The reviews are in, and F1 has roared onto the scene with all the sound, speed, and spectacle one could hope for in a modern racing blockbuster. Helmed by Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski and bolstered by real Grand Prix footage and a star-powered cast led by Brad Pitt and Damson Idris, F1 is being hailed as a slick, turbo-charged thrill ride, doing for the race track what Maverick did for the fighter-jet-carved skies.
In F1, Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a once-promising Formula One driver coaxed out of semi-retirement for a final shot at glory. He joins APXGP, a struggling team $350 million in the hole, led by Javier Bardem’s Reuben Cervantes. There, he’s partnered with British rookie Josh Pearce (Idris), a rising star with as much ego as talent. The two drivers clash, learn, and inevitably find common ground — all while navigating the pressure-cooker world of elite racing. Real drivers, real tracks, and a thunderous Hans Zimmer score make F1 feel immersive, intense, and, at times, deeply emotional.
Kosinski’s decision to shoot during real F1 races pays off in what The Hollywood Reporter’s Lovia Gyarkye calls “a high-octane adventure” that impressively “threads the realities of Formula 1 into its fictional narrative.” Gyarkye praises the film’s use of actual racing environments, its sharp visuals, and nuanced intergenerational tension between the leads, noting that “there are scenes in F1 that put viewers in the car so as to translate the feelings conjured by such proximity to, well, death.”
Caption: A scene from Apple Original Films’ “F1® The Movie,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures / Apple Original Films
Even though F1 races on a well-worn narrative track, co-writer/director Kosinski, his co-writer Ehren Kruger, and the cast consistently keep the movie moving at a thrillingly breakneck speed, and backed by such winning performances and a dedication to evoking the chills and thrills of real races, the destination still feels fresh. As The New Yorkerwriter Justin Chang has it, “Again and again, F1 finds fresh pathways into familiar material; it keeps its surface-level moves unpredictable even though its overarching trajectory isn’t.”
The chemistry between Pitt and Idris is a clear draw, with F1 mining generational and cultural contrasts to compelling effect. Gyarkye highlights the film’s nods to diversity in the sport, particularly through the inclusion of Lewis Hamilton — Formula 1’s first and only Black driver — who also served as producer and makes a brief but powerful appearance. “It feels like a nod to the future,” Gyarkye writes, “in which access to Formula 1 becomes less prohibitively costly and therefore more inclusive.”
(L-r) DAMSON IDRIS as Joshua Pearce and BRAD PITT as Sonny Hayes in Apple Original Films’ “F1® The Movie,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures / Apple Original Films
Kerry Condon, playing pioneering technical director Kate McKenna, adds further emotional depth and credibility to the APXGP team dynamic. And fans will spot real-life racing superstars like Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, and Lando Norris making cameos as the film speeds through a fictionalized but recognizable 24-race season.
Caption: (L-r) BRAD PITT as Sonny Hayes and KERRY CONDON as Kate in Apple Original Films’ “F1® The Movie,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures / Apple Original Films
With nearly every critic praising the perfect fit that is Brad Pitt playing an older, apparently washed-up racer with some gas left in the tank, Consequence‘s Liz Shannon Miller wonders what it was like for another star around the same age to watch the pyrotechniques Pitt’s involved in during the film. “While Tom Cruise already did his big race car movie back in 1990, it’s easy to imagine him watching F1 and seething with jealousy. Because the racing sequences look like they were as thrilling to shoot as they are to watch.”
Caption: A scene from Apple Original Films’ “F1® The Movie,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Photo by Scott Garfield Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures / Apple Original Films
Empire Magazine’s Sophie Butcher marvels at Kosinski’s ability to make riveting, fresh-feeling cinematic material out of beastly machines like fighter jets and race cars. “Joseph Kosinski has done it again. F1 combines unparalleled access, pioneering filmmaking, and moving redemption arcs to deliver an exhilarating cinematic experience. What will he attach a camera to next?”
The AP’s Jake Coyle agrees, calling F1 “a fine-tuned machine of a movie that, in its most riveting racing scenes, approaches a kind of high-speed splendor.”
With F1: The Movie hitting theaters on June 27 ahead of a streaming release on Apple TV+, buckle up. Whether you’re a diehard racing fan or just love a good comeback story, F1 is designed to leave your pulse racing.
Featured image: Caption: (L-r) DAMSON IDRIS as Joshua Pearce and BRAD PITT as Sonny Hayes in Apple Original Films’ “F1® The Movie,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Early on in The Phoenician Scheme, Benicio del Toro’s billionaire character Zsa Zsa Korda tells one of his nine sons, “Never buy good pictures. Buy masterpieces.” The line comes and goes in a flash, but Zsa Zsa’s not kidding, and neither was director Wes Anderson. So, Anderson and his team built out a palatial realm brimming with real paintings — not reproductions — created by the likes of legendary artists, including Renoir, Magritte, and dozens of other European Old Masters.
To wrangle the masterpieces, Anderson turned to Jasper Sharp, who runs the Kunsthistorisches Museum’s Modern and Contemporary art program in Vienna. Sharp got to know Anderson and his romantic partner, Juman Malouf, when they guest-curated a massive exhibition at the museum in 2018.
As the man in charge of the Very Important Paintings that took up temporary residence on The Phoenician Scheme soundstage in Potsdam, Germany, Sharp treated his VIP responsibilities with an eye toward enriching the film’s story. “All these paintings are either companions to certain episodes in the plot or they’re helping accelerate the audience’s process of understanding who these characters are,” Sharp says. “There are, if you like, little subliminal messages buried in each of the artworks.”
Speaking from his home in Vienna,Sharp details the Greta Garbo/Renoir connection and explains how he helped Wes Anderson build out the art-friendly realm dominated by billionaire extraordinaire Zsa Zsa Korda.
It’s fascinating but not terribly surprising that Wes Anderson, of all filmmakers, has an art curator on staff. Did he send you a script to bring you in on The Phoenician Scheme?
I never got a script; it was a voice note. A long voice note. When it’s a four-and-a-half-minute long, you get a pen and paper and start taking notes.
What did Wes say in his voice note?
He let me know that the lead character had to have an art collection, mentioned a couple of specific artists, and asked if I could find collectors or a museum to lend the art. And, oh by the way, we have three months. As someone who spends most of my life working in museums, we have at minimum 18 months lead time to even entertain the thought of getting someone to lend a piece of art, so my first thought was “This is amazing,” and then it was “I wish we had more time.” But I said to Wes, let’s just give it a go.
Wes Anderson is well known for being unusually particular in his choices. Did you have much leeway in selecting pieces of art for this movie?
I got a lot of direction from Wes and the production team to start the search, but there was also enough wiggle room for me to suggest things. In some cases, Wes was quite specific. For example, he requested a Renoir portrait of a child. We found Enfant Assis en Robe Bleue, a portrait of Renoir’s nephew, Edmund. Most people might assume it’s a girl, because of the long hair and the blue gown, but that was actually the fashion for a young, well-to-do boy in France at the time. Requests for more modern work started out as Cubist and then changed to Surrealist, which becameRené Magritte’s 1942 paintingThe Equator. Andthen there were requests for Old Masters paintings and sculpture.
Your connections within the European art world clearly came in handy.
I knew a couple in Berlin who have one of the preeminent collections of surrealism in Europe. I’d worked with them when I was at the Guggenheim in Venice 20 years ago, so I approached the widow [and her team] and they said, “We’ve never heard of Wes, but we find this really interesting.” I went through the catalog of their collection and sent Wes a bunch of images — Max Ernst, Dali, Picasso. We decided that Benicio del Toro’s enigmatic billionaire character Zsa Zsa Korda wouldn’t buy the obvious things. A Picasso or Dali might be owned by somebody who has pots of money but doesn’t think much, whereas Magritte is a little more sophisticated, and that suits Zsa Zsa’s intellect. There were a series of conversations like that which led to the selections.
With the movie being shot in Potsdam, Germany, geography also played a role, right?
Yes. We couldn’t get Wes’ favorite Renoir because it’s in Chicago, and it’s really expensive to move art around these days, between the insurance and everything. Our Renoir came from Geneva. All the Old Masters came from Hamburg in northern Germany. There was an element of pragmatism in finding things close to home, as we didn’t want to exceed the budget.
Was there a part of you that wondered, “Wes, why don’t you just get reproductions?” It would be so much easier.
Do you know that question never even crossed my mind! It’s not about whether the audience member sitting in a Seattle movie theater recognizes that this Renoir is original or not. It’s about what having an original painting on set does to the performances from the actors and actresses. When Liesel [Mia Threapleton] is in her bedroom with the Renoir painting and she’s woken by a flashlight in the face and told to get up and pack her suitcase, she’s wearing a nightgown designed by one of the world’s most exciting costume designers [Milena Canonero], which already changes how she behaves. She’s lying on a mattress, which is stuffed with horse hair, which no one sees but would have been found in a well-to-do home in Italy in the 1950s. And Liesel’s bed is covered with vintage French linen, which the production team sourced and sewed together to cover the mattress. Her rosary is designed by Cartier.
Did you get a chance to see the actors engaging with the art on set?
Yes, and it was fascinating. I watched the Renoir arrive, the last thing that came onto the set, so people were not walking around with booms and stuff. I noticed that during every break in filming, the actors moved toward the painting, wanting to spend time with it. Eventually, Wes introduced me to Benicio. He said the paintings brought a wonderful nervous energy to the set and asked me about the Renoir. I told him the Renoir had been owned by Greta Garbo, and for more than forty years, it hung in her apartment overlooking the East River. He was so excited that this was his picture, for two days, from the time they said “Action” to the time they said “Cut.” His reaction was enough to justify all the logistics, time, energy, and expense it took to get these artworks to the set so that these actors could be surrounded by incredible Old Masters.
And all the artworks in the film are basically signposts for aspects of the plot or his character. Nobody would buy a Renoir unless he had a streak of tenderness. Zsa Zsa seems incapable of displaying tenderness, but that painting is almost a trailer for something to come.
You first met Wes Anderson when he and his romantic partner guest-curated an exhibition in Vienna. Now, having collaborated as well on The Phoenician Scheme, what’s your takeaway about the experience of working with someone who has such specific ideas about what he wants?
There’ll be a moment of pause from Wes if somebody tells him, “That’s not possible.” He’ll continue to ask the question in a different way until it is possible. Wes might say, “Is this a hard no, is it a soft no, and why is it a no?” So, when Wes invited me to work on this film, I knew I’d learn something from him and this astonishingly quick, efficient, imaginative, and fun group of people. It’s kind of like a circus troupe that he’s gathered over the years. I now understand how Wes has been able to be so prolific with his filmmaking, because everyone is kind of dancing to the same drumbeat. You have to listen to the drum and tune yourself in and go with it.
It sounds like your creativity is stimulated rather than restrained by the fact that Wes Anderson is so clear about the story he wants to tell.
You get a script from Wes, and every full stop, comma, semi-colon, everything is carved in stone, but not in a way that feels like a straitjacket. It’s almost like seeing something being born as a fully grown adult. His thing is just there, developed and mature. In some cases, I suppose that could feel somewhat limiting, but with Wes, each project has an air of the impossible. That attracts people who like to do things that have never been done before. It’s all about upping the ante.
In 1964, Queens, a woman named Catherine Genovese was attacked and murdered outside her New York apartment. Even after screaming for help, none of the neighboring witnesses called the police. The case became infamous for what is known as the bystander effect, which suggests that the more people present in a social situation, the less likely anyone is to step in and assist. Now, imagine living in a zombie apocalypse. Not among the infected who want to eat you alive, but instead, you’re one of the lucky ones relaxing in Bali or skiing in Colorado, knowing full well that an island of innocent people is pretty much cooked. Are you ok with that? It’s a question that underlines the many themes in Danny Boyle’s cult classic follow-up, 28 Years Later.Humanity has tried all that it could to reverse the dystopian disaster (see 28 Weeks Later), but now, theempathy-altruism hypothesis has been completely tossed out the window, and the entire planet is left holding the phone, wondering whether to make that call.
The story, penned by Alex Garland, picks up with Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), his wife Isla (Jodie Comer), and their 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams) together in a community away from the chaos – only the high tide separates them from danger. The village has one rule: There are no search parties if you’ve gone missing. What happens next? Jamie takes Spike over the causeway to kill his first infected, and despite returning safely, it does not go as planned. However, a silver lining is that the boy discovers a doctor living there who can help his ailing mother. Returning is a risk he’s willing to take. What unfolds is a journey between a mother and son, exploring themes of hope, defiance, family, and mortality. Oh, and monsters. Flesh-eating, horrifically frightening monsters.
Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his son Spike (Alfie Williams) in Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
Creating the unsettling gore was partly the responsibility of the visual effects team, overseen by VFX supervisor Adam Gascoyne of Union VFX. The London-based facility has a sister shop in Montreal and was co-founded by Gascoyne and Tim Caplan in 2008. They have since had their hand on projects like The Two Popes, The Banshees of Inisherin, Saltburn, and television series The Regime and Slow Horses. Alongside Gascoyne, supporting Boyle’s vision were cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, special effects supervisor Sam Conway, hair and makeup designer Flora Moody, and special makeup effects supervisor John Nolan. Together, they crafted an in-camera first approach to the physical presence of the infected. And after nearly three decades, they have evolved, hunting in packs with some becoming beastly alphas, while others mutating into tubby manatee-like ground feeders.
Below, Gascoyne discusses how visual effects took part in making bloody kills, terrifying monsters, and shooting on a rig made up of20 iPhones to energize the immersive, bone-chilling sequel.
In prep, what did Danny talk about in terms of grounding the realism of the environment?
The first thing they decided was where to place it. They took it away from the urbanization of the UK, which is what usually would pose an issue when you’re making a film like this, because you have to deal with the decay of a city. So they put it in the north of England, where there’s so much wilderness up there, and it sort of made sense that these people would flee to this isolated island where they’re pretty safe and set up these communities.
What happened next?
I think that the exploration of the media to shoot it on iPhones and various other formats was viewed as a way to keep everything very light and nimble. But to contrast that, to pick the aspect ratio they shot at to really capture these amazing huge wildernesses that we were in. We had a very good starting point from which to head in the right direction.
Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (right) on the set of Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
During testing, did you find that there needed to be a bare minimum amount of data in the image to achieve the results you were looking for? Like using ProRes RAW versus the ProRes codec?
We did quite extensive camera testing. You never get as much time as you want to do that sort of stuff, but also with working with Danny and Anthony for probably about 25 years, you learn that there’s no real limit to the different types of cameras or the number of cameras they’ll use. We’ve shot with everything from SI-2Ks to GoPros, and now we’ve shot with iPhones. Some days, we had over 36 iPhones running on the set. Anthony’s always shot with multiple formats. That’s just one of the things that they do. And that’s what gives the film such great texture. Some technical issues arose from the ProRes 422, but we managed to work a pipeline around them. And it was great to work with the footage. It wasn’t really that much of a surprise.
A berserker on the set of Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
What was the collab between practical makeup and vfx in creating the bad ass herculean alpha infected who are smarter and more evolved than the normal infected?
The thing about working with Danny and VFX is that he never really wants to show the visual effects. In a way, he wants to be invisible 100 percent. He wants to feel like you’ve just discovered these environments or these creatures that are kind of perfectly, as if you would have captured them in-camera. So that’s how we approached the Alphas. It was prosthetics.
So, these were actual, very large and imposing people?
Danny found enormous guys to wear these prosthetics. One of them was an MMA fighter [Chi Lewis-Parry]. The other was a basketball player. And that was their starting point. And then they went through a whole series of sort of development of ideas of what would have happened to these guys and how they evolved into these pretty terrifying, very fast monsters.
That’s great. Was there any cleanup involved with the alphas, or pretty much as is?
Yeah, that’s pretty much as is. I mean, there was stuff that we did throughout the movie that sort of helped some of the illusions. But most, I mean, we had some great people on set who were taking care of that. Obviously, the stunt guy, when they’re doing stunts, they have to wear certain safety gear. So we did get rid of some of that and harnesses and things like that. However, a great prosthetics team was involved.
With everything having an in-camera feel, did you need to create digital doubles for the larger swarms of infected?
There was never an instance where we needed hundreds of them. They were all in small packs and hunted that way. We did endeavor to do everything in-camera, but there are some doubles in very wide shots that we couldn’t capture. So we did make digi doubles and used them a handful of times. But we did try to steer clear of that again because Danny just wanted to capture the sort of terrifying chases in-camera because it’s much more visceral if you do it that way.
The bow and arrow are the go-to weapons for the people of the town, and we get to see plenty of bloody kills. What was the collaboration in creating those moments?
We did work very closely with Sam on special effects for the arrow hits. He prepared these amazing squibs, which would go off, and gave these beautiful crowns of blood as the arrows went through. So we removed the squib element of it, and that was quite a big part of the work. But the actual crowns of blood were all captured in-camera. So Sam and his team did a great job there.
Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his son Spike (Alfie Williams) in Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle created these beautifully soft moments, almost out of focus. Did VFX have to replicate that look for any of the work?
Anthony has a box of tricks. He’s a master at creating these beautiful images, and we did. We did try to replicate some of that in some of the sequences, just by softening and trying to sort of increase the atmosphere in some shots. Certainly, on the causeway and in some of the later scenes, we tried to mimic it.
An infected on the set of Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
Speaking of the causeway, there’s a scene where Spike and his father dash across trying to escape an alpha. We’re guessing the heavy-lifting was in water work?
There’s quite a significant amount of work in that particular sequence. We had to create an environment for that to happen in, and then extend all that water out and put it in the sky. We had some amazing photographic references from photographer Dan Monk at the Kielder Forest Observatory. There are certain times of the year when the Milky Way is perfectly clear because there’s no light pollution around. So, it inspired us to put this amazing sky above the causeway, because we felt that, after 28 years of no light pollution, you would see these amazing, beautiful vistas at night.
What kind of practical set made the causeway?
We had about a 100-meter stretch of water, and then we recreated the environment and extended the water out. We did play around with the contact water hat a little bit, too.
Yeah, when their feet touch the water, there’s almost a glow. It reminded me of the bioluminescent waves created by plankton, which you can see near San Francisco.
Yes, the sort of luminescent plankton that you get. Yeah, that was definitely the idea behind some of that brighter wake.
Some shots were recorded with a rig mounted with20 iPhones. What was the visual effects’ involvement in making that happen?
We put together a similar rig on a previous job using different cameras, so Anthony and I had some experience with that on our last job. So, we took what we learned from that and tried to build a slightly more portable and robust rig. We had a 20-camera rig and a 10-camera rig, which was more handheld. With the 20-camera rig, we did a lot of testing. A lot of prototypes were made by the grips. It was a really great piece of kit, and it was a lot of fun to use. A lot of R&D went into it, but when you see the blood from when the arrows hit, I think it really does do what we set out to do, which was the gore.
DP Anthony Dod Mantle (left)with Director Danny Boyle (right)on the set of Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
Danny is a director who consistently pushes the technical side of filmmaking, and that’s not a bad thing.
The fact that we just made a film with iPhones, hopefully, that’s going to inspire somebody to go out there, pick up a phone, and make a movie. It was similar to the original film, which used Canon XL1 DV cameras. Suddenly, you could go and buy a consumer camera, and it was okay to go out and make something. And out of that, you get the films like Blair Witch and all these other films that come from the idea of making films from consumer cameras. It’s a good thing to keep the surprises going.
28 Years Later is in theaters now.
Featured image: An infected in Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
The Punisher is ready to make his big-screen debut.
Jon Bernthal’s lethal vigilante will be making his grand entrance into the MCU after a long stint on the small screen when he punches his way into Tom Holland’s 4th Spidey movie, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, from director Destin Daniel Cretton. Bernthal’s run as the rough, ruthless Frank Castle began on Netflix when he appeared in the original Daredevil series, followed by his own show on the streamer. Bernthal reprised the character for Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again, which brought the odd couple back to the streets of New York, now run by their sworn enemy, Mayor William Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio).
Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s script is being tightly wrapped in spiderwebs, with rumors flying around about potential villains and major cameos. Officially adding Bernthal’s antihero finally gives us a bit more information—we’ve already known that Zendaya’s MJ and Jacob Batalon’s Ned would be reprising their roles—and the addition of new cast member Sadie Sinkhas led many MCU speculators to opine that she’s set to play the iconic X-Men character Jean Grey, previously played by Sophie Turner and Famke Janssen. This could make a lot of sense as the outlines of the larger MCU start to take shape. We know that previous X-Men performers from Janssen’s era are joining the MCU for Avengers: Doomsday—Patrick Stewart, James Marsden, Alan Cumming, Kelsey Grammer, and Ian McKellen. Doomsday arrives in theaters before Spider-Man: Brand New Day on May 1, 2026, and will have direct implications over what Cretton and his team have cooked up for Spidey, whoever Sink is playing.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be true to its title, given that the last installment, No Way Home, ended with Spider-Man and friends having successfully erased the world’s memory of the fact that he was, indeed, Peter Parker. This also meant erasing MJ’s memory of being in love with him, resetting their relationship to square one—he’s a stranger to her. Ouch.
Bernthal’s Frank Castle gives Brand New Day a level of grit and dark grandeur that the franchise hasn’t had in its illustrious, critically and commercially acclaimed run during Holland’s tenure. Although we know the Punisher will be but one of quite a few big-name characters who will be mixing it up with Spidey in the film.
During CinemaCon, Holland sent along a video to tease his fourth turn as Peter Parker.
“I am so sorry I can’t be with you. I am halfway around the world shooting a movie,” said Holland, who was filming with his longtime co-star Zendaya, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, and more for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. “I know we left you with a massive cliff hanger at the end of No Way Home, so Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a fresh start. It is exactly that. That’s all I can say.”
“I’m spending my time exploring the next stage of this amazing character with a team of the most incredible artists in the world,” Cretton said at CinemaCon. “We’re all just daily nerding out over the suit, how to swing, how to create an event, an emotional story, and a ride that we haven’t really seen before.”
Brand New Day is set to hit theaters on July 31, 2026, with production beginning this summer.
For more on all things Spider-Man, check out these stories:
When we spoke with Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle about lensing director Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later, he was clear that the ethos behind continuing the chilling saga that first began with Boyle’s grimy, gruesome, brilliant 28 Days Later in 2002 was that the new film would function just as well on its own. “28 Years Later is not a sequel, it’s a standalone film that reveres something that has gone before but takes it further and onward and upward, with Alex Garland as the writer,” Mantle told us. “Therein lies the dichotomy of revisiting a phenomenon that you want to make better.”
The man was telling the truth. 28 Years Later is being hailed as a cinematic thunderclap that could easily stand on its own as one of the best films of the year. “Expectations were already high for 28 Years Later… and the film shatters them,” writes MovieWeb‘s Julian Roman. Roman calls the film a “raw and unflinching exploration of a post-apocalyptic world decimated by the Rage Virus. 28 Years Later rivets with jarring imagery, disturbing sound, brilliant editing, and a gut-wrenching sense of loss, all paired with a truly surprising narrative — nothing you’ve seen from the trailers reveals the actual plot.”
28 Years Later stars Jodie Comer as Isla, Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Jamie, and Alfie Williams as their 12-year-old son, Spike, who live on the island village of Lindisfarne. The “Rage Virus” has decimated mainland England, which is connected to Lindisfarne by a heavily fortified tidal causeway. Jamie takes Spike on a rite of passage to hunt on the mainland, where things go very, very badly. Boyle and Mantle decided to shoot the film on the same extreme wide-screen format used back in 1959 for the sword-and-sandals epic Ben-Hur—they also shot a huge chunk of the film on iPhones. The script, by Alex Garland, has not only evolved the concepts underpinning the rage virus, but also centers on a tender coming-of-age story that just happens to be set in the middle of a bloody nightmare. The result is a film that’s unexpectedly moving.
A berserker on the set of Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.Spike (Alfie Williams), Isla (Jodie Comer) and Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) in Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
The critics say that the effort to create something singular has paid off, as 28 Years Later ups the ante on Boyle and Garland’s original by infusing the film with heart, and taking major chances on what kind of story they could tell.
“Danny Boyle’s best film is 2002’s edgy, grimy, frenzied zombie shocker 28 Days Later… Or it was, because 28 Years Later – wilder, weirder, darker, bloodier – is even better,” writes the London Evening Standard‘s Nick Howells.
“28 Years Later easily cements itself as one of the greatest legacy sequels ever made,” writes Discussing Film’s Bill Bria.
“Typically, we look to adrenaline-fueled entertainment for catharsis. Boyle’s thrilling reboot offers enlightenment as well,” writes Variety‘s Peter Debruge.
But fear not, horror fans—28 Years Later is still very much here to freak you out, too.
An infected in Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
“Boyle and Garland push the gore and violence further, leading to fascinating developments,” writes Bloody Disgusting’s Meagan Navarro. “This riveting blend of horror and heart reminds that death, horror’s favorite equalizer, can be as beautiful as it can be cruel.”
“What Boyle does with this story, Garland’s setting being in the Scottish Highlands, is make the landscape so captivating that when the darker parts seep in, you’re shocked by what you’re watching,” writes The Mary Sue‘s Rachel Leishman.
Shocked, but also moved. Plenty of critics were surprised by how much emotion and heart Boyle and Garland threaded through the film.
28 Years Later eschews the raw terror of the original in favor of a tense but tender — and unexpectedly moving — story about the weight of death in a world gone mad. *very* strange. very good. can’t wait to see the next part.
28 Years Later eschews the raw terror of the original in favor of a tense but tender — and unexpectedly moving — story about the weight of death in a world gone mad. *very* strange. very good. can’t wait to see the next part.
#28YearsLater is an absolutely beautiful coming-of-rage horror. Performances are superb across the board, especially the phenomenal Alfie Williams. The sound design is remarkable. What an ingenious way to execute a sequel. I cried quite a bit. 💀 ❤️ pic.twitter.com/8ZbPDZyueF
#28YearsLater is an absolutely beautiful coming-of-rage horror. Performances are superb across the board, especially the phenomenal Alfie Williams. The sound design is remarkable. What an ingenious way to execute a sequel. I cried quite a bit. 💀 ❤️ pic.twitter.com/8ZbPDZyueF
The first trailer for writer/director Scott Cooper’s Deliver Me From Nowhere is here, giving us our first look at Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen at a crucial point in his legendary career. Cooper’s film, based on the book “Deliver Me from Nowhere” by Warren Zanes, follows Springsteen’s soulful, searching process of making his seminal 1982 album “Nebraska,” back when the Boss was still finding his voice and his place in the world.
Springsteen’s journey to make “Nebraska” feels tailor-made for a cinematic adaptation, and White certainly looks and sounds the part in this first glimpse. Springsteen recorded the album on a 4-track recorder in his New Jersey bedroom, a haunting, self-searching acoustic work that plumbed his past. “Nebraska” was a stripped-down, acoustic meditation on American darkness and marked a radical departure from his arena-rock anthems. It has become one of his most enduring legacies and is often cited as one of the greatest albums of the 1980s, according to Rolling Stone, as well as one of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
White appears to be a great casting choice here, capturing Springsteen’s depth, his essential vulnerability matched by his legendary intensity and work ethic. It’s also a great moment in Springsteen’s career to portray, at a moment when the Boss was at a crossroads between his Jersey boy blue-collar rock stardom and his calling to dig deeper and explore more of his artistic sensibility.
Joining White are Jeremy Strong as Springsteen’s long-time confidant and manager, Jon Landau; Paul Walter Hauser as guitar tech Mike Batlan; Stephen Graham as Springsteen’s father, Doug, Odessa Young as love interest, Faye; Gaby Hoffman as Springsteen’s mom, Adele; Marc Maron as Chuck Plotkin, and David Krumholtz as Columbia executive, Al Teller.
Check out the trailer below. Deliver Me From Nowhere hits theaters on October 24.
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Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle helped unleash an indie-film revolution as a key member of Denmark’s Dogma movement, utilizing handheld digital video camcorders and available light to shoot dramas of unsettling intensity. In 2002, he drew on that low-tech aesthetic to film 28 Days Later for director Danny Boyle. Now, six movies into their ongoing collaboration, comes 28 Years Later (opening Friday, June 20). “Having made quite a few films together, I think our legacy is that we try to reboot in everything we do,” Mantle says. “28 Years Later is not a sequel, it’s a standalone film that reveres something that has gone before but takes it further and onward and upward, with Alex Garland as the writer. Therein lies the dichotomy of revisiting a phenomenon that you want to make better.”
Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jack O’Connell, Alfie Williams, and Ralph Fiennes star in 28 Years Later as new characters, but it’s the same old “Rage Virus” that’s laid waste to “Mainland” England while hardy survivalists seclude themselves on a nearby island. Unusual for a horror film, 28 Years Later is presented in the same extreme wide-screen format used back in 1959 for the sword-and-sandals epic Ben-Hur. In a thoroughly modern enhancement, Mantle shot this wide-scream zombie movie primarily on iPhones.
Speaking from a hotel in London, where he’s working on Kevin Macdonald’s next movie, Mantle discusses his Dogma days and the challenges of making a big picture on tiny cameras.
Your involvement in nerve-rattling Dogma films from directors like Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg inspired a generation of filmmakers, including Danny Boyle. He tried reaching out after seeing your work in The Celebration?
Danny’s making The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio. After he saw Celebration, he called me. I figured it was a joke, ignored the call, and went out with my little kid in his pram. A few days later, Danny calls again: “Maybe you didn’t get my message?” This time I thought “I guess it really is Danny Boyle.” I called him back, and he’s very humble and nice. Within weeks, I was doing two TV dramas with him, and that escalated into 28 Days Later. That lay on the foundation of all the Dogma stuff I had done with Vinterberg, Lars, and the others.
DP Anthony Dod Mantle (left)with Director Danny Boyle (right)on the set of Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
You’re English-born but moved to Copenhagen in your twenties?
Well, I didn’t have a proper job because I was basically a backpacker, traveling the world, like Alex Garland. But I was interested in photography. At the age of 25, I worked as a p.a. in London and realized very quickly that the commercial world was not for me. I was more emotionally driven. I got into the National Film School of Denmark and found myself with this young, mixed bag of very volatile artists. I adored reality and loved having one foot in the puddle and my thoughts in the air. Poetic ideas and the mud of real life combined well with me in stories that are capable of rendering that mix of art, politics, and poetry, and 28 Years Later is no exception.
Dogma is famous for its rules, and you seemed to thrive within those limitations.
Dogma was about re-igniting old ideas in new ways. It was a philosophy, and within this set of rules, there was a wonderful restrictive element, as well as a kind of combustion that provided the ticking bomb that could explode into something quite exciting.
What were the rules or creative brief that Danny Boyle had in mind when he asked you to shoot 28 Years Later?
Danny always talks about being light on your feet and re-prioritizing certain elements of filmmaking that are not about having a gigantic unit base stuck in one place and then moving millions of tons [of gear]. So with 28 Years Later, the first thing he said is that he wanted to explore, as spontaneously as possible, areas out there that you don’t normally get to explore because of permits, inaccessibility and all those damn complicating issues that make filmmaking so hard. The second thing was about capturing this film as much as possible on small instruments. He loves the mobility, the experimentation, the elasticity, and the verve of certain tools. I’ve spent a lot of time with lightweight tools. I’m not scared of them, so I spent time helping Danny understand them.
Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (right) on the set of Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
How did the iPhone 15 emerge as the go-to camera for 28 Years Later?
Danny was pretty excited about using the phone, whether it was a directorial whim or whatever. The first tests for this film were about figuring out what I could do and couldn’t do, or what I would have trouble doing [with the phones]. That could get a little bit sticky at times because what I wanted to do more than anything is to please Danny – that’s my job! But it was hard sometimes to find the way forward on this one. Every day, it was debated and discussed. My ultimate collection of tools and paintbrushes was not exactly what Danny had imagined.
How so?
In this film, there were other cameras, other drones, and other systems that were used. Still, a lot of 28 Years Later was shot the way he wanted.
Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle on the set of Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
Which was. . .
Danny was very vocal about wanting to use the array system, the bar cam. Originally, it was going to be eight phones in a row, in a curve. Then we went with 20 [phones]. The rig was 3D printed, which my grips then developed, because the rig had to be lightweight enough that you could move it around with your hands. Those rigs also ended up on cranes.
A berserker on the set of Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
How did the iPhone rigs affect the textures of filmmaking?
Not only is the rig used to create this sort of violent blur of faces, but it is also a denial of informing an actor, or even me, for that matter, who’s holding the camera, which specific frame is going to be used. That’s something we’d also done in Dogma, especially in Celebration – I refused to tell these wonderful actors where I was going to be, or I’d lie to them. “I’m going to be over there.” It was a playful experiment, a journey.
Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) and Spike (Alfie Williams) in Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
You’re using very small phone-cameras to render an extremely wide screen image with an aspect ratio that gives 28 Years Later this almost heroic scale. Why did you guys decide to go so wide?
Heroic is the word. Basically, we wanted to put a lot of people in the middle of a frame, almost like Wes Anderson, in what I call the “tense punch.” Technically, the capability of these cameras was not as sharp out on the sides. In a similar way that the automatic zoom and so forth helped define the Dogma aesthetic, Danny is invigorated by that kind of thing and sees [the technology] as potential DNA for a story. And because it’s a studio film, Danny wanted it to look like a studio film. Anyway, for the longest time, I had every intention, in agreement with Danny, to shoot 2.39:1 [wide screen format].
Spike (Alfie Williams), Isla (Jodie Comer) and Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) in Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
But then it wound up being even wider, at 2:76, like Ben-Hur. How’d that happen?
Very late in my tests, I noticed a little bit of real estate out on the side, still lurking there, not particularly sharp, but it was still real estate, like building a little house at the bottom of a garden. Danny and I agreed in like three seconds, “Yeah, let’s have it be 2.76:1 We wanted to plop the characters amid this enormous expanse of nature, so the space is very interesting for expressing the loneliness, the vulnerability our protagonists experience within this landscape that they travel through.
The horror elements in both 28 Days Later and now 28 Years Later provide a visceral wallop to the larger themes built into the story. What scenes scared you the most when you shot them?
In 28 Days Later, it was when the young boy suddenly falls out from behind a door, suggesting violence that was not altogether visualized. I have children. That messed with my head for a long time. With 28 Years Later, it’s the darkness introduced quite quickly in the church scene with the mad pastor, along with the Infected, who are always going to be the prime warning of things to come around the corner. That all works. But I think the film transforms into an emotional chamber piece drama first through the family [relationships] and then with the child trying to save his mother’s life. It’s fiercely difficult to navigate those emotional bonds and, at the same time, respect the genre of a horror film. I shared a lot of conversations with Danny about how to do that.
Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), Isla (Jodie Comer) and Spike (Alfie Williams) in Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
28 Years Later introduces a new breed of mutant freaks, the Slow-Lows. Your reaction?
Those belly babies, the Slow-Lows, remind me of the original Alien [chestburster scene] with the mouth. To me, that’s terrifying. It’s about nature, insects, and cockroaches. Something that’s slow-moving and it’s going to come out at night– that scares the s*** out of me.
Featured image: An infected on the set of Columbia Pictures’ 28 YEARS LATER.
A new trailer for director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s I Know What You Did Last Summer has arrived nearly thirty years after the original film first jolted audiences back in October of 1997. That film, written by Scream scribe Kevin Williamson and based on Lois Duncan’s 1973 novel of the same name, followed four teens who, after a night of partying, accidentally hit a man with their car and, instead of calling for help, dump his body and swear an oath to never speak of their crime. A year later, they get an ominous note (can you guess what it said?), and find out firsthand how Karma has a way of paying you back. Thus, the killing spree began, as a stalker systematically worked to slash his way through the teens’ lives.
The new trailer sets up this conceit, but now in the era of social media and smartphones. Five friends who, once again, caused a deadly car accident and tried to cover it up, believe that their pact of secrecy will keep them safe. The trailer opens at a wedding, and our friends appear to be living their best lives. When it’s time to open gifts, the bride-to-be opens a note—guess what’s written on it! So, as it was all those years ago, their past returns in killer fashion. One by one, they’re stalked by a lunatic with a hook, and their only chance for survival is to make contact with two survivors of the Southport Massacre of 1997. Enter Jennifer Love Hewitt as Julie James and Freddie Prinze Jr. as Ray Bronson, who have some hard-won wisdom to share from their dance with the devil. So, Julie and Ray teach the new kids on the block that they won’t survive their tormentor by running and hiding. No, the only way to make it through alive is to become the hunters themselves.
Joining Hewitt and Prinze Jr. in I Know What You Did Last Summer are Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, Billy Campbell, Gabbriette Bechtel, and Austin Nichols.
Check out the trailer below. I Know What You Did Last Summer slashes its way into theaters on July 18.
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In the first part of our conversation with supervising stunt coordinator Stephen Dunlevy, we covered the delicate balance involved with establishing the first theatrical John Wick spinoff, From the World of John Wick:Ballerina, from an action choreography perspective. Ana de Armas’ titular ballerina, Eve Macarro, unleashes a deluge of ultra-violent a**-kicking as she tracks down her father’s killer, crossing paths with the Baba Yaga himself (John Wick, played by Keanu Reeves) more than once.
How was the training and choreography design?
The wonderful thing about working with 87Eleven and Lionsgate, and the fact that I was part of John Wick 2 and 3 and stunt coordinated for John Wick: Chapter 4, is that we all understand the time it takes to develop these. Ana was very committed to the process of learning martial arts because you essentially need to do what Keanu did—he gave us all his time and we trained him in multiple martial arts. You essentially commit to becoming a martial artist. On the first day, I sat down with her and was like, ‘Hey, you just got to trust us through this process. We’ll ease you into it, but trust the process.’ From day one, she was so committed to honoring this character and the franchise, which was fantastic. During training, we looked at her ability and designed the fights based on her development. She trained for about six months, plus rehearsals on top of that. Once she got the base level, we started teaching the choreography.
How did the grenade-fu in Prague come about?
One of the highlights was the grenade sequence at the gun shop in Prague, where she meets Frank [the armorer played by Abraham Popoola], when the assassins attack. She escapes through that maze of rooms and finds these grenades. Now she’s in close confinement but has to fight with grenades. A lot of that sequence was done as a “oner,” when she’s fighting, comes around the corner, throws the grenade, then fights a guy, goes into a different room, fights and puts a grenade in his mouth, closes the door, and uses the door as a shield. We had to come up with ways of shielding her from the concussive sound. The team did a great job capturing what it would be like, in a fantasy aspect, to use grenades. We also have the dueling flamethrowers instead of handguns.
Is the flamethrower sequence an homage to the dragon’s breath shotgun in John Wick: Chapter 4?
There’s an element of that. We’re always looking for interesting weapons to add to the Wick series. The flamethrowers came up because, what you don’t see is flamethrowers on some of the vehicles in that village that they use to clear the snow. And also use it as a tactical weapon. So how do you have a dueling gun fight with flamethrowers? What’s the opposite of fire? Water.
Ana de Armas as Eve in Ballerina. Photo Credit: Murray Close
I love that vertical dome effect when Eve wields the fire extinguisher against the baddie’s flamethrower. Was that done with practical action?
Yes, that’s all real, the fire hitting the water and all those guys being set on fire, that’s all practical. We did a lot of research and testing on how much pressure and gallons of water per minute were needed, depending on how much fire you’ve got.Lionsgate, 87Eleven, and Len really wanted to do this as practically as possible. So, they gave us the time to do it right. We brought fire trucks out and I experimented, stood there and did it myself so no one else would get burnt. I experimented with different flow rates using water and with various cone sizes. You see in the movie when she adjusts the nozzle straight, but it can also flare out. As it pushes water, it also pushes the air with it. So, as the flame hits, it recirculates and pushes the flame back. Sound was added in post, but the flame and water hitting effects were created practically.
Ana de Armas as Eve in Ballerina. Photo Credit: Murray Close
That’s incredible! And it looks amazing. One of the coolest scenes was when Eve straps a grenade onto a bad guy’s neck, chokes him with it, and drags him across a table, then flips the table over to barricade herself against the explosion. How did that sequence come about?
That wasn’t in the original script. It came from the idea of how you would carry grenades and still be able to use your hands [to fight]? We could use a grenade bandolier! And then it’s like ‘What can we do with this bandolier?’ The boys and I were working on it. I went to a meeting, came back, and they’re like, check this out. So that’s how it got incorporated into that explosion. Then the special effects team came back and suggested going even bigger.
Let’s talk stunt doubles!
Our core doubling team for Ana did an amazing job, like Cara Marie Chooljian and Erika Keck. Keanu says it best—he does action but he doesn’t do stunts. So, there’s a definitive line—Ana did as much fighting as we could physically allow her to do. But there’s always a time where a double comes in to protect our actor.
What about your core choreography team?
Jackson [Spidell], Caleb [Spillyards], and Jeremy [Marinas] all did an amazing job, and Kyle Gardiner. It’s always about the best idea wins, no one person’s say is definitive. It’s this amazing collaborative process, and the team worked tirelessly night and day to get this done.
What were some of your personal favorite sequences?
The flamethrower sequence really stands out. We brought in Jayson Dumenigo with Action Factory, who just won an Academy’s Scientific and Engineering Award this year for developing his fire gel. He’s one of our stunt coordinators and fire consultants. Kyle, a friend of mine from Australia, is another amazing stunt coordinator who worked on this. When you’re doing things on that scale and doing close to 200 burns in eight days, you need the best and the brightest. So, all of that fire, all those people being lit on fire, was done practically. With these movies, they’re so big with so much action going on. So we always bring in the best—the best fighters, the best car team, whatever element we’re doing, we try to bring in the best because it allows us to take it up a notch.
From the World of John Wick:Ballerina is playing in theaters nationwide.
Featured image: Ana de Armas as Eve and Robert Masser as Dex in Ballerina. Photo Credit: Murray Close
The late, great Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin was one of the great cinematic fools of late 80s cinema. The Naked Gun: From the Files of the Police Squad! premiered on December 2, 1988, and Nielsen’s deadpan delivery on absolutely lunatic lines, along with the film’s visual wit and fearlessly silly skits, made it an instant classic, spawning two successful sequels and cementing Nielsen’s status as a comedy god. The original franchise was written by Jerry Zucker, David Zucker, and Jim Abrahams, and was based on their television series Police Squad! Although the series was short-lived (6 episodes), Nielsen proved pitch-perfect as the hapless yet oddly effective detective.
Now, 31 years after Neilsen’s final turn as Drebin in Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult, Liam Neeson is here as Frank Drebin Jr. in The Naked Gun, a reboot of sorts, but of course with an asterisk—Neeson’s Drebin Jr. is Frank Drebin’s son, and he’s taking over his father’s role in the Police Squad. It’ll be a fresh start for audiences too young to have enjoyed Nielsen’s run (along with the original franchise’s excellent ensemble), with a fresh cast and storyline. The reboot comes from director Akiva Schaffer, a longtime Saturday Night Live writer and director of the deliriously funny Andy Samberg-led Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping. Schaffer directs from a script he co-wrote with Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, the trio behind Disney+’s Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers. Seth McFarlane is on board as a producer.
Pamela Anderson joins Neeson as Beth, a mysterious woman with a job for Drebin, a role potentially similar to Priscilla Presley’s Jane Spencer from the original films. The official trailer confirms that the new Naked Gun isn’t afraid to get as deeply, delightfully silly as the original. Just one example is when Drebin Jr. tells Beth to “take a seat,” and she does just that, dragging a seat out of his office and down a hall.
Casting Neeson as Drebin makes plenty of sense—the actor has made a late-ish career turn depicting ruthlessly efficient types, from Bryan Mills in the Taken franchise to Jimmy “The Gravedigger” Conlan in Run All Night. He’s also done solid work in more comedic turns, like playing John “Hannibal” Smith in the reboot of The A-Team. He’ll be deploying that particular set of comedy skills to play the catastrophe-prone detective Drebin.
Neeson and Anderson are joined by Paul Walter Hauser, Kevin Durand, Danny Huston, Liza Koshy, Cody Runnels, and CCH Pounder.
Check out the trailer below. The Naked Gun is booked in theaters on August 1.
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Netflix unveiled the final Squid Game trailer last Friday, unleashing one last look at creator Hwang Dong-hyuk‘s world-beating series. The trailer opens with a look back on the life of Gi-Hun (Lee Jung-jae), or player 456, and the happpiness he did have between gambling debts and the perpetual struggle to make ends meet, a happiness that’s been all but erased by the sadistic creators of the Games he’s been laboring in for years.
Gi-Hun’s getting a pep talk of sorts from player 149 (Kang Ae-shim), who tells him not to blame himself for everything that’s happened. “No matter how you look at it,” she says, “life is just unfair.” Truer words have never been spoken. As she speaks, we see the colossal robot Cheol-su (replacing the killer robot from season 1, Young-hee) mowing players down. “Bad people do bad things, but they blame others and go on to live in peace,” she continues. “Good people, on the other hand, beat themselves up about the smallest things.”
The trailer reveals snippets of some of the games we’ll be seeing in the final season, as Gi-Hun risks his life to put a stop to the entire sick enterprise. He’s got one true believer—player 149—who tells Gi-Hun that she still believes he came back to the games to “save us all.” That was undoubtedly his mission when he gave up most of his winnings from the games to fund his attempt to expose the creator and end the games. Now, at long last, we’ll see how Gi-Hun manages his long-awaited face-to-face meeting with Front Man. Seasons 2 and 3 were filmed consecutively, in a Herculean, 200-day shoot. Now, the global phenomenon will come to a close when the third and final season streams on June 27.
Steeped in the lore and rituals of the John Wick universe, director Len Wiseman’s From the World of John Wick: Ballerinais a bold attempt at expanding the franchise that put practical action back in the spotlight after the OG John Wick came out in 2014. Taking place somewhere between the third and fourth Wick films, this cortisol-triggering revenge thriller follows Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), a younger member of the Ruska Roma, where John himself (Keanu Reeves, reprising his iconic role) was trained years before he became the much-revered Baba Yaga. As she embarks on her first contract killing mission, she encounters the cult that killed her father 12 years ago. Hellbent on revenge, her quest soon leads to the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne), who leads a rival assassin tribe hiding in the Alpine village of Hallstatt.
Continuing in the neon-drenched ass-kicking tradition of John Wick action, there is no shortage of gun-fu, savage triangle chokes and roundhouse kicks, grenade-fu, and all manner of carnage. A veteran of the last three Wick films, supervising stunt coordinator Stephen Dunlevy rejoins the Wick family with franchise co-creator Chad Stahelski serving as producer (with his action design company, 87Eleven) and stunt coordinator Jackson Spidell, who doubled for Keanu Reeves in the first three Wick films.
We spoke to Dunlevy about helping turn Armas’s seething newcomer to the world of Wick into a one-woman wrecking ball.
Newcomer Eve Macarro fits into the labyrinthine world of the Ruska Roma and the John Wick realm very well. Charting through the four John Wick films (so far), where does her story fall in the timeline?
Ballerina was in development while John Wick: Chapter 4 was shooting. So, we didn’t want to give away any spoilers. They decided that between John Wick 3and 4 is the best place. Having John Wick in Ballerina gives it that level of authenticity – he’s passing the torch to Eve. And having Keanu in this film gives it that cherry on top.
The opening sequence scars Eve forever—her father dies protecting her from the Chancellor’s men.
We found a really cool location in Hungary where they were staying, a former palace. When the guys attacking them emerge from the water, which was shot in Croatia, it was tough dealing with the tides. I love that sequence because we’re building her backstory. Our fight coordinator, Jeremy Marinas, did a really good job of establishing a throughline of the fights to see Eve’s development and where she comes from. Trying to save her father that day is the foundation of who she is. So, we needed that fight to resonate through the series. Being the first fight in the film, we also wanted it to be a fun nod to the John Wick films, so we go from crossbows to handguns to hatchets.
Eve’s first official mission at the club feels like a nod to the Red Circle fight in the first John Wick, right?
Yeah, a little bit.
Ana de Armas as Eve in Ballerina. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate
Being aspinoff in such a beloved franchise that has set so many benchmarks in action cinema is especially tough. How do you manage the delicate balance between paying homage to it and trying to top it with fresh ideas?
As soon as that coin came out in the first John Wick, you’ve created this amazing world that we’ve barely scratched the surface of. There are so many stories to tell that we don’t have to trip over ourselves trying to top the previous films. With Eve, we get to expand on what we saw in a fraction of the Wick films. The ballerina training at the Ruska Roma gives her the physical agility and mental toughness. She falls down and keeps getting back up until she gets it right. We see where John Wick comes from and develop this new character. Eve has to work it out on her own and build her own skills. People who train in the same gym come up with different styles and different ways to do things because they work better for them. Because of what Ana brings to it and what we developed as we were training with her, we discovered new things. Part of it is found weapons in the Wick world, whether it’s a pencil, a grenade, or ice skates, there are so many things she can fight with.
Ana de Armas as Eve in Ballerina Photo Credit: Larry D. Horricks
The ice skates were cool! And she also uses a hammer at one point.
It was! When she fights in the kitchen, there were pots and pans and axes. It’s everything.
[Spoiler] When Eve fights John in Hallstatt, it is an important moment for the franchise because he passes the baton to her. There are crucial character elements as well—he lets her live at least three times by my count.
Absolutely. And you notice he doesn’t pull his gun in the beginning. When she draws her gun, he just goes for his [bulletproof] vest to block the bullets. Every time he lets her up, she keeps attacking him. We went through different iterations of who was winning until we found the best balance between both worlds. Of all the fights, that was probably the hardest, trying to find that sweet spot. Jackson, [fight coordinator] Caleb [Spillyards], and our team worked relentlessly on trying to find that balance.
Ana de Armas as Eve and Keanu Reeves as John Wick in Ballerina. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate
Since John Wick is the legendary hitman who is virtually unstoppable, how do you balance his level of prowess against a first-timer like Eve?
You have this delicate balance since we couldn’t have Eve beating up John. There was no world where the younger, inexperienced assassin was suddenly going to beat John up. So, we came up with the idea for him to give her the opportunity [to live], but you see her stubbornness and her relentless need to avenge her father’s death. We’ve all seen how good John is. Eve is young and raw; she runs on aggression and this need for revenge, whereas John’s style is more practiced and controlled.
Eve’s fighting style has to stay true to the world of John Wick, not only because the Ruska Roma also trains her, but to keep diehard Wick fans happy. How is her fighting style different from John’s, and what does it reveal about her character?
John Wick is six feet, 180 pounds, and a male who’s physically stronger. Eve is 5’7” and a lot lighter. You can have different fighters training in the same gym and the same style, but they’re all going to lean towards different aspects. What Eve takes away from the training and her abilities is going to be different from John’s. Since she is younger and raw, we wanted to showcase the development of her abilities. As a smaller, lighter person, she’s going to have to move faster and differently; she has to be a little smarter in terms of her environment. What keeps her alive is her ability to read a situation and quickly adapt. There are elements that overlap, but Eve’s style is definitely a little different.
Check out part two to find out how Dunlevy helped film the dueling flamethrower sequence practically and how the epic grenade-fu came about.
From the World of John Wick:Ballerina is playing in theaters nationwide.
Featured image: Ana de Armas as Eve and Robert Masser as Dex in Ballerina. Photo Credit: Murray Close
While HBO continues to patiently plot out the contours of its expanding world of Westeros—A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is slated for a 2026—House of the Dragonremains the only series to make it to air since Game of Thrones concluded in 2019. And in its two seasons, Ryan Condal’s Targaryen-focused series has achieved something remarkable: it has managed to carve out a distinct narrative path and emerge from the shadows of its predecessor with an identity and an aesthetic all its own.
This is not to say House of the Dragon skimps on the bloody battles, dragon fire, or deadly palace intrigue that millions of people tuned into Game of Thrones to watch. With the series focused on the scheming, dreaming, fatally ambitious Targaryen brood, you could argue there’s been more of a focus on familial feudalism than even the Lannisters provided. Yet the aperture on House of the Dragon feels tighter. While we’re still whisked across the Seven Kingdoms as the warring factions within House Targaryen scrabble and scrum for the Iron Throne, the series feels statelier, if no less deadly.
On one side you have The Blacks, led by Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy), who claims the Iron Throne as the rightful heir named by her father, King Viserys I (Paddy Considine), and aided by the seething Prince Daemon (Matt Smith), who only just recently truly bent the knee to his queen at the end of season 2. On the other side are the Greens, nominally led by Aegon II Targaryen (Tom Glynn-Carney), aided by his mother, Queen Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), Ser Cristian Cole (Fabien Frankel), and Prince Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), the true leader of the Greens by the end of season 2 after he barbecued his brother via dragon.
As Emmy voting opens and fans eagerly await House of the Dragon‘s third season in 2026, we had a chance to talk to cinematographer Vanja Cernjul, who helped deliver some of the most technically ambitious sequences in the show’s history. Cernjul reveals the innovative techniques and creative problem-solving behind the camera, from BOSU balls to simulate dragon-riding authenticity to coordinating 16 stunt performers on fire simultaneously, exemplifying the artistry and technical precision that has made House of the Dragon a worthy successor to Game of Thrones.
Vanja Cernjul on the set of “House of the Dragon.” Courtesy HBO.
I’d love to hear what it’s like to film these epic set pieces from a technical standpoint. How many cameras do you have to capture hundreds of extras and horses? How long does a given sequence take with so many moving parts?
One of the largest sequences was the “smallfolk” riot in episode 206, which became our major focus during pre-production. The scene depicts Queen Alicent caught off guard by unrest in King’s Landing. With 150 extras, 30 horses, and only two days to shoot in the medieval Spanish town of Cáceres, the scale and stunt work required careful planning. We storyboarded the whole scene first, then worked on the best shooting order. We wanted a seamless flow, so we shot consecutively and in story order when possible. However, we also had to optimize time with all the extras and consider lighting conditions throughout the day. We had four camera crews and a drone crew, maximizing shots from every setup, as orchestrating so many people and soldiers on horses for every take required considerable time.
For episodes 6 and 7, you shot footage in a medieval town in Spain—can you describe filming on location? What were the benefits and challenges?
The town’s medieval architecture posed challenges in maneuvering all the needed equipment. Alicent and Helaena had to flee down steep stone stairs, cross a crowded square, and leap into a carriage—all while being chased by a furious mob. Initial attempts to lead the actors downstairs using a handheld Libra rig proved unworkable—the two grips couldn’t move down fast enough safely. Luckily, we managed to bring a large telescopic crane into the square, which allowed us to track the actors’ descent close enough to maintain subjectivity. To maintain Alicent’s point of view and continuity, a remotely operated camera was hidden inside the carriage, ready to pick up action as soon as the actors entered. Exterior shots showed them sprinting to safety; once inside, the interior camera captured the continuation in the moving carriage.
Episode 6 includes a very emotional scene between Rhaenyra and Mysaria. Can you talk about how you framed their connection?
That scene was a great example of how some of the most powerful moments emerge organically. Many scenes on this show must be meticulously pre-planned months in advance, but this one unfolded completely differently. Director Andrij Parekh really gave the actors time and space to explore. He’s great at creating an environment where something unexpected can happen. The kiss between Rhaenyra and Mysaria was not scripted. When we started, the initial blocking looked nothing like what the scene ultimately became. We began with a wide shot, but as the actors worked through emotional beats, the scene evolved over several hours. We kept rolling the entire time, capturing that evolution as it happened.
Emma D’Arcy, Sonoya Mizuno. Photograph by Theo Whiteman/HBO
Speaking of connections, Aemond [Ewan Mitchell] attempted to showcase his strength at small council meetings, including booting his mother from the council. What’s your method for filming these scenes?
Episode 6 director Andrij Parekh brought his experience shooting powerful rooms from Succession and had great instincts for developing camera behavior that gives you a seat at the table. It’s a fly-on-the-wall approach where the camera subtly becomes a character, reacting to tension in the room. In the Greens’ Small Council meeting, we used that idea to track Aemond as he prowled around the table. We wanted the camera to feel observational, but Aemond still had to be the gravitational center, so we granted him the power to move the camera. Two cameras followed him constantly, circling the table on a “dance floor,” but then they’d react to whoever Aemond was addressing. That reactive, fluid movement created a different energy—more spontaneous, almost documentary-like—which stood in interesting contrast to House of the Dragon’s more deliberate, designed style.
Ewan Mitchell. Photograph by Ollie Upton/HBO
Can you talk about deploying technologies like the BOSU ball and the Volume to give us new vantages of dragon riding?
Perfecting dragon-riding scenes really pushed us to experiment. Our goal was to make those scenes feel more subjective, as if the camera operator was sitting on the dragon next to the rider. Dragon riding is typically shot with the actor on a mechanical rig called a “buck,” which simulates the dragon’s movements. The buck is custom-built and pre-programmed to move in sync with the dragon’s flight path based on VFX previsualization. We shot these sequences inside a Volume, surrounded by large LED screens creating a near-360-degree animated sky. These weren’t used as background plates but as dynamic lighting sources.
One big challenge was making camera movement feel handheld and reactive, even though we couldn’t physically put a camera operator on the buck. We needed the camera to respond as if held on a shoulder, bouncing with every lurch. We used the Libra console, mounted onto handheld-style moose bars, and carried it on the operator’s shoulder to enable the remote head to react to ‘handheld’ operation from the ground.
But I quickly realized the operator on the ground was too stable. It didn’t feel real. That’s when I had an idea: I asked for a BOSU ball—a half-sphere balance trainer—from a nearby gym and asked the operator to stand on it while operating the console. That added just enough instability to make the handheld movement feel authentic, as if the operator were actually being jostled around mid-air on a dragon’s back.
The sequence at Dragonmont was thrilling—a first for the Game of Thrones universe, showing regular folks trying to connect with dragons. How’d you film that to make the action legible and terror so palpable?
Director Loni Peristere wanted the sequence to unfold as an “oner”—a long, continuous take that kept us tightly aligned with Hugh, creating a subjective, first-person experience of the Dragonmont hellscape. Everything was designed around that central shot. We wanted it to feel immediate and subjective, with a handheld camera aesthetic pulling the audience into chaos. But during rehearsals, we realized that keeping up with Kieran on foot across uneven terrain made the footage too shaky. Our key grip rigged a cable-cam system across the stage length. We employed a hybrid approach—part handheld, part cable cam—yielding the ideal balance: movement felt visceral, yet the image remained coherent.
Kieran Bew as Hugh. Photograph by Ollie Upton/HBO
The new ARRI Alexa 35 sensor really helped—incredible dynamic range, especially in highlights, so we could retain detail in flames without overexposing. The physical set was just a fraction of what the space was meant to be. Only the stone plinth was real—the rest was blue screen. To help navigate this vast digital space, the VFX team provided iPads with the Cyclops app as a viewfinder, showing us how the virtual world was interacting with reality in real-time.
And then there were the stunts—some of the most intense I’ve ever seen. At one point, we had 16 stunt performers lit on fire for a single shot. Even though these were some of the best stunt professionals in the world, seeing it happen right in front of you was terrifying.
I loved the moment between Ulf and Silverwing—we’ve rarely seen a dragon in that vulnerable position. Can you discuss framing that sequence?
That moment was a tonal shift from Dragonmont’s chaos, and we approached it differently in lighting and camera language. The sequence was shot on the same stage, redressed overnight to create a separate, quieter corner of the dragon cavern. We relit it using three Tungsten 20K Fresnel units positioned to simulate beams of direct sunlight breaking through cracks in the rock ceiling. The only other light source was the flickering torch Ulf carried.
Finally, I’d love to hear about filming the scene between Lord Oscar, Daemon, and the lords of the Riverlands, where Oscar proves tougher than he appears.
The scene was pivotal for Daemon, filled with intense dialogue and shifting power dynamics. We designed camera movement to reflect the flow of power within the scene. As influence over the Riverlands lords shifted between Daemon and Lord Oscar, their power to move the camera would subtly shift as well, echoing the underlying tension and power play. We kept Steadicam use to a minimum in this episode, but for this particular sequence, it was the right tool to move the camera with the actors.
Matt Smith and Archie Barnes. Photograph by Ollie Upton/HBO
Featured image: Emma D’Arcy. Photograph by Theo Whiteman/HBO
The final trailer for James Gunn’s Supermanis here, arriving a month ahead of the film’s July 11 premiere and boasting fresh footage as we prepare for the official feature film launch of Gunn and Peter Safran’s newly invigorated (and unified) DC Studios. The final trailer opens with buildings pancaking atop each other until one man—can you guess his name?—flies in and manages to hold them up.
Gunn has been explicit that his vision for Superman (David Corenswet) was to build his film around a superhero who is deeply, unabashedly decent, no matter how badly he’s baited or misunderstood.
“Being a child, I loved the purity of Superman,” Gunn said in a previous behind-the-scenes look, which gave us a glimpse of Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel from Richard Donner’s excellent 1978 film Superman. “That was a time when I was starting to understand what movies were.”
“James didn’t know that Superman was in his future. He wasn’t sure that was the one that he should be doing,” said his DC Studios partner, Peter Safran. “And then he called me one day and said, ‘I have a way in. I know what I want to talk about.”
This final trailer offers a glimpse of Superman through the lens of Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), a character who is decidedly not good and can’t stand the attention that Superman is receiving. So, what’s a sociopath with endless resources to do when someone else is getting all the love? Seek and destroy, of course, so Lex promises to annihilate everything that Superman holds dear, including Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and his adoptive mother and father, Jonathan and Martha Kent (played by Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell). “I’ll kill them, too,” Lex says with a shrug and a grimace.
The fresh footage includes a mid-flight brawl that’s a real jaw dropper—Superman knocks the teeth out of one of Lex’s henchmen, aided by his best friend, Krypto the Superdog. We also get a standoff between the Green Lantern Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), who gets into Superman’s face and says, “Make a move, big blue,” before the two men brawl. We also get a shot of Mr. Terrific (Ed Gathegi), utilizing his super-intelligence and his can-do spirit to try to help the Man of Steel. At one point, he shouts at Superman, who lying prone in chunks of concrete after a tough fight, “Quit messing around!”.
The ensemble is a big one, as Gunn has populated Metropolis with classic Superman characters and metahumans rarely seen on the big screen, including Skyler Gisondo (Jimmy Olsen), Wendell Pierce (Perry White), Sara Sampaio (Eve Teschmacher), Terence Rosemore (Otis), Anthony Carrigan (Metamorpho), Isabela Merced (Hawkgirl), and María Gabriela de Faría (The Engineer).
“This character’s noble, and he’s beautiful,” Gunn said in that previous behind-the-scenes look. And now, he’s almost ready to make his grand re-entrance.
Check out the final trailer below. Superman soars into theaters on July 11.
Featured image: Caption: DAVID CORENSWET as Superman in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “SUPERMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
And not in the way that middle schoolers doodle in their notebooks about dreamy-eyed crushes, or in the way that newlyweds share song lyrics on Instagram. Celine Song has made it her career to analyze the very foundation of love.
Her latest film, Materialists (in theaters June 13), explores the complexities of navigating love in a society that increasingly values material wealth over all else. It follows the tale of Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a matchmaker torn between her heart and her mind in deciding what love really means to her. Billed as a romcom, Materialists is more of a psychological analysis of what it means to love and be loved, as well as an almost eerily accurate commentary on the state of modern dating.
Dakota Johnson in “Materialists.” Photo credit: Atsushi Nishijima/A24
“We have a material record of things, because the film is ‘Materialists,’” Song says. “But the thing that we don’t have a record of is the feeling that passed between people.”
In the opening sequence, Song’s message is clear: love predates humanity. But humanity has lost sight of what it means to be in love. Working as a matchmaker briefly in her early career, Song always knew she wanted to write about her experience.
“I remember leaving that job feeling like, ‘Oh, I want to write something about this,’” Song says. “I think that when it comes to the filmmaking of it, I think that it always has to feel true to me and in the way that I experience [life].”
As a matchmaker, Lucy is very practical. Similarly to Song’s own experience, Lucy spends her days asking people what they want out of their love life and hearing monetary values in response. Lucy is constantly bombarded with clients looking for someone “tall,” or “rich,” or in a certain tax bracket, who dress a certain way, and act however they deem acceptable. They all request a perfectly curated human who meets their standard, but also is deeply in love with them.
“You actually cannot fall in love with the height, weight, salary,” Song says. “As Lucy says, love has to be on the table.”
Throughout the film, Lucy goes on her own journey of self-discovery, realizing that even as a self-proclaimed expert on love, she still has no idea how to understand her own heart. Torn between the perfectly distinguished “unicorn” Harry (Pedro Pascal) and the emotionally mature but financially inadequate John (Chris Evans), Lucy struggles with heeding her own advice.
Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal in “Materialists.” Photo credit: Atsushi Nishijima/A24
“To me, it’s so much about the distinction between dating, which is a game, and something that you can try, right?” Song explains. “You can go on dates, you can be on Tinder, you can do whatever you want, you can try. And then there’s love, which is something that you can’t try, and that’s what’s hard about it. But then, when it happens to you, it’s the easiest thing in the world.”
You’ll have to see the film to find out how Lucy chooses in her quest for happiness and love. Song did have this to say, however, about finding love, in the movies and life;
“The one thing that you should feel entitled to from the person who loves you is that they love you,” Song explains. “Love is the only thing that you’re entitled to.”
Song also says her decision on the film’s ending was rooted in wanting to create a film for the modern woman.
Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans in “Materialists.” Photo credit: Atsushi Nishijima/A24
“I think this is something that I think so many of us modern women understand,” she says. “All day I have to show up and have to be the smart girl, right? I’m a director, I’m a boss, like, you know, I have to walk around, I have to make decisions, and I’m in control of everything. I try to control everything… So what an amazing thing that there is one thing in a person’s life, in my life, that makes me feel so stupid, right? And makes me feel like a fool.”
Song’s films are characterized by soft, romantic lighting and camera angles so gentle, it almost feels like a caress. When creating a film about romance, she wants the viewer to “momentarily” forget their own reality.
“You almost want it to feel like it’s just being observed, and you’re being observed intimately, so much so that the audience forgets, not the whole time, but even even momentarily, that they’re watching a thing that is not real,” she says. “So the visual language is always going to be about that — you want to feel completely effortless, because love is effortless,” Song says. “So in that way, I wanted to make a movie that feels as effortless as love.”
Materialists is in theaters on June 13.
Watch our full video interview here:
Featured image: L-r: Writer/director Celine Song, Dakota Johnson, and Chris Evans on the set of “Materialists.” Photo credit: Atsushi Nishijima/A24
We’ve known for a while that James Gunn’s Superman would be set in a world where David Corenswet’s Man of Steel wasn’t the only person on Earth with superpowers. Gunn has been teasing—and then the casting announcements and later trailers revealed—that his reboot would open with Superman in a world filled with metahumans and monsters of all sorts. While Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor remains a relatively super-powerless human bound by the laws of physics (those are about the only laws he feels bound by), there are plenty of characters in Superman who have gifts and abilities (or in the case of Anthony Carrigan’s Metamorpho, perhaps “curses” would also apply) that, if not quite rivaling Superman, certainly will make his life a lot more interesting. These include Edi Gathegi’s Mister Terrific, Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl, Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner, and yes, Krypto the Superdog. Add in Superman’s Kryptonian robot helpers, too, to be fair.
We’ve got a few fresh peeks at these folks in images provided by Warner Bros. Hoult’s Lex Luthor is once again Superman’s main nemesis, and he’s got his own hero shot, as it were, in an image below. We’ve also got a new look at Fillion’s Guy Gardner, a member of the Green Lantern forces with that unbeatable haircut (Fillion is a longtime collaborator of Gunn’s)—the Lanterns are getting their own HBO series, no less, and Guy will be the one to welcome them into the newly unified DC Universe. In the same shot is Merced’s Hawkgirl, a flying, butt-kicking tactical genius and one of DC’s first superheroines, a character created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Dennis Neville and who first appeared in Flash Comics # 1in 1940 and eventually was rebooted, so to speak, by writer David S. Goyer and artist Stephen Sadowski as Kendra Saunders in “JSA: Secret Files and Origins #1” in August of 1999. And then there’s Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific, aka Michael Holt, the second character to take up the mantle of Mr. Terrific, whose skills, among many, including super intelligence—in the comics, he had 14 Ph. D.s.
The new images also include a showdown between Superman and Lex Luthor, as well as a shot from inside the Fortress of Solitude with Superman scolding his ever-mischievous best friend, Krypto the Superdog, and his robot caretaker, Kelex, a Kryptonian butler. A behind-the-scenes shot shows Gunn, Hoult, and Corenswet on set.
Another thing we know about Superman’s plot is that when the story begins, Clark and Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) are already a thing. As Brosnahan teased, the film starts with Clark and Lois already romantically tangled. We also know from the trailers that Superman’s can-do, whole-hearted goodness isn’t viewed as such by some of the most powerful people on the planet. This includes the Secretary of Defense of the United States, who is officially looking into Superman’s actions.
Superman’s decency has been a central point of interest for Gunn since he started talking about his vision for the character. This is a writer/director who made his name centering weirdos and wildcards from The Guardians of the Galaxy to The Suicide Squad, but in taking on the story of Superman, he’s made it plain he wanted to focus on a superhero was deeply good, and who believed in the goodness in others, even if he’s labeled a threat, an alien.
Check out the new images below. Superman soars into theaters on July 11.
Caption: (From L-R) NATHAN FILLION as Guy Gardner, ISABELA MERCED as Hawkgirl and EDI GATHEGI as Mr. Terrific in DC Studios’ and Warner Bros. Pictures’ “SUPERMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. PicturesCaption: DAVID CORENSWET as Superman in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “SUPERMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.Caption: NICHOLAS HOULT as Lex Luthor in DC Studios’ and Warner Bros. Pictures’ “SUPERMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jessica MiglioCaption: DAVID CORENSWET as Superman in DC Studios’ and Warner Bros. Pictures’ “SUPERMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jessica Miglio.Caption: (L to r) NICHOLAS HOULT as Lex Luthor, DAVID CORENSWET as Superman and Director JAMES GUNN in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “SUPERMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jessica MiglioCaption: (L to r) NICHOLAS HOULT as Lex Luthor and DAVID CORENSWET as Superman in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “SUPERMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jessica Miglio
Featured image: Caption: DAVID CORENSWET as Superman in DC Studios’ and Warner Bros. Pictures’ “SUPERMAN,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jessica Miglio.
Ana de Armas had some practice acting like a bad ass in 2021 when she appeared briefly as a CIA agent doing field work in Cuba in James Bond’s No Time to Die. But in the John Wick spin-off Ballerina, now in theaters, she takes the fighting to a whole other level as Eve, an orphaned dancer determined to avenge the death of her father no matter how many men, nearly every one them of a trained killer and twice her size, she has to beat up along the way.
To help prepare de Armas for the staged mayhem, producers enlisted stunt specialist Jackson Spidell of the 28Seven Action Design company, co-founded by Ballerina executive producer Chad Stahelski. A Michigan native, Spidell doubled for Keanu Reeves in the first John Wick, winning Taurus World Stunt Awards for that movie and for Captain America: Civil War. Deadpool 2, Avengers: Endgame, and other Marvel movies followed. On Ballerina, Spidell mainly served a supervisory role, but he did step into the fray himself a couple of times. “When they T-bone Ana’s car, I’m the guy who gets the ax to the face,” Spidell says wryly, “It got a good reaction at the advance screening.”
Speaking from his home in Los Angeles, Spidell talks about stamina, cat-and-mouse combat, and de Armas’s ability to flip in and out of warrior mode during the demanding Ballerina training sessions.
Eve head butts, she punches, she kicks, she stabs, she smacks opponents with pots and pans. Walk us through the process of turning Ana de Armas into this fierce Ruska Roma assassin.
Ana hit the ground running because she had dipped her toe into action before in No Time to Die, which is where I think she caught the eye of the Ballerina producers. Early on, we had conversations about how she perceived the character and what she wanted to pursue performance-wise.
Ana de Armas as Eve in Ballerina. Photo Credit: Larry D. Horricks
So Ana had some input, but you’re still operating within the framework of the four previous John Wick movies, right?
Yeah. Having lived in the Wick universe for more than a decade now, we know the vocabulary and the style points we wanted to hit, but what we didn’t want was for people to watch Ballerina and go “That’s a female John Wick.” We wanted Ana to be her own character. And that meant giving her a different style.
How so?
Keanu’s been doing this kind of fight for a thousand years, and he’s experienced every kind of situation, whereas Eve is new to this world, so she’s going to falter. We wanted to play her character as someone who’s sort of learning everything on the go, who doesn’t have the experience that John Wick has, who has a vulnerability.
And the fight choreography plays into all that?
It’s like if you had a little sister, and she tried to fight me and four of my friends, how is she going to beat us? By cheating. By using your environment. “I’m not going to kick you in the knee, I’m going to grab this chair over here.” It’s like, “I’m small, you’re big,” so we really wanted to play it as a cat and mouse [situation] where Eve is just this really smart mouse.
You trained Ana at the 87eleven stunt company here in Los Angeles?
We trained at 87eleven for two months, then went to Prague and continued training. We had a blast working with Ana because she has a fire in her eyes. If she does a move and says, “How was that?” we might say, “It could be better.” Then she’ll be like “Okay, watch this.” Ana had bumps and bruises all the time, and she wore them like a badge of honor. And it’s funny because she could be so intense during the fight scenes, but as soon as you say “Cut,” she’ll be laughing and light. Ana is one of those actors who’s able to turn it on and off.
Ana de Armas as Eve in Ballerina. Photo Credit: Murray Close
What would a typical training day look like?
Four or five hours a day, we’d go through the choreography or learn new judo techniques, practice reactions, and teach her to fall safely so she wouldn’t sprain a wrist or crack an elbow.
These fights look grueling but also very precise. How did you get Ana up to speed?
When we rehearse these fights, we break them down into parts. “Here’s the first section.” Rehearse that four or five times. “Okay, second section,” same thing. Then the third section, four or five times. Then we circle back. “Okay, here’s the first half.” And they’re like “What”!? Then the second half. By this time, they’re more or less broken. [slumping]. Then you say, “Now we’re gonna do the whole thing top to bottom.” That endurance is important because these are intricate fights. Halfway through filming, something might go wrong or someone forgets something, and you have to get right up and start from the beginning again. Over and over.
And the John Wick franchise is famous for its long takes.
That’s why you need to have stamina. Not only body stamina, but mental stamina, because once your body gets tired, the first thing that goes is your memory. It’s like dipping the same tea bag over and over in the water. After a while, nothing comes out, if that makes sense.
What specific fighting styles did you focus on?
We worked a lot with judo and Jiu-Jitsu, which have always been strongly shown in the Wick universe, along with traditional wrestling styles. We did a lot of gun training as well. Ana needed to get in close to people and use her elbows, so we used something called the CAR system.
What does CAR stand for?
Central Axis Relock. We trained Ana in the specialized gun system for the “Ice Bar” fight, which involved using rubber bullets.
There’s some swordplay in Ballerina as well, right?
We did work a little bit of that with Ana, but since the whole building was on fire during the sword-fighting scene, we decided, “This one’s going to be her double.” Cara Chooljian learned sword work for this movie and killed it. That’s actually one of my favorite scenes in the film, where “Eve” just goes ham on people with a sword.
You’ve doubled in the past for Keanu Reeves. Did that happen in Ballerina?
It did! Once we learned that Keanu was going to be in the movie with an expanded cameo when he fights with Eve, I put the [John Wick] suit back on. So yeah, I got to fight Ana and Cara, which was a lot of fun.
Ana de Armas as Eve and Keanu Reeves as John Wick in Ballerina. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate
Before you started wearing the John Wick suit back in 2015, you made some DIY “Sampler” videos where you did backflips and fight moves. It’s very impressive.
Thank you.
How did you develop those stunt skills?
I grew up in a sports-oriented family, so I learned acrobatics in my backyard and did gymnastics at open gyms. Then I competed in martial arts across the United States and overseas. There was a generation above me who had moved into the stunt industry, so I migrated west. Through the open gyms in L.A., I met people who did stunts, and they’d mention upcoming projects, wondering, “Who’s a similar make and model to this actor who can do x, y, and z.?” One day, I got a random phone call from 87eleven asking if I wanted to audition as a double for Justin Chatwin in Dragonball Evolution. The rest is history.
From the World of John Wick: Ballerina is in theaters now.
Featured image: Ana de Armas as Eve in Ballerina. Photo Credit: Larry D. Horricks
The setting is Eddington, New Mexico. The month and year are May 2020. It was, as you surely recall, a deeply bizarre, horrifically upsetting time as the world as we knew it was in the process of a forced reckoning with mortality, morality, America’s long history of racism, and what at times felt like, at least here in the United States, a nationwide crackup. So it’s the perfect set-up for a filmmaker like Ari Aster, who already has three deeply unsettling and very singular films to his name— his hardcore horror freakout Hereditary(2018), his sun-baked Scandinavian nightmare Midsommar (2019), and his trippy, trauma-drama Beau is Afraid (2023). Now, Aster has set his sights on our early pandemic-era civic strife, where regular citizens struggled against each other and themselves in a suddenly shrunken world of social distancing, masking, shutdowns, and the politicians and internet trolls who turned these realities and necessities into incendiary devices meant to burn down any sense of shared sacrifice or common decency two or more citizens of the same country might feel for each other.
Aster is one of our most fearless filmmakers, content to make viewers squirm in his pursuit of creating wholly original films. Once again, he’s tapped Joaquin Phoenix after working with him in Beau is Afraid to play Joe Cross, the Eddington city sheriff, the one guy in town who refuses to wear a mask, even though he’s also an asthmatic. Joe is one of the folks who simply don’t believe in all the stats about COVID transmission, nor does he think lockdowns make any sense at all.
Joe’s antagonist is Pedro Pascal’s mayor, Ted Garcia, who he challenges in the next election. Their enmity for each other isn’t just about their divergent politics (Ted believes in science and wearing masks and the like), but a deep, personal wound that Joe still nurses from their past.
Early in the film, the George Floyd murder occurs, and the repercussions of Floyd’s murder are felt in Eddington, as a small movement of anti-racist youth starts making trouble in town. Aster is trying to pinpoint the moment America began to crack apart, when anger and resentment, be it over COVID protocols, America’s historic racism, encroaching tech-supremacy, and the conspiracy theories that crept across the country captured larger and larger swaths of the country, to the point where some of the most powerful people in America were parroting insane talking points and neighbors distruted neighbors. Dread, anger, and paranoia are all rich themes for a filmmaker like Aster to explore, made all the more terrifying by coming from a history so recent that we’re still living through it.
The trailer gives you just a taste of this deep slice of how Aster sees what happened to America, perhaps what’s still happening to America, in the wake of a pandemic that upended the entire world and a call for social justice, which has as many proponents as it does detractors. With incredible performers and a filmmaker unafraid to hold a mirror, cracked as it might be, up to the United States, Eddington might not be the feel-good movie of the summer, but it’s still absolutely a must-see.
Check out the trailer here. Eddington arrives in theaters on July 18.
Featured image: L-r: Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal in “Eddington.” Courtesy A24
The adaptation, which lands in movie theaters on Friday, June 13, 2025, largely mirrors the storyline of the 2010 original. At the heart of the film is the friendship between a young Viking called Hiccup, played by The Black Phone‘s Mason Thames, and Toothless, a Night Fury dragon, who becomes the key to both dragons and humans forging a new future together on the isle of Berk. Original voice cast member Gerard Butler returns as Hiccup’s father, Stoik, the Viking leader.
Here, DeBlois explains why the original films’ composer John Powell was key to the film’s success, how Roger Deakins recommended cinematographer Bill Pope for the project, and why the Game of Thrones crew played a vital role in bringing Berk to life.
What was your initial reaction when they came to you with this idea?
Peter Cramer, the president of production at Universal, approached me and said they were kicking the tires on this idea of How to Train Your Dragon as a live-action film. I’ve been fairly vocal in saying I’m not a big fan of this trend because it diminishes the accomplishment of the animated movies and the hard work that went into them. It often feels like a wasted opportunity to create something new. I also thought that if someone’s going to do it, I don’t want to see someone else’s version of it. I’m very protective of the characters, the world, and the story, so if they were going to do it, I wanted to be the steward.
Hiccup (Mason Thames) and Hideous Zippleback in Universal Pictures’ live-action How to Train Your Dragon, written and directed by Dean DeBlois.
Does the fact that you recognize the risks make you the perfect guy for the job?
It certainly puts my convictions to the test. I thought that if we approach it through the lens of live action, it offers opportunities to go a little more mature, develop the mythology, and explore richer and deeper character relationships. Also, there are the bells and whistles of live-action as an immersive experience, so we can go into the action scenes knowing we can be more visceral.
(from left) Writer-Director Dean DeBlois (left), Gabriel Howell (center) and Nico Parker (right) on the set of Universal Pictures’ live-action How to Train Your Dragon.
What was the cornerstone you needed to have in place for everything else to work?
Our original composer, John Powell. I thought that if he were in, I would have great confidence going forward. He was the first phone call I made, and I just said, “Talk me out of this if you think it’s a bad idea, but I think there could be great promise in all of this.” He came at it from the same angle. He thought fans of our movie have grown up and this is part of their childhood, so naturally they’re going to be quite guarded about it, but if we could deliver something with love, integrity, and respect, but also bring something new to it, it will not only be a nostalgic hug from the past, but it’ll extend the story to all sorts of people who might not have seen the film, including perhaps their kids.
What were the different challenges for you with directing live-action rather than animation?
Much of it is similar, but there is the added intensity of principal photography. You spend a lot of time prepping, designing, and building models of sets, as well as figuring out the choreography. Early on, you try to answer as many questions as possible so that when you arrive on the day and have X number of shots to get done, you’re not thinking about logistics and can focus solely on performance. That was the biggest education, as I thought we had rehearsed and planned for a very specific scene in every case. However, once you have the actors in there and go through the blocking, ideas start popping up. As you work the scene together, a cadence develops, certain lines are no longer needed, and a new line is required; it’s all about the pauses, silences, and mannerisms. Thanks to Bill Pope, our cinematographer, I found myself very focused on the truth of the performances and doing my best to ignore the 300 people standing around, adjusting lights and moving grip equipment. I was very focused on getting that truthful interaction because it was going to make or break the movie.
Bill Pope is one of the best. Does his involvement give the film more gravitas?
Absolutely. The second phone call I made was to Roger Deakins because we had worked with him on all three animated movies. Having just come off Blade Runner 2049, he said, “I don’t want to do any big effects movies for a while, but I know just the guy to introduce you to,” and he made the call to Bill Pope. Bill jokes that he did what everyone does when Roger Deakins calls, and that is, he did what he told me to do. Roger recommended Bill because he knew how strong a storyteller he is. Aside from just having a great eye and great ideas for light and composition, Bill is primarily focused on the truth that comes through with the actors. He has a strong, intuitive respect for stories, and that always comes first.
(from left) Night Fury dragon, Toothless, and Hiccup (Mason Thames) in Universal Pictures’ live-action How to Train Your Dragon, written and directed by Dean DeBlois.
You shot this in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and there’s a lot of location work. How much did that real-world influence what you were doing?
We did a location scout in the very beginning. We gathered our producers, Bill Pope, and our visual effects supervisor, Christian Manz. We piled into helicopters to fly around the coasts and canyons of Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the Isle of Skye, cherry-picking our favorite locations, sea stacks, and coastlines. That was instrumental in establishing the scope of the movie, as everything is grand, larger than life, and sculpted in such an ethereal way that it gave us a sense of the breadth of what the movie could be. When we started designing our locations and figuring out which parts of those three places to incorporate into the world of Berk, it came with a certain exotic yet grounded quality. That became a defining factor in shaping the world as we know it. We were circling that part of the map and saying, “Berk is somewhere in here.” The island of Berk is a real island in the Faroe Islands called Tindhólmur. It’s smaller, but we scaled it up for our purposes. It’s the same proportions, though.
Those areas have incredible local talent who have worked on epic productions from Game of Thrones to Star Wars.
We basically employed the Game of Thrones team. They’re skilled, incredibly passionate, and always go above and beyond whatever task is assigned to them. I found myself walking into the sets, marveling at the extra details we hadn’t even talked about. They put them in because they care so much about what they’re doing. The builders, sculptors, and craftspeople create a whole other level of grounded reality with whimsy and character. I was blown away. There was a sense of respect among all the disciplines and a great deal of appreciation.
Stoick (Gerard Butler) in Universal Pictures’ live-action How to Train Your Dragon, written and directed by Dean DeBlois.
The costume design is incredible. In that part of the world, you have access to local talent, as well as teams in London who understand both the theatrical and the transition to the cinematic. Did you utilize that as well?
Our costume designer, Lindsay Pugh, pulled from all of the available costumers in Belfast and beyond. Several individuals had traveled from London and other parts of the UK to work on the film. It was a huge department. I don’t know the number of pieces they made, but everything was done with incredible skill and attention to detail. It all feels well-worn and manages to capture the silhouettes of each of our characters in a way that pays homage to the animated movie without copying it.
(from left) Astrid (Nico Parker), Ruffnut (Bronwyn James), Gobber (Nick Frost), Fishlegs (Julian Dennison) and Snotlout (Gabriel Howell) in Universal Pictures’ live-action How to Train Your Dragon, written and directed by Dean DeBlois.
Berk is now one of the worlds at Universal Epic Universe in Orlando, Florida. Did you ever imagine this IP evolving in this way?
It’s very surreal to me. I had no idea it would travel this far into the zeitgeist. To become a theme park is such a rare privilege. I remember working on Mulan for Disney, and at the time, we would joke amongst ourselves that the measure of success was whether you got a Disney on Ice show. When Mulan was getting a Disney on Ice show, we thought, “Oh, we made it.” That has changed. Now, if you have a theme park world based on your film, you’ve really managed to penetrate pop culture.
“How to Train Your Dragon.” Courtesy Universal Pictures.
How to Train Your Dragon soars into theaters on June 13.
Featured image: (from left) Hiccup (Mason Thames) and Night Fury dragon, Toothless, in Universal Pictures’ live-action How to Train Your Dragon, written and directed by Dean DeBlois.
HBO’s Harry Potterseries is coming into focus. Following the casting news of the core three—Dominic McLaughlin as Harry Potter, Arabella Stanton as Hermione Granger, and Alastair Scout as Ron Weasley—nine new cast members have just been revealed.
The new cast includes the Malfoys and Dursleys, crucial characters in the Potterverse. The first season of the HBO series will cover the events in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The new cast members are, from left to right in the photo below, Katherine Parkinson as Molly Weasley, Lox Pratt as Draco Malfoy, Johnny Flynn as Lucius Malfoy, Leo Earley as Seamus Finnigan, Alessia Leoni as Parvati Patil, Sienna Moosah as Lavender Brown, Bel Powley as Petunia Dursley, Daniel Rigby as Vernon Dursley and Bertie Carvel as Cornelius Fudge. The search has been led by casting directors Lucy Bevan and Emily Brockmann. The series comes from showrunner and executive producer Francesca Gardiner, withMark Mylod on board as a director of multiple episodes and an executive producer.
The newly announced cast members join McLaughlin, Stanton, Scout, as well as John Lithgow (Conclave) as Albus Dumbledore, Janet McTeer (Ozark) as Transfiguration Professor Minerva McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu (Black Mirror) as Severus Snape, Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead) as the beloved Rubeus Hagrid, Luke Thallon as Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Quirinus Quirrel, and Paul Whitehouse (Harry & Paul) as Argus Filch.
HBO’s plans for their Potter series are hugely ambitious—seven seasons to cover J.K. Rowling’s seven novels.
“The series will be a faithful adaptation of the beloved Harry Potter book series by author and executive producer J.K. Rowling and will feature an exciting and talented cast to lead a new generation of fandom, full of the fantastic detail and much-loved characters Harry Potter fans have adored for over 25 years,” HBO said in a statement. “Exploring every corner of the wizarding world, each season will bring Harry Potter and its incredible adventures to new and existing audiences and will stream exclusively on Max where it’s available globally, including upcoming markets such as Turkey, the U.K., Germany and Italy, among others. The original, classic and cherished films will remain at the core of the franchise and available to watch around the world.”
The series is set to begin filming this summer and is expected to premiere on HBO in 2026.
