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.
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.
The news broke at the end of last week that rising star Mia Goth is joining Ryan Gosling in Star Wars: Starfighter. Goth’s current dance card is loaded with major movies—she’ll next be seen in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, playing Victor Frankenstein’s (Oscar Isaac) fiané, Elisabeth,and after that, she’ll appear in Christopher Nolan’s The Odysseyin an undisclosed role—so why not add a role as the villain in arguably the most iconic film franchise of them all?
Goth joins Gosling in his Star Wars debut, too, with the film slated for production this fall and a release date scheduled for May 28, 2027. When the world learned that Gosling’s Star Wars: Starfighterwas a reality at the Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo, the actor said that the script, from Jonathan Tropper, “is filled with so much heart and adventure, and there just really is not a more perfect filmmaker for this particular story than Shawn.” Goth becomes the first major addition to the cast to join Gosling.
The script is currently being kept sealed in carbonite, but the barest sketch has been revealed; Gosling plays a character who is trying to protect a young person from evil pursuers, and Goth is set to play one of those pursuers. Star Wars: Starfighter is not connected to the Skywalker Saga, which began with George Lucas’s 1977 galaxy-creating Star Wars IV: A New Hope, and carried on through 8 more films. Starfighter is set roughly five years after the events of J.J. Abrams’ 2019 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the film that, for a time, anyway, ended the Skywalker Saga. (The Saga will presumably continue when Daisy Ridley’s upcoming new Star Wars film gets released.)
Goth became a beloved figure in the horror world after starring in Ti West’s trilogy—X, Pearl, and MaXXXine—playing several characters. Her star is certainly on the rise, and now will shine in a galaxy far, far away.
Featured image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 06: (EDITORS NOTE: Image has been shot in black and white. Color version not available.) Mia Goth attends Vanity Fair and Lancôme Toast Women in Hollywood on February 06, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)
When wefirst see Eve (Ana De Arma) fight in director Len Wiseman’s From The World of John Wick: Ballerina, you can tell she has yet to hit her peak. She, nonetheless, can irrefutably kick my ass and yours too, but it’s like watching a bear cub trying to climb a tree – it will eventually reach the top but there’s plenty of flopping and flailing on the way up. You see, Eve is fresh out of definitely-gonna-murder-you training and is just a shadow to the certain set of skills Baba Yaga (Keanu Reeves) has paraded in theJohn Wick movie franchise. She needs real-world reps and gets them during an initial mission to collect a high-profile target (Sooyoung Choi) at a nightclub. It’s here where a group of well-groomed bad guys allows her to punch, kick, and stab her way into the ass kicking business – struggles and all. But even after months of seasoning, shown on screen via a violently delicious montage, the fight choreography doesn’t overtly become a one-sided cape-wearing clash, but rather, it’s grounded in the character’s physical presence. Instead of miraculously overpowering anyone standing in her way, she turns to the objects around her, whether that’s nunchakus, knives, kitchenware, or ice skates, for the upper hand. It’s a lesson she’s learned from a former trainer who told her to “fight like a girl,” meaning: strategy over strength.
Sonically treating Eve’s opportunistic fighting style was the post sound team at Formosa Group that included supervising sound editors Luke Gibleon, Mark Stoeckinger, and Casey Genton, the latter also serving as rerecording mixer alongside Andy Koyama, with music editing by Ben Zales. “Early on, Eve is a novice. She’s a little weaker, sloppier, and nervous to an extent. As she gains experience, she gets powerful, precise, confident, and graceful,” says Gibleon. “We design and mix the sound to reflect that growth, making sounds more powerful, violent, and sometimes more showy fun as she uses unique objects to fight with.”
Ballerina joins the growing John Wick saga and takes place during the events ofJohn Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, unfolding as anorigin story that sees Eve bent on revenge over those who wrongedher family – the plight of which had production filming across parts of Prague, Budapest, and Austria for several pulse-pounding scenes. Dance club brawls, hotel shootouts, John Wick standoffs, and a flame war fiesta where Eve trades in bullets for a flamethrower, turning baddies into BBQ. Sound navigated each with visceral intent, enlivening the aural tapestry of the story, characters, and underlying themes.
Below, the team shares how they approached the soundscape behind one explosive scene, in which Eve improvises her way out of a gun shop full of goons wielding knives, guns, and grenades.
What goes into balancing real-world sounds with the sonic elements of the Wick world?
Luke Gibleon: We always try to find elements from whatever region you’re at, while at the same time, when you’re in the Wick world, we try to find elements that feel otherworldly and exist outside of our present time and space. We put in a lot of interesting tones and other sounds that are more meant to make you feel something than hear something, so it’s a little bit of a balance of both.
Mark Stoeckinger: Also to speak for Jason Freeman, who edited all the dialogue, he helped and paid attention a lot to casting people who spoke Czech or German or another language to really give this diverse tapestry to different locations, or to give them a sound that you know your ear might not pick up specifically in what it is but you can tell it’s different.
What’s cool about the sequence is how Eve does most of her murdering with grenades. Was there an overall direction to the approach?
Casey Genton: The direction from Len was that he really wanted each one of those grenades to feel like it was shaking the earth. He wanted to feel the impact, the resonance of those explosions from behind doors, or right in your face. And it really comes through in the music, which drives the narrative…there’s this rhythm to it when you’re handing it off to the effects.
Luke Gibleon: Len also brought the idea of misdirection. And in this scene, that misdirection moment happens when we are brought into the shop, and we’re meant to feel like, okay, we’re gonna get this cool gun moment like we’ve gotten in other movies. And then boom, we take you right out of it with this attack by these bad guys.
Did you treat the grenade explosions with any interesting design elements?
Luke Gibleon: It’s really a mix of all kinds of layers. We want each grenade to sound a little different, and it all depends on where that grenade explodes and what the environment is around the grenade. We’re ensuring it makes us feel like we’re in that environment.
Casey Genton: A favorite moment is when Eve slams a guy behind a metal door, and then she blows a hole through the wall. Nick Interlandi, our sound effects editor, added one of these crazy bullet ricochets just before the explosion. It’s those fun little elements that sort of catches your ear and creates a different feeling.
So, did you navigate each explosion differently then?
Casey Genton: It was really important for us to build moments that were loud and significant, but then also have sort of throwaway grenade moments that were equally important and great but didn’t need to be quite as big as the other ones.
Luke Gibleon: One example is where we go into a tinnitus moment with Eve. We asked, How do we come out of it and it actually lends itself to a lot of dynamics. It’s not just one big constant wall of sound.
Casey Genton: Len was all about trying to find a cool way to introduce the effect of the grenades in such close proximity. Luke made this really great tinnitus-ish sound that wasn’t quite the same sound you always hear every single time you’re in that headspace. We were able to make our own version for her concussed state.
Another standout moment is when Eve flips over a table to barricade herself just before several grenades kill some henchmen. I loved how the soundscape dips, allowing the audience to immerse themselves in the impact. Was that always the intention?
Ben Zales: Our composer Joel J. Richard said when Eve goes into the room with the table and she starts searching for stuff, the moment lends itself for the music to come down to a lull before this really big table flip and big explosion. It was quite a dance between the music and sound effects.
Speaking of music, sequences like these are fueled by stunts, camera, and the unexpected, but also by music. How did you finesse the latter into the soundscape?
Ben Zales: For us, it’s whatever the moment needs. Whatever tells the story best. Dialogue is usually king, and in an action movie like this, sound effects are probably right up there with it. But there are definite moments where the music does shine. We try to find the best way to tell the story and give it the best impact for each scene and each moment.
Casey Genton: We have a lot of experience with Chad [Stahelski], and he comes from an action background, and the action part is related to the sound effects, but then the emotion and the fun and the energy are all about the music. Chad never wants to subjugate that by not having the music appropriately played in the scene, but he doesn’t want everybody to be fighting for the same sonic space, so he expects all of us to work together to find the best solution to that.
Mark Stoeckinger: When it comes to the music, it can be big and energetic, but doesn’t have to be a sonic hog. We always want to find a way to make the space so that everything that’s appropriate can play at the same time without everything competing.
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
It’s been well documented—on this site, no less—the extent to which Tom Cruise has put his body on the line for his Mission: Impossible franchise. Thirty years after we watched Cruise break into the CIA’s Black Vault in director Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible, we now have a portion of our cinematic memory bank filled with nothing but Cruise’s stunt work. We have seen him scale the 2,700-foot Burj Khalifa in 2011’s Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol and held our breath as we watched him hanging off the side of an Airbus A400m in 2015’s Rogue Nation. In 2018’s Fallout, he became the first actor to perform a HALO (High Altitude Low Open) jump on film, and later, in the same film, watched his mastery of helicopter piloting. For 2023’s Dead Reckoning, Cruise revved a motorcycle off Norway’s Helsetkopen mountain and turned it into a parachute jump. All of these stunts have required a Herculean amount of planning, preparation, and technical mastery. They’ve also required a ton of Chutzpah.
Now, in his apparent last performance as Ethan Hunt in The Final Reckoning, Cruise notched himself a Guinness World Record for doing 16 burning parachute jumps while filming the insane plane sequence as his Ethan Hunt battles Esai Morales’ Gabriel mid-air in a pair of propeller planes. The stunt was, by definition, highly technical and inherently dangerous, requiring Cruise to make sure the parachute didn’t twist while it was burning, or it could have fried him to a crisp.
Cruise and his stunt coordinator, Wade Eastwood, utilized a “snorri rig” for the stunt, a body-mounted camera that allows viewers to experience a dynamic, first-person point of view of Ethan after he’s leapt from a plane, so that we’re locked in freefall with him in a burning parachute as the world spins around him and the ground rushes up to meet him.
“The action evolves with the story — I’m not trying to invent action just to invent the next big stunt. It’s got to be emotionally engaging through action and fit the character,” Eastwood told us when we interviewed him for the last installment. It speaks to the character-driven action choreography that is at the heart of the franchise. Even though each new installment manages to top the last in terms of breathtaking stunt choreography, the reason the films will stand the test of time is that the stunts serve the story. In this instance, it earned Cruise a Guinness World Record as well.
Check out Cruise’s lunatic stunt here:
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is in theaters now.
For more on Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, check out these stories:
The first trailer for Fargo creator Noah Hawley’s Alien: Earth has landed, and with it, we finally get a sense of the massive scope and scale of Hawley’s ambitions for his adaptation. Once again, Hawley’s attempting to take a beloved film (or in this case, film franchise) and graft the essential components of its DNA into a deeply satisfying small screen experience, trading in adapting the Coen Brothers’ offbeat and singular sensibility for the grand, gruesome sci-fi horror franchise that Ridley Scott’s Alien kick-started in 1979.
After a brief, chilling opening set-piece that includes one of the franchise stalwart aliens, the face-hugger, we’re set down on Neverland Research Island, which is, as the title makes plain, based on Earth. The year is 2120, and a research team is about to break new ground where they’re preparing to “help” an ailing young girl become the first person to transition from a human body to a synthetic one. What could go wrong?
We move on to Prodigy City, where a spaceship crash-lands containing something invaluable. As we’ve learned over the course of the Alien franchise, you really don’t want to go snooping around abandoned ships, but a team led by Wendy, by that little girl from Neverland Research Island, now grown (and played by Sydney Chandler), braves the unknown to check out the ship. Again, what could go wrong?
Sydney Chandler is Wendy in “Alien: Earth.”
The ship has all the markings of an Alien nightmare waiting to unfold. Splattered blood, cracked and shattered cages, the works. The ship was carrying five different life forms, we learn, “from the darkest corners of the universe.”
What. Could. Go. Wrong?
These five life forms are on the loose, and Alien: Earth will track what happens when Wendy and her team of “hybrids” try to uncover where they are and who’s responsible. The Earth they live on is controlled by five corporations, including Weyland-Yutani, the owners of the ship that spilled its monstrous life forms onto the blue planet. A few of these monsters we’ve met before—the iconic Xenomorph and the face-huggers, of course—but we also get a glimpse of a jellyfish-like creature and, as some folks are speculating, the possibility that Alien: Earth will include a predator. It wouldn’t be the first time the franchises have crossed paths.
Joining Chandler in the cast are a great ensemble, including Timothy Olyphant as Kirsh, Alex Lawther as Hermit, Samuel Blenkin as Boy Kavalier, Babou Ceesay as Morrow, Adrian Edmondson as Atom Eins, and Essie Davis as Dame Sylvia.
Check out the trailer below. Alien: Earth arrives on FX Networks and Hulu on August 12.
Featured image: “Alien: Earth” key art. Courtesy FX Networks.
At long last, we have the first footage from director Jon M. Chu’s Wicked: For Good, the second part of his two-part adaptation of the juggernaut Broadway musical, which itself was based on Gregory Maguire’s best-selling novel. This is our first glimpse at the sequel after Chu and his stars, Cynthia Erivo, who plays Elphaba, and Ariana Grande, who plays Glinda, took to the stage at the Colosseum Theater at Caesars Palace to unveil the footage at CinemaCon this past April.
The first look at part two doesn’t disappoint, with Elphaba arriving at Glinda’s doorstep to make clear the contours of the world they’re living in—“This is between us,” Elphaba says, “the Wizard and I.” We’re then given a look at Michelle Yeoh’s Madame Morrible, promising that “the Wicked Witch can’t elude us forever,” and guarantees a swift end to Elphaba’s freedom, promising that Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) and his squadron will track her down.
Wicked: For Good will span the events of the musical’s second act, which tracks Elphaba and Glinda’s friendship facing the ultimate test as they come to terms with their new identities—the Wicked Witch of the West for Elphaba, and Glinda the Good Witch of the North. It also covers Dorothy’s arrival in Oz from Kansas.
The official trailer is bursting with feeling and song, as Elphaba and Glinda begin their epic journey toward becoming the characters we thought we knew in The Wizard of Oz. “You’re the only friend I’ve ever had,” Elphaba says to Glinda toward the end of the thrilling trailer. “And I’ve had so many friends,” Glinda quips, but when the two clasp hands, she says, “but only one that mattered.”
The scripts for both Wicked films come from Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox. Erivo, Grande, Yeoh, and Bailey are joined by Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard of Oz, Ethan Slater as Boq Woodsman, Marissa Bode as Nessarose Thropp, and Bowen Yang as Pfannee.
Wicked was a massive critical and commercial smash, earning 10 Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Actress for Erivo, Best Supporting Actress for Grande, as well as noms for production design, editing, makeup and hairstyling, costume design, original score, sound, and visual effects. Costume designer Paul Tazewell won his category, becoming the first Black man to win it, and production designer Nathan Crowley won his.
Check out the trailer here. Wicked: For Good flies into theaters on November 21.
Featured image: L to R: Ariana Grande is Glinda and Cynthia Erivo is Elphaba in WICKED FOR GOOD, directed by Jon M. Chu.
A new teaser for director Matt Shakman’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps has arrived, and along with new footage comes the news that tickets are now on sale. The new look situates the importance of family for Marvel’s upcoming reboot, which is fitting considering the Fantastic Four are Marvel’s First Family (they were created by Marvel Comics legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby on August 8, 1961, ushering in a new level of realism to the comics medium.) We see glimpses of the Silver Sufer (Julia Garner) arriving in New York as the herald to a coming catastrophe that is the world-eating Marvel supervillain Galactus (Ralph Ineson), with the Fantastic Four—Pedro Pascal (Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby (Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman), Joseph Quinn (Johnny Storm/The Human Torch), and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Ben Grimm/The Thing)—the only people around who can stop it.
The retro-futuristic look of The Fantastic Four and the earwormy bit of the score we’ve heard in the trailers and teasers speak to the crack team that Shakman has assembled behind the camera to pull off this all-important introduction of one of the most beloved characters in the Marvel canon to the MCU. Composer Michael Giacchino, cinematographer Jess Hall, production designer Kasra Farahani, and set decorator Jille Azis, to name a few, have all contributed to the Jetsons-meets-Mad Men look. Two examples of the practical effects and retro-futurstic look are the robot H.E.R.B.I.E. (Humanoid Experimental Robot B-Type Integrated Electronics), which was an actual animatronic android that zipped around the set on wheels, and the two models of the Four’s Fantasticar that were built, one of which had a real interior for the performers to sit in.
The Earth that the Fantastic Four live on is not our Earth (there are multiple Earths, of course, in the Marvel multiverse), and in this one, the Four are to these particular Earthlings what our most famous astronauts are to us.
“We knew that we’d be on another Earth, so we had a chance to reinvent what the ’60s looked like,” Shakman told Entertainment Weekly. “I was really interested in imagining the Fantastic Four being astronauts. Instead of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin going to the moon, what if it was Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben who were really the first to go into outer space, the first to push those boundaries?”
During the same set visit that EW conducted, production designer Kasra Farahani provided further explanation of the look.
“The lines are beautiful and slick, based on mid-’60s American concept cars that were actually referencing European cars, so they have an elegance,” production designer Kasra Farahani told EW. “And yet there are these undeniably ’50s-looking retrofuture elements like the turbine intakes at the front and back of the car, and the bubble dome. Even a lot of the interface controls inside are very much based on more of a ’50s look.”
At long last, The Fantastic Four are making their Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, something fans have been clamoring for since Disney acquired 21st Century Fox way back in 2019. Check out the new teaser below. The Fantastic Four: First Steps arrives in theaters on July 25.
“I never saw myself as an action [actor]. But I’ve been in this industry a little bit, and I know you have to have an open mind to everything,” says Catalina Moreno, who stars alongside Ana de Armas in the upcoming From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, the fifth film in the popular franchise. Her teenage son, she says, is “obsessed with John Wick, so when I got the script for Ballerina I thought, maybe it was meant to be.”
She brushed up on the John Wick series by watching with her son. “He’s my fan and I love that,” she says. “We watched to see when the Ruska Roma started in the John Wick world since it is a big part of Ballerina. Ana is a ballerina and trained assassin in the traditions of the Ruska Roma. So it’s interesting to discover these little doors that the John Wick world leaves open to explore.”
Ana de Armas as Eve and Keanu Reeves as John Wick in Ballerina. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate
Although Moreno is best known for indie dramas, starting with her breakout role in the 2004 sleeper Maria Full of Grace, which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination, she is now taking on more genre roles. In 2023, she worked with Hong Kong action master Woo on Silent Night and says she prepared by watching Woo’s Face/Off and The Killer. “I learned to appreciate them,” she says. She’s currently in her fourth season starring in the science fiction horror television series FROM.
Catalina Sandino Moreno and writer/director Joshua Marston on the set of “Maria Full of Grace.” Courtesy Courtesy of Catalina Sandino MorenoCourtesy of Catalina Sandino Moreno
“Action films are following me now,” says Moreno, who’ll next be seen in the crime thriller RIP slated for release in November from Netflix. “I read the script and it was so good; very entertaining and super fast-paced.” She was eager to work with actors Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Steven Yeun. “I admire and grew up with them, so I had to do it. I told my grandmother I was in a movie with Ben Affleck. She didn’t know who he was until I said, ‘Jennifer Lopez’s ex-husband.’ Then she knew.”
Moreno is enjoying being at a point in her career when she’s experimenting with different roles.
“When I started, I felt so much pressure because I traveled the world with [Maria Full of Grace] and I saw people’s reactions to the movie. It felt like a big responsibility, especially being Colombian and representing a Colombian film. Now I feel a movie can be just entertaining … I feel like I can play a bit. I’m able to let go of the pressure I put on myself.”
Catalina Sandino Moreno and writer/director Joshua Marston on the set of “Maria Full of Grace.” Courtesy of Catalina Sandino Moreno
She never expected Maria Full of Grace to be such a critical and commercial hit. “I was excited because it was HBO and I had HBO at home,” she says. “I just wanted to watch it in my house; I never expected it would be in film festivals or win anything. I never imagined how impactful it would be in my life.”
Moreno attended a screening last year to celebrate the film’s 20th anniversary. “The theater was packed with people. When the film came out, some questioned how an American filmmaker [Joshua Marston] could tell this Colombian story. But he did it so beautifully because it was from the girl’s point of view about the world of narco trafficking. The way he did it was so touching and current. I saw people who watched it for the first time 20 years later and were still moved by it.”
“I love the movie,” Moreno continues. “I’m still in contact with Joshua; he is a good friend. I believe if I had done a comedy for my first movie, my career would have been complexly different. This one made a dent in my life for sure.”
After the impact of her debut, Moreno was selective about roles because she wasn’t being offered much challenging material.
“They sent me the sexy Latina, the maid, the Colombian drug dealer, the poor immigrant. I love those stories, but when you’re given only those roles in a short period, [I wondered] ‘do I have to do this to survive?’”
She waited two years before making her second feature, Fast Food Nation, and in 2008, starred with Benicio del Toro in Steven Soderbergh’s Che.
“I thought I had to do important films,” she says. “Who cares about superheroes or romance? I pressured myself to make movies that mattered. [For Che] I went to Cuba. I read the book. I love the process of working on important films, but every film has its place. For John Wick fans, Ballerina is important. It’s a continuation of this incredible world.”
Catalina Sandino Moreno as Lena in Ballerina. Photo Credit: Larry D. Horricks
Moreno credits de Armas for inspiring her to make daring career choices. “I told her I admire her so much; what she did with Marilyn was inspiring for me as a Latina. Who would have thought Hollywood would allow a Cuban to play Marilyn Monroe?” says Moreno about de Armas’s acclaimed performance in Blonde (2022). “That opens ground for all of us. I love that about her. Ana showed me you can do any role if you are passionate. It does not matter where you’re from or who you are; you can be fearless.”
Ballernia is in theaters on June 6.
Featured image: Catalina Sandino Moreno as Lena in Ballerina. Photo Credit: Larry D. Horricks
Lilo & Stitch is charming audiences across the globe. Disney’s latest live-action remake, directed by Dean Fleischer Camp, is not only a box-office smash but also a heartfelt reimagining that has tapped into the power of Zillennial nostalgia in a big way. Based on the 2002 animated film, the new live-action Hawaii-set buddy comedy between young Lilo (Maia Kealoha) and her new alien pal, Stitch (voiced by Chris Sanders), is full of energy and light, thanks in no small part to cinematographer Nigel Bluck.
The shenanigans begin when, similar to the original, the alien experiment 626 – Stitch – escapes the grips of his planet and crash-lands on Kauaʻi, Hawaii. The alien meets Lilo, a fellow outcast. As alien and government officials close in on the rambunctious duo, Lilo & Stitch fight for each other and their home.
Prior to Lilo & Stitch, Bluck shot The Peanut Butter Falcon, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and 10 episodes of True Detective. Recently, Bluck spoke with The Credits about reimagining Lilo & Stitch and his varied career.
When you make a film like Lilo & Stitch, do you think along the lines of, “What appeals to the eye of a kid?”
I’ve got a son, who was nine or ten when we were making it, and I thought about him a lot. How he sees the world and what they need out of the film, which is often different from what we think we need out of the film. You have to be more succinct with your storytelling. You can’t be flowery at all with your visualization of anything. It’s got to be direct and to the point. They’re not there to reference the films that have been and come before. I think for kids, it’s very much in the now, what they want. That being said, they’re also astute in terms of realities, visual effects, and details of motion, so it works both ways with them. They’re less sophisticated and more sophisticated at the same time.
In remaking an animated film, how did you and Dean want to pay respect to the original while also bringing it into live-action?
Dean and I were after, above all, a sense of naturalism and grounding the story in a reality that pays homage to the animation, which was very much grounded in reality and very much the story of this local family and this island. I think that’s what we were trying to protect and create – something that wasn’t trying to light that up or beat that up or make that into a universe that was more “Disney-fied.” There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it was an advantage, in a way, to have the animation as a precursor that was so successful and had such a brand on its own. That opened the door for us to continue in that direction rather than trying to transform it into something that was more cosmetically sealed, perhaps. That was the aim: to capture reality in the environments and in the performances.
One location that accomplishes this is Lilo and her sister Nani’s (Sydney Agudong) home. It has a feeling of history and warmth. How’d you want that location to ground the film?
The key thing about that location is that we built the house twice. We built the house on location for the exteriors, and we built the house in a studio for interior reasons. Primarily, we were working with a 9-year-old girl who has specific windows of time during which she can and cannot work. When you are working with that governor, as it were, that’s why the decision was made to go into a studio. So we were never at the mercy of the weather, which is robust and unpredictable sometimes, being on an island.
You’re a cinematographer who prefers being on location, right?
I really like shooting on locations and seeing the reality of the environment outside. There’s a lot of me that wanted to shoot everything – just build the house once and just run inside when the weather gets bad. It became a challenge of how to then light this house on stage, keep the reality that we’re trying to imbue through all the rest of the film, and create a sense that the real world is outside those windows.
On the island, what did you appreciate about the light?
We’re always trying to keep everything even in cinematography and consistent for the sake of the scene and the edit, and not pointing to ourselves. The work is usually about keeping the reality of the wavering weather to something that looks either sunny or not. Whereas on the island, it has that, and to a certain point, I just embraced that. The reality is, it changes every five minutes. As long as it’s not jarring, I tried not to be too afraid of that and allow things to change a little more, perhaps, than I was used to curating on set.
Is shooting on the ocean still as challenging as the days of Jaws?
You’re on this merciless, changing platform that changes all the time. It’s very difficult, even on the most placid days. You have to be very careful about what you bite off and try to be as organized as possible. We had an incredible water team on the film, who were largely made up of veteran watermen and women who live and breathe that ocean and are at home there. It was a real privilege and a massive contribution from the Hawaiian people, the team, and the culture that has made this movie what it is today. Those surfing scenes and underwater scenes – I don’t think we could have manufactured them anywhere else without that expertise and that incredible dedication from those people.
What were your lighting references for Stitch? What did you use in the CG character’s place on set?
We had a beautiful mock-up of Stitch in correct proportions, correct fur, just very real-looking. Amazing puppeteers basically brought it to life. We always shot references of everything. The rule was that whatever potential reality pertains to the character, he’s just living it in that environment. We weren’t going to light him out at all or try to put any kind of special treatment on him. Grounding him was the aim, which was just trying to light the scene, let him be in the scene, not lighting that character out of the scene.
Your body of work – this film, True Detective, and The Peanut Butter Falcon – is a wide variety. When your career started, what was your ambition for the stories you wanted to tell? Is the cinematographer you are today the cinematographer you hoped to be?
I’m working towards it. As a very serious film student, I was a little more high-minded about it all, perhaps. I still am, in terms of what I watch and what I love. It’s very easy to make the stories that come naturally to me, but working outside of your comfort zone and examining from a different angle always comes up with something interesting. It’s good for my process. I just want to continue changing all the time and working in different genres. It’s a reinvention every time. For me, it is one of the greatest privileges I have as an artist: to walk into these worlds, which are new every time, and explore ways of creating them.
Jesse Armstrong takes his exploration of the rich and powerful to new heights—both literally and figuratively—in Mountainhead. In his feature directing debut, the writer/producer who created HBO’s Emmy-winning, zeitgeist-capturing Successionabout the family turmoil of the media mogul Roy family, turns his satirical eye on the titans of tech. And it all takes place at the top of a snow-covered Utah summit in a breathtaking, multimillion-dollar estate that gives the movie its name.
Debuting on HBO MAX on May 31, Mountainhead opens with a mighty tech quartetmeeting for a weekend of bro bonding and boasting about their triumphs. Randall (Steve Carell), the patriarch, often referred to as Papa Bear by his younger acolytes, made his fortune in defense and weaponry. Venis (Cory Michael Smith), the foursome’s rising star and richest member, has recently launched a generative AI social media platform that is taking the world by storm. Jeff (Ramy Youssef),a tech wizard, developed a program that can mitigate the potential risks of AI, a “filter for nightmares.” Despite hosting the event in his new digs that make Zeus blush, Hugh Van Yalk (Jason Schwartzman) goes by “Souper,” as in somebody who works at a soup kitchen, because his wealth is measured in millions, not billions. He is hoping to convince his colleagues to fund a wellness app that will elevate him to their level of success.
Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef. Photograph by Macall Polay/HBO
As the weekend unfolds, the men discover that Venis’ recently launched AI tool is being co-opted to wreak havoc around the world. Racial animosity is escalating, causing violence, rioting, and looting. Governments are teetering towards collapse. The mayor of Paris is assassinated. Instead of being horrified, the foursee an opportunity. How wonderful a world it could be if they controlled everything themselves. The question is — will divisions among them squelch these plans before they can be put in motion?
After four seasons of Succession, the last thing Armstrong intended to do was another tale of influence and arrogance. But as fate would have it, he accepted an assignment to review a book about cryptocurrency king Sam Bankman-Fried. Armstrong’s curiositypiqued.
“That professional bell started ringing in my head,” says Armstrong during a Zoom conversation. “I was consciously keen not to do another rich people thing, but sometimes you find that the subject picks you. I began reading biographies and histories of Silicon Valley. On podcasts, you can listen to their tone of voice…the level of confidence, consequentialism, and power in the world. I couldn’t get their voices out of my head.”
Before committing to a script, Armstrong wanted to pitch the idea to gauge interest. With the basics in his head—four guys in a snowy getaway as global upheaval ensues—he showed it to Succession colleagues Lucy Prebble, Jon Brown, Tony Roche, and Will Tracy. With their input, Armstrong fashioned a story. In January, Armstrong took it to HBO. CEO Casey Bloys quickly said yes.
Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef. Photograph by Macall Polay/HBO
Before you could say “greenlight,” Armstrong found himself in the mountains of Utah and Vancouver, Canada, looking for a house that could serve as Mountainhead. But with everything happening so fast, one thing was falling to the wayside.
“I was trying desperately to start writing, but we’d fired the gun on production. I was location scouting and writing in the back of vans,” Armstrong remembers. “Eventually, when we still hadn’t found the house, I said to Marcel Zyskind, the cinematographer, production designer Stephen Carter, and producer Jill Footlick, ‘Can you carry on looking? I just need to write this because otherwise we’re going to find a house and there’s not going to be a script.”
Photograph by Courtesy of HBO
Ultimately, a location was found — a private homein the gated Deer Crest neighborhood of Deer Valley, Utah. Concurrently, the veteran writer, who in addition to winning five Emmy Awards for his work on Succession, scored an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay forIn the Loop, drafted a script.
The production schedule for a May premiere was tight. Preproduction started in February. Filming took place in March. For Armstrong, it presented an opportunity.
“Normally, I love collaborating. But I knew the tone of this and to cut out some personnel and communication loops, I’d direct it myself,” says Armstrong. “It was rather a different tone to Succession, but I knew shooting it in a similar way would be amenable. So I felt safe. I’d learned how the two-camera situation works, and we were going to do it largely in one location. ‘Oh yeah, this is conceivable.’”
Jason Schwartzman, Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef, Cory Michael Smith. Photograph by Macall Polay/HBO
“It’d be impossible for me to imagine doing such an endeavor without it,” says Armstrong. “I grew so much from being a British sitcom writer into being comfortable around a large crew. I knew the individuals in the sound department, the script supervisor. These were all people from Succession. It gave that feeling of familiarity.”
Armstrong invited Mark Mylod, who has two Emmys for directing Succession episodes, to be an executive producer. Mylod lent advice and helped put together the crew. Even so, making the leap to director did present a whole new challenge.
“A showrunner has an advantage. You’re around sets a lot,” Armstrong continues. “But I was surprised at how that director’s title takes it to another level. The crew is looking to you. The actors place a lot of trust in you. The writer offers the raw materials. But the director is the one there saying, ‘It’s going to be okay. I know what we want.’ So I felt that responsibility, especially because I didn’t necessarily have the experience. I had to subtly convince them with my demeanor. I never like bullshitting people, but for that moment, it’s a little bit fake it till you make it. You have to sort of pretend to be a director until you are one.”
The location was a plus. From its sweeping snowcap Utah vistas to such amenities as an indoor bowling alley, basketball court, and a towering staircase that soared several stories, Armstrong couldn’t have imagined a better playground for Mountainhead.
Ramy Youssef, Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman. Photograph by Macall Polay/HBO
“For some reason, I always wanted this snowy, slightly icy, sequestrated away environment. It offered us that at a rich people’s scale,” says Armstrong. “I adapted the script once I saw the stuff there. It was fun to write to a massive house burrowed out of the rock.”
Randall, doing his morning yoga in the middle of the cavernous basketball court, and Venis bowling melons down the bowling alley were both inspired by the estate. Armstrong set a pivotal moment in the drama at the top of the dizzying staircase. A sitcom veteran of such series asPeep Showand Fresh Meat, he couldn’t resist adding a bowling ball joke.
“There’s a bit where Steve gives a mock heroic speech that references stuff like being at the doorway of Octavian,” Armstrong remembers. “And at the last minute, Jon Brown, my writing and producing colleague, and I were laughing, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny to undercut it by saying, ‘Have you got the bowling ball?’ And the way that Jason and Steve did that joke…with no time to consider it…seeing them hitting a perfect comic tone on the fly was just a very pleasing experience to watch.”
Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Cory Michael Smith, Jason Schwartzman. Photograph by Macall Polay/HBO
Armstrong adds that the leads gave a novice director more than he could have expected from the characters he created.
“I cast them because they’re the best in the world. This was a long script. It’s almost like a play. There are a huge amount of words which, if they hadn’t nailed on a basic technical level early, we would have been in big trouble,” explains Armstrong. “Without being too reductive about it, there’s a little bit of Frankensteining in the writing. They have those archetypes, but there are also these Frankensteined business stories and emotional relationships. What a great actor does is take those things—maybe you’ve sewn together a leg of this and an arm of that—and make it into this real person. Suddenly, you’re watching four real people interact on a set. There’s no other way to describe it other than just a delightful play happening before your eyes.”
Mountainhead is streaming on HBO Max.
Featured image: Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef, Jason Schwartzman. Photograph by Fred Hayes/HBO
The trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein has electrified viewers. The first glimpse of the visionary director’s remake of the iconic monster movie has garnered millions of views since its release on Sunday. There are few directors alive who are more perfectly suited to enliven a fresh adaptation of Mary Shelley’s deathless novel, one of the most adapted stories ever told; and after thinking and dreaming about tackling his own version for decades, Del Toro’s vision has breathed new life into the tale.
His Frankenstein stars Oscar Isaac as delusional, brilliant Dr. Victor Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi as The Monster, Mia Goth as Victor’s financé, Elisabeth, Christoph Waltz as Harlander (a new character not in Shelley’s book), and Ralph Ineson as Professor Krempe. The teaser returned Frankenstein to the arctic climes that Shelley included in her story (it was filmed mainly throughout Scotland), and it’s such a richly cinematic look that viewers are now clamoring for Netflix to release the movie on the biggest screens possible.
Frankenstein is the movie that Del Toro has been longing to make for years. The Oscar-winner has gone on record in the past to say that adapting Shelley’s work was a dream project for him (along with adapting H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness), but one he shied away from making. Speaking with Den of Geekin 2016, Del Toro explained that despite the fact that Shelley’s masterpiece has been adapted many times, no filmmaker has captured the crucial North Pole sequence, for example, and that, to him, was where he wanted to come in:
“To this day, nobody has made the book, but the book became my bible, because what Mary Shelley wrote was the quintessential sense of isolation you have as a kid,” he told Den of Geek. “So, Frankenstein to me is the pinnacle of everything, and part of me wants to do a version of it, part of me has for more than 25 years chickened out of making it. I dream I can make the greatest Frankenstein ever, but then if you make it, you’ve made it. Whether it’s great or not, it’s done. You cannot dream about it anymore. That’s the tragedy of a filmmaker. You can dream of something, but once you’ve made it, you’ve made it.”
Guillermo del Toro’s dreaming about Frankenstein has come to an end—he’s made it. And now that he has, millions of people have seen only a peek at his work and want more.
Check out the trailer here. Frankenstein comes to life on Netflix in November.
Let’s get this out of the way. History For Hire, the iconic prop house that’s been a staple in the Hollywood community since 1985, is open for business. People started to question its future, flooding owners Pam and Jim Elyea with inquiries after The New York Times published an article dramatizing a potential closure. “It was a beautiful article, but I just wish it didn’t say ‘Waiting for the Axe to Fall’ on the front page because that’s really not where we are at,” Pam tells The Credits over a video call.
History For Hire has made North Hollywood home for years, with its massive warehouse serving as a museum of historically accurate props for the film, television, theater, and music industries. Inside, it’s like an antique store on a forty-year bender with no intention of getting sober. Their inventory spans from ancient times to the modern era, featuring old camera gear, military equipment, communication devices, medical supplies, and numerous everyday items from decades past. Their work is praised for its visual accuracy, having contributed to the visual stylings of Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, and Titanic, among other productions, as well as more recent films such asOppenheimerand A Complete Unknown. Pam, 71, and her husband Jim, 74, have built a business rooted in meticulous research and a deep respect for history that, by all counts, isn’t slowing down. The company has signed a new lease with its current building owner. “We’re excited to be in California and we are based here, but we are truly an international company in that we are currently doing movies in Europe, Canada, and Australia,” says Pam.
Jim & Pam Elyea. Courtesy History for Hire.
History For Hire considers itself a purveyor of Americana, European history, and other cultures. “One of the things that I think really sets us apart is our passion for being culturally sensitive to the items that appear on screen. When we’re doing the movie Memoirs of a Geisha, which was filmed in Thousand Oaks, we had a Japanese consultant on that project with us to make sure the props were appropriate at all times. If we do films about Native Americans, we make sure we are working with Native American technical advisors so that the items are going to be appropriate,” explains Pam.
Courtesy History for Hire.
Their staff comprises experts in various fields. “We have military and police experts. We have a watch expert, a music expert, and Pam and Jim are motion picture experts. And I’m an expert in handcrafts and have a degree in criminal justice,” says Christine Bullard, History For Hire’s operations manager. “We even have a staff member who’s a blacksmith if a project needs something custom-made.” In 2011, their expansive inventory migrated to a digital platform. “We went from handwriting and taking pictures of every order to a barcode system,” notes Bullard. “And for the most part, it’s all done by barcode now, so when we scan an item, it tells us every production it has been used on and the history of that prop.” While you can find most of their inventory online, it’s not everything. “The pandemic pushed us to get more of our props online because the shutdown forced a change overall in our industry. We were able to put our inventory online and really streamline it,” says Bullard.
HFH Founder Jim Elyea (hawaiian shirt) with film Historian Kevin Brownlow – 2019
When asked when productions should start considering props, Pam suggests early. “You can feel comfortable reaching out when your film’s in development, or if it’s a time period you haven’t worked in. Maybe you never worked on a Civil War film before. We have done hundreds of those films, and we can help you get a budget estimate. We can tell you what you may need, plus we can tell you how other people solved a problem. So it’s never too soon to reach out.”
Photo by Tommy Estridge
History For Hire is keen on details, no matter how large or small the project, the staff treats each request with the same enthusiastic examination. “We try to give them accurate information but also give them options for the look of their film,” notes Pam. “So the list of items and pictures we send them not only work with their list but also accentuates what that list is. So if you’re doing a Western, and all you’re asking is about lighting and general store stuff, we will also ask about horses because we have horse tack.” And if the company doesn’t have something available, they’re happy to recommend another prop house. “We work really well with other companies because we want to make sure that the prop, no matter if we have it or somebody else has it, is the best prop that can be out there,” says Bullard. Pam added, “Other prop houses are not our competitors. We look at them as our collaborators because if we work together and give our clients the best look possible on the screen, more people are going to want to go to the movies and see more movies.”
Courtesy History for Hire.
History For Hire not only supplies props, but it also becomes an integral part of the entertainment community, offering tours for schools and educational programs. They’re also members of the California Production Coalition, a group of like-minded businesses that want to see production stay in California. Extending that outreach is a June 7 program where the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival will bring forty filmmakers to History For Hire for a master class in set decoration and property. The discussions will be mentored by set decorator Jan Pascale, who won an Oscar for David Fincher’s Mank. “We’re very invested in people learning more about our industry, learning more about our business,” notes Pam.
Photo by Tommy Estridge.
Being part of the community is what makes it special for them, allowing them to create their own history. “We do a lot of student productions and kids will come in and pick out something, and it’s great to say, ‘oh, you know, Timothy Chalamet used this A Complete Unknown or this was used by Russell Crowe on Master and Commander, and you get to use it on your student project. It’s exciting for them because they feel that connection with Hollywood.”
This article is part of an ongoing series that raises awareness among businesses and individuals in the film and television community. History For Hire is a member of the California Production Coalition. You can find more about the company here.
You can find more stories on how the film and television industry impacts local economies here:
Charlie Brooker is known for many things, and depending on whom you ask, you might get a different answer. In England, where Brooker was born, you may hear about cult comedies The 11 O’Clock Show, Brass Eye, or Nathan Barley, which he wrote, or maybeNewswipe, where he satirizes current events, or the fictionalized reality show Dead Set about zombies attacking the Big Brother house. His masterpiece is Black Mirror, an anthology series that combines futuristic technology with the worst aspects of humanity. It started over 14 years ago on Channel 4 in the U.K., before migrating to Netflix in 2016. Now, in Season 7, the buzzy series has an episode for any mood you’re in. To my lights, “The National Anthem” (S1E1), “Nosedive” (S3E1), and “Common People” (S7E1) are personal favorites.
This latest season has more of Hollywood’s familiar faces with Chris O’Dowd, Rashida Jones, Akwagine, Issa Rae, and Paul Giamatti, the latter of which sees Giamatti’s character revisiting a past relationship by stepping inside old photos – a story unfolding like an ode to Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Its finale gives fans a long-awaited sequel to the USS Callister (the first of which aired in S4, E1) with Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson, and Jesse Plemmons returning – which Brooker tells The Credits he hoped would have become a limited series but the pandemic and following union strikes set it on a standalone course.
During a video call, we caught up with the multi-hyphenate talent and decided to do what any morallygood person should do if they had 15 minutes with someone known for absolute genius satire: we messed with him. And of course, he took it in stride.
Charlie Brooker attends Black Mirror x TCKR Systems Event at TCKR Systems HQ, The Brunswick Centre, London, UK — on April 8th, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by StillMoving.Net for Netflix)
I was just assigned this interview, so I had to look up who you were on IMDB. It says you worked for the famous comedian Jimmy Carr on television show 8 out of 10 Cats as a program associate. Can you tell me exactly what is a program associate?
Oh my God. That was 2,000 years ago.
So you don’t remember what the job title entailed?
My background is in TV comedy in the UK, and I was part of a production company that was making all sorts of things. I’m not part of that company anymore, but they still make 8 out of 10 Cats, which is the huge panel show in the UK. I went on to do other things like presenting shows, and sort of ended up on air. Then I did other things like Newswipe and Weekly Wipe, where we had this character, Philomena Cunk, who interviewed experts and asked them stupid questions.
Similar to what I am doing now?
(Laughs) Yeah, with my comedy hat on, I had to do things like that [being a program associate] too.
We all start somewhere. Speaking of, as a journalist, I’m not supposed to make myself part of the story, but I do want to point out I paid The New York Times .25 cents to read a 2020 profile of you for research. Is that something you can reimburse?
Yeah, sure. Why? Because the article was so uninteresting?
No, it was good. It was aboutwriting Black Mirror during COVID. I am asking so I don’t have to worry about claiming it later on my taxes.
Oh, I see. Yeah. Okay.
This next question is from a friend of mine, and he asks, Charlie, if you had to live in one Black Mirror episode for a year, which one would you pick?
That’s a no-brainer. If it’s for one year, it would be “San Junipero” [S3E4]. But maybe “Eulogy” [S7E5], where you can walk into old photographs. But I mean, “San Junipero” would be the obvious answer in a way because it’s a nostalgic playground. It’s basically Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, San Junipero.
L-r: Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzije Davis in “Black Mirror” episode “San Junipero.” Courtesy Netflix.Declan Mason, Paul Giamatti. Credit: Nick Wall/Netflix
Netflix told me this is Season 7 of Black Mirror. I watched all the episodes at 1.5x speed, of course, and I have a few questions. What should be the minimum amount of throw-up a man should experience after helping to end his wife’s life?
Oh, well, I’m in the metaphor, which is I’ve got a phobia about vomit and vomiting, genuinely. So I would say none. There should be no throw-up whatsoever. You should just get on with it, finish the job. And stop being such a wuss. (laughs) No, I don’t actually know [how much]. That episode started out very much as a comedy. That’s a classic Black Mirror sort of thing, is that you start to do something that’s an absurd premise, and then we see it through to the bitter end.
Now this, too, is a serious question. If you were only able to eat one dessert, would you choose a miso jam flavored chocolate bar or a chocolate mallow crème pie?
You know what, we made those miso jam chocolate bars for that episode [S7, E2, “Bête Noire”]. They had to be vegan, because I think Siena Kelly, who’s playing Maria, is vegan. And they were really f**king tasty. They made me one for my birthday. A giant one, like a cake size…it was like a chocolate cake to me.
Charlie Brooker on the set of “Black Mirror,” season 7, “Bête Noire.” Courtesy Netflix.
Curious, what current reality would you want to change, and what would you want to change it to?
Oh, I mean, all of it. It would be great to just have any consensus on reality. It would be useful because it feels like the problem at the moment is that you can kind of choose your reality depending on your affiliations. But some people don’t seem to be actually that concerned about whether their reality is real. So, the flood of disinformation that we are being subjected to is only going to multiply. How can we hope to tackle climate change if people can’t agree on what reality is and what’s happening? I find that terrifying. So I would make it so that there was one reality for everyone. I think that’s what I would try to do.
During the credits of episode 4 of this season, “Plaything,” a QR code appears, which I scanned. Now, every day, a copy of the book “A Clockwork Orange” arrives at my door with tiny pieces of paper in it. What do I need to be doing here?
(Laughs) So that’s supposed to take you to a game that you can download for free. We made the game from the episode, and it’s a game called Thronglets. And you can create, nurture, and care for a community, a colony of Thronglets. So I would recommend you do that. It won’t bite. And you can mistreat them at your leisure.
Lewis Gribben in “Plaything.” Courtesy Netflix.
Which sci-fi author would you prefer to eulogize? Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, or Isaac Asimov?
You know, I’m so badly, shockingly poorly read. I’ve read very little sci-fi. I have read an Isaac Asimov collection. I’ve read [H.M.] Hoover. I’ve read “The Stainless Steel Rat” by Harry Harrison and “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Most of my references come from the world of movies and television. So, I’d say I’d eulogize Rod Serling, the creator of The Twilight Zone. He’s clearly one, or the British author Nigel Kneale, who was a huge influence on Black Mirror. So lump them together and I’d eulogize the pair of them.
Here’s an easy one. Would you suggest that someone read Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol?”
That’s why the character is called Carol. When we were talking about it originally, it was going to be that he [Paul Giamatti, as Phillip in “Eulogy”] was being led through like it was “A Christmas Carol.” And he was walking through moments in his life and seeing scenes play out. That was the original jumping off point, but then it became this thing, which is a lot more high tech, but also simpler and eerier in many ways, that everyone’s standing around, sort of frozen. But yeah, “A Christmas Carol” was a reference we were using when we were talking about it. That’s why the name Carol then just stuck.
Paul Giamatti. Credit: Nick Wall/Netflix
“USS Callister: Into Infinity” is a terrific sequel written by you, Bisha Ali, William Bridges, and Bekka Bowling. My favorite scene is the floppy disc sequence between the characters played by Cristin Milioti and Jesse Plemons. It’s The Matrix meets Einstein-Rosen’s wormhole theory.
Oh, thank you. The reason we made the sequel is that we genuinely love the characters. And it was something we were working on for a long time because it was originally going to be a limited series. Then the pandemic, the writer’s strike, and the actor’s strike got in the way, so we made it a one-off.
Jesse Plemons in “Black Mirror.” Courtesy Netflix.
But I think Jesse and Cristin in that scene are just fantastic. It’s tricky because it’s them talking in a garage, and they’re holding their own against it, intercutting with this giant space battle going on. They have to hold your attention alongside that, and they absolutely do. That’s one of my favorite moments.
This question is equally important. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest. How much did you enjoy the movie Being John Malkovich?
Oh, God, you know what? I haven’t seen it since it first came out in the cinema. But yeah, I must say 10 because it’s one of those things I should include. I quite often reference Robocop and The Truman Show when I’m talking to people about films that have influenced Black Mirror. And that should definitely be up there as well because there’s a lot obviously there with the Herman’s Head or Inside Out ending we have with Callister. Being John Malkovich is a great example of the logical absurdity, the logical ramifications of an absurd situation. I’m a fan of those sort of head f**king things.
Before we let you go, is The Real Housewives your reality show guilty pleasure?
I can’t quite remember why that was chosen. I think at one point we were going to just make up our own parody version of something, and we were discussing what they would be watching on TV. And I think it turned out that both Bisha [Ali] and Bekka [Bowling] are unironic fans of Real Housewives. So it’s an absurd premise that we played straight.
You can stream all the episodes of Black Mirror on Netflix
Featured image: Charlie Brooker on the set of “Black Mirror.” Courtesy Netflix.
“This was dressed as a miracle…it’s just a murder. And I solve murders.”
So says Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) in the middle of a minute-long teaser for his return as the southern detective in Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, the third film in Johnson’s whodunit franchise. The teaser is a much darker affair than the previous two Knives Out installments, the last of which was a sun-baked mystery set on a Greek Island, while the first was a cozier affair situated at a grand, Gothic revival mansion. Johnson’s going for something keenly different in Wake Up Dead Man, which Johnson has billed as Benoit Blanc’s most dangerous mission ever. The vibe of the teaser is closer to horror than anything we’ve seen in the previous two films, with a church serving as a key location.
You’ll be hard pressed to glean too much plot from the teaser, and Johnson, Craig, and the rest of the ensemble cast are keeping mum. Johnson has once again assembled a crack cast to surround Craig, including Kerry Washington, Josh Brolin, Cailee Spaeny, Josh O’Connor, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Glenn Close, Andrew Scott, Thomas Haden Church, Daryl McCormack, Kerry Frances, Annie Hamilton, and Marcus Edward Bond.
Check out the teaser below. Wake Up Dead Man arrives on Netflix on December 12.
Created by Ben Watkins for Amazon Prime, the crime thriller Cross feels more like top-tier cinema than a police procedural. Based on James Patterson’s “Alex Cross” novels, the series’ first season (it’s already been picked up for a second) is taut and moody, following D.C. homicide detective Alex Cross (Aldis Hodge) as he pursues a serial killer on the job while struggling in his personal life with the murder of his wife, Maria (Chauntée Schuler Irving).
The villain Alex is after is wealthy and well-connected, reflected in his several torture chambers, including a large basement dark room and then a modern wine cellar, where his trapped victim is surrounded by neat shelves of hundreds of gently backlit bottles. Cross and his partner, John Sampson (Isaiah Mustafa), trek between the police station, Cross’s house, and D.C.’s bars and clubs as they close in on this serial killer-obsessed serial killer. At home, Cross’s children, Damon (Caleb Elijah) and Jannie (Melody Hurd), are looked after by their grandmother, Regina (Juanita Jennings), who does her best to keep everyone safe, despite the looming danger of Maria’s murderer, who seems to be out for further revenge. While navigating difficulties across his personal and professional relationships, Cross finds himself at the center of both unsolved cases.
For cinematographer Brendan Steacy, it was crucial to visually distinguish the detective’s home from the rest of the show’s locations, while ensuring the aesthetic conveyed a Washington, D.C. feel throughout.
We had the opportunity to speak with Steacy about his visual references, the strategic application of light and color, and utilizing cinematography to heighten the on-screen sense of danger.
How did you start off coming up with the show’s cool, moody aesthetic?
When I first met with Nzingha [Stewart, one of the show’s directors] on the pilot, I’d brought a lookbook and references, and as I started showing them to her, she was laughing. We had actually pulled a number of the exact same images. There was a lot of [David] Fincher in both our books. We were on the same page regarding the look and feel, but also wanted to create a version that worked for the story of Cross. It had to be something that could be sustained through the arc of the show. You’re in more spaces, there are more people.
Aldis Hodge as Alex Cross, Isaiah Mustafa as John Sampson. Photo Credit: Keri Anderson/Prime Video.
Cross really throws off all the tropes of a typical police procedural.
That was part of what we wanted to do. When Nzingha did her presentation, the first slide she had, she kept saying, it’s not a television show, it’s a movie — we’re going to make it look like a movie. We want it to feel like a movie. It has procedural elements and is a police show, but she drew on references with similar subject matter, albeit with a cinematic direction. That was the starting point.
How do you use cinematography to up the fear factor? For example, a scene that really stood out right away was the silhouette of a knife against the slats of a child’s closet door.
That was a reshoot after the episode had finished. There was initially some concern that it was too difficult to understand what happened to that character. So that was intentionally shot to try and up the stakes, the jeopardy of that child. There was a lot of conversation about how much we should see.
How did you approach the lighting for the basement at 41 Price Street? Was the lighting all practical?
We were really careful with color. It had been decided early on that Ramsey [Ryan Eggold] would have a red light associated with him. Not just red light, but the color red was going to be his thing. The fact that he had a dark room in the basement made it an obvious opportunity to put red in there. So, it was reverse-engineered to determine the practicality of the space, how it would have looked, and then to imagine the utility of that kind of lighting setup, what it would actually look like on camera. I did do a little messing around in there. Elise [Sauve, production designer] built a lot into the set because we wanted to be able to see the whole space and not have too much lighting on the floor. We talked a lot about the design of that overhead lighting. We tried a few different looks. I really wanted to keep it lit by just the stuff that was there, as much as possible. We wound up cheating a little bit — there was some stuff on the floor, and we also taped little valences around the lights so they’re not actually spilling everywhere, playing with the levels so it feels like they’re all on, but one is doing the work and the others are just kind of filling in.
How did you make Alex Cross’s home feel like its own distinct oasis?
It was very important to everyone that his home felt like a warmer, safer environment than all the other places he inhabits. But there were terrifying moments that take place there as well. There are also moments where he’s having domestic problems, so we could adjust levels and play with the overall feeling of the house in those moments. We played with color a little bit. But generally, the house was intended to be a warmer, more inviting, comfortable place for him. It’s where he can be himself, with his family, and then he goes out into this horrible world he has to deal with.
Aldis Hodge as Alex Cross, Caleb Elijah as Damon Hodge
Were there other colors specifically assigned to certain characters or places?
We had palettes that we associated with different environments. The house stayed warm, the police station was cool. When we were supposed to feel the threat of Ramsey, we brought in red light. When they go into the motel, for example, we wanted to signal that they’re in the right place with red light. They don’t know where he is, but his influence is there. We used red light a number of times. The gallery, the first time Shannon [Eloise Mumford] goes on a date with him, has a bunch of red. The red in his dark room. We were saving red carefully for Ramsey moments.
Ryan Eggold as Ed Ramsey, Aldis Hodge as Alex Cross, and Samantha Walkes as Elle Monteiro. Photo Credit: Keri Anderson/Prime Video.
Shooting in Canada, how did you make this look like Washington, DC?
While we were still in prep, we went to DC and shot some exteriors there. It was great, not just because you get some of the expansive shots of DC that give you a clue as to where you are before you go inside smaller spaces, but it was also great for all of us to get a feel for what it was like there, so you have things to reference while looking for spaces.
How was shooting in Canada? Do you work with local crew?
I live here, so I have a lot of people I love to work with and I’ve been working with for a long time. I try to work here as much as I can. It has a pretty strong production community. I do still wind up traveling, and I have a sense of how things stack up. I would say this is a pretty great place to work.
Cross is streaming on Amazon Prime.
For more on Amazon MGM and Amazon Prime Video, check out these stories:
