Will Smith and Michael Bay are reuniting for another breathless action movie.
Smith and Bay are in talks to reteam for the Netflix actioner Fast and Loose. Bay will direct Smith in a movie about a crime boss suffering from amnesia after an attack. The catch? This underworld kingpin slowly starts to learn that he’s actually a CIA agent. The script comes from Eric Pearson, Chris Bremmer, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber. Deadlinewas the first to scoop the story.
The film was initially slated to be helmed by another director with major action chops—David Leitch—but Leitch ultimately left the project to work on his ode to stunt performers, The Fall Guy, with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt.
Smith and Bay go way back—they first collaborated on the 1995 action-comedy Bad Boys, in which Smith joined Martin Lawrence as a pair of haggling, heroic Miami cops. Smith and Lawrence have recently reprised the character, with last year’s Bad Boys: Ride or Diebeing their most recent effort.
Ride or Die was a hit, and Smith’s return from the infamous Oscars slap heard around the world in 2022, the year he won his first Oscar for his performance in 2021’s King Richard. After Ride or Die, Smith was in talks to star in the sci-fi feature Resistor, based on novelist Daniel Suarez’s 2014 book “Influx” for Sony, which follows physicist Jon Grady after he and his team discover a device that can reflect gravity that eventually falls into the wrong hands, but has exited the project. Smith was also planning to star in Sguar Bandits, aBoston-set crime thriller from Sicario: Day of the Soldado filmmaker Stefano Sollima, which he and his production company, Westbrook, are still looking to produce.
Bay has taken a brief break from directing. His last time behind the camera was for Universal’s potent, tightly wound film Ambulance, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. He is, of course, famous for bringing the world of Transformers to the big screen back in 2007, jumpstarting a mega-franchise that includes seven live-action features and this year’s critically acclaimed animated film Transformers: One.
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Featured image: L-r: MEXICO CITY, MEXICO – MAY 31: Will Smith poses during a photoshoot for the movie ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ at Angel de la Independencia on May 31, 2024 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Hector Vivas/Getty Images). NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 17: Michael Bay attends the “Transformers One” premiere on September 17, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
Casting director Jennifer Venditti had one of Hollywood’s great chameleons to work with when she was putting together the pieces for HBO’s limited series The Sympathizer. Robert Downey Jr. plays a quartet of characters in Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar’s adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel as the Oscar-winning performer is in a constant swirl of dramatic action among performers less well-known but all of them entirely game.
The show follows the twisting journey of Captain (Hoa Xuande), a communist operative working as a mole in South Vietnam’s army who ends up escaping to the U.S. alongside his nominal boss, the General (Toan Le). The Captain ends up in California, where he remains embedded in a South Vietnamese refugee community where he monitors and reports to the Viet Cong. It’s a fitting city for the Captain to make a new home—a town built on illusion; the Captain interacts with a bevy of Americans in various positions to aid and potentially abet his machinations. One of those is a CIA operative named Claude (Downey), whom the Captain met in Vietnam; while in the U.S., the Captain comes into contact with ingratiating California congressman Ned Godwin (Downey) and the filmmaker (Downey again), a bearded 1970s auteur.
Hoa Xuande and Roberty Downey Jr. Photograph by Hopper Stone/HBO
Surrounding Xuande, Le, and multiple Downeys is a rotating cast of scene-stealing performers, each perfectly calibrated to the series’ twisty, darkly comedic tone. Venditti, a seasoned casting director who has populated some of the most memorably offbeat casts in recent memory, including two standout films in 2019, the Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gemsand director Alma Har’el’s Honey Boy, put her years of experience to work when she populated one of the year’s most satisfyingly diverse and delicious series. Venditti takes us through her intuitive process.
When you take on something like The Sympathizer, which comes from award-winning source material, are you taking any cues from Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel?
Good question. When A24 first contacted me, I had not read the book, but my casting associate, Alan Scott Neal, said it was his favorite book. So he was the person that really was like, “Oh my God, we have to do this. This is amazing.” And so I read the script. I was obviously a huge fan of director Park and had worked for HBO and A24 before, so it seemed like a no-brainer. But the first way in was the script for me, and then I read the book. Then, there were really detailed conversations with director Park and co-showrunner Don McKellar about their visions because they both had very clear ideas of how they envisioned these characters coming to life. Then it’s the process because you can have these ideas of what you’re looking for, and then the process shows you and materializes things in a way you might not have seen.
What materialized for you during the casting process?
Like with Bon [Fred Nguyen Khan], director Park really wanted someone with a physicality to them. Fred had done stunts and martial arts, so you talk about it, and as you look and search and people show up, you start to put it all together. That’s my favorite part of the process: learning about it and then letting it go and allowing the mystery of the search to bring things together. Fred and Hoa had such good chemistry; things like that are very cool when they happen.
oa Xuande, Fred Nguyen Khan. Photograph by Hopper Stone/HBO
So, in a sense, the project reveals what it wants to be.
And it’s interesting, I’m really not that kind of person. One of the things I do like is discoveries, and one of the reasons they might have reached out to me for this is because they knew I was going to have find a lot of people, we weren’t going to find everyone from traditional casting because of the requirements of the script. So there’s some part of me that really likes the mystery and discovery rather than just going with people I already know.
Phanxinê, Fred Nguyen Khan, Toan Le. Photograph by Hopper Stone/HBO
HBO and A24 both have really solid track records for casting really interesting ensembles, whether it’s Mare of Eastown
HBO cares so much about casting; it’s so important to them. So they’re very much involved in the process, and A24 is great like that two, they both have really good taste an they’re great at supporting the process and letting you do what you do best, but they also have great notes. You look forward to their notes because you’re seeing so many people. It’s great to get feedback from people you respect who really take it seriously and have such a good eye as well.
Obviously, for American audiences, you’ve got one of the biggest stars in the business in Robert Downey Jr., not only in the series but in multiple roles. Then you’ve got Sandra Oh, another amazing performer, and then you’ve got all these folks who are lesser known but who more than hold their own. What’s it like mixing these two worlds of performers?
I have a chapter in my book [“Can I Ask You A Question?”] about this called “The Alchemy of Casting,” I do think there’s something beautiful about what happens when you take someone who’s so grounded and clear and experienced in knowing where a scene is going to go and then you take someone with less experience, there’s wild alchemy about that where there’s something about the person who’s not as experienced make it more alive for the more experienced performer, and then the experienced person grounds the other person. And as intimidating as you might think it is for a newcomer to be across from Robert Downey Jr., across the board, what everyone has said is working with him, he’s so generous, he makes you so comfortable, he’s so intuitive, he can feel when you’re not feeling good about it, and he can help drop into that with you and put you at ease.
Is there a specific pairing you’re thinking of?
For example, Toan Le, who plays the General, his story is amazing. He has all these scenes with Robert Downey Jr. and he kills it. People say you’re only as good as your scene partner, and I think Robert being that good lends to the other person. Toan was someone who had wanted to act since he was young, and in his 20s, he’d been in plays, but there just weren’t roles for Vietnamese actors. So he got a day job as a graphic designer for years, and he saw our open call and sent in a tape, and then became a series regular. People always think that only happens for young people and that people aren’t taking risks like that later in life, and he went for it. He’s a great example of someone who really held their own, and Robert really leaned in and supported them.
Toan Le. Photograph by Hopper Stone/HBO
This type of live wire alchemy is really present in many of the movies you’ve cast, especially in the Safdie brothers’ Uncut Gems and Good Time.
It’s magic. When I was young, I didn’t really watch movies or TV; I was obsessed with people-watching, and the Safdies were the same way. A lot of the people that I work with enjoy that, too. For this project, if we could have just found everyone by reaching out to an agency, then we would have done it, but for this project, we had to search high and low because of all the diversity that wasn’t easily available at our fingertips. It was definitely intimidating, but there’s something about aliveness that lends to the magic on the screen. Sandra, too, and everyone said the same about her. We were lucky to have these gracious actors who created a safe space for the newer performers.
Alan Trong, Sandra Oh. Photograph by Hopper Stone/HBO
The Sympathizer is also about performance in a way…
Yeah, it’s meta because the idea is everyone’s an actor in their real lives. Do you know what I mean? This meta thing, I’m casting people to be human to portray a character, but we’re all doing that in our real lives as well.
How long do you feel like it took for you to feel comfortable just knowing during an audition, okay, this is working, or these two people have the right chemistry?
I think sometimes chemistry readings are necessary, but then, Robert Downey Jr. could have chemistry with a dead person [laughs]. Let’s not get it twisted. I’m not really worried about him having chemistry with anyone. There are certain things, like Hoa as the Captain and Fred as Bon, that was kismet in a way. We cast Fred first, and we had no idea that they knew each other and they’re best friends in real life. The beauty of this project is that the cast is so in love with each other. They all have such deep friendships, it happened on set, and it’s continued since then. It’s really cool when it translates past the project. There are a lot of things that are intuitive, and sometimes there are processes where you’re really trying to make it work, and this was one where it was really natural, and everyone seemed to have a really meaningful connection with each other. This was a shared experience to be a part of something so personal and to come together and connect on a deeper level.
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Gotham has never looked quite so seedy and dangerous as it does in HBO’s excellent The Batman spinoff series The Penguin. Shot in and around New York City (unlike previous films in the Batman universe, which have utilized international locations and cities that are not New York to recreate Gotham), The Penguin picks up in the aftermath of the Riddler’s bombing of the city at the end of The Batman, paralyzing large swaths of the cities and leaving whole neighborhoods in ruin. While Batman apprehended the Riddler, another net effect of the Riddler’s war on Gotham was that he took out Carmine Falcone (played in the film by John Turturro), leaving a power vacuum at the top of Gotham’s underworld. Into these dangerous waters swims Oz/Cobb, aka the Penguin (Colin Farrell reprising his role from The Batman), committed to outwitting and outmaneuvering the halfwits running the Falcone family and other wannabe power players in Gotham’s vast, unruly, ununified crime syndicate.
Colin Farrell, Cristin Milioti, Francois Chau. Photograph by Macall Polay/HBO
Yet as The Penguin moved into last night’s third episode, “Bliss,” Oz had struck a shaky alliance with one formidable potential adversary—Carmine’s daughter Sofia Falcone (a dynamite Cristin Milioti). The second episode ended with the two of them agreeing to work together to wrest control of Sofia’s family’s business from her uncle in the aftermath of her brother Alberto’s murder. Oz is hoping that Sofia remains unaware that he’s the one who did Alberto dirty, and episode three delves further into the murky waters of Oz’s plan, with their fragile alliance tested to the breaking point.
“Bliss” not only mucks around in Oz and Sofia’s tortured pasts, but it also maintained an eye on Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz), the young man Oz forced into servitude. Victor has become Oz’s driver, helpmeet, and oft-threatened surrogate son. He’s also one of the peoples’ whose lives was totally upended by the Riddler’s attack.
Rhenzy Feliz. Photograph by Macall Polay/HBO
Creator Lauren LeFranc has done a masterful job creating a deliciously demented, superhero-free Gotham in which the bad guys seem to be the only ones making moves. Episode 3 was written by Noelle Valdivia from a story developed by LeFranc and directed by Craig Zobel. It was also the first episode in the series to take us back to The Batman and the carnage and chaos the Riddler unleashed, giving us a better understanding of what regular folks like Victor and his family suffered at the hands of that madman’s attack.
A new “Inside the Episode” video from Max gives us a deeper dive into how this installment was crafted, with LeFranc explaining the importance of Victor to the series, Rhenzy himself discussing his character, with thoughts from Farrell, Zobel, and more.
Check out the video here. The Penguin airs on HBO on Sundays at 9 pm.
The City of Brotherly Love is about to show you that its motto can mean meaningful television. Two of the most beloved Philly-set comedies of all time officially have a crossover episode coming—It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Abbott Elementary are about to share a comedic universe.
The revelation came via some teasing social media posts from the two people who would have a say in such a decision—It’s Always Sunny creator and star Rob McElhenny and Abbott creator and star Quinta Brunson. McElhenney posted an image of himself, Sunny co-star Charlie Day, and Brunson outside of the Warner Bros. studio lot for Abbott.
McElhenney wasn’t done there—on Instagram, he shared a shot (in Instagram stories) of Sunny‘s beloved Danny DeVito and Abbott‘s Tyler James Williams and William Stanford Davis.
While McElhenney has been teasing the possibility of a Sunny/Abbott crossover on social media before, Brunson wasn’t giving up anything until Variety‘s “Awards Circuit” podcast, where she revealed the crossover was actually happening. Pressed on whether her show was crossing over with that other, beloved Philadelphia-set comedy, she wouldn’t reveal any details, but she did explain the thinking behind the crossover:
“I’m excited to just shake things up in this way,” she told Variety. “I love TV, everyone knows that, but I love TV moments, and I miss those big TV moments. I remember how exciting they were. Anything I can do with Abbott to help keep that culture alive of fun TV, I will do. So I think this is going to be fun TV.”
The idea first hatched in February, when McElhenney was talking about the now infamous and massive fail of an event, “Willy’s Chocolate Experience,” which was an unlicensed “experience” held in Glasgow based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that was an experience in that it confused and ultimately angered paying customers—it was held in a thinly decorated warehouse that so disappointed visitors the police were eventually called in. It was this insane scenario that lots of Sunny fans thought was the type of lunacy that the Sunny gang at Paddy’s Pub would conceive of, but McElhenney had an even better idea.
Abbott Elementary‘s fourth season is right around the corner, with the series returning on October 9 at 9:30 p.m. on ABC. As for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, McElhenney’s long-running, totally insane Philly-set show is currently working on the 17th season, with filming slated to start later in the fall.
Featured image: L-r: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 15: Rob McElhenney, winner of Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program for “Welcome To Wrexham,” poses in the press room during the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on January 15, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images); LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 15: Quinta Brunson, winner of the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series award for “Abbott Elementary,” poses in the press room during the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards at Peacock Theater on January 15, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
On Swift Horses director Daniel Minahan has long admired the work of cinematographer Luc Montpellier. “He shot Tales From the Loop, which is one of the best series I’ve ever seen. And [the 2022 film] Women Talking is just a feat of design and performance. So I said to him, ‘Your work is so beautiful and so controlled; I really want to mess it up.’”
Minahan was determined that from the music to the set design to the photography, On Swift Horses, which recently had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, would avoid sentiment and nostalgia in its depiction of queer characters living in the shadows in 1950s America. “I did not want that veil between the characters and the audience. I wanted to put the emotion in the foreground,” he says.
Based on Shannon Pufahl’s 2019 novel, On Swift Horses centers on a seemingly conventional newlywed, Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones), and the bond she develops with her brother-in-law, Julius (Jacob Elordi), a mysterious gambler, as both undertake parallel journeys of risk, romance, and self-discovery. Muriel explores another side to her sexuality with Sandra (Sasha Calle), her neighbor in San Diego, while Julius finds passion with fellow gambler Henry (Diego Calva) in Las Vegas.
“It was important to us to not romanticize the period,” says Montpellier. “It’s easy to slip into tropes of romanticism. You needed to feel you were in the room at that time with the characters so you can connect with them. The question became, ‘How do I create a window into the time?’ There were no words then to describe these passions, as LGBT people discovered things.”
Sasha Calle in “On Swift Horses.” Courtesy Black Bear.
To achieve a sense of intimacy, immediacy, and freedom in the motel rooms, casinos, and bars where desire is uncovered and explored, Montpellier shot with a handheld camera to distinguish these from the film’s other, more formal scenes.
Montpellier wanted his camera “almost to be an actor, to create a strong poetic, visual point of view to bring up the context. I don’t want to get in the way of that. I’m proud when the audience reacts to a look that Muriel gives to Julius, and suddenly, you know something is going on. I’m trying to keep an eye open to all of that,” he says. “For the way those scenes are lit, I was leaning into naturalism and honesty with the goal that you felt you were in the room.”
To achieve the mix of light and shadow in the interior scenes, Minahan suggested that Montpellier study not other films but photographs and paintings.
“I did not want to imitate other films,” says Minahan. “The trick of the script is that it has all the tropes of melodrama and noir in this romantic story, and I wanted to find that for ourselves. I wanted to make sure we were not making a pastiche from a fifties film even though that might be fun.” Rather than films from the 1950s, he says, “We looked at documentary photography by Gordon Parks and Bruce Davidson and paintings I admired from the period. Luc and I started sending each other stuff. When he sent me an image from a painter I collect, John Koch, it was one of those moments when I knew I’d chosen the right person to collaborate.”
Will Poulter and Daisy Edgar-Jones in “On Swift Horses.” Courtesy Black Bear.
One particularly memorable scene in the film shows the influence of those visual artists. In the foreground, Julius and Henry are enjoying a close moment in dim light, while in the distance behind them, an atomic test bomb explodes into the night sky above the Las Vegas desert.
“I think of it as the best first date ever, a drink and a bomb,” laughs Minahan. “That image is the cover of the novel; it puts the story in that time period. The visual effects team was so great, but at first, the blast was really big. I said no, the characters would be melting! So they made it 75 miles away in the distance.”
Montpellier looked at “so many images of atomic blasts and people watching with goggles, scarily close,” he says. “It was a kind of innocence. The explosion mimics the fire inside; it’s a symbol of the time, and so it’s a great metaphor. A lot of visual effects were used, but it was also important for me to have practical lighting effects on set so the actors could cue off that. There was a huge lighting rig and wind machine. I wanted to give them what they needed in order to create an environment that allowed them to do their best work.”
The atomic bomb is also symbolic of a complex, post-war era when progress also meant destruction and when the American dream worked for some but certainly not for all. “People were not free in a lot of ways,” says Montpellier. “I love working with filmmakers who want to bring the human condition to light. Dan was so collaborative in beautifully crafting this unconventional love story.”
Featured image: Diego Calva and Jacob Elordi in “On Swift Horses.” Courtesy Black Bear.
One expects Max Minghella to cite the influence of his father, the late director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley), on his acting and directing career. But it’s Minghella’s mother, Carolyn Choa, who gets the shout-out for her impact on his new film, the body horror comedy Shell, starring Elisabeth Moss and Kate Hudson.
“My mother worked for the British Board of Film Classification from 1984 to 1994, which [like the Motion Picture Association] decided whether a film was PG or R. She’d come home and tell me a bedtime story based on what she read that day. This was when the mid-budget studio movie was most prominent in the marketplace, and it had a tremendous influence on my subconscious and on me as a filmmaker,” says Minghella over Zoom while at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Shell had its world premiere just two weeks after Minghella wrapped the film.
Minghella calls Shell “the kind of high-class popcorn entertainment that doesn’t get made anymore. We have these big-budget, tentpole kinds of movies or smaller films designed for prestige and to win awards, and not much in the middle.”
Despite the sci-fi/horror plot about Samantha Lake (Moss), an actress who tries to stay young by undergoing mysterious medical treatments at a wellness center run by high-powered CEO Zoe Shannon (Hudson), Minghella was drawn to the campy aspects of the script, which he read while in post-production on his first film, Teen Spirit (2018).
Kate Hudson and Elisabeth Moss in “Shell.” Courtesy Black Bear.
“I always saw the movie as a comedy, first and foremost, and a love letter to a period of film history I actually love. It’s a borderline parody of those movies,” he says. “Teen Spirit was a very personal movie; melancholic and introverted and European, all the things that I am. Coming out of that experience, I yearned for something extroverted and American. I love all kinds of movies; it’s my blessing and my curse, I suppose, to be so broad-based, so I was excited about these characters and a movie that existed in this space.”
One can spot traces of those movies all over Shell, from Paul Verhoeven and Brian De Palma, certainly, but even further back, to Alien,The Exorcist, and even Psycho. But along with the visual flair and jump scares, there’s a substantive story about body image and self-worth and the lengths many will go to achieve eternal youth, beauty, and relevance.
“I am turning forty next year. All of us contemplate mortality, vanity, and age,” says Minghella. “It is a totally universal theme. Yet, I am completely allergic to messages in films. I loathe films that are didactic or moralistic. I want to explore ideas without making judgments, and I hope Shell is filled with rich ideas without saying much too loudly.”
As an actor with a long list of credits but best known for The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s perhaps not surprising that Minghella’s cast, especially Moss and Hudson, deliver such memorable performances. Minghella says he wanted both stars from the start.
“I am a nightmare with casting. If my producers were here, they’d tell you that I am very particular. I don’t audition or meet actors. I try to conjure in my head the person I think is right for each role.” On set, he says, his directing style is to give each actor “space to explore, have fun, and feel safe to fail. I think that’s my job. I have been lucky on two movies that I got the actors I wanted. A lot can go wrong when you’re making a movie, but I feel so lucky to at least have the people I wanted saying these words, and they are so gifted they give you more than you can possibly imagine.”
Even though Minghella has worked with Moss for years on The Handmaid’s Tale, he admits he was hesitant to approach her about starring in Shell.
“My biggest fear was that she’d say yes just out of some obligation to do it. Then she started to introduce the notion of working together, and by the fifth time, I said, ‘I do have a script you’d be perfect for.’ I’m so happy she nagged me because now I can’t imagine anyone else as Samantha; I’m amazed by how funny she is. It’s quite a complex comedic performance in its physicality and I had not seen her do that before.”
Rapport and professionalism helped with a tight, low-budget shoot. “It often felt we were trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole with limited financial resources and time. It always comes down to the cast and crew in the end,” says Minghella, citing Shell DP Drew Daniels as “one of the most extraordinary technicians you’ll come across. He works quickly and without pretension.”
“Lizzie Moss can deliver a perfectly calibrated performance in one take, so it allows you to move faster. I’d rather have more time to explore, but you simply can’t.” He had just three hours to shoot the film’s climactic car chase, for instance, with two hours needed to set up the crash. “Everything needed to be perfect, from the focus puller to the stunt crew. It is a miracle we have a movie, and I am so grateful to so many people for it.”
Featured image: TORONTO, ONTARIO – SEPTEMBER 09: Max Minghella of ‘Shell’ poses in the Getty Images Portrait Studio Presented by IMDb and IMDbPro during the Toronto International Film Festival at InterContinental Toronto Centre on September 09, 2024 in Toronto, Ontario. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for IMDb)
Arguably the greatest actor of his generation is getting back in front of a camera again.
Daniel Day-Lewis has officially unretired after seven years away to perform in his son Ronan Day-Lewis’s directorial debut, Anemone, from Focus Features and Plan B. The father isn’t just coming back to act in his son’s film—they co-wrote it together—a story about, fittingly, the nuanced relationships of fathers, sons, and brothers and the dynamics of familial bonds. Anemone also stars Samantha Morton, Sean Bean, Safia Oakley-Green, and Samuel Bottomley.
This is Daniel Day-Lewis’s first time in front of a camera since Paul Thomas Anderson’s slow-burn Phantom Thread in 2017. It was ahead of the release of Phantom Thread that he announced his retirement without making a big to-do about it, saying simply he was “grateful to all of his collaborators and audiences over the many years” via a spokesperson.
Vicky Krieps stars as “Alma” and Daniel Day-Lewis stars as “Reynolds Woodcock” in writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s PHANTOM THREAD, a Focus Features release. Credit : Laurie Sparham / Focus Features
“We could not be more excited to partner with a brilliant visual artist in Ronan Day-Lewis on his first feature film alongside Daniel Day-Lewis as his creative collaborator,” Focus Features chairman Peter Kujawski said in a statement. “They have written a truly exceptional script, and we look forward to bringing their shared vision to audiences alongside the team at Plan B.”
Earlier this year, Daniel Day-Lewis reunited with his Gangs of New York director Martin Scorsese at the National Board of Review Awards, where the chatter about his possible return was ignited with a shout-out from Scorsese himself: “We did two films together, and it’s one of the greatest experiences of my life,” said Scorsese while accepting the directing honors for Killers of the Flower Moon. “Maybe there’s time for one more. Maybe! He’s the best.”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JANUARY 11: (L-R) Yancey Red Corn, Daniel Day-Lewis, William Belleau and Martin Scorsese attend the National Board Of Review 2024 Awards Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on January 11, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for National Board of Review)
Ronan Day-Lewis is 26, a filmmaker and a painter, with a debut international solo exhibition opening on October 2 in Hong Kong before traveling to New York and Los Angeles. In his father, he’s getting the only man to ever win three Best Actor Oscars—for Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot, Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln—and who was nominated for two more, Scorsese’s Gangs of New York and Jim Sheridan’s In The Name of the Father.
The Anemone creative team includes costume designer Jane Petrie (The Crown), production designer Chris Oddy (The Zone of Interest), and cinematographer Ben Fordesman (Love Lives Bleeding).
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Featured image: Daniel Day-Lewis poses in the press room at the 18th Annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards held at Barker Hangar on January 10, 2013 in Santa Monica, California.
With three Oscar nominations under his belt, animation auteur Chris Sanders knew a good story when he saw it the minute his daughter brought home Peter Brown’s children’s book “The Wild Robot” back in 2016. Sanders, who’d worked on The Lion King and later helmed How to Train Your Dragon, Lilo & Stitch, and The Croods, appreciated the tragi-comic tale centered on robot Roz (voiced in the film by Lupita Nyong’o) after she washes up on the shore of a remote island populated with wild animals.
Some four years later, Sanders learned that DreamWorks had acquired the book, and he signed on to spearhead the big-screen adaptation, which opened Friday to near-unanimous raves. “In some cases, we had to trim away characters, and in other places, I actually added some complications where I felt things were getting maybe a little too linear,” Sanders says, describing his light touch adaptation. “But it was always in service of Peter’s wonderful story.”
Speaking from his home in Los Angeles, Sanders discusses the emotive power of geese migration, Bambi, and the real-life inspiration behind The Wild Robot‘s enchanted island.
What was your biggest challenge in turning Peter Brown’s universally acclaimed children’s book into The Wild Robot movie?
Keeping the core of Peter’s story intact. When we had our first conversation, Peter revealed the thing he had on his mind when he was writing “The Wild Robot” was the idea that kindness could be a survival skill. I immediately wrote that down and thought, “Okay, this needs to be memorialized on screen.” I put that in the screenplay as a line that Fink the Fox says, and it comes directly from our very first conversation with Peter.
(from left) Fink (Pedro Pascal) and Roz (Lupita N’yongo) in DreamWorks Animation’s Wild Robot, directed by Chris Sanders.
Yet the movie begins not with kindness but with feral, predatory chaos. When Roz first arrives, we see the animals giving her a hard time. Was it important to portray nature as an adversarial environment?
Absolutely. There had to be real life and death consequences for this story to work. For example, if Gosling Brightbill [voiced by Kit Connor] had stayed on the island, he wouldn’t have made it through the winter. He would starve. Peter’s book has some heavy themes, and we have to preserve and even magnify them for the big screen.
The voice actors infuse their animal characters with a ton of personality, but maybe the most surprising talent is Lupita NYong’o as the robotic Roz. She won an Oscar for 12 Years a Slave. A few weeks ago, she starred in a very serious post-apocalyptic drama, A Quiet Place: Day One.And now she’s an animated robot—how did that happen?
Our casting director, Christi Soper, suggested Lupita. Even though she wasn’t going to be on screen, Lupita took this as seriously as she would any role, deconstructing Roz to understand how her mind works. Roz is very intelligent, but there are serious gaps in what she knows, so she has a particular way of seeing things. Finding that amusing, charming angle for Roz was very much a collaboration, which progressed from a couple of Zoom calls to our in-person meetings in the recording studios.
Lupita Nyong’o voices Roz in DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot, directed by Chris Sanders.
Lupita initially delivers her Roz lines in a stiff that we associate with digital assistants like Siri and Alexa. How did you two arrive at that tone?
Lupita was very much thinking about voices like Siri and Alexa when she created what we called an “engineered optimism.” I liken it to somebody who’s coming to a party, and they’re a little bit nervous, so their voice goes like this (switching to a high voice): “Hi, I’m Chris! How are you!” (back to regular voice). Lupita created this sound, which I daresay stressed her voice a little bit to create this upbeat, hopeful quality that Roz has right out of the box.
As the story progresses, Roz changes, and so does her voice.
Roz’s voice becomes more like Lupita’s, and the pattern of her speaking changes as well. At a certain point, Roz begins to use contractions, so there are very subtle things going on. It was fascinating to watch an actor of Lupita’s caliber shape her character.
The fox, the possums, the bear, and the geese are wildly entertaining. on top of that, you have this lush forest, which becomes a character unto itself. What real-life references inspired the look of this island?
We all felt the island would probably be on the northwest coast of North America, given the creatures. Our production designer, Raymond Zibach, looked at Olympia National Park [in Washington] to study the foliage, which is wet and has a lot of ferns. We painted those plants in the background.
Roz (Lupita N’yongo) in DreamWorks Animation’s Wild Robot, directed by Chris Sanders.(from left) Fink (Pedro Pascal) and Brightbill (Kit Connor) in DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot, directed by Chris Sanders.
Your team’s rendering of this forest-island environment evokes a richness reminiscent of classic Disney movies like Bambi. What were you aiming for visually?
You said the magic words: All of us here are big fans of [Disney animator] Tyrus Wong’s style employed for Bambi. It’s one of the most immersive environments I’ve ever seen, and it shows what human beings can do when they paint environments. Of course, Hayao Miyazaki was a big inspiration with films like My Neighbor Totoro, where fantastical things come out of the forest. We aspired to get that same kind of exciting, whimsical vibe for The Wild Robot.
Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) in DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot, directed by Chris Sanders.
So how did you achieve that painterly look?
We fought very hard to create a technology that allowed us to actually paint these environments rather than covering [CGI] geometry in texture. We were able to create matte paintings, which made a huge impact on the visuals. Every sky is painted.
Just to be clear, when you say “painted” you mean…
We’re painting things digitally with a stylus but there’s nothing being generated by a computer. It’s an impressionistic style we adopted for this film, not unlike the washes they did for Bambi, where blades of grass are maybe just a brush stroke with a blob of color hovering above them. Not everything is razor-sharply described, if that’s a word — I just created a new word for your article! It’s not 100 percent described and the same thing with Wild Robot. If you look at our high, wide shots, the forest and the trees are not described in crazy detail on the ground so your eyes don’t get stuck looking there. But it still plays as believable.
Brightbill (Kit Connor) in DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot, directed by Chris Sanders.
SPOILER ALERT
Midway through the movie, Roz says goodbye to Brightbill the Gosling, whom she’s raised from birth. It’s a very emotional seven-minute geese migration sequence complete with soaring music, the thrill of lift-off, the bittersweet farewell, the big sky. How did you put it all together?
I [story] boarded that section myself because I saw some things in my head that were very specific. If you raise a gosling, there’s built-in heartbreak at the end of that road because if you do a good job, it’s eventually going to fly away. Roz has been single minded on this goal of getting Brightbill into the air, so I was interested in showing how, when he takes off, everything catches up with her emotionally. At that moment, Roz does something very un-robotic and starts running because she’s desperate to see that gosling one last time. She’s literally running toward a cliff. It was interesting to show how the physical landscape mimics the emotional landscape.
Music underscores nearly every scene in this film. You must have collaborated closely with composer Kris Bowers?
Kris came on very early in the process. I’m a big believer that music is one of the heaviest lifters as far as emotions and story moments. In the script, I’d build zones where there is no talking so Kris doesn’t have to worry about ducking under or around a bunch of dialogue. For the migration sequence, I asked Kris to ignore the visuals and just write a great piece of music. I said “When you’re done, we’ll sweep in behind you and cut the visuals to match the music.”
The Wild Robot dramatizes this touching transformation of an AI entity into a sentient being. Did you and your team actually use AI to help make the movie?
No AI really came into this. The funny thing is, the advances we made engineering-wise to paint environments curiously allowed us to make a more hand-made, human-made film than previous films I’ve worked on in CG. This is a movie about a learning robot who’s probably running some version [of AI], but when Peter wrote his novel back in 2016, that was not a thing. It’s interesting to see how this conversation has risen just as we were finishing the film.
Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) in DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot, directed by Chris Sanders.
You started writing your Wild Robot script in 2020. After all these years, how does it feel to come out on the other side of this massive collaboration?
I’ve never worked on a production that ran so smoothly. Everyone on the crew, every animator, every effects artist, and every engineer exceeded what they needed to do, which makes me wonder if that’s because of the movie’s message – the idea of kindness. When our animators finished their characters, they’d ask, “Are there any more shots available for me?” They wanted it to go on. The level of devotion and love poured into The Wild Robot is, I think, evident on screen.
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Featured image: (from left) Roz (Lupita Nyong’o), Brightbill (Kit Connor) and Fink (Pedro Pascal) in DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot, directed by Chris Sanders.
How delicious is the concept for The Franchise, HBO’s new series from Veep creator Armando Iannucci, Succession writer Jon Brown, and Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes? Well, first, take a second glance at that list of creators, and then consider that Warner Bros., the home of Superman and Batman (via DC Studios), is behind a biting comedy about the superhero movie business. Yet The Franchise isn’t here to besmirch the cinematic universes conjured by Marvel and DC, but rather delight in just how much crazier and less controlled the art and architecture of creating those universes really is.
The Franchise follows the crew of a major superhero movie franchise that is struggling to find a place within the rough-and-tumble world of comic-inspired film universes. Led by Himeseh Patel as Daniel, the first assistant director of the film whose job is “to keep the actors from killing themselves,” The Franchise will follow him and his fellow crewmembers as they try to keep their cinematic universe from falling out of orbit. Daniel works side-by-side with Daniel Brühl’s director, Eric, whose concerns are a little less on point than Daniel’s (the fact that someone else on set is wearing an “indoor scarf,” for example, which is obviously reserved solely for the director). Billy Magnussen co-stars as one of the franchise’s actors, Adam, alongside Richard E. Grant’s Peter, both of whose superhero shenanigans barely merit mention compared to what’s happening off-screen.
As The Franchise‘s logline puts it, the series aims to “shine a light on the secret chaos inside the world of superhero moviemaking, to ask the question — how exactly does the cinematic sausage get made?” Yet, as a profile the show on The Hollywood Reportermade clear, the series also highlights how hard the cast and crew work on these films and how much of themselves they pour into it. “The beating heart of the show has more to do with the ADs, PAs, the script supervisors, line producers and crew who actually make films and get no public praise for it,” Mendes told THR.
The cast also includes Aya Cash as Anita, Jessica Hynes as Steph, Lolly Adefope as Dag, Darren Goldstein as Pat, and Isaac Powell as Bryson. Check out the trailer below. The Franchise arrives on October 6.
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Agatha All Along creator Jac Schaeffer explores the witchy side of the Marvel Universe just in time for Halloween. The timing of the show’s release is a happy accident for Schaeffer, who also directed the first two episodes. In bringing the titular witch, Agatha (Kathryn Hahn), back fromWandaVision, Schaeffer and her team have made a series with a playful spookiness centered on an irresistible Hahn, the dynamo who has been stealing scenes her whole career and found herself in the unexpected starring role on a Marvel Studios series.
Following the events of WandaVision, Agatha isn’t the powerful witch she once was, having been bested and stripped of her powers by Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) in the climactic showdown that ended that series. When reintroduced, she’s trapped in her mind and living out a European police procedural. Once she snaps out of the procedural drama and returns to reality, she’s horrified to find herself powerless. With a trusty sidekick, Teen (Joe Locke), she assembles a team of witches for a journey on the arduous, dangerous Witches’ Road to regain her powers.
Schaeffer, who also created WandaVision, introduces new elements in the Marvel universe, spoke with The Credits about her influences for Agatha All Along, building witchcraft mythology, and her sensational cast.
In the opening credits, there’s the joke, “Based on the Danish series, Wandavisdysen.” Was that a gag on the page?
The main titles were written into the script; that was always the thing. In fact, the original concept on the page had the skip intro button that you could press, but the idea was that it wouldn’t work because you always get bewitched by main titles if they’re really good. But the idea of it being based on the Danish series was because the editor on that episode, Jamie Gross, used The Killing main titles for a temp before we had made ours.And then when it was time to do ours, I was like, “Well, we have to do it based on the Danish series because that’s what they do in The Killing.” I’ve to say it is one of my top five favorite jokes in the whole show. It really tickles me.
WandaVision was a departure from the Marvel aesthetic. Given the world of witchcraft in Agatha All Along, how’d you want to continue to evolve from that style?
From what I’ve witnessed during my time at Marvel, they’re interested in that. They want it all to fit together, but they want each property to have its own distinct style, color, and feeling. There was definitely room for that. The road itself was hard because you don’t want to go too dark. It also went hand in hand with the notion of how scary it is in terms of ages and audience. We were finding a line.
Were you inspired by Walt Disney and witches from the Disney library? They weren’t afraid to scare kids, and I’d say the same about your witches.
We did, in a larger sense, of how witches are framed in the older Disney canon, the binary of the princess and the evil witch. So, that definitely factored into our early ideating because the whole show is an examination of what it means to be a witch in terms of the stereotype and then what it means authentically. But that’s lovely that you felt that. I would also guess that that also has to do with the practical side of it. There’s a real texture to the show. At least for me, seeing the witches in the real environment has that Grimm’s fairy tale essence to it.
Did you and your visual effects supervisor, Kelly Port, always want to use as many practical effects as possible?
Early on, we were like, “This is not a CGI show,” and Kelly wanted that as well. It was Mary Livanos’, the executive producer, idea. Our touchstones were everything from The Wizard of Oz through The NeverEnding Story, Dark Crystal, The Craft, and The Witches of Eastwick. We were already in this zone, which then became a point of pride for us. It also has an added layer, this discovery where we were like, “Agatha’s power has been taken from her. No power for Agatha, no CG for the show.” It felt aligned with the Marvel ethos.
In the pilot, did you want the house fight scene between Agatha and Rio (Aubrey Plaza) to really set the tone for the action ahead in the series?
Yes. It’s a Marvel show, so there is always a burden for action and some level of violence that is part of the Marvel universe. It’s not something that I always wrote before coming to Marvel. That wasn’t where my mind always went. Although I guess sci-fi is always where I’m at, and there’s always going to be some sort of action in a sci-fi story. But what we were trying to convey with that sequence is the fact that Agatha is powerless. She’s got no blasts and no telekinesis, and if she has no telepathy, then it’s fisticuffs, right? It’s going to be nails and teeth and hair. Also, the relationship between Agatha and Rio is so intimate and so charged that we wanted this close-quarters fight that indicated that they’re at each other’s throats, but also maybe want to make out. We wanted that froth at the top of the show.
As someone with an independent background, how do you want to bring an indie spirit to a production as big as Agatha All Along?
When I hear indie, what that means to me is that we have a “we can solve this” attitude. Give me a pack of gum and a match, and I’ll figure this out. It’s a concert! Just kidding, it’s a public restroom. Even at the Marvel scale, there will be a million things you’re told you can’t have, and then you have to make it work. I think the other indie spirit sensibility is the centering of POVs that don’t normally get the spotlight. It’s certainly the case for this show. All I want to do is tell the stories of women, women from all places and of all ages and all circumstances. And so, that’s part of what I brought to this.
You have great “getting the band together” sequences, like in a classic heist movie. How did you want to define those women as quickly and as substantially as possible?
You’ve nailed it. It is so challenging, but that is the goal. I love heist movies. I love Oceans 11 so much. The economy with which 11 characters are introduced, holy moly, masterclass. Agatha and Teen pick up three characters and a fourth. It’s technically a half-hour show, maybe a little bit longer, but there’s limited real estate. So it is not only the words on the page, it is the casting, which is vital. Ninety percent of your job is done if you cast the right people. Then, it’s the wardrobe, and [costume designer] Daniel Selon’s work did so much to enhance and to create a shorthand for who these characters are. And then, of course, John Collins’ production design. Each space tells a story and establishes the beginning of a thread that will follow throughout the show.
Did you and the writers now have a book of rules for all the witchcraft in the show?
The notes from the room would melt your brain. Because this character has very little presence in the comics, we were originating from scratch a lot of who she is, and then we were assigned the task of defining witchcraft in the MCU. What classic notion of witches do we want to carry forward? How do we want to innovate? What are the ways in which Marvel witches are different? Then, we put them in an environment that required an enormous amount of world-building and rules. Then, because they are on a mission, how do we paint them into a corner over and over again and then get them out of it? Yeah, I’m tired just remembering all of that [Laughs].
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For stunt coordinator George Cottle, it started on a warm summer’s day in Los Angeles. He and director Jon Watts were shooting an episode of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew when Watts mentioned a film idea he was developing to star Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Watts asked Cottle if he’d like to be involved.
“I’ve done three Spider-Man’s with him. I love the way he works,” says Cottle says. “There are a handful of directors who really stand out to me. I love being on set with them. I don’t care what it is. It could be a remake of the Teletubbies. Jon is definitely one of those guys.”
And just like that, Cottle became the supervising stunt coordinator for Wolfs. Streaming on Apple+ TV after a one-week theatrical run by Sony Pictures, the action/comedy stars Pitt and Clooney as two professional fixers who are inadvertently both hired to clean up the same murder scene. Then complications arise. The victim (Austin Abrams) turns out to be very much alive and in possession of a huge stash of drugs. The two lone wolves must join forces to stave off a gang looking to finish the hit and retrieve the drugs.
With a resume that runs the gamut from Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning Oppenheimer and sci-fi head trip Inception to superhero franchises like Nolan’sThe Dark Knight and this blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine, Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther and the aforementioned Spider-Man trilogy —Homecoming, Far From Homeand No Way Home— Cottle thought a lighthearted actioner might be a nice change.
George Cottle with Deadpool stunt double Alex Kyshkovych. Courtesy of George Cottle/Marvel Studios
There was one small detail. Watts hadn’t written a script yet. That didn’t bother Cottle. He reasoned that if it were good enough for Clooney and Pitt, it was good enough for him. Besides, being involved early has its advantages. “Jon would text or call me and be like, ‘Hey listen, if we did this. Do you think we could do it for real?’ And I’d be like, ‘Yeah. We could put the actors in a rig and have the car slide up,’” Cottle remembers. “And he’s like, ‘Great! That’s what we’re doing.’”
Filmmaker Jon Watts with Brad Pitt and George Clooney in “Wolfs,” now playing in select theaters and streaming on Apple TV+.
Then, as Wolfs’ start date drew near, Cottle realized weather would be a factor. “Hang on. This just came to me. We’re shooting this in New York right?,” Cottle asked Watts. “He’s like, ‘Yeah.’ And I’m like, ‘In January?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah.’ And I’m like, ‘And the whole thing takes place at night?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah. It’s gonna be great.’ So I was like, ‘Okay… well… I’m too deep in now.’”
Chilly thoughts aside, Cottle was excited that New York was serving as his stunt canvas. “The energy is truly unlike any other city. New York is so electrifying,” he continues.
Watts, an NYU alumni and current resident, took full advantage of his home base. Wolfs showcases the city, especially during an action-packed chase. Abrams’ character (simply known as “The Kid”) makes a break for it, and the ensuing pursuit spans a lot of NYC real estate.
“George is chasing him in the car. Brad’s on foot. And Austin is running for dear life to get away,” explains Cottle. “It is so fun because we’re actually in New York. We weren’t trying to shoot Atlanta or New Jersey or wherever for New York. We got incredible permission to be on the streets. Chinatown, the Brooklyn Bridge, running Austin through all of these incredibly iconic places.”
Upping the comedy quotient, the entire sequence takes place with Abrams only wearing briefs. “One of the big heroes of this movie is young Austin,” continues Cottle. “New York City is telling everybody to get off the streets because it’s so cold and we’re running this poor kid and his stunt double through the streets in a pair of tighty-whities.”
A showstopping moment comes when the car accidentally hits the kid. Flipping upside down, he sails lengthwise over the car and lands perfectly on his feet behind the vehicle. Though Cottle had never attempted a gag like this before, he was game for the challenge when Watts told him the idea. “I’m like, ‘Don’t make me answer you now. Let me think about how we would achieve it and I’ll get back to you,’” Cottle replied.
And pull it off they did. “We put together a really good plan,” continues Cottle, crediting the entire crew for its successful execution. “Larkin (Seiple), our DP, really helped us work around the rigging and the lighting. We had to shoot at a much higher frame rate to get the slow motion that Jon wanted. There were many layers that we didn’t do in the street. It was a multiple pass process and it’s pretty bloody funny.”
Cottle is also complimentary of Clooney and Pitt’s stunt acumen. Watts’ goal was to put the stars in as much action as possible. That meant having Clooney and Pitt front and center for car chases, shootouts and fights. The A-listers continually rose to the challenge.
“They just get it,” says Cottle. “They have this ability, the bandwidth, to take in so much information and still act on top of that. I think that when somebody is so good at something, they make it look easy. That’s what’s truly fascinating about working with them.”
Brad Pitt and George Clooney in “Wolfs,” now playing in select theaters and streaming on Apple TV+.
As an example, Cottle cites a gag where Clooney effortlessly dips a luggage cart to hook a body bag onto it. “We came up with this idea, and he walked in, watched somebody do it, and was like, ‘Okay, I got it. Where’s the camera?’”
Pitt was the same. Watts devised a move that sees the BMW Clooney is driving pivot 180 degrees and slide up to the sidewalk. As it comes to a stop, Pitt opens the door, steps out, and walks away without missing a beat. After working out the details with a stuntman, Pitt was brought on set. He watched a rehearsal and immediately got it. And he proved it by doing four flawless takes. “He’s incredibly coordinated, incredibly physical, and has a great understanding of his body,” adds Cottle.
When Cottle learned Clooney was a car and motorcycle fan, he was the logical choice to be in the driver’s seat. “He’s a very good driver, actually. Surprisingly so,” says Cottle. “I know he’s a bit of a petrolhead. As soon as I hear that, I find it a little bit easier.”
Clooney and Pitt weren’t the only high-profile duo Cottle has recently put through their stunt paces. After Wolfs wrapped, he took Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman through this summer’s blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine.
“There’s a lot more violence, fights and superheroes and all of that kind of thing,” says Cottle. “I know that sounds crazy, but the most fun for me was leaning into the violence. The vast majority of movies I’ve done over the last decade were PG-13. You’re limited on headbutts. You can’t see blood. All the small things you have to do to keep a PG-13 rating. Deadpool was the polar opposite. We were allowed to lean into that, especially with the comedy aspect. It was just so fresh. I really pushed the team.”
That meant pushing the film’s stars, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman as well. “What Ryan and Hugh had to learn, all of that was next level. There was so much more going on, and they both nailed it,” says Cottle. “That was my first time with Hugh, and I think the only time I’ve seen an actor pick up choreography as fast is Tom Holland from the Spidey films or John David Washington in Tenet. It was beyond impressive.”
Though vastly different in terms of stunt challenges, Cottle believed in many ways, the films share a similar vibe. They were both loads of fun. January winter aside, Cottle had a ball filming Wolfs. He credits Watts. “I love the way he is with actors, the little jokes and silly humor, his ability to get them to a place where they understand exactly what’s going on,” Cottle says. “And Brad and George were the perfect combination to bring all of those elements together. The chemistry between them is incredible. It was mesmerizing to watch.”
Wolfs is streaming on Apple TV+.
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The great Maggie Smith passed away on Friday, September 27, at the age of 89. Her astonishing career on stage and screen played out over seven decades, as she became one of Britain’s most beloved, recognizable, and prolific performers and a two-time Oscar winner to boot—she’s one of the few actresses to win both a Best Supporting Oscar and Best Actress Oscar. Her sons Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin shared this statement with the BBC said on the day of her passing: “It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning, Friday 27th September. An intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother.”
Smith’s renown wasn’t limited to the United Kingdom, of course—her admirers were global, and her reach was expanded with a memorable role as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter franchise. Smith also starred in California Suite (where she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress), Downton Abbey, The Bext Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Prime of Mis Jean Brodie (which earned her second Oscar for Best Actress), Gosford Park, A Room With A View, and many, many more critically acclaimed films.
Her fellow stars have shared how much of an impact Smith made their lives, including Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, who first met Smith when he was an even smaller kid than he was on the first day of filming Harry Potter.
“The first time I met Maggie Smith, I was 9 years old, and we were reading through scenes for David Copperfield, which was my first job. I knew virtually nothing about her other than that my parents were awestruck at the fact that I would be working with her,” Radcliffe said in a statement. “The other thing I knew about her was that she was a Dame, so the first thing I asked her when we met was ‘would you like me to call you Dame?’ at which she laughed and said something to the effect of ‘don’t be ridiculous!’ I remember feeling nervous to meet her and then her putting me immediately at ease. She was incredibly kind to me on that shoot, and then I was lucky enough to go on working with her for another 10 years on the Harry Potter films. She was a fierce intellect, had a gloriously sharp tongue, could intimidate and charm in the same instant, and was, as everyone will tell you, extremely funny. I will always consider myself amazingly lucky to have been able to work with her and to spend time around her on set. The word legend is overused, but if it applies to anyone in our industry, then it applies to her. Thank you Maggie.”
Radcliffe was joined by many other colleagues, who were also often admirers, including fellow Harry Potter alum Emma Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the series. On Instagram, Watson wrote, “When I was younger, I had no idea of Maggie’s legend – the woman I was fortunate enough to share space with. It is only as I’ve become an adult that I’ve come to appreciate that I shared the screen with a true definition of greatness. She was real, honest, funny and self-honouring. Maggie, there were a lot of male professors, and by God, you held your own. Thank you for all of your kindness. I’ll miss you.”
The Harry Potter cast continued singing Smith’s praises, including Rupert Grint, who played the third member of the trifecta, Ron Weasley, Harry and Hermione’s best friend. Grint wrote on Instagram, “She was so special, always hilarious and always kind. I feel incredibly lucky to have shared a set with her and particularly lucky to have shared a dance. I’ll miss you Maggie.”
Oscar-winner Viola Davis wrote of Smith on Instagram, “The end of an era of the sheer definition of what it means to be an actor. You created characters that clung to us, moved us, entertained us……made us look within. You defied the expectations of age….crossed generations. You were greatness personified Dame Maggie Smith.”
Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes shared this statement with The Hollywood Reporter: “Maggie Smith was a truly great actress, and we were more than fortunate to be part of the last act in her stellar career. She was a joy to write for, subtle, many-layered, intelligent, funny and heart-breaking. Working with her has been the greatest privilege of my career, and I will never forget her.”
Her co-star in Downton, Hugh Bonneville, shared this with THR: “Anyone who ever shared a scene with Maggie will attest to her sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent. She was a true legend of her generation and, thankfully, will live on in so many magnificent screen performances. My condolences to her boys and wider family.”
Michelle Dockery, who played Lady Mary in Downton, said, “There was no one quite like Maggie. I feel tremendously lucky to have known such a maverick. She will be deeply missed, and my thoughts are with her family.”
Featured image: English actress Maggie Smith, UK, 8th March 1974. She is appearing in the stage comedy ‘Snap!’ at the Vaudeville Theatre on the Strand in London. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Two iconic Batman supervillains look to be getting their own film in what could be an epic bad guy team-up film.
With writer/director James Gunn’s Superman done filming and currently in post-production, Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Studios has arguably the biggest name in all of comics leading off their upcoming slate, titled Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters, which includes both feature films and TV series. The only other DC superhero who can rival Superman in popularity and import is Batman, and Gunn and Safran have not one but two Batman movies upcoming—Matt Reeves Batman Part II, officially under DC’s Elseworlds banner, and a reboot of the character in The Brave and the Bold, which is based on Grant Morrison’s comic that explores Bruce Wayne and his son, Damian, who ends up becoming Batman’s sidekick, Robin. Yet Gotham and Batman’s murky world is bigger than just Batman, of course. The Hollywood Reporterscoops that two classic Batman supervillains, Bane and Deathstroke, will be getting their own film.
Bane, as played by Tom Hardy, was one of the key antagonists in Christopher Nolan’s trilogy-capping The Dark Knight Rises. The hulking, haunted supervillain was almost too much for Christian Bale’s Batman in that film, breaking his back and banishing him to a living hell underground. In the new film, Bane will be joined by the no less lethal Deathstroke, who was played by Joe Manganiello in the director’s cut of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, where he finds out Batman’s identity from Lex Luthor. THR reports that the script is being written by Captain America: Brave New Worldscribe Matthew Orton.
Bane joined Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery in 1990, dreamed up by writer Buck Dixon and artist Graham Nolan. It was in the classic storyline “Knightfall” that Bane broke Batman’s back and made himself one of the most marquee villains in Batman’s world. In Christopher Nolan’s film, Bane is a creature of the brutal subterranean prison, the Pit, where he spends most of his life learning how to master his formidable strength while being taught by the League of Shadows. He’s got superhuman strength, but it also causes him immense suffering, requiring him to huff analgesic gas from a mask.
Deathstroke first came on the scene on the pages of the comics in 1980, and the super assassin became a popular villain. Created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez, he’s leaped over to the screen in the live-action Titans series and Manganiello’s cameo. There has been talk about Deathstroke getting his own film from The Raid director Gareth Evans, but it hasn’t come to pass.
DC Studios has another major Batman villain preparing to appear on the screen, of course—Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker is dancing and singing his way back on the big screen in Joker: Folie á Deux, on October 4. Meanwhile, on the small screen, there’s The Penguin, an excellent spinoff series from Matt Reeves’ The Batman, featuring Colin Farrell’s waddling villain.
Featured image: LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 22: A Bane costume from the 2012 Dark Knight Rises film worn by Tom Hardy and designed by Lindy Hemming is on display at the DC Comics Exhibition: Dawn Of Super Heroes at the O2 Arena on February 22, 2018 in London, England. The exhibition, which opens on February 23rd, features 45 original costumes, models and props used in DC Comics productions including the Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman films. (Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)
James Gunn’s Superman might have wrapped filming this past July, but new revelations about the cast are apparently still possible. Deadlinescoops that Alan Tudyk, no stranger to epic sci-fi and action films (he voiced the beloved droid K-2SO in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and reprised the role in Tony Gilroy’s excellent Disney+ series Andor), is involved in Superman. This marks the second collaboration between Tudyk and Gunn, with the versatile actor voicing the villain Doctor Phosphorus in Gunn’s upcoming animated series Creature Commandos on Max. Nearly a decade ago, Gunn appeared in an episode of Tudyk’s Vimeo series Con Man, which aired from 2015 to 2017.
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 11: Alan Tudyk of “Resident Alien” speaks during the NBCUniversal segment of the 2020 Winter TCA Press Tour at The Langham Huntington, Pasadena on January 11, 2020 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
Superman is the first major effort out of Gunn and Peter Safran’s new-look DC Studios. The duo is committed to creating a unified slate of feature films, TV shows, and video games for the DC banner. The upcoming film, featuring David Corenswet as Clark Kent and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, reboots the Man of Steel and sets the stage for the first phase of Gunn and Safran’s retooled DC slate, which they’re calling Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters.
Tudyk joins Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, Skyler Gisondo (Jimmy Olsen), Sara Sampaio (Eve Teschmacher), Edi Gathegi (Mister Terrific), Terence Rosemore (Otis), Anthony Carrigan (Metamorpho), Isabela Merced (Hawkgirl), Nathan Fillion (Guy Gardner), María Gabriela de Faría (The Engineer), Wendell Pierce (Daily Planet editorPerry White), Beck Bennett, and Frank Grillo (Rick Flag Sr).
Tudyk can next be seen in one of the biggest upcoming releases of the year, voicing Hei Hei in Disney Animation’s Moana 2, due out on November 27. As for Superman, Gunn’s feature is set to fly into theaters on July 11, 2025.
Ana de Armas is ready to take her place in the John Wick universe, one brutal takedown of a would-be assassin at a time. The first trailer for Ballerina finds our new heroine, Eva Macarro (de Armas), as she begins training as an assassin in the traditions of the Ruska Roma. Ballerina is set during the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, and recently benefited from longstanding John Wick mastermind director Chad Stahelski. stepping in to assist director Len Wiseman punch up new action sequences shot in 2024.
Wick has been one of the most successful action franchises of the past decade, with Keanu Reeve’s be-suited bada** first appearing on the big screen back in 2014 when his doleful hitman was trying to get out of the game, but was pulled back in when some very ill-advised home invaders killed his beloved dog, Daisy. That first kinetic action flick spawned an entire universe, with Reeves appearing in three more films—in the last, John Wick: Chapter 4, he met his fate in a final standoff with Donnie Yen’s Caine.
Because Ballerina is set between John Wick 4 and 4, Reeves can have a cameo in the film. Ana De Armas has proven herself eminently capable of handling action; she was stellar as a young CIA operative in Daniel Craig’s last turn as James Bond in No Time To Die. Here, she’s joined by Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, Norman Reedus, Catalina Sandino, Wick patriarch Ian McShane, and the late great Lance Reddick.
Wiseman directs from a script by John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum scribe Shay Hatten.
Check out the trailer below. Ballerina dances onto screens in 2025.
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We’ve got our first look at The Last of Us season 2, and it’s a taut, tense glimpse at one of television’s most compelling series next move. The trailer opens with Pedro Pascal’s Joel Miller and newcomer Catherine O’Hara as the two sit for what appears to be a therapy session. Heaven knows Joel needs it—the last time we saw him, he was seeing red in a brutal, vengeful bloodbath at a hospital where his charge, Ellie (Bella Ramsey), was moments away from being dissected.
Speaking of Ellie, we see her in her new home in the mountains, safely secured there by Joel and his rampage to free her. While our survivors look to be in a better position than they were at any point last season, the sense of security bleeds away at the one-minute mark. We see one of the infected—at one of the later, more terrifying stages of mutation—crawling toward an unsuspected potential victim.
The trailer, set to a particularly haunting version of Pearl Jam’s “Future Days,” picks up five years after the events of the first season. That means the hard-earned peace that Joel and Ellie have found will be that much more tragic to give up. “Joel and Ellie’s collective past catches up to them,” the official description reads, “drawing them into conflict with each other and a world even more dangerous and unpredictable than they left behind.”
Season two featuers a bunch of talented newcomers: Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, Isabela Merced as Dina, Young Mazino as Jesse, Ariela Barer as Mel, Tati Gabrielle as Nora, Spencer Lord as Owen, Danny Ramirez as Manny, and Jeffrey Wright as Isaac.
Why was the trailer released today? Good question—in the terrifying world of The Last of Us, September 26 was the day when the cordyceps virus outbreak first exploded in the original game by Naughty Dog.
Check out the trailer here. The Last of Us returns in 2025.
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The Streaming Innovation Alliance turns a year old today. If you haven’t heard of SIA, you’ve certainly been impacted by its commitment to giving streamers a unified voice so they can keep creating the films and television series you love – and delivering them to audiences when, where, and how they choose to watch. Once viewed as an upstart to traditional entertainment, streamers have become a beloved part of the visual storytelling landscape. As the advent and deployment of digital film capabilities upended but did not replace the use of film on film and TV sets, the streaming world has also enhanced and enriched the industry. The large, disparate streaming community offers more storytellers from more diverse backgrounds a chance to tell their stories and find their audiences with more freedom and opportunity than ever before.
The SIA counts among its members big players, like Max, Disney+, Netflix, Paramount +, BET+, Discovery +, Telemundo, and Peacock, and smaller, crucial independent streamers like TV AfrolandTV and In The Black Network, which both highlights black voices and original stories, and Skinsplex Network, which features unlimited access to movies and media from Indigenous filmmakers, including original programming, documentaries, shorts, and animation. Streamers have opened the door to one new world after another, allowing millions of people to experience cultures and people they had little access to before or, just as crucially, see themselves reflected in the shows and films they watch for the first time. Whether it’s writer/director Issa López centering a Native American detective in her chilling, thrilling True Detective: Night Country for Max, Shōgun’s Emmy-winning editor Aika Miyake bringing a Japanese female’s perspective to one of the series’ most astonishing episodes, or Iwájú visual effects supervisor Marlon West bringing afro-futurism to Disney+, streamers enlarge our world.
While streaming has become the most popular way for Americans to find films, shows, music, and more they want, it’s also expanded opportunities for the people who make up the vast entertainment industry workforce. This creative explosion has been a boon for everyone who works on a film or TV set, whether it’s a showrunner building out her world on the beaches of Nantucket or the costume designers creating lush looks for worlds beyond worlds in a galaxy far, far away. The desire for more stories has opened up a space for producers and creators like Mann Robinson, a tireless filmmaker and TV creator whose sound and stage studios in Georgia are a creative production hub.
At The Credits, we’ve been covering the creatives working in the streaming industry since its inception (more or less), projects big and small, whether it’s how The Penguin production designer Kalina Ivanov turned New York City into a Gotham for the new Max series or how showrunner and editor Inbal B. Lessner and editor Kevin Hibbard helped construct Netflix’s haunting documentary series Escaping Twin Flames. As the streaming industry has grown, so has the number of incredible filmmakers and TV creators eager to share the craft behind the magic with us.
“It was going to be a continuation of the first film and not some sort of reboot,” production designer Mark Scruton says about Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, thesequel to the 1988 cult classic that reunites the absurdly talented Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder as everyone’s favorite goth-undead will they won’t they couple.
The story picks up years after the events in Beetlejuice and sees the Deetz family – Ryder’s Lydia, her estranged teenage daughter Astrid, played by Wednesday star Jenna Ortega, and Lydia’s stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara) – back in Winter River to mourn an unexpected death.
For Scruton, it meant designing over 70 different sets across Vermont, London, and Massachusetts for the 46-day shoot. A point of emphasis from Burton was to create as much as possible in camera. “Tim wants to be in the world. I think he has as much fun being in the world as he does filming it,” says Scruton. “So we knew we had to build everything and make it feel like the original one did.” Researching the original aesthetics established by production designer Bo Welch was a guide for Scruton, but influences ranged from German Expressionism, 1960s brutalism, and modernism as well as films like Dr. Caligari and the 1924 Russian film Aelita Queen of Mars.
Concept drawing by Mark Scruton. Courtesy Mark Scruton/Warner Bros.
A big part of the work was revisiting the Vermont town of East Corinth, which stands in for Winter River, to construct the Deetz family home while interiors were built on soundstages in London. Making them feel accurate to the first film was crucial for Scruton. “It was important to us that the cast walked into those sets and felt like they were back on because they would be the harshest critic if they walked in and it wasn’t the same. And you don’t want that on the first day because that would be mortifying,” admits the production designer.
The team spent substantial time figuring out what went into the original sets, especially agonizing over props in the first film that fell into the shadows. Scruton also put his own spin on the forced perspective tricks found in the afterlife and built several new spaces, including a police office, train station, dry cleaners, and immigration area. Below, he discusses what went into recreating the Deetz home, a painstaking but fulfilling process of movie magic at its handmade best.
The Deez family home plays a big part in the film. What went into rebuilding the exterior?
We approached it as another character in the film, and we had to figure out what had happened to that character for 30 years and what Delia had done with it. What I think Delia would have done is restore it back to its original roots and the colonial style. In the first film, it goes through the whole postmodern rebuild, and then at the end, you sort of get the impression it’s being put back, but you never really see where it goes. So everything was sort of lovingly taken back to the actual architecture.
A mock-up of the Deetz family home. Courtesy Mark Scruton/Warner Bros.The Deetz Family home. Courtesy Mark Scruton/Warner Bros.
Do you have any references other than the original film to recreate the house?
We had the original plans and elevations from the first film. They were paper-thin and super fragile, and we weren’t allowed to touch them. We just had to take photographs of them, and they were very blurry and sketchy. So we studied the film as well in great detail to make sure that we built it exactly as it should have been.
The Deetz Family home. Courtesy Mark Scruton/Warner Bros.
Well, your team nailed it – even the small hill it’s on. Did you find the same hill location in East Corinth from the original?
It was interesting because the hill was still there, but the vegetation and everything else had grown up. So we really had to draw a line between what we left and how we reshaped it. We did a lot of landscaping to make sure that it looked like time had passed, but we wanted it to still look like it was cared for.
Concept drawing of Astrid (Jenna Ortega) riding her bike through Wind River. Courtesy Mark Scruton/Warner Bros.
Did you consider roughing up the texture to show that time has passed?
Because of who Delia is, because she’s got money and follows trends—one of which is that she restores the house immaculately—we decided to make it super clean. So, the exterior is the same as the first film, but it is pin-sharp in every bit of detail.
Interior of the Deetz house. Courtesy Mark Scruton/Warner Bros.
Since part of the production was in Vermont, were you able to connect with local vendors?
It was a mixture of things. A lot of the team came from Boston and the Massachusetts area, but we tried to work with local people as much as we could. We rented barns and farms, and I think we took up every hotel and facility available. We even had some of the local kids helping us with security guards. Anybody who wanted to get involved, I think, ended up getting involved one way or the other.
There’s a funeral scene where the Deetz family is in mourning, and to extend that emotion to the house, a black veil covers the entire exterior. How did you pull that off?
Drawing something on paper is quite a different thing from actually making it happen. It was a big house, so the job of covering it was pretty tricky. Once we arrived at the fabric with the right translucency and flow, we didn’t know if the quantities existed. So, my teams in London, L.A., and Boston all had to track down local suppliers to get the fabric shipped in. It was a big undertaking to get that thing done because we didn’t have much time, either.
The Deetz Family home. Courtesy Mark Scruton/Warner Bros.
The interiors of the house are so detailed. Did you approach the aesthetics with Delia in mind, too?
Yes, we wanted them to feel like Delia had restored it, so it’s got modern finishes, modern lighting, and very, very high-end little detailing. The knobs and handles are sort of really expensive, and all the carpentry was pin-sharp and beautifully painted. We wanted it to feel like she’d love it and really poured her heart into getting it back to the original house.
Caption: (L-r) JENNA ORTEGA as Astrid and WINONA RYDER as Lydia in Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh
You can see how far your team and set decoration went to match the original interior décor in the Deez home and the afterlife sets. How did you manage all that?
We were very conscious that these films would be studied, and if we did it wrong, we would be called out on it, so we studied everything. We had some original drawings and stills from the original movie, but I went through the original film almost frame by frame and put a Bible together that all the departments could refer back to. Since a lot of the stuff in those sets came from antique shops and thrift stores, we had to draw a lot of it up and have it custom-made. Occasionally, we would luck out and find something on eBay, but a lot of the stuff, the lighting particularly, was custom-made as replicas.
One of the afterlife sets. Courtesy Mark Scruton/Warner Bros.Afterlife passport and immigration. Courtesy Mark Scruton/Warner Bros.
The art is such an important element to the Beetlejuice world, especially with Delia being this avant-garde artist. How did that design work evolve?
A problem we did have sometimes was the artwork. The new rules on clearances are now so strict that we couldn’t use some of the original artwork because the clearance didn’t exist, and no one could track down who had painted it or where it had come from. So we had to recreate some things in a similar style and had artists paintwork with the same vibe, feel, and color palette.
Caption: MICHAEL KEATON and Director TIM BURTON on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ comedy, “BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Parisa Taghizadeh
There’s a joy seeing all the throwbacks to the original film, one of them being the miniature model of the town in the attic. What was the approach to it?
That prop really had to be identical because we were going to be inches away from it for almost whole scenes. I had an art director dedicated to it, and it took us 12 weeks to build every detail. It had to look handmade, and the only real way you can do that is by making it by hand, so it was all handmade, and we didn’t 3D print stuff. It was just a very painstaking job.
The model town where Beetlejuice lives. Courtesy Mark Scruton/Warner Bros.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is in theaters now.
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When it comes to toy-inspired movie franchises, Hasbro’s Optimus Prime beat Mattel’s Barbie to the punch by several decades. The franchise includes a 1986 cartoon feature, five Michael Bay movies, and two spinoffs. The seemingly never-ending battle between Autobots and Decepticons finally gets its backstory in the animated prequel Transformers One. Featuring the voices of Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, and Keegan-Michael Key, the movie follows a young Optimus Prime (Hemsworth) and Megatron (Henry) before they become arch-enemies.
Writing partners Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari teamed with Black Widow scribe Eric Pearson on the Transforms Origins script after showcasing their action comedy chops on Ant-Man and Ant-Man and the Wasp. “That made us good candidates for working on bright, adventurous, world-building IP, which initially helped us get the attention of Hasbro,” says Barrer.
Barrer, speaking from his suburban Philadelphia home and Ferrari, in his Long Island headquarters, recounts their own origin story, describes “Transformers School” and explains how Stand By Me inspired their concept for Transformers One.
Congratulations on coming up with a fresh take on the Transformers characters nine movies into the franchise. I’m curious about the origins story behind your origins story movie.
Andrew Barrer: We jumped on the project, probably in 2013 when Hasbro Studios approached us to make an animated movie. Then [in 2015], we were down in Mexico in the desert when we got a call from [writer-producer] Akiva [Goldsman] asking us to be part of this writer’s room. The idea was to brainstorm what a Transformers cinematic universe would look like, and then, at a certain point, individual writers broke off and cooked up what their segment might be. So we went up to Los Angeles, and they put us through Transformers school, where you learn all the ins and outs of the canon. But we already had our take. Our mantra was always Stand By Me with robots. Our goal was to write a story where these characters would be interesting even if they weren’t robots.
L-r, Brian Tyree Henry (D-16/Megatron), Scarlett Johansson (Elita-1), Chris Hemsworth (Orion Pax/Optimus Prime) and Keegan-Michael Key (B-127), star in “TRANSFORMERS ONE.” Courtesy Paramount Pictures/Hasbro.
How did your screenplay evolve over the years?
Gabriel Ferrari: Going in, we knew this would just be on [the planet] Cybertron and we knew there would be no human characters, and we wanted our script to be part of this interconnected mythology that came out of that [writers] room, but the script went through many iterations. It wasn’t really until Paramount Animation came on and said that they wanted to do an origins story per your pitch in an animated format. That’s when we landed on this more youthful tone that didn’t have much to do with the previous continuity. It was kind of its own thing. And then Josh [Cooley] from Toy Story 4 came in to direct.
Andrew: That’s when the tone and the aesthetic approach solidified because Josh is one of the funniest people on the planet.
Did you initially connect in Brooklyn as writing partners?
Andrew: We’ve actually been friends since we met freshman year at NYU.
Gabriel: Andrew was studying philosophy, and I was an art student.
So, neither of you actually studied film. Did you collaborate on other stuff?
Andrew: In our junior year, we went to Croatia for a photojournalism project on war generation and made a little book. But it wasn’t until after college, living in Chinatown, that we talked about writing a screenplay.
Gabriel: Our process was weird. Since we hadn’t studied film or screenwriting, our knowledge was rudimentary, and we had to learn on our feet with our first script, Die in a Gun Fight. We gave it to our friend Steve, who took it to a producer, who got Zac Efron on board, and from that, we got agents, and our script was on the Blacklist. That launched us.
Scarlett Johansson (Elita-1) stars in PARAMOUNT ANIMATION and HASBRO’s “TRANSFORMERS ONE.” Courtesy Paramount Pictures/Hasbro.
A few years later, Marvel calls you in at the last minute to re-write Ant-Man?
Andrew: Yeah. Edgar Wright left the first Ant-Man very late in the game, just three weeks before production after full sets had been built, and they quickly swapped in director Peyton Reed. We went down to Atlanta at the drop of a hat and worked on set.
Gabriel: We worked around the clock, and everyone felt the pressure.
Andrew: Even though we didn’t get our names on it, we had to be the last writers to touch a lot of the humor, jokes, and dialogue.
Gabriel: But we came through in the clutch, and the sentiment [from the studio] was, “Let’s bring them back for Ant-Man and the Wasp. They earned it.”
Jon Hamm (Sentinel Prime) stars in PARAMOUNT ANIMATION and HASBRO in“TRANSFORMERS ONE.” Courtesy Paramount Pictures/Hasbro.
The Ant-Man work then leads to this movie. When you were kids, did you guys play with Transformers action figures?
Andrew: I was actually pretty bad as a kid. There’s a joke in the movie about not being getting them to transform fully. Gabriel probably played with them more?
Gabriel: And I definitely watched the Saturday morning cartoons. Then, I saw the Shia Labeouf/Michael Bay movies over the years. Bay did his thing and made it wildly successful, but now we’re at a point in time where a lot of people out there maybe don’t remember or don’t care what the old movies were like. They might be coming to Transformers for the first time, so we were given an opportunity to explore a different way forward, being faithful to much of the old but with the tone maybe feeling more modern for a new era.
Andrew: Particularly because it’s an origins story, there’s a mythological thing happening. It’s like Exodus, it’s Ben Hur, it’s Shakespearean. For us, it was about “Let’s stop thinking about clanking metal and think about Megatron and Optimus as this brotherhood that tragically crumbles.”
Yet, the story details still need to fit within the world of Transformers.
Andrew: Yes. Part of Hasbro school was that there are facts in Cybertronian culture, like what Energon is, what a spark is, and what a Transformer cog is. You can’t just make it up as you go along.
Gabriel: There’s a committee over there at Hasbro who live and breathe this stuff, so sometimes they’d say, “Ah, you can’t do that; it’s not so good for the Transformers brand.
The Guards in PARAMOUNT ANIMATION and HASBRO Present “TRANSFORMERS ONE.” Courtesy Paramount Pictures/Hasbro.
Your story stars sentient robots, and of course, artificial intelligence (AI) has come to play an increasingly powerful role in society over the past few years. How has AI impacted your craft?
Gabriel: AI has not crept into our lives as writers so much.
Andrew: I’m not going to pooh-pooh new methodologies, but I would describe myself as an artist, and I can’t help but see AI as a performance-enhancing drug that you have to be careful about.
You two first hatched your concept for the film back in 2013, and eleven years later, Transformers One is about to hit theaters. What do you hope audiences take away from this movie?
Andrew: That it’s awesome and fun and a good cinematic experience that you should really watch together with other people in a movie theater.
Chris Hemsworth (Orion Pax/Optimus Prime) stars in “TRANSFORMERS ONE.” Courtesy Paramount Pictures/Hasbro.
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Featured image: L-r, Keegan-Michael Key (B-127), Brian Tyree Henry (D-16), Chris Hemsworth (Orion Pax), and Scarlett Johansson (Elita-1) star in “TRANSFORMERS ONE.” Courtesy Paramount Pictures/Hasbro.
One of the biggest movies not named Superman currently brewing in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Studios is director Craig Gillespie’s (I, Tonya, Cruella) Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. The upcoming feature stars House of the Dragon‘s Milly Alcock as Superman’s cousin, Kara Zor-El, in a film inspired by Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s well-regarded, rough-around-the-edges comic about Kara’s hard-scrabble life and her immense powers. The film has landed Matthias Schoenaerts in the villain role, a performer of considerable charisma and gravitas. It feels like a casting coup, as did putting Alcock in the lead role.
King and Evely’s story of a young alien girl tormented by the killing of her family is decidedly a less heroic and more tortured piece of storytelling than the usual superhero fare, something that has generated excitement among DC fans eager to see what Gunn and Safran are cooking up for their newly united DC Universe. Gunn’s Superman will fly first out of the gate when it arrives on July 2, 2025.
We don’t yet know how much of the Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow script, written by Ana Nogueira, will adapt from the comic. It’s worth noting that in King and Evely’s story, Supergirl seeks out her cousin Superman to help her exact revenge on the people who killed her family. The villain in the comic was the man who killed Supergirl’s father, Krem of the Yellow Hills. Krem makes the grievous mistake of hurting her super-pet, Krypto. There will be blood.
Schoenaerts most recently starred alongside Kate Winslet in HBO’s miniseries The Regime. He was sensational opposite Marion Cotillard in director Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone and has plenty of experience in big-budget movies, having co-starred in the Jennifer Lawrence-led spy thriller Red Sparrow and the Gina Prince-Bythewood directed and Charlize Theron-led action epic The Old Guard.
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is due to soar into the theaters on June 26, 2026.
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Featured image: PARK CITY, UTAH – JANUARY 31: Actor Matthias Schoenaerts attends the “The Mustang” Premiere during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival at Eccles Center Theatre on January 31, 2019 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
