure.
Green is hardly new to the entertainment world. In addition to creating and executive producing Lovecraft Country (with co-executive producers Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams), she wrote and is producing the upcoming action flick The Mother for Netflix, and has been writing for TV for years, including on FX’s Sons of Anarchy and WGN’s Underground. With Lovecraft Country, Green cemented herself as a rising star, shepherding one of the most ambitious shows in recent memory. All you have to do is watch Dune’s fifth episode, “Strange Case,” to see how tenaciously Green pushed Lovecraft to go where few TV shows have gone before.
Tomb Raider offers Green plenty of narrative and visual clay to mold, and considering how action-packed much of Lovecraft‘s sequences were (and how deliciously creepy, too), a big-budget action-adventure film centered on a fearless adventurer seems right up her alley. The film series is based off the PlayStation game, and its first iteration starred Angelina Jolie in two films. Vikander took on the role with 2018’s reboot Tomb Raider, directed by Roar Uthaug.
Green is an excellent choice to take this franchise to new and interesting places. With her creative vision and Vikander’s total commitment to the role, this series could become something really special.
Featured image: NEW YORK, NY – MAY 15: Misha Green of Underground attends the Entertainment Weekly and PEOPLE Upfronts party presented by Netflix and Terra Chips at Second Floor on May 15, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Entertainment Weekly and PEOPLE )
One of 2021’s most eagerly anticipated series is writer/director Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad. Adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, Jenkins’ series stars Thuso Mbedu as Cora Randall, a young Black girl who escapes her enslavement on a Georgia plantation and, heading north, utilizes the Underground Railroad to secure her freedom. Only in Whitehead’s mythic telling, the Underground Railroad is an actual, physical system of subterranean trains and stations, manned by brave conductors and aided by a series of undercover abolitionists who help usher escaped slaves to freedom.
Jenkins likes to share his The Underground Railroad updates on Vimeo, where he’s previously dropped snippets of composer Nicholas Britell‘s score and other glimpses of the series. This new look at his vision is simply stunning. Titled “In Aeternum” (Latin: “Forever”), the clip reverses time, making a sublime, surreal sequence of Cora’s journey, from a burning house to slaves running backward from possible freedom into the clutches of their captors. One moment, in particular, shows two people falling upwards through a dark tunnel. It’s simultaneously gorgeous and heartbreaking to behold. The entire teaser is only 1:45 long, yet it packs a wallop.
Watch it:
Jenkins has reunited with a lot of his favorite collaborators. Britell, of course, his is go-to composer, having worked with Jenkins on his stunning, Oscar-winning Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk. Cinematographer James Laxton, another Moonlight and Beale Street alum, lensed the series. Another Moonlight and Beale Street collaborator, editor Joi McMillon, is on hand as well.
Star Thuso Mbedu took to Twitter to share an incredible photo of her as Cora, too:
Here’s a small teaser where you get to see more of the faces that made the #TheUndergroundRailroad magical 🥰
Joining Mbedu are Joel Edgerton, Chase W. Dillon, Aaron Pierre, William Jackson Harper, Sheila Atim, Amber Gray, Peter De Jersey, Chukwudi Iwuji, Damon Herriman, Lily Rabe, Irone Singleton, Mychal-Bella Bowman, Marcus “MJ” Gladney, Jr., Will Poulter, and Peter Mullan.
We’ll share more about the series, including the release date, when we learn it.
Featured image: An image from “The Underground Railroad.” Courtesy Amazon Studios
If there’s anything good to come from the pandemic in the entertainment world, advancements in filmmaking technology that are making it possible for artists from all over the world to collaborate remotely has got to be high on that list. To that end, The Hollywood Reporterreveals that Oscar-winning VFX supervisor Tim Weber, who nabbed an Academy Award for his groundbreaking work on Alfonso Cuarón’s 2014 space epic Gravity, will be revealing new collaborative filmmaking technology when he makes his directorial debut.
Weber is the chief creative officer at the UK-headquartered VFX company Framestore, one of the premiere effects shops in the world. Framestore has worked on a ton of films and series, from 2020’s best horror film, His House, to Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984 and George Clooney’s Midnight Sky.You’ll see more of their work this year when Cary Joji Fukunaga’s hotly-anticipated Bond film No Time To Diefinally premieres. Weber’s directorial debut will be a short, produced in house at Framestore, that will “demonstrate the potential of the studio’s newly-developed VFX pipeline dubbed FUSE,” THR‘s Carolyn Giardina writes.
How does this relate to our current predicament? FUSE was spearheaded, in part, due to pandemic restrictions requiring new ways of working remotely in VFX. It’s essentially a VFX pipeline (FUSE is an acronym that stands for Framestore Unreal Shot Engine) and is based on Epic Games’ real-time Unreal Engine (currently used by The Mandalorian‘s creative team). FUSE will allow lots of artists to work simultaneously within the real-time engine, creating a VFX workflow that will make it possible for hundreds of artists from all over the world to work within the same virtual environment.
The details about Weber’s short are being kept under wraps, but he revealed to THR that the “initial point of this [short] is to prove out the technology but it’s certainly something I’ve been wanting to do, have a chance to develop this story.”
FUSE is a collaboration with Epic. Project lead Theo Jones told THR they’re hoping to create a “more efficient way of working, not just for us, but the whole industry. This is an endeavor that’s all about being able to scale across the entire business, not just niche divisions or use cases.”
As for Weber’s short, he said it’ll be primarily CG generated, but will live somewhere between full CG animation and a live-action film. What’s becoming clear is that the pandemic forced an already creative industry to develop new methods of not only working remotely but improving the technologies that the entire industry has come to rely on to make ever more sophisticated effects. When we are finally clear of COVID-19, these technologies will remain, and the ability of filmmakers to collaborate in real-time, across oceans, will remian.
Featured image: Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. Courtesy Warner Bros.
David Fincher’s black and white epic, Mank, revisits the storied Hollywood era of the late 1930s when Orson Welles was writing what would go down in history as one of the best films of all time, Citizen Kane. But did he write it alone or with the help of Herman Mankiewicz, a once sought after screenwriter fallen prey to twin drinking and gambling problems? In Fincher’s version of events, based on a screenplay by his father, Jack Fincher, Mank the man (Gary Oldman) may have burned through the industry’s goodwill, but he was indubitably a co-writer on the film. However, the question isn’t central to Mank the movie.
Instead, the film’s focus is a gloves-off look at the gilded lives of Depression-era honchos Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard), William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance), and Irving Thalberg (Ferdinand Kingsley), and the effect their political meddling and pay machinations have on the vast army of writers, grips, costume designers, and makeup artists who work beneath them. For Mank costume designer Trish Summerville (Red Sparrow, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), “one of the things I really enjoyed about the film was that we got to dress every walk of life of the 30s and 40s.” Though much of the film is set in an out-of-the-way house where Mank has been set up to heal from an injury and dry out, and spends most of his time in bed in a robe, Summerville’s work spans ample plebeian daywear to Marion Davies’s (Amanda Seyfried) furs (a high-end faux fur hand-painted to mimic silver mink) and gowns and the sharply tailored suits favored by Los Angeles power brokers of the day.
MANK (2020). Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies. Courtesy NETFLIX
Given the time period, Summerville and her team built rather than bought a slew of the costumes destined for characters at both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. “A lot of times with period, it’s hard to find background things that are in good condition and that are the color palette that we needed,” she said. In addition to the grand glamor of a circus-themed costumed dinner party at the Hearst estate, Summerville designed size runs for more modest garb, including four or five women’s skirts styles and blouses as well as men’s trousers and dress shirts, the collars of which tend to wear out quickly. She was also selective about period headgear, particularly given that “there are a lot of comical, outlandish hats that women of that time would wear.” Avoiding what she jokingly referred to as an “elf hat” style of the era, Summerville worked closely with the hair team to get the film’s headgear to fit properly over wigs without casting shadows on the actors’ faces.
MANK (2020). Amanda Seyfried as Marion Davies. NETFLIXMANK (2020). Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz and Tom Pelphrey as Joe Mankiewicz. Courtesy NETFLIX
What Summerville’s team was able to buy or rent came from a vast array of vendors. “At the time we were doing Mank, there were about nine or ten other productions that were also doing from the 30s to 40s,” she said, and a network of costume designers helped each other out, connecting one other with collectors and reproduction specialists. “You end up in the craziest of places because people are also driving from wherever they are to meet you somewhere,” said Summerville. “At one point my assistant and I would laugh because we ended up in the back of a U-Haul looking at clothes, we were in storage lockers, one day I was like, I’m going to drop a pin because where we’re going, no one may ever find us if this isn’t a real vendor.”
MANK (2020). Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz. Courtesy NETFLIX.
Mank was the first project Summerville worked at length in black and white, and she prepped by designing a color scheme over three different black and white settings on her phone. The palette was key not just in terms of translating well on screen into a range of grays, blacks, and whites that were neither dingy not screamingly bright, but needed to function in a way “that’s pleasing and that works to keep everyone in character during shooting,” she noted. “Even though we’re going to be in black and white, what colors do we want to see with our eyes on set every day? I tended to go to a lot of jewel tones, then took those colors and did pastels and muted versions of those.”
On screen, a laid-up Mank meets with Orson Welles (Tom Burke) in the film’s present, but in flashbacks we witness him crash and ruin a Hearst estate dinner party, fight the studio cronyism that destroyed Upton Sinclair’s (Bill Nye) burgeoning political career, and enjoy a few heart-to-hearts, unexpectedly thoughtful on both sides, with Marion Davies. Though Summerville rewatched Citizen Kane before diving in, the only aspect of the film she referenced was its backstage, drawing from photos of Orson Welles on the film’s set. Otherwise, the designer turned to historical resources through the Film Academy in Los Angeles, work by photographers like Hedda Harper, and “even with Mank, there’s quite a lot with him on set, there are family photos, I found Bar Mitzvah photos, photos of his kids, there was a lot of daily life photos of him as well.” And of course, there is a slew of books afforded by the fame of Mank’s main characters. “What was nice was that each of the actors who would come in, if there was a book about their character, they were also reading it,” Summerville added.
Finally, the balance of designing in present-day Hollywood for a new take on its well-documented past all came together working with director Fincher, an icon in his own right. “He’s already seen the whole film in his head completed start to finish,” said Summerville. “So when he’s explaining what he wants to you, he’s thought about it for so long his comments are very, very clear, and then he just lets you run with that.”
Mank is streaming now on Netflix.
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You could be forgiven for not quite knowing who to root for in director Adam Wingard’s upcoming Godzilla vs. Kong. Now, on the one hand, Kong is certainly closer to our meager human species genetically, and therefore we might have a rooting interest in his survival based purely on our own fellow-feeling for creatures closer to us. Weighting the scales further is the fact that the first trailer for the film clearly wants us rooting for Kong. It’s set him up as the protector to an orphaned girl named Jia (Kaylee Hottle), and Godzilla as the heavy hellbent on smashing humanity. Yet what we’ve learned from 2014’s Godzilla and 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters is that our nuclear-powered lizard king is actually a good guy. At least he was in those two films. So what’s going on here?
The battle between cinema’s two most legendary monsters comes from a script by Eric Pearson (Thor: Ragnarok, Black Widow) and Max Borenstein (Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island). The trailer is pretty much action, start to finish, which is exactly what you want from a movie about our two most cherished beasts going toe-to-claw. One gets the sense that while we’re being led to believe this is a battle between good (Kong) and evil (Godzilla), there’s going to be more to it than that. It’s hard to imagine we’ve spent two whole films learning Godzilla is actually humanity’s savior only to be made Kong’s foil here. There’s a mention in the trailer that something has triggered Godzilla’s wrath and made him extremely ornery—could this mean it’s not actually Godzilla’s fault, but someone or somethingis making him crazy? Considering the shadowy group Monarch has been meddling in the affairs of Titans in all the Godzilla films and Kong: Skull Island, you know they’ll be up to something here. You’ll also spy a few other monsters in the mix, suggesting that this could go from Godzilla vs. Kong to Godzilla and Kong vs. something truly terrifying.
The cast includes Millie Bobby Brown (fresh from surviving the drama in Godzilla: King of theMonsters) and Kyle Chandler (our Godzilla alumnus nonpareil, he’s been around since the 2014 reboot), with newcomers Brian Tyree Henry, Rebecca Hall, Alexander Skarsgård, Julian Dennison, and Eiza González.
Godzilla vs. Kong hits theaters and HBO Max on March 26. Check out the trailer below:
Here’s your official synopsis:
From Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures comes the long-awaited face-off between two icons in the epic adventure “Godzilla vs. Kong,” directed by Adam Wingard. Legends collide in “Godzilla vs. Kong” as these mythic adversaries meet in a spectacular battle for the ages, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Kong and his protectors undertake a perilous journey to find his true home, and with them is Jia, a young orphaned girl with whom he has formed a unique and powerful bond. But they unexpectedly find themselves in the path of an enraged Godzilla, cutting a swath of destruction across the globe. The epic clash between the two titans—instigated by unseen forces—is only the beginning of the mystery that lies deep within the core of the Earth.
The film stars Alexander Skarsgård (“Big Little Lies,” “The Little Drummer Girl”), Millie Bobby Brown (“Stranger Things”), Rebecca Hall (“Christine,” “Professor Marston and the Wonder Women”), Brian Tyree Henry (“Joker,” “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”), Shun Oguri (“Weathering with You”), Eiza González (“Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw”), Julian Dennison (“Deadpool 2”), with Kyle Chandler (“Godzilla: King of the Monsters”) and Demián Bichir (“The Nun,” “The Hateful Eight”).
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Featured image: Caption: (L-r) GODZILLA battles KONG in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “GODZILLA VS. KONG,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
If you were worried that HBO doesn’t have enough Game of Thrones related projects in the works, you can now breathe a sigh of relief. Variety reveals that George R. R. Martin’s series of novellas, “Tales of Dunk and Egg,” are currently in development. Unlike the current prequel, House of the Dragon, which is set 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones, Tales of Dunk and Egg will be set a mere 90 years before Dany, Jon, Jaime, and the rest. This means there were almost certainly be myriad connections viewers will be able to make, should the series make to air, between Tales of Dunk and Egg‘s storyline and the dark future we know is less than a century away.
For readers of Martin’s work (rather than those of us who merely watched the juggernaut series), “Tales of Dunk and Egg” was something lots of fans were hoping for. In a way, Tales of Dunk and Egg fills a prequel-sized hole that a previous project, from writer Jane Goldman and starring Naomi Watts, left. That would-be series filmed a pilot in 2019, but HBO decided not to move forward with it.
The three novellas that make up Martin’s “Dunk and Egg” series are 1998’s “The Hedge Knight,” 2003’s “The Sworn Sword,” and 2010’s “The Mystery Knight.” They were then collected under the 2015 title “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.” Like Game of Thrones, the series would be made up of hour-long episodes. The novellas follow the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall (Dunk) and a young Aegon V Targaryen (Egg). Meanwhile, House of the Dragon is due in 2022.
On Tuesday, we shared that brief but thrilling glimpse of Godzilla vs. Kong. Now, the Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures film has revealed a new poster ahead of the first trailer, which will drop on Sunday, January 24.
Director Adam Wingard’s film about the battle between cinema’s two most legendary monsters comes from a script by Eric Pearson (Thor: Ragnarok, Black Widow) and Max Borenstein (Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island). The cast includes Millie Bobby Brown (fresh from surviving the drama in Godzilla: King of theMonsters), Brian Tyree Henry, Rebecca Hall, Alexander Skarsgård, Julian Dennison, and Eiza González. Wingard’s creative team includes cinematographer Ben Seresin (World War Z), production designers Owen Patterson (Godzilla, The Matrix Trilogy and Captain America: Civil War) and Tom Hammock (The Guest), and VFX supervisor John “DJ” DesJardin (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Watchmen).
Here’s the full poster:
The new poster for ‘Godzilla vs. Kong.’ Courtesy Warner Bros. & Legendary Pictures.
Godzilla vs. Kong hits theaters and HBO Max on March 26. We’ll be sure to share the trailer when it arrives.
Here’s the official synopsis from Warner Bros.:
Legends collide as Godzilla and Kong, the two most powerful forces of nature, clash on the big screen in a spectacular battle for the ages. As Monarch embarks on a perilous mission into fantastic uncharted terrain, unearthing clues to the Titans’ very origins, a human conspiracy threatens to wipe the creatures, both good and bad, from the face of the earth forever.
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Who better to announce that Bridgerton‘s been picked up for a second season than the show’s narrator, Lady Whistledown (voiced by none other than Julie Andrews)? That’s how the news was shared, via a special edition of Lady Whistledown’s “Society Paper”: “The ton are abuzz with the latest gossip, and so it is my honor to impart to you: Bridgerton shall officially return for a second season. I do hope you have stored a bottle of ratafia for this most delightful occasion.”
Lady Whistledown’s pamphlet goes to explain that the entire cast of Bridgerton is coming back, and production will start this coming spring. “The author has been reliably informed that Lord Anthony Bridgerton intends to dominate the social season,” Lady Whistledown writes, referencing the character played by Jonathan Bailey.
The series, created by showrunner Chris Van Dusen for Shonda Rhimes’ Shondaland, is based on the book series by Julia Quinn. Van Dusen told us in an interview that Bridgerton‘s multiracial Regency-era society was baked into the series’ DNA from the very beginning: “We knew that we wanted the show to reflect the world we live in today. Even though we’re set in the 19th century, we wanted modern audiences to relate to it, and we wanted viewers to see themselves on screen, no matter who you are. I’ve worked in Shondaland pretty much my entire career, since Grey’s Anatomy, and that’s what they do. We cast the best actors for the roles in ways that represent the world today, and we knew from the beginning that we had a similar, really interesting opportunity to do the same with this show.”
The first season was centered on Phoebe Dynevor’s Daphne, the eldest Brigdgerton daughter, and Regé-Jean Page’s Simon Basset. Season two will focus on Lord Anthony Bridgerton as he seeks to find and declare his intentions to a new viscountess.
Bridgerton was a smash hit for Netflix in 2020.
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Today’s a new day in America. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are already hard at work on the many, many massive issues facing the nation, but yesterday, in what felt almost surreal after four years of chaos, the country was treated to an epic display of normalcy. And not just normalcy, but also the more potent elements that make normalcy possible; hope, joy, and a shared sense of duty to look out for one another. The inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States, and the historic ascension of Kamala Harris as the first female Vice President, the first Black Vice President, and the first Asian American Vice President was a day that felt almost impossible just two weeks ago. When Harris raised her right hand and was sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor (another history-maker, the first Hispanic and Latina member of the Court), January 20, 2021’s momentous relevance was brilliantly, exquisitely apparent.
The inauguration was also a showcase for superstars, both seasoned and sparklingly new, to help us savor the history being made. Two weeks after the Capitol was being smashed, stormed, and befouled by a mob of traitors, there was Amanda Gorman, a name you likely didn’t know before yesterday but sure do now, the youngest inaugural poet in history, delivering “The Hill We Climb.” Gorman captured the moment in verse in a poem she struggled to write, but then finally grasped and wrestled into being, only hours after the traitors had hunted for elected officials in the halls of the Capitol. How special, and different, was yesterday? Millions and millions of Americans suddenly not only cared about poetry but were enthralled by it. Moved by it. Stunned by it. Here was the radiant 22-year old Gorman, a native of Los Angeles, synthesizing our dizzying, heartbreaking recent history in a language that felt forged by a wizened poet laureate many, many years older than the young woman on stage. If you weren’t able to catch it yesterday, it’s worth it to just spend the few minutes and watch Gorman’s address. It’s literally dazzling.
Gorman was the newest star to grace the stage, but there were more. Lady Gaga performed a robust National Anthem, accompanied by the United States Marine Band. J. Lo was on hand to sing “This Land Is Your Land,” and later, Garth Brooks delivered a rendition of “Amazing Grace.” Again, that all of this was happening at the very sight where mobs had defiled the entire notion of democracy only two weeks ago was surreal. It was hard to hold onto the competing images in your head, but those disparate sights and sounds, the disparate emotions of 1/6 and 1/20, will need to be processed eventually. Synthesized, as Gorman had so brilliantly done. The mob and the miracle of the democracy it hoped to shatter are extreme versions of the same nation.
There was more. A lot more. The peculiar but now overwhelmingly moving rhythms and rituals of the transition of power continued, albeit it in our new normal of masked up social distancing. There were no crowds, as there had been in inaugurations past, be they the modest, like the crowds at President Trump’s 2017 inauguration, or the massive ones that greeted President Obama in 2008. Once night hit, and after President Biden and Vice President Harris did some of the peoples’ work (signing executive orders, welcoming three new members of Congress), there was more music to be had. In a live special led by Tom Hanks, musical stars including Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, John Legend, and Katy Perry belted out songs that, taking as a thematic collective, leaned on visions of light in the darkness. Perry sang “Firework” to a massive display of actual fireworks over the Mall.
By the time the day was just about over, our late-night hosts seemed as giddy and relieved as so many of us did. The day had gone off beautifully. The peaceful transition of power, once not only considered a given but emblematic of our entire form of government, the ritual we tout to the rest of the world as proof positive of our democracy’s vigor and righteousness, has now been reset. We now have to work to make sure the next transition is peaceful.
It would be disingenuous to say everything’s looking up in the United States right now, but after yesterday, it would also be hard to argue it isn’t looking a little brighter.
Featured image: Amanda Gorman delivered a poem after Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on January 20, 2020. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times NYTINAUG. NYTCREDIT: Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Kimberly Truhler‘s “Film Noir Style: The Killer 1940s” is filled with detail, background, and insightful commentary about the slinky gowns, killer suits, and dashing trench coats that are still fascinating and influence us today. There are chapters on classics like The Maltese Falcon, This Gun for Hire, Lady in the Lake, Out of the Past, and Sunset Boulevard. In part two of our interview she describes the origins of film noir style and explains why her favorite dress is not only beautiful but “a marvel of engineering” and the influence of the directors who came to the US as the Nazis took power.
What were some of the earliest noir films and how did they establish the iconic look of the genre?
The Maltese Falcon (1941) was really the first and it is obviously a giant in the genre. Everything about it established the look of the genre. With regards to the costumes, Orry-Kelly’s vision for Mary Astor’s femme fatale started the trend of bad girls disguising their intentions by dressing like ladies. In this first film noir, we also start to see the minimalism of the decade, an austerity that gets even more apparent once World War II and rationing begins. This Gun for Hire, which came out only a year later in 1942, then brought us Veronica Lake’s iconic look. In addition to her costumes, her hairstyle launched a worldwide trend that continues to be popular today. In both of these films, the men also made a huge impact on style, starting with the suiting of both Humphrey Bogart and Alan Ladd.
THIS GUN FOR HIRE, Veronica Lake, in a gown by Edith Head, 1942. Courtesy Paramount Pictures.
Many of the noir films were directed by men who left Europe to escape the Nazis. How did their experiences and aesthetics establish the genre?
I delve into this in the introduction of my book. Many of the directors involved in film noir started their careers at Germany’s UFA, a production company that was central to the German Expressionist movement. You can see a lot of the origins of film noir in their silent films – the high contrast lighting, experimenting with camera angles, and the overall mood. Their mood and subject matter stemmed from the anger and alienation Germans felt after World War I. Then those filmmakers experienced even more anger and alienation when they were forced to flee Germany in the 1930s. It all manifested in the film noir of the 1940s.
Were there special fabrics or stylistic touches designed to make the most of black and white film?
Some films, like Postman, were designed with costumes in only black and white. Adrian Adolph Greenberg, especially early in his career, actually preferred to design costumes in black or white; fashion shows of his costumes in the 1930s showed this. But a lot of the time, costumes were designed in color. This was done to keep things interesting, both for designers as well as the actresses. Of course, each designer had their own strategy and style voice – some were more maximalist (Adrian) and others were more minimalist (Orry-Kelly). But all costume designers needed to be astute about how colors, textures, and details came across under the lights in black and white film, not to mention how they also looked in full-length shots and close up. Most whites were not a true white, for instance, because it would be blasted out under the bright studio lights. Edith Head famously wore glasses that helped her see how her color costumes would look once they were translated to black and white. Then of course there were photo tests galore before production began to ensure the costumes looked great on film.
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, Lana Turner, 1946. Courtesy MGM.
Your book includes some of the most glamorous and iconic gowns of all time. Do you have a favorite?How about hats?
Hard to pick a favorite dress, but the strapless “Put the Blame on Mame” gown from Gilda (1946) might be at the top of that list. Rita Hayworth’s entire wardrobe from that film makes me swoon. I also love Lizabeth Scott’s gowns in Dead Reckoning (1947). Costumes for both films, I should note, were designed by Jean Louis.
GILDA, Rita Hayworth, 1946, ‘Put the Blame on Mame.’ Courtesy Sony Pictures
As far as hats, the fedora is a constant throughout film noir, seen on everyone from Humphrey Bogart to Robert Mitchum, so that has to be my favorite. In the book, I do bring attention to certain hats for the women, especially Veronica Lake’s in This Gun for Hire. They were designed with vertical rather than horizontal detail in order to give the extremely petite actress the illusion of height.
Yes, the Gilda dress is probably the most famous dress in the book. Why do you call it a marvel of engineering as well as design?
There was so much infrastructure that helped keep that strapless gown in place while Rita danced. I’ll just say there was something like a harness involved and that’s just the start of the story, which of course I share in the book. There are extraordinary details inside the gown that we don’t see in addition to the exceptional darting and other aspects of the design that we do.
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“Film Noir Style: The Killer 1940s” is a new book fromfilm and fashion historian Kimberly Truhler about the influential, iconic, and unforgettably gorgeous costumes that helped define a genre and an era. The book, which is packed with images from the films, explores the way the costumes defined the characters and the way costume design and fashion design influenced each other. “Hollywood costume designers developed American style and replaced European couture as the greatest influence on fashion, especially during the early 1940s,” says Truhler. “Few understand the impact that the Production Code and World War II had on style, especially with regards to rationing, and how Hollywood costume designers worked with and around the restrictions.”
In part one of our interview, Truhler explained how designing for movies is different from designing for retail, why the most dangerous women in film noir movies dressed conservatively, and some of the reasons those movies made 80 years ago are still such a vital part of our culture.
This is a great question and it’s an important distinction. Costume design is about communicating character on screen. Costume designers must work with many other artists – such as directors, production designers, hairstylists, and makeup artists, and the actors themselves – in order to craft designs that reveal character while also contributing to the overall vision of the film. Costume design must have the ability to simultaneously stand out to the audience while also being one with the production. That is very different from fashion design. All that said, the reason I often refer to my work as the history of fashion in film is that there are many points in which costume design and fashion design intersect.
L-r: Carol Landis, Victor Mature, and Betty Grable in “I Wake Up Screaming.” Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox.
They intersect but remain separate.
Yes, costume design and fashion design should not be conflated. Within the study of film, costume designers continue to be given less respect than other artists like directors, screenwriters, cinematographers, and so on, because far too many people think of their work as “just clothes.” Rather, their work is vital to these productions. Costume design is what drew people to the theaters when these films first premiered, and costume design continues to be one of the biggest reasons we revisit them today.
One of the hallmarks of the noir film is the femme fatale, the tough, hard woman who draws the hero into trouble. What did costume designers do signal to the audience what these women were like?How about the “good girls?”
One of the things I discuss in my book is the distinction between femmes fatales and “intrigantes” – women who intrigue. Not all women in film noir are bad. There is a spectrum. Some of the women are good, some don’t necessarily mean to be bad, and others are out and out murderers. But all of the leading ladies are remarkably strong.
In the early days of film, you could often tell the “bad girls” by their costumes. Think of the early vamps, for example. Not so in film noir. The femmes fatales and intrigantes most often dressed like ladies. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, the “bad girl” characters used this ladylike veneer to hide their intentions while committing their crimes. I often refer to the costume designers as their co-conspirators. Another reason is the Production Code. Because these women were often behaving so badly, including being involved with murder, costume design was used as a way to off-set how bad these characters were. When they were dressed like ladies in proper suits and dresses, it was easier for filmmakers to squeak things by censors behind the Production Code. Of course, femmes fatales and intrigantes usually stood out as more glamorous than other characters, particularly with their sensual evening gowns. But these costumes were part of an overall wardrobe that leaned toward respectability.
THIS GUN FOR HIRE, Veronica Lake, in a gown by Edith Head, 1942. Courtesy Paramount Pictures.
Why do the noir films of the 40s still mean so much to us today?
There are a few reasons. One is that their rather minimalist aesthetic is very modern. Think of something like Joan Crawford’s pinstripe suit in Mildred Pierce (1945), for example, a design that continues to influence women’s career wear today. Another is that costume designers still managed to weave some serious glamour into an era with constraints like war rationing. It’s incredible that some of the costume design from film noir remains the most influential of all time on fashion. 1946 is a particularly fruitful year in that regard with Gilda, The Killers, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and The Big Sleep. There’s also just the mood of film noir that we continue to respond to, the mystery and daring within it, which is also communicated through costume. And it’s an era where men and women were on more equal footing, something I explore throughout the book, and we see this reflected in film noir. Women were strong and independent during the 1940s, both on and off the screen. That also seems remarkably modern.
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Did you watch the first two episodes of WandaVision on Disney+ this past Friday? If so, you got a peek at the intriguing new future of the MCU. Showrunner Jac Schaeffer and director Matt Shakman’s series is based on a premise that was likely a delicious challenge to costume designer Mayes C. Rubeo—create a wardrobe that befits Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany)’s bizarre new reality—living in a universe in which they’re trapped, it seems, in an evolving series of sitcoms passed. The superpower couple will traverse decades and sartorial eras from episode to episode, while the deepening mystery of just where they are, how they might get out, and what this all portends for their future grows.
A new video from Marvel gives us a quick tour of what Rubeo and her team have pulled off. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, and now it’s small screen counterpart on Disney+, is of course filled with iconic capes, cowls, and costumes. Yet each series, and especially WandaVision, will introduce looks we’ve never seen in any of the MCU film installments. “The costuming on this is magnificent,” Bettany says in the video. “Maya as a designer is such a genius, such an artist,” Kathryn Hahn, who plays nosy neighbor Agnes, says. Olsen goes on to say that the show, thanks to Rubeo, successfully recreates the various sitcom periods decade by decade. In a sense, Rubeo designed not one show, but many. And in WandaVision, the clothes really do tell a story, one that we’ll all be trying to figure out from one outfit to the next.
Check out the video below. WandaVision episode three will air on January 22 on Disney+, and you can be sure will reveal a whole new glimpse of Rubeo’s handiwork.
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Featured image: (L-r): Paul Bettany as Vision and Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff in Marvel Studios’ WandaVision, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios.
2021 did not get off to a good start, but we’re hoping things start to improve on all fronts, and soon. To that end, the news that Warner Bros.’ Godzilla vs. Kong will arrive two months earlier than we expected qualifies as very good news indeed. Director Adam Wingard’s upcoming film about the battle between cinema’s two most legendary monsters boasts a fantastic cast. Millie Bobby Brown (fresh from surviving the drama in Godzilla: King of theMonsters), Brian Tyree Henry, Rebecca Hall, Alexander Skarsgård, Julian Dennison, and Eiza González. And now, thanks to a Tweet yesterday, we’ve got our first glimpse at this titanic battle. It’s brief but potent:
“Change is nature” the teaser informs us. True enough. One change you might note is that King Kong appears just as big as Godzilla. While we won’t know until we actually see the film how the writers handled the size discrepancy (or Kong’s apparent growth), we were clued in a while ago to their thinking.
“We’re looking at an almost David versus Goliath situation. Because everyone, the moment you say Godzilla’s going to fight Kong, your first reaction is ‘Kong doesn’t stand a chance,’” Michael Doughtery, one of the film’s story architects, told Bloody Disgusting. “You know, it’s like watching Rocky go up against Ivan Drago. It seems like it’s unfair—but clearly, this means the underdog might have a few surprises.”
And about the size discrepancy?
“But then if you really take the time to look at Kong as a character, it’s like, okay, in Skull Island he was an adolescent, so he was still growing,” Dougherty explained. “So who knows how big he is since the 1970s when they first met him? Kong is extremely intelligent. As a primate, he’s a tool-user. So he’s got speed, he’s got agility, he might have some good size.”
Godzilla vs. Kong hits theaters and HBO Max on March 26.
Here’s the official synopsis from Warner Bros.:
Legends collide as Godzilla and Kong, the two most powerful forces of nature, clash on the big screen in a spectacular battle for the ages. As Monarch embarks on a perilous mission into fantastic uncharted terrain, unearthing clues to the Titans’ very origins, a human conspiracy threatens to wipe the creatures, both good and bad, from the face of the earth forever.
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Dream-like piano notes accompany the Yee family as they gaze out the windows of their beat-up station wagon, on their way to a new home in rural Arkansas. Hoping to make it as a farmer, patriarch Jacob (Steven Yeun) is in the process of uprooting his wife, Monica (Yeri Han), and American-born children, Anne (Noel Cho) and David (Alan S. Kim), from California to this sparsely populated corner of the rural South.
Steven Yeun, Alan S. Kim, Yuh-Jung Youn, Yeri Han, Noel Cho Director Lee Isaac Chung Credit: Josh Ethan Johnson
Minari, Lee Isaac Chung’s 2020 Sundance entry which took home the festival’s narrative feature jury prize and the audience award, is an evocative and sometimes heart-wrenching depiction of the nuts and bolts of pursuing the American dream, set to a sensitive, uplifting score by the composer Emile Mosseri.
Emile Mosseri. Photographer Credit: John Marsico
The move is difficult from day one. Husband and wife work together as chicken sexers, separating female chicks, who become egg layers and meat, from the males, which are killed, in a grim basement hatchery. Monica is desperate to move closer to a city and a Korean community. The raised mobile home Jacob bought doesn’t even have stairs to get inside. When the couple and their children are indoors, the only sounds seem to be that of strained conversation.
Steven Yeun. Credit: Melissa Lukenbaugh
Outside their moribund home, however, the vast new property glows under a hot sun, and as Anne and David explore and Jacob’s Korean produce begins to sprout, Mosseri’s music seems to draw the family closer and closer to their land. The composer began working while Minari was only at the script stage, and Lachlan Milne, the DP, was still shooting when he first heard pieces of the score. “He shot more outdoor scenes that gave space to my music, which was such a cool thing for me,” Mosseri says. “It was a dream to see it all come together that way.”
Given the hand-in-hand feeling of the film’s music and its outdoor settings, did Mosseri create any of his compositions in the natural world itself? Not quite. Most of the score was already written — in his Los Angeles studio — before he headed down to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where the film was shot. “Directors and producers can be romantic about a composer being in the physical space outdoors to get inspiration, smelling the smells and feeling the air. I like that idea,” he says, “but most of the music was written before I went down there. But after that I like to think that being there helped. Certainly doesn’t hurt.”
Alan S. Kim, Noel Cho. Credit: Melissa Lukenbaugh/A24
Unable to agree on where to live, what to do for work, or who should care for their children, Jacob and Monica compromise by bringing Monica’s mother, Soonja (Youn Yuh-jung) over from Korea to help care for Anne and David. She’s not, as David points out, a typical grandma. In between watching wrestling on television, however, it’s she who plants the titular minari. For the children, the creek at the edge of their property is a source of snakes and potential danger, but for Soonja, it’s an ideal incubator for her minari seeds, a versatile plant, she tells her grandchildren, which can go in almost anything.
Yuh-jung Youn. Courtesy of A24
But it’s also Soonja’s presence which leads to the most devastating occurrence in a family journey that’s already been plenty difficult. Mosseri’s score, brought in partway through this final, horrible moment, is the release — what we’re witnessing seems like it couldn’t be any worse and yet the scene transforms into a cleansing event, freeing Jacob and Monica of all the angst and unhappiness they’ve held against one other.
Minari is clearly set in the 1980s, but Mosseri avoided any overt musical reference to that era. “We didn’t want a super synthetic score. But I did want to introduce some element from the 80s that was tucked in,” he says, so if you listen carefully, in between a vintage guitar, vocals (both Mosseri’s own) and a Macedonian orchestra, you’ll hear hints of a vintage synthesizer doubled with flutes. “It felt both synthetic and organic at the same time, and there was some unsturdiness to the sound that you couldn’t quite put your finger on. Which served the purpose thematically, referencing the unsturdiness of the family right at that moment but also stylistically, lightly referencing the 80s.”
Instead of looking to the time period for inspiration, the composer drew on the rich vein of the family’s own complicated dynamics. David has a heart murmur. Soonja is more wisecracking than she is tender. The all-white church everyone attends is welcoming, but also a little unintentionally racist. Jacob’s farmhand, Paul (Will Patton), is both knowledgeable and a cuckoo Evangelical who performs exorcisms around the farm fields and drags an enormous wooden cross through backcountry roads every Sunday. These disparate elements of the family’s experience all come together in Mosseri’s score. “I was shooting for a thing, as I initially described it to Isaac, as the music having this glowing, beating heart that’s essentially the heart of the family, which has beauty and is uplifting,” he says, “but also with tension, pain, struggle, and dissonance on top of it.”
Will Patton, Steven Yeun. Credit: Melissa Lukenbaugh/A24
Minari will get a theatrical and on-demand release on February 12.
Over his long and varied career, costume designer Mark Bridges has tackled just about every wardrobe challenge imaginable. His efforts have led to Oscar wins for The Artist (2011) and Phantom Thread (2017), as well as nominations for Inherent Vice (2013) and Joker (2019). But surprisingly, he has never taken on a Western. That changed with News of the World. The latest from Paul Greengrass, the film stars Tom Hanks as Captain Jefferson Kidd, a post-Civil War Confederate veteran who earns his living reading the top newspaper stories from town to town in the South.
“It was very exciting because it was a period that I had not done before,” says Bridges during a Zoom interview. “I’ve worked with Paul Greengrass and I’d work with Tom Hanks, but never in a Western or under these circumstances. We’ve been on a cargo ship (Captain Phillips) and we’ve been around the world with Jason Bourne, but we’ve never been out in the wild in another century.”
(from left) Johanna Leonberger (Helena Zengel) and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks) in “News of the World,” co-written and directed by Paul Greengrass. Photo Credit: Bruce W. Talamon/Universal Pictures
Reminiscent of John Ford’s classic film The Searchers, News of the World finds a world-weary Kidd adrift in a country still recovering from the war. His life is upended when he discovers Johanna (Helena Zengel) abandoned in the wilderness. A young German immigrant, she had been kidnapped years earlier by the Kiowa Indians after they had killed her parents. Tragedy struck a second time when her Native American parents were killed by Texas settlers. Johanna is being escorted by a black Union soldier to reunite with an aunt and uncle when they are ambushed and the soldier is lynched. Kidd rescues the girl but can’t find anyone to take her to her relatives. Reluctantly, he assumes the task.
Their journey is fraught with peril as Kidd and Johanna encounter a harrowing shootout, a lawless settlement run by an autocratic despot, and a deadly windstorm. Bridges wanted the costumes to reflect the intensity of their struggles.
“I’m always looking for ways to tell the story with clothes,” continues Bridges. “We’re looking at everything…the shape of shoes, the shape of hats. We’re looking at original photographs from that period. The minutiae—how wrinkled things are, how a jacket shoulder changes from 1850 to 1870. Maybe not using all of it, but bringing some of that to the project so that it looks kind of period, without distancing the audience.”
Creating all the costumes for both Kidd and Johanna from scratch, Bridges stuck to the natural fabrics of the era, primarily wool and cotton.
“We used a lot of wool because of the traveling and the weather conditions. We’re in a world of no central heating. What you wore on your back protected you from any elements,” explains Bridges. “I have a wonderful staff in New Mexico who did all the cutting. We had fabric woven for Tom’s traveling trousers and his coat—just to get a real hand-loomed feel to that stuff and for them to have a lot of texture.”
As all these pieces were new, they had to be distressed to incorporate the wear and tear a dusty trail would inflict. Bridges brought in Katalina Iturralde, whose expertise is doing just that.
“Sometimes it is very much an act of bravery,” says Bridges. “You take a beautiful frock coat that just came from the tailor and take a piece of sandpaper to it. And then you dip it in water and leave it there for a while.”
Bridges estimates that this process can take approximately two to three days per garment. Each item is constructed with an inner layer that won’t shrink. Care needs to be taken so that the outer material is aged appropriately without damaging the fabric.
It’s a slow, step-by-step process,” continues Bridges. “Work on it. Look at it. Work on it. Look at it. Dry it on a form to take a shape. Multiply that by eight outfits for Tom and a dozen for the young girl. It’s time-consuming and really an art.”
Wanting Kidd to have a commanding presence when he takes the stage to read the news, Bridges made his reading suit a bit more luxurious. Both Kidd’s shirt and vest were made out of silk. It was immediately apparent to Bridges the impact these choices had on Hanks.
“Once we put him in his frock coat and his reading gear, his posture began to change,” remembers Bridges. “The way he carried himself became more —in a positive way — officious. That is always so satisfying and such a happy moment for me.”
L-r: Tom Hanks and Mark Bridges on the set of “News of the World.” Courtesy Universal Pictures.
According to Bridges, the magic often happens when the actor and wardrobe first meet. A fitting gives Bridges the sense of what works and doesn’t, but it also offers insight as to how effective the clothes are in building a character.
“A lot of times, actors just take a moment to take it all in. Once they’re in a costume for the first time, I don’t do a lot of talking. I let them assess and speak first,” says Bridges. “I often think they are running through the script and how they picture the character. Does this fit with that or does this add a layer?”
Because of scheduling, Hanks arrived just before shooting began. Fortunately, Bridges had worked with the actor on Captain Phillips and already had Hanks’ measurements and a sense of his wardrobe strengths. After Hanks fell in love with the boots Bridges made, he knew he was on the right track.
But for Bridges, costume design is an ongoing process. Flexibility is everything. As an example, he cites a hat he made for Kidd to wear with his reading outfit. Hanks initially nixed it. Bridges didn’t argue and just left it in Hanks’ room. Hours later, Hanks realized that the scene called for Kidd to come out of his reading and walk to his hotel room in the rain.
“Tom turned to me and said, ‘I think I’m gonna need that hat,’” Bridges says smiling. “He had never worn it, so I remember thinking ‘Please’ as it went on. It looked perfect and it worked perfectly for the character and the scene. Every step of the way we’re establishing and figuring out what we’re doing.
You’re taking baby steps on establishing who these people are, what the world is, and how to use them to tell a story.”
(from left, center) Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd (Tom Hanks) and Johanna Leonberger (Helena Zengel) in “News of the World,” co-written and directed by Paul Greengrass. Photo Credit: Bruce W. Talamon/Universal Pictures
News of the World is available now on Amazon, Vudu, Apple TV, Google Play, and Fandango.
Director Bong Joon Ho keeps making history. The prodigiously talented filmmaker who wowed the cinematic world with his now-iconic film Parasitewill head the jury of the 78th Venice Film Festival in September, making him the first South Korean director ever picked to be the Lido’s top juror.
Bong made history in early 2020 when Parasite became the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Oh, and he mopped up another three Oscars as well—Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film.
“Venice International Film Festival carries with it a long and varied history, and I’m honored to be woven into its beautiful cinematic tradition,” he said in a statement. “As president of the jury — and more importantly as a perpetual cinephile — I’m ready to admire and applaud all the great films selected by the festival. I’m filled with genuine hope and excitement.”
Bong has been a force in cinema for a long time, well before Parasite made history. In Korea, he’s been a household name since Memories of a Murder in 2003. His fantastic creature-feature The Host was the first South Korean film to hit $10 million in ticket sales in 2006. His sci-fi epic Snowpiercer was a claustrophobic masterpiece, and his first big crossover hit with stars Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, and Ed Harris. Then he delivered Okjato Netflix in 2017, cementing his status as a visionary. Cut to Parasite in 2019, and voila—he’s recognized as one of the best directors in the world.
“The first item of good news regarding the 78th Venice Film Festival is that Bong Joon Ho has enthusiastically agreed to preside over the jury,” Venice’s artistic director Alberto Barbera said in a statement. “We are immensely grateful to him for having agreed to put his passion as a cinephile attentive, inquisitive and unprejudiced at the service of our festival. It is a pleasure and an honor to be able to share the joy of this moment with the countless admirers, throughout the world, of his extraordinary movies.”
The 78th Venice Festival is scheduled to run Sept. 1-11, 2021
Featured image: HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 09: Writer-director Bong Joon-ho, winner of the Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, and International Feature Film awards for “Parasite,” attends the 92nd Annual Academy Awards Governors Ball at Hollywood and Highland on February 09, 2020 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
You might have felt a tremor in the universe yesterday—the Marvel Cinematic Universe, of course—when Deadlinebroke the story that Chris Evans was nearing a deal to return as Captain America. This was major news, and majorly surprising. It was only 2019 when Evans told Scarlett Johannson in an interview for Variety that while he wasn’t a “hard no” on never returning, he felt good about where Cap’s story arc ended up in Avengers: Endgame. “It’s not a hard no, but it’s not an eager yes either,” Evans said to Johansson. “There are other things that I’m working on right now. I think Cap had such a tricky act to stick the landing, and I think they did a really nice job letting him complete his journey. If you’re going to revisit it, it can’t be a cash grab. It can’t be just because the audience wants to be excited. What are we revealing? What are we adding to the story? A lot of things would have to come together.”
You’ll also recall that in the lead-up to the release of Endgame, Evans had made it clear his time carrying the shield was over. Yet here’s Deadline yesterday:
“It’s still vague whether the deal is closed, but insiders say it’s headed in that direction for Evans to return as Steve Rogers aka Captain America in at least one Marvel property, with the door open for a second film. Sources add it’s unlikely to be a new Captain America installment and more likely to be like what Robert Downey Jr. did after Iron Man 3, appearing in such films as Captain America: Civil War and Spider-Man: Homecoming.”
By the end of the day yesterday, Evans had responded.
Evans isn’t not known for being coy about his work, so you have to wonder what’s going on here. Is he really set to return to the role that made him a household name, but he’s not ready to go public about it? He couldn’t have had a better run as Cap, from his first introduction in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger through 2019’s Avengers: Endgame—his run as Steve Rogers was pretty much as good as it gets. And sure, Marvel is nothing if not savvy about bringing back characters that seemed to have moved on—or have died—thanks to their freedom to move back and forward and across time and timelines. Paul Bettany’s Vision was killed by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, but he’s starring in Marvel’s WandaVision on Disney+. Tom Hiddleston’s Loki was killed by Thanos (that dude!) in Avengers: Endgame, but voila, he’s back in Loki on Disney+. In a cinematic universe that contains Infinity Stones, multiverses, and a talking raccoon, there’s literally no narrative hurdle here.
Plus, Evans’ return as Cap would be even simpler to solve. Sure, we left him as an old man at the end of Endgame, handing off his shield to Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson, but that’s hardly a speedbump. Old Cap was living in but one of the multiple timelines explored in that movie alone, and all one would do to see Evans return is jump to another timeline, or simply turn back the clock.
We’ll find out eventually whether Evans is picking up the shield again. For now, it’s Marvel-ous mystery.
Earlier this week we got the initial reactions to Marvel’s WandaVision, the super studio’s first series on Disney+. Those reactions were hugely positive. Now, the more fulsome reviews are coming in, and they’re just as positive. Showrunner Jac Schaeffer and director Matt Shakman took a big swing—thanks in no small part to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige’s involvement—and the result is something entirely new. New, but still connected to the larger MCU, a crucial point.
By now, we assume you know the gist of the show’s premise—Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) are living in some bizarro-world of sitcoms passed. They’ve got the creeping sensation something isn’t quite right, and where exactly they are, and what it means for the larger MCU, is a big part of the mystery surrounding the series.
So let’s take a quick, spoiler-free glance at what the critics are saying.
Liz Shannon Miller, Collider: “No MCU project has had this level of creative ambition to date, and that’s something to celebrate.”
Hoai-Tran Bui, /Film: “The Marvel formula has become predictable enough that anything that was due to shake it up could only be seen as a good thing. And in that regard, WandaVision is almost too much of a good thing — a total rejection of what’s expected of a Marvel Studios project that is so weird and surreal, it feels like you’ve wandered into an episode of The Twilight Zone. The classic series, that is.”
Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter: “WandaVision may not be weirder than Guardians of the Galaxy, which still has a talking raccoon and an adolescent sapling, but there’s something creatively courageous about handing a postmodern exploration of sitcom conventions to an audience expecting snazzy suits and explosions.”
Sam Barsanit, AV Club: “WandaVision is tapping into a power that the MCU has been sitting on for a decade, and like Wanda ripping Thanos apart in Endgame, it’s about time we see what this thing can really do.”
Brandon Katz, Observer: “WandVision works best precisely because it is unlike anything the MCU’s model has ever produced before.”
Ed Power, Daily Telegraph: “As a loving pastiche of creaky American sitcoms WandaVision is endearing. And Olsen and Bettany are clearly having a hoot in their retro frocks and dad sweaters. But it’s that rising dread that will bring Marvel fans scrambling back for more.”
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There’s so much going on with Marvel Studios and Disney+ it’s enough to make your head spin. Yet you’d be hard-pressed to find anything to grouse about, and that goes for this bit of news. The Hollywood Reporterhas learned that May Calamawy, best known for her great work in Hulu’s wonderful Ramy, will be joining Oscar Isaac in Marvel’s upcoming Disney+ series Moon Knight.
The series revolves around one of Marvel’s lesser-known characters, an intriguing figure in Marvel’s massive pantheon of superheroes and villains. Moon Knight already made big news when it was revealed that Isaac would be the lead. Now, as we learn more about who’s joining Isaac in the cast, the contours of Moon Knight will start to take shape. The project is still very much under wraps, but THR reports that production is primed to begin in March in Budapest.
The series will be directed by Mohamed Diab, the director of the Middle Eastern drama Clash (a very clever thriller set entirely inside a police truck during the turmoil following the ousting of Egyptian President Morsi), and Synchronic directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead. (We had a chance to interview Moorhead at the Toronto Film Festival in 2019 when Synchronic premiered.) The character of Moon Knight debuted in 1975 and has undergone several iterations since then. He’s been an ex-Marine and mercenary with various alter egos and a direct line to the Egyptian moon god Khonshu in one popular incarnation. In the modern era, Moon Knight has battled multiple personalities. We don’t know what version of the character Marvel will settle on, but Isaac in the role there will be a ton of interest.
Calamawy has been great as Ramy Youssef’s sister in Ramy, which tracks the titular character, an American Muslim-Arab, as he deals with the various worlds in which he straddles in America. Considering Marvel’s ability to deliver both witty banter and big-time drama, she seems like a perfect fit for the series.
We’ll let you know more about Moon Knight when we learn it.
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