Disney’s presentation at this year’s CinemaCon in Las Vegas was a lot less PG than it usually is. That’s because this year, the studio had Deadpool & Wolverine to show off, the latest installment in the raunchiest, most ribald franchise in the superhero world.
The presentation began with a PSA reminding audience members to silence their phones. Then it cut to Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) discussing rumors for Avengers: Secret Wars, the first Avengers film since Endgame dominated box offices in 2019. Naturally, Deadpool is chatty and ready to explain his theories for what happens, but a cell phone blares from the audience, cutting him off. After several interruptions, the short-fused Wolverine finally loses his cool and unleashes a bevy of F-bombs. This is a nifty way for Marvel to let folks know that just because Deadpool is now officially a Marvel film (it used to belong to Fox) and Marvel’s a Disney-owned studio doesn’t mean the new movie will be any less potty-mouthed.
Kevin Feige added to the loose and limber vibe, summing up the Reynolds/Jackman team-up movie this way: “It’s f**king awesome.” The 9 minutes of footage included Deadpool and Wolverine dealing with the multiverse while slinging the barbed wit that fans of the franchise have come to love. That includes taking shots at the very movie they’re watching, Marvel, and even Disney.
Director Shawn Levy was on hand to reveal the footage, which were all spoiler-free selects. The new look at Deadpool & Wolverine included some funny details, including Reynolds’ Wade Wilson, now retired from the superhero business, selling cars, but doing so in his insanely unsuitable way. Eventually, as we learned in the gangbusters trailer, Wade will find himself at the Time Variance Authority HQ, where he’s deployed on a mission that eventually has him colliding with Wolverine.
There were plenty of laughs during the footage, which Feige said was specially picked out by Levy and Reynolds for the CinemaCon crowd. Deadpool & Wolverine is Marvel’s only 2024 release, coming on July 26, yet the studio must feel pretty good about it, considering it became the most-watched trailer in history.
For more on Deadpool & Wolverine, check out these stories:
There couldn’t have been a more fitting location for the first look at Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2 than The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. Scott’s epic sequel came roaring into the Las Vegas venue for CinemaCon, where theater owners got the first peek at his hotly-anticipated swords-and-sandals blockbuster.
Scott introduced the footage via video from London, confident in the work he, his cast, and his crew had accomplished. “It is possibly even more extraordinary than the first,” he said in the video. Stars Paul Mescal and Denzel Washington both enthused about what’s in store for audiences.
The footage revealed Mescal’s gladiator in ferocious battle mode against some vicious monkeys and, later, a soldier utilizing a beast even more powerful than a horse—a rhino. The Colosseum itself is transformed for one massive battle, in which it’s—wait for it—filled with water to allow for a ship-vs-ship high seas clash.
Gladiator 2 is the long-awaited follow-up to Scott’s 2001 Best Picture Oscar winner, which followed the tortured journey of former general Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe), who went from valor to ruin after his might on the battlefield was viewed as a threat by the fragile, self-appointed emperor of Rome, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix.) Commodus goes to despicable lengths to neutralize Maximus, brutally killing his wife and children and selling him into slavery, where, eventually, Maximus ends up fighting as a gladiator. Gladiator tracked Maxmius’s bloody path of vengeance against Commodus, in which the former general turned beloved “Spainard” of the Colosseum gets ever closer to exacting his revenge against the petulant, sociopathic emperor.
“I remember that day. I never forgot it. That a slave could take revenge against an emperor. That a slave could get justice in the arena,” Mescal’s gladiator says in the footage shown.
Pedro Pascal plays a reluctant military leader who, after questioning the logic of sending so many young men off to die, is summarily sentenced to becoming a gladiator himself for his conscience. Washington plays a mentor to Mescal’s young gladiator, pushing him toward rebellion.
Connie Nielsen returns from the original film, reprising her role as Lucilla.
Gladiator 2 is set to storm into theaters on November 22.
Featured image: LONDON, ENGLAND – NOVEMBER 16: (EDITORS NOTE: This image has been converted to black and white.) Ridley Scott attends the “Napoleon” UK Premiere at Odeon Luxe Leicester Square on November 16, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
Your return trip to the ‘Ton is duly booked, your carriage awaits, and a fresh season of intrigue will greet you in a month’s time.
The first trailer for season 3 of Bridgerton has arrived, revealing quite the unique arrangement between Penelope (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin (Luke Newton), who have decided to band together to find Penelope the man of her dreams. Or, more accurately, a husband.
Julie Andrews again voices Lady Whistledown as she welcomes us back to the ‘Ton. “We have been apart for far too long,” Lady Whistledown says, “at last, London’s fashionable set has made its return, and it seems that our Bon Ton is moving with the changing tide. So, too, is this author.”
Penelope is not so sure she can find her man, even with Colin’s help, but the latter is determined and sure as ever there’s a match fit for her in the ‘Ton. The trailer unveils a new potential suitor for Penelope’s hand, Lord Debling (Sam Phillips), but all may not be as it seems.
“What is the primary force that guides us along our paths?” Lady Whistledown asks at the trailer’s end. “Is it our minds or our hearts?”
This is the question that Bridgerton has been asking, in one form or another, since its inception and part of the reason why it’s such a hit for Netflix.
Joining Coughlan and Newton in the cast are Jonathan Bailey, Simone Ashley, Claudia Jessie, Jessica Madsen, Golda Rosheuvel, Hugh Sachs, Adjoa Andoh, Daniel Francis, Hannah Dodd, Harriet Cains, Bessie Carter, Polly Walker, Martins Imhangbe and Emma Naomi.
Take a trip back to the ‘Ton with the new trailer below. Bridgerton season 3, part 1 arrives on May 16:
For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:
This year’s CinemaCon has had its share of massive movies fronted by huge stars, including a full screening of the riotous, nonstop fun of the Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt-led The Fall Guy to the reveal of the first trailer for Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga’s Joker: Folie à Deux and the first film in the two-part Wicked, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. Yet a film flying just a little bit under the radar created a reaction as big as any so far this week, with director Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu dropping a teaser that jolted audiences in Las Vegas.
The teaser for Eggers’ film, which is an appropriately gothic story of obsession between the titular vampire and the haunted young woman he’s fixated on, opens on Ellen Hunter (Lily-Rose Depp) praying for someone—or something—to visit her. A voiceover then finds Ellen asking Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe) if evil is an entity that comes from within a person or if it finds its way inside. Then things get insane. Ghoulish images, including an army of rats and a man sinking his teeth into a pigeon’s neck, are followed by the revelation of Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) beholding the castle of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) for the first time. Then Nosferatu makes his grand entrance (it’s Count Orlok), standing in the shadows with a dog at his side.
Eggers is perhaps the perfect person to do a deep gothic adaptation of the deathless story first created by Bram Stoker in “Dracula,” plunging audiences into the grim and gripping environs of 19th-century Germany. The film is focused on Count Orlok’s obsession with Ellen Hutter, and considering Eggers’ attention to detail in films as striking as The Northman, The Lighthouse, and The Witch, it’s a safe bet that Nosferatu will feel as if we are right there in that cold and shadowy world.
Nosferatu is set to rise on December 25.
For more on Universal Pictures, Peacock, and Focus Features projects, check out these stories:
Director John M. Chu’s Wicked cast a spell at CinemaCon with a little help from his wonderful witches.
Universal unveiled a new look at Chu’s Wicked, with Chu on hand in Las Vegas, alongside Ariana Grande (a Grammy-winning, multiple-platinum superstar) and Cynthia Erivo (a two-time Oscar nominee and Emmy, Grammy, and Tony-winner), to reveal the footage. The Wicked presentation took place in a packed theater at the annual Con, where studios and theater owners get together to celebrate the theater experience and reveal the films that will be filling seats, and with Wicked, it was an especially emotional presentation. Chu teared up as he recalled what it was like to land on Grande and Erivo to play the witches Glinda and Elphaba, respectively. Magic indeed.
A poster for Universal Pictures’ “Wicked.”
Chu, Grande, and Erivo weren’t the only members of the Wicked realm on stage—Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh was there, as were Jeff Goldblum and Jonathan Bailey, along with veteran stage and film producer Marc Platt. The audience was handed lanyards and found tulips in their seat cupholders to help get everyone into the magical mood.
It was a sign of the excitement and belief in their film that Universal, led by chief Donna Langley, who introduced the Wicked team, showed 30 minutes of the musical. “You all got a taste of this stunning film at last year’s CinemaCon,” said Langley. “And the world has loved this musical and celebrated it for more than 20 years. It’s proof that our future is unlimited — if that will give you a little bit of a tease. Thank you all for being here today. The wizard will see you now.”
When the house lights went down, the audience’s lanyards lit up, as did the tulips, which glowed pink and green in honor of Glinda and Elphaba, the latter of whom is tormented as a child over her green skin.
The screen then revealed a giant Oz, who spoke directly to the theater audience. “Who are you, and why do you seek me? Behold CinemaConians! A spectacle awaits that will glorify your palaces of light and sound this holiday season. … Remember, there’s no place like Oz. There’s no place like Oz.”
Oz might be a tough act to follow, but not for Jeff Goldblum, who came up next to reflect on his “long-ish” career and marvel at the magic of making not one but two Wicked films back-to-back. When Chu took the stage, he reflected on first reading Gregory Maguire’s novel 25 years ago, which is set before Dorothy arrives in Oz in a story that helps restore the Wicked Witch of the West’s humanity in the incredible person of Elphaba.
“In a stroke of luck that now seems like destiny,” Chu recalled how he happened to be in San Francisco when the musical adaptation of Maguire’s book was workshopped. “It imprinted itself on me permanently,” he said, and he related to Elphaba, who was someone “who was judged for the way she looks. We dreamed very, very, very big for Wicked. A magical land of sights and sounds that will astonish and performances that will lift your spirits and occasionally break your heart.”
As for landing Grande and Erivo, producer Marc Platt had this to say: “These characters are so aspirational for young people and mean so much to so many people, and we knew we had to get it exactly right. We saw so many hopeful women from every corner of the world.” Then they met with Grande and Erivo, who “claimed each of their roles. When we finally saw them, we knew that we landed on the right pairing. Two strong young women who were destined to play these roles.”
Wicked enchants in theaters on November 27, with Wicked Part Two arriving on November 26, 2025.
Featured image: LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – APRIL 10: (L-R) Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo speak onstage during the Universal Pictures and Focus Features Special Presentation, featuring footage from their upcoming slate, during CinemaCon, the official convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners, at Caesars Palace on April 10, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for CinemaCon)
We’re headed back into the freakiest forest of them all, courtesy of Blumhouse and Lionsgate, who are partnering for a new Blair Witch Project movie.
The two studios have struck a deal in which Blumhouse will be reimagining multiple horror films for Lionsgate after the success of their joint venture, director Jeff Wadlow’s horror film Imaginary, which has scared up $38.2 million since its March 8 release.
Writer/director duo Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s original The Blair Witch Project was a legitimate phenomenon. Released in 1999 and made for $35,000 (with an additional $200-500k in post-production), their fictional documentary about three film students investigating the local Blair Witch legend in the Maryland woods went on to gross an astonishing $249 million globally. The Blair Witch Project was a legitimately unsettling and ingeniously crafted film that benefited mightily from introducing audiences to the found footage concept and kickstarting the craze for that approach. It also led to two sequels, in 2001 and another in 2016. Producer Roy Lee, who worked on director Adam Wingard’s 2016 sequel Blair Witch, is back to produce the new film.
“I have been incredibly fortunate to work with Jason many times over the years,” said Lionsgate Film Chairman Adam Fogelson about Jason Blum. “We forged a strong relationship on The Purge when I was at Universal, and we launched STX with his film The Gift. There is no one better at this genre than the team at Blumhouse. We are thrilled to kick this partnership off with a new vision for Blair Witch that will reintroduce this horror classic for a new generation.”
Blum praised the original Blair Witch for lighting the way through the darkness for his own found footage juggernaut.
“I don’t think there would have been a Paranormal Activity had there not first been a Blair Witch, so this feels like a truly special opportunity, and I’m excited to see where it leads.”
Oscar-winner Bong Joon Ho made his first trip to CinemaCon in Las Vegas to present the official trailer for Mickey 17, his first movie since his masterful Parasite devoured all the Oscars.
Bong’s new film deploys Robert Pattinson—again and again and again—in an irreverent sci-fi story that deals with human cloning, space colonization, and the nature of identity.
“It’s a story of a simple man who ultimately ends up saving the world,” Bong said at CinemaCon, a succinct summation of his latest film.
The film is based on Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel “Mickey7,” centered on the titular protagonist who works as a “disposable employee” on a dangerous mission. In Ashton’s novel, Mickey7 works on a human expedition setting out to colonize the frozen planet of Niflheim, a very dangerous job in which a constant procession of Mickeys are printed and rolled out to do work after they die over and over again. The genius of the “disposable employee” design is that while they can regenerate an entirely new body, most of their memories will remain intact. That is, until after six deaths when a replacement clone takes over. The key inflection point in Ashton’s book is when Mickey7 refuses to let Mickey8 take over his job. In Bong’s movie, Pattinson plays both Mickey 17 and 18, and has given each of them their own characteristics.
“The number is the number of times he dies. I killed him ten times more,” Bong said to laughs from the crowd. “It’s a sci-fi movie, but it’s a human story.”
The trailer hasn’t been released to the public yet, but it’s said to be set to a Frank Sinatra song, which somewhat offsets the unpleasant doings happening on screen, including the various ways Mickey is maimed and killed.
Warner Bros will be releasing Mickey 17in South Korea on January 28, 2025, timed to the Lunar New Year Holiday. This is three days earlier than its global release on January 31. It’s a fitting choice for its world premiere location, considering Bong is one of South Korea’s most beloved filmmakers.
“Director Bong’s creativity, vision, and imagination always exceed expectations. Mickey 17 will surprise audiences with its original story and characters, unpredictable plot development and humor, as well as great production qualities,” Warners president of international distribution Andrew Cripps said in a statement.
Delayed due to the dual strikes, we’ve already gotten a brief, tantalizing sneak peek—way back in December of 2022. Mickey 17 returns Bong to the sci-fi genre in which he’s made some of his most ambitious films, from 2006’s The Host to 2013’s Snowpiercer and his 2017 Netflix film Okja.
Pattison is joined by Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo.
Featured image: Robert Pattinson stars in Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17.” Courtesy Warner Bros.
First, we got this brief but potent teaser that offered an unsettling glimpse at Joquin Phoenix’s sad sack comedian turned killer clown Arthur Fleck crying/laughing (or laughing/crying) in the rain—now Warner Bros. has unleashed the full trailer, which finally reveals Lady Gaga’s Harley Quinn and the most demented romance in comics history, brought to the big screen in a jukebox musical from director Todd Phillips.
Joker: Folie à Deux unites Oscar winners Phoenix and Gaga in what has to be one of the year’s most must-see releases. The trailer, which Warner Bros. revealed at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, is set to a version of the classic song “What the World Needs Now is Love” by Hal David and Burt Bacharach, made famous by singer Jackie DeShannon. The use of the song suggests that Joker: Folie à Deux‘s musical mayhem might skew toward the 1960s—emphasizing the intriguing decision to make the sequel to the billion-dollar Joker a musical. What makes that decision seem a lot less surprising is Phillips deployed the musical dynamo Gaga to help lend whatever songs are chosen real chops and gravitas. The first trailer certainly delivers:
As you can see, the trailer gives us just a sketch of the connection between Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck and Gaga’s Harley Quinn as their romance flickers in what appears to be Arkham Asylum, one of Gotham’s most notorious institutions where many of the city’s most colorful criminals and villains have ended up through the years, in both the comics and the films. The pops of color in the otherwise dreary Gotham and the classic tune help emphasize the budding romance between Fleck and Quinn, the latter of whom seems most impressed and enamored with Fleck’s alter ego.
Phillips said that although music courses through his sequel, they never discussed Folie à Deux strictly in musical terms.
“We never talked about it like that. I like to say it’s a movie where music is an essential element. To me, that doesn’t veer too far from the first film. Arthur has music in him. He has a grace to him.”
Phillips also took time to give a shout-out to the theater owners at CinemaCon, which is, in large part, a celebration of the importance of the theater experience.
“I did want to say thank you to you guys … about a month before the first Joker came out, the narrative on the film really turned,” Phillips said, referencing the concerns that the first film might inspire violence. He thanked theater owners for helping the film have a smooth, wide release, which powered it to its historic run.
Phillips has kept curious fans connected to the production throughout, sharing a few new photos of the most twisted romantic partners in the game, including a shot of the two all dressed up and dancing on a rooftop, an homage to a famous image created by artist Alex Ross, “Tango With Evil.” Then, we got a glimpse of the poster, which features the Joker and Quinn mid-dance.
The last time we left Arthur Fleck at the end of Joker, his murder spree made him a folk hero to the people of Gotham. The city exploded in an orgy of violence after the Joker kills talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) on live TV, including perhaps the most dramatized double murder in the history of cinema, the killing of Gotham’s most elite couple, Thomas and Martha Wayne (played by Brett Cullen and Carrie Louise Putrello). This horrific crime is, of course, the dark origin story for the one and only Batman, but the timeline of Joker and Folie à Deux has Bruce Wayne still just a kid.
Now it seems as if the Folie à Deux trailer has officially confirmed the sequel as a jukebox musical. You’ve also probably heard by now that Folie à Deux refers to a medical term for two or more people suffering from the same or similar mental disorder: your Joker and your Harley Quinn.
The sequel includes the return of Zazie Beetz as Sophie Dumond and the arrival of powerhouse performers like Brendan Gleeson and Catherine Keener.
Joker: Folie a Deux dances into theaters on October 4.
Featured image: Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in “JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX.” Courtesy Warner Bros.
Is he laughing or crying? And is there a difference for Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck, the tormented stand-up comedian who became a tormentor in Todd Phillips’ original Joker? Warner Bros. has just released the first teaser for Phillips’ follow-up, Joker: Folie à Deux, with the full trailer coming tonight. The teaser is brief yet potent, an unsettling glimpse at Phoenix’s Fleck crying/laughing in the rain. Is Fleck at Arkham Asylum following the killing spree he went on in the first film? This sure looks like Gotham’s infamous institution:
Joker: Folie à Deux boasts a big-time addition to the cast, Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. Gaga is nowhere to be seen in the above teaser, but you can bet she’ll be a big part of the trailer. In the past, Phillips shared a few new photos of the most twisted romantic partners in the game, which included a shot from what appears to be Arkham Asylum and a third shot of the two all dressed up and dancing on a rooftop, an homage to a famous image created by artist Alex Ross, “Tango With Evil.” Then, we got a glimpse of the poster, which featured the demented duo mid-dance. The poster reinforced the fact that Joker: Folie à Deux will be, in many ways, a twisted romance.
The last time we left Phoenix’s sad sack Arthur Fleck at the end of Joker, his murder spree made him a folk hero to the downtrodden, poverty-stricken denizens of a Gotham that otherwise seemed to offer nothing but corruption, both from politicians and from cops. The orgy of violence that followed the Joker’s killing, on live TV, of talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) included the murders of two of its most prominent citizens, Thomas (Brett Cullen) and Martha Wayne (Carrie Louise Putrello). The Waynes left behind a young son named Bruce; perhaps you’ve heard his name before? The film ends with Arthur locked up in a mental asylum, where, we presume, he’ll meet Gaga’s Harley Quinn.
When the trailer drops, we finally know at least a little bit about how Phillips and his co-writer Scott Silver advance the story from there. We do know that Folie à Deux will make the most of Gaga, with reports that the sequel is a jukebox musical. You’ve also probably heard by now that Folie à Deux refers to a medical term for two or more people suffering from the same or similar mental disorder: your Joker and your Harley Quinn.
The sequel includes the return of Zazie Beetz as Sophie Dumond and the arrival of powerhouse performers like Brendan Gleeson and Catherine Keener.
Joker: Folie à Deux hits theaters on October 4, 2024.
Featured image: Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga in “JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX.” Courtesy Warner Bros.
Ryan Gosling is returning to host Saturday Night Live this weekend, the first time he’s been back to Studio 8H since way back in 2017, which is significant considering he delivered one of the all-time great SNL moments courtesy of a digital short. In fact, if we absolutely had to pick our favorite Saturday Night Live digital short of the last ten years, the choice would be the Gosling-led Papyrus. Dreamed up by former SNL writer and current feature film director and actor Julio Torres, Papyrus was a pitch-perfect absurdist masterpiece that would have worked with a lot of talented actors but was definitely pitch-perfect for Gosling. Torres and the SNL writers were keenly aware that, like Brad Pitt before him, Gosling has leading man looks and character actor vibes.
Long before he confirmed his comedic chops via Ken in Barbie, Gosling went full, hilarious ham as Steven, a man who is deeply, pathologically troubled by the fact that James Cameron’s original Avatar used the most basic font they could think of for their logo—yes, the dreaded Papyrus. Torres first suggested the idea during an SNL Monday morning pitch meeting, which was based on one of his Tweets: “Every day I wake up and remember that Avatar, a huge international blockbuster, used the Papyrus font for their logo and no one stopped them.”
It took some work to turn Torres’ Tweet into a proper short—and a big boost from Gosling, who saw the cinematic potential in the storyline and fully committed to the idea of a man who can’t shake Cameron’s bizarre font choice. Steven tries to work out his anger with his therapist (played by Kate McKinnon), to no avail. “He just highlighted Avatar. He clicked the drop-down menu, and then he just randomly selected Papyrus.” Steven’s friend (Chris Redd) tries to calm his growing monomania by pointing out that they made some slight modifications to the font in the Avatar logo, hoping this technicality will soothe Steven. Hard no. Steven begins to view the font choice as a crime and eventually tracks down the graphic designer responsible (Kyle Mooney), screaming, “I know what you did.”
Papyrus has had such an impact, James Cameron himself finally admitted to be “haunted” by it…
James Cameron addresses SNL’s Ryan Gosling Papyrus font sketch.
Kudos to Cameron for going along with the joke and for understanding that Papyrus is a cultural touchstone.
It’s been a long seven years since Papyrus proved Gosling will go there, wherever there needs to be to get a laugh, but his return to SNL is a great way to ease into spring. It also follows Kristen Wiig, who joined the 5 Timer club last Saturday night. Here’s hoping SNL has cooked up another absurdist sketch for Gosling to own.
Check out SNL‘s Gosling promo here:
For more on Universal Pictures, Peacock, and Focus Features projects, check out these stories:
Featured image: (L-R) RYAN GOSLING as Ken and MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
The reviews are pouring in for Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black, which tasked rising star Marisa Abela (Industry) with taking on the late, great, Grammy-winning British soul singer who was already an icon when she died, tragically, at 27. Winehouse was a force of nature, with a powerhouse voice and serious writing chops to match her undeniable charisma, so it would have been a tall order for any young actress to step into the role. According to critics, Abela more than rose to the challenge.
Back to Black is written by Nowhere Boy and Control screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh, and Taylor-Johnson’s film was given the crucial support of The Amy Winehouse Estate, Sony Music Publishing, and Universal Music Group. This means they were able to include many of Winehouse’s biggest hits, including, of course, the title track. Winehouse’s life was cut short–she died on July 23, 2001, at the age of 27 of an accidental alcohol overdose—yet she’d already become a worldwide phenomenon, selling more than 30 million records across the globe.
Joining Abela in the cast are Jack O’Connell as Amy’s ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, Eddie Marsan and Juliet Cowan as Amy’s parents, Mitch and Janis Winehouse, and Lesley Manville as Amy’s grandmother, Cynthia.
Back to Black hits theaters on May 17. Let’s take a quick peek at some of the critic reactions:
Marisa Abela nails Amy Winehouse in every look, mood, and musical expression in #BackToBlack, a biopic at once forthright and forbidding. My review. https://t.co/7mIVnb02nh
Featured image: Marisa Abela stars as Amy Winehouse in director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s BACK TO BLACK, a Focus Features release. Credit : Courtesy of Dean Rogers/Focus Features
The scope of 3 Body Problem is planetary. Adapted by Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, alongside Alexander Woo, Netflix’s ambitious sci-fi series presents a grand depiction of a war between humanity and aliens. Prior to the aliens’ arrival, a team of beleaguered scientists and a clandestine agency led by Thomas Wade (Liam Cunningham) engage in both intellectual and physical warfare as they try to find ways to cope with the mind-melting reality of their situation, including trying to ignore the problem considering the aliens won’t arrive on Earth for another 400 years. That’s when things start getting really scary.
Episode five, in particular, gets under your skin. Titled “Judgement Day,” it delivers a significant blow; a ship carrying the aliens’ human followers is destroyed in a spectacularly gruesome set piece. The morally conflicted Auggie Salaza (Eliza Gonzalez) is strongarmed into unleashing nanotech fibers that tear through everyone aboard the vessel. The resulting chaos is captured with horrifying clarity by the filmmakers, including director Minkie Spiro and cinematographer Martin Ahlgren.
Prior to joining the series, Ahlgren was already a fan of the original source material, novelist Liu Cixin’s acclaimed “Three-Body Problem” series. Ahlgren credits cinematographer Jonathan Freeman for developing “the cinematographic approach to it” in the earlier episodes. Collaborating as well with fellow DPs P.J. Dillon and Richard Donnelly, Ahlgren appreciated the “coherent overall approach to cinematography, but also with each episode, finding our own language.”
We spoke to Ahlgren about finding the language for an episode that needs very little of it to shock your system and what it was like working with this talented ensemble cast, including Jovan Adepo, Jess Hong, Alex Sharp, Benedict Wong, John Bradley, and more.
The attack on the ship Judgment Day is horrifying, especially because of how brightly lit the body horror looks. From the beginning, did you not want to hide the body count, as well as the visual effects, in darkness and shadows?
What’s funny with Dan [Weiss] and David [Benioff] is that they’re very averse to anything that kind of borders on camera trickery, and that was a good sounding board for me. Me and my episode director, Minkie Spiro, are both fans of composition and photography in general, and in finding interesting ways of telling the story. Working with Dan, David, and Alex [Woo], of course, it very much taught us quickly to film everything quite grounded. Although it’s obviously awful what’s happening, there is a fine line between showing the horror of what’s happening and veering into gore.
One of the things we set up fairly early in the sequence is what is actually happening, and then after that, you’re kind of left to your imagination to a large extent, as well. Initially, we were working with our long-term storyboard artist, Stefan,and the three of us were coming up with fairly intricate, elaborate ways of how the slicing happens on different levels of the ship and on different people. It ended up being too gruesome in a way that we ended up pairing it back a bit.
We had a sequence where someone comes out into the hallway, and Mike Evans (Jonathan Pryce) sees that person get stopped, fall to their knees, and the slicing happens. It becomes almost like a Damien Hirst art project or something like that, where you see the innards of someone as it’s slowly gliding apart. It was putting the emphasis in the wrong place in a way, so we scaled back from that because of it.
You said Dan and David are not fans of camera trickery. What’s an example of what you didn’t want to do with the camera?
There was a sequence during what we called the Sophon sequence – when Wade and Jin (Jess Hong) are in the virtual reality game and are being told about how two Sophons were sent to Earth. We wanted the camera to travel backward away from the window where Jack (John Bradley) has just been killed, and then suddenly have the camera flip over and continue forward—but now with the view upside down—into the car where an unsuspecting agent is keeping watch. As I was pitching this idea, I could see Dan and David starting to shift and go, “Well, yes, ok, but maybe not upside down!”
Going back to Judgement Day, what questions did you have for the VFX team and supervisor about what they needed?
We had a lot of discussions with visual effects, but we also had a physicist advisor on board as well, partly because of some of the space and quantum dimensions and more intricate elements. He became involved with the nanotech fibersand how they could potentially work as a real thing. A lot of what we were discussing was, like, should you see the lines as the fibers cut through the ship, or is it so fine that it cuts on a molecular level? Is it so fine that you don’t actually see the separation?
What about portraying the logistics of a ship hitting the bank of a canal?
When the ship hits the bank of the canal, it falls like a stack of plates, almost with the top plates going the furthest. So, there were a lot of the physical logistics that we were working out between me, Minkie, and the showrunners, but then also the visual effects team to figure out what parts we were doing practical.
There is a lot of blood in that sequence, to put it mildly. Cinematographers can have a love-hate relationship with shooting blood. What about yourself?
With blood, you can never go too dark, right? [laughs] It’s always the darker, the better. We did some camera tests to find what that should be in advance. To my memory, I can’t say exactly what we ended up with, but it was something that was discussed to some extent.
To contrast the chaos, there’s a lovely lit bar in Panama that Auggie visits before the attack. What mood did you want to strike there?
We wanted it to feel like Auggie in the jungle. It was shot on a soundstage in London, so we were building it all with palm trees and plants inside. We were looking for a way to convey the humidity and ominous feeling of night before this [attack] is about to go down. So, it was finding somewhat of a beauty in that, but then also some oppressive feeling as well.
What’s a challenge for you there as a cinematographer, just showing two people talking on the 3 Body Problem? Whether it’s the bar in Panama or two characters on a beach, what issues do you face?
Part of the challenge is to give the actors the space to find their moments and find the connection between each other. At the same time, it’s a visual medium and you still want to be telling the story with the camera. You’re always blocking scenes. Because we worked a lot together, it sort of becomes a bit of a dance that we do together with the actors, just figuring out how the camera language can help emphasize whatever is going on emotionally in a scene.
The best result is when you sort of echo or find some contrast or interplay between what’s going on in the scene and something that you’re doing visually. So, just because there are two people talking, I don’t think it needs to stop being cinematic. You still want to continue this visual trajectory of the whole film or show. Hopefully, it adds to the emotional quality of those scenes.
For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:
Was NASA’s Apollo 11 moon landing in 1968 a fake? The short answer to that question, to the chagrin of conspiracy theorists the world over, is no, but an intriguing case is made for why there might have been an emergency fake version of the landing filmed on a set, just in case in the actual mission was a failure, in the first trailer for Fly Me to the Moon.
Director Greg Berlanti is launching a stellar cast, led by Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, in a period piece about selling the importance of NASA’s Apollo mission to the American public. In order to do that, NASA hires marketing genius Kelly Jones (Johansson) to help improve their public image ahead of the launch. This rankles launch director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), who already has enough worries on his mind about beating Russia to the moon (and keeping his astronauts alive in the process) and finds Jones’ tactics, including hiring actors to play the astronauts and to stage a fake moon landing as backup in case the mission fails, absolutely outrageous. Yet he’s drawn to Jones, as she is to him, as the laws of attraction, like the laws of gravity, cannot be easily counteracted.
Johansson and Tatum are joined by a starry cast, including Woody Harrelson, Ray Romano, Jim Rash, and Peter Jacobson. Berlanti directs from a script by Rose Gilroy, with a story by Bill Kirstein and Kennan Flynn.
Check out the trailer below. Fly Me to the Moon launches in theaters this July:
For more upcoming films from Sony Pictures, check out these stories:
Maxine Minx (Mia Goth) finally makes it to Hollywood in the first trailer for Ti West’s MaXXXine, but Tinsel Town has some awful surprises in store for her. Yet Maxine is not the type of young woman to get bullied, even by a mysterious killer who is stalking the land of dreams and turning it into a nightmare.
The first trailer for MaXXXine is a neon-lit 1980s fever dream, revealing rising star Goth as the titular determined former adult film actress who will stop at nothing to make her name in Hollywood. MaXXXine is the third film in Ti West’s X trilogy, which has seen Goth become one of cinema’s reigning scream queens—there’s even a fun mention of former scream queens who have gone on to have huge careers, including Halloween star Jamie Lee Curtis—and put both her and West on the map. The previous two films, X and Pearl, both dropped in 2022, so it’s been a relatively long wait for fans.
MaXXXine picks up six years after the events in Pearl, with Goth’s lone survivor moving to a ghoulish mid-80s Los Angeles, where she plans on reinventing herself as a proper actress. The Night Stalker, the mysterious killer making Los Angeles a living hell, has other plans, but as the trailer proves, Maxine is unlikely to let a murderer decide her fate.
The cast surrounding Goth is stellar, including Kevin Bacon, Giancarlo Esposito, Elizabeth Debicki, Lily Collins, Bobby Cannavale, and Halsey.
Check out the trailer below. MaXXXine hits theaters on July 5:
For more big stories on films and TV series, check these out:
Stranger Things is creeping toward its fifth and final season on Netflix, the culmination of one of the most successful, consistently engaging shows on the streamer since it burst onto the scene in 2016. And now, one of the series stars, Maya Hawke, who plays the beloved and brave nerd Robin Buckley, has offered a tiny teaser for what fans can expect from the final season of Matt and Ross Duffer’s juggernaut sci-fi show.
Hawke, who is currently promoting her father-daughter project Wildcat, about author Flannery O’Connor (and directed and co-written by her dad, Ethan Hawke), spoke with Colliderabout that project and gamely answered a few Stranger Things-related questions. While Hawke is, of course, not allowed to spill any specific details, she was able to give a sense of what she was feeling filming the final season.
The first thing to note is not even Hawke knows how the series will end.
“I haven’t gotten to read the final scripts yet,” she told Collider. “So I haven’t had a reaction, and I actually genuinely know nothing about the last two episodes of the show.”
While she doesn’t know how the battle royale between the Upside Down’s Main Boss Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) and the gang will end, she does believe that audiences will find the final season as emotional to watch as it was for her to be a part of.
“I do know what happens before then, and it’s extremely exciting. It’s always wonderful when the kind of riddle of a world that gets built starts to get resolved and questions start to be answered. I think it was mind-bogglingly wonderful for me and I think audiences will feel that way too. It’s really an emotional thing to go into filming this last season, so I’m excited.”
While not much is known about the shape of season 5, one thing the Duffer Brothers promised is that the entire gang (the survivors, anyway) will be returning to their original formations to take on Vecna back in Hawkins, Indiana. After trips to Russia and California in season 4, it sounds like the final battle will end where the series began.
There’s no release date yet for season five, but we’ll share it when we find out.
For more on Stranger Things, check out these stories:
Beau Willimon knows a thing or two about crafting diabolical characters on the hunt for power. This is what makes it so interesting that the creator of House of Cards has been tapped to co-write director James Mangold’s upcoming Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi.
Willimon and Mangold will be quite a force working together, and the story they’re setting out to tell couldn’t be more mythic. Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi aims to reveal the very origins of the Force and will be set at a time well, well before any previous Star Wars film or show—25,000 years in the past.
Dawn of the Jedi (this title is subject to change, by the way) was revealed at the Star Wars Celebration in London in April of 2023. Mangold has a ton of experience dipping into franchises and making something new and memorable. His 2017 film Logan, which portrayed the final days and weeks of the beloved X-Men tough guy Wolverine and his mentor, Professor X, proved that Mangold relishes making myths and dealing in pathos with well-known characters. His agile, riveting 2019 race epic Ford v Ferrari once again showed how creative he was no matter the genre. Not for nothing, he stepped in and sent Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones on his last mission in 2023’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
For his Star Wars film, Mangold told Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy that he was interested in going deep into the most sacred mythology in the entire Galaxy.
“I thought about a biblical epic, like a Ten Commandments, about the dawning of the Force. Where did the Force come from, when did we discover it, when did we learn how to use it?” Mangold said during the Star Wars Celebration.
There’s a lot going on in that galaxy far, far away at the moment, including Leslye Headland’s upcoming Disney+ series The Acolyte, the return of Daisy Ridley as Rey in a brand new Star Wars movie from Oscar-winning documentarian and Ms. Marvel director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, the feature The Mandalorian & Grogu from Jon Favreau, and the upcoming series Skeleton Crew.
Mangold is currently working on A Complete Unknown, a Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet. After that, he and Willimon will likely turn their attention to Dawn of the Jedi.
This isn’t Willimon’s first time working on a Star Wars project—he wrote three episodes of Tony Gilroy’s excellent Disney+ series Andor, including the sensational prison break episode “One Way Out,” which earned him an Emmy nomination. Now, he’ll be deploying his writing chops for a film that aspires to shed light on every Star Wars film and series, animated and live-action, that have come before, which is the kind of challenge a Jedi would respect.
For more on all things Star Wars, check out these stories:
Featured image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – SEPTEMBER 15: Beau Willimon arrives at the special 3-episode launch event for Lucasfilm’s original series Andor at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on September 15, 2022. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)
Olivia Wilde and Margot Robbie are coming together, alongside X-Men producer Simon Kinberg, to adapt the comic “Avengelyne” into a feature film. The comic comes from “Deadpool” co-creator Rob Liefeld.
Wilde, director of Book Smart and Don’t Worry Darling, will helm the adaptation, with Robbie’s production company LuckyChap, including her partners Tom Ackerley and Josie McNamara, producing alongside Kinberg. LuckyChap produced a little film from 2023 you might have heard of, Barbie, and they’ve got Wilde’s upcoming film, Naughty, a Christmas comedy for Universal, on their docket. They also recently sold the Sundance film My Old Ass to Amazon MGM.
The next step is for Wilde, Robbie, and Kinberg to find their adaptation a home in the coming weeks when they pitch the project to streamers and studios. There’s no word yet on who will play the title character Avengelyne, a literal avenging angel who fights all manner of evil. Deadpool co-creator Liefeld created Avengelyne back in 1995.
This isn’t the first time there’s been an interest to create a feature film version of “Avengelyne.” Gina Carano was attached to star in an adaptation back in 2013, and Paramount is said to have secured the rights in 2016 with filmmaker Akiva Goldsman behind the project.
But now it’s Wilde and Robbie’s turn, and it feels like a fairly safe bet that these two dynamos will bring Avengelyne to the big screen.
For recent stories on filmmakers and their films, check these out:
Featured image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – DECEMBER 15: (L-R) Olivia Wilde and Margot Robbie attend the Global Premiere Screening of Paramount Pictures’ “Babylon” at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on December 15, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)
On Friday, April 5, composer Charles Fox was awarded a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in recognition of his remarkable career creating themes for television series like Love, American Style, Happy Days, The Love Boat, scores for more than 100 movies like Foul Play and 9 to 5, and the Grammy-winner, “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” His orchestral compositions include three full-length ballets. His awards include two Emmys, a Grammy, and two Oscar Nominations, and induction into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in 2004.
The documentary about Fox’s career, “Killing Me Softly With His Songs,” is now available for streaming on demand. In an interview, Fox talked about falling in love with playing the piano, working with The Cowsills, Jack Jones, and Roberta Flack, the TV theme that became a pop hit, and the one that ocean-going vessels use to communicate.
When did you first know that you were a musician?
I started playing the piano when I was quite young, eight or nine years old. And I can just tell you that when I took my piano lessons, I used to run home to practice. My friends would go to the baseball field or the basketball field to play basketball, and I said, “I’m going to go and practice.” I can’t say when I firmly decided this is what it is in my life, but I know I was very attracted by my fingers hitting the keys and hearing music that sounded in my ears, and that was the start of it. I became a professional musician at age 15. I had my first band in the Catskill Mountains. We went away for two months at a time. We played for dancing and shows. They put on silent movies and I would sit down at the piano and make up things to accompany them. That was a great background for what I did later in film.
Charlie Fox and a full orchestra at the Havanna Opera House.
And then you studied with one of the greatest teachers of the 20th century, Nadia Boulanger. Were you thinking about a career in classical-style orchestral composing?
I was thinking about going for a classical career. I really had no idea though how, what the future held for me. I knew I just was like a sponge. I was desperate to get information on how you compose music and express what I felt. Now, I also studied jazz. I studied for a year with Lenny Tristano. And when I left Mont Blanc, I went to Columbia University and studied electronic music. So, I’ve always been curious.
Charles Fox and Common. Photo by Michael Mayhew
What led you away from that?
I really got started trying to earn a living. I began playing in bands and writing music for television, for The Tonight Show.
What was the first TV theme song that you created?
That was Wide World of Sports. There had never been a sports anthology series on television prior, and it was a three-hour show, so they had no idea it would be successful. And it lasted 35 years. And then, two years later, ABC said, “Let’s take another big chance and put football on a Monday night.” They had no idea that women of America would put up with their husbands watching television at night.
You did the theme song for another kind of anthology, Love American Style. How did the Cowsills come to sing that theme?
I suggested The Cowsills. I came out to California to do a movie called Goodbye Columbus. When I finished that, Paramount said to me, “We have a series, a new pilot we’d like you to do called Love American Style. So I stayed around another month or so, and I wrote a bunch of songs with Arnold Margolin, who was one of the co-creators of the show. The show sold. Bill Stinson, vice president of the Paramount music department, said, “You’ve got to go tomorrow morning to see the Cowsills.” They were performing in Schenectady, where it was cold and snowing. So I had to give up my weekend to get on a number of planes to get up to Schenectady. But it worked out pretty well anyway. They even have that song on their greatest hits album.
How do you create a theme for an anthology series that has a variety of tones, silly comedy, romantic, poignant?
Not only that, there were the shot little sketches in between, less than a minute, along with three episodes with individual stars and casts in every hour. I approached each of the three segments as a different film score with different sets of themes that I took and developed. And the other, the interstitial music, I just imagined myself a classical composer scoring those. So some I do Chopin style, some in Mozart style, some in Bach style, just for the fun of it.
What about your work on Happy Days?
Happy Days was originally an episode of Love American Style before George Lucas did American Graffiti. When that was a big hit, ABC said, “Let’s give Happy Days a shot.” They initially used the Bill Haley song, “Rock Around the Clock,” because that was in American Graffiti. Our song was only used as an end title until the second year, and then they used it as the theme and it became a hit on the radio.
Let’s talk about another classic theme—The Love Boat—sung by Jack Jones.
Jack is great, and he is a good friend to this day. Doug Cramer was the president of Paramount Television when I did Happy Days. Then, he became Aaron Spelling’s partner. And when they did Love Boat, they called me and said, “Basically, we’re doing a Love American Style show on the water. Did you see Murder on the Orient Express? That’s what we want, a spirit of adventure, like we’re going to other worlds.” I said, “That’s a big waltz with strings, so that’s what you want.”
Is that what you provided?
Of course, I always feel the job as a composer is to think of what they want but do it the way I wanted to do it. So, I went home, and I wrote a disco. I brought a demo to play for Aaron Spelling, but he did not have a tape deck or a cassette player. I said I would play it on the piano. They didn’t have a piano. So, I just had to sing it for him. He loved it. That show really gave birth to the cruise industry. And here is a little footnote. All the horrible-sounding fog horns play my songs. It’s past midnight, they play my song to each other. It sounds horrible, but I like it.
Where is your new star going to be?
It’s directly in front of the Musicians Institute on Hollywood Boulevard. Diane Warren called to tell me it was happening, and she said, “Now people are going to walk all over you.” That’s how I found out.
I cannot let you go without asking about what is probably your most famous composition, “Killing Me Softly With His Song.”
My long-term collaborator, Norman Gimbel, and I wrote hundreds of songs for hundreds of movies and television shows. We were collaborators for many years. He usually gave me a title or a lyric or a part of a lyric, and then I would develop music from it, and then we’d work together. We were standing around the piano one day, and he had a book of ideas of songs and titles of songs, maybe a line or two. And he’s looking through his book, and he says, what about a title called “Killing Me Softly With His Blues.” He had seen it in a book. He said that sounded old-fashioned and we were not going to write a blues song. He thought for a second, and he said, what if it’s “killing me softly with his song?”
And how did it develop from there?
We talked about what that would mean. We’ve all loved songs that bring us close to moments in our lives that we remember. Someone sings something and it’s like it goes right through you, you know? It could be a happy or a sad moment. He went home and then called me about two hours later. I wrote the lyrics down. And that song just came right out. It may have been one of the fastest songs I ever wrote. The melody just poured out of me. Roberta Flack heard the song on an airplane. She called Quincy Jones, and she said, “How do I meet Charles Fox?” We met for the first time in Quincy Jones’ office. She had just won the Grammy Award for the record of the year with “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” I never had a hit record before, and I get a call one day from Roberta Flack, who said, “This is Roberta Flack, and I’m going to sing your song.” Those are words in my ear that are a song by itself. What’s amazing to me is fifty years later, almost every day I get new audio recordings of that song. I lost track after over two thousand records in every language. A woman from Israel won the Idol. We did a concert together.
Tell me some of the best advice you’ve ever received or given.
This is for people who have a dream of something they want to do and accomplish. If it’s music, if it’s in the arts—I have a granddaughter who’s a ballet dancer in London, I have a grandson who’s a professional baseball pitcher, and I have a younger grandson who’s a hockey player and his twin brother is a dancer and an actor and wants to do theater. I say go for it. Go for your dreams. Go for what’s in your heart. Do everything you can to learn your craft and to be the best you can be in your field. And then go live your dreams.
For more interviews will filmmakers, check these out:
Julia Garner’s set to blast off in a totally new direction with Marvel Studios.
The talented Ozark alum has been cast in director Matt Shakman’s highly-anticipated reboot of The Fantastic Four, as confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter. Garner will be joining a stellar cast in Shakman’s take on Marvel’s original super family, with Pedro Pascal playing Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby taking on Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn playing Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing.
The reboot has been a long time coming. Marvel Studios finally got the rights to Fantastic Four in 2019 when Disney acquired 21st Century Fox, and they’ve been making sure to get all the correct pieces in place before reintroducing some of their most iconic characters and possibly the surest bet to make up for the losses of Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, Chris Evan’s Captain America, and Scarlett Johannson’s Black Widow, all of whom said goodbye in various ways during Avengers: Endgame. Marvel’s new-look Four will differ in tone, substance, and style from the three films Fox produced—Fantastic Four (2005), Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), and a reboot, Fantastic Four (2015).
In fact, when Marvel revealed The Fantastic Four casting news, they included this illustration, which gives us a hint of which direction Shakman’s film might be headed:
By the clues embedded in the illustration, the new Fantastic Four looks like it’s going to be set in the 1960s, the very era they were introduced by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and helped launch the Marvel Universe. Black Widow and Thor: Ragnarok scribe Eric Pearson is currently penning the script.
As for Garner, she’ll be taking on another iconic character in the Marvel canon. The Silver Surfer first glided onto the pages of a Marvel comic in “Fantastic Four No. 48” as the astronomer Norrin Radd. Yet Garner is reported to be playing a different version of the Surfer known as Shalla-Bal, the lover of Norrin Radd.
Garner was a force of nature in her run on Ozark, where she picked up three Emmys playing the lovable tough nut Ruth Langmore. She earned another Emmy nod for her performance playing Anna Delvey in Netflix’s Inventing Anna. You’ll next see her in Universal and Blumhouse’s The Wolf Man, due next year.
The Fantastic Four is slated to hit theaters on July 25, 2025.
For more on all things Marvel Studios, check out these stories:
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is a vision as large and in charge as its two titular characters. In this MonsterVerse sequel, director Adam Wingard and cinematographer Ben Seresin (Pain & Gain) not only doubled down but quadrupled down on the robust vibrancy of Godzilla v Kong. It’s a pure crowd-pleasing aesthetic, which, for Seresin, is about far more than presenting the cleanest or prettiest sights or the most bombastic Titan takedown.
For the hit sequel, Wingard and Seresin wanted a smidge of messiness to render Kong’s home, Hollow Earth, a familiar yet fantastical sight. Friendly faces from Godzilla vs Kong show up, such as Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall), her adopted daughter Jia (Kaylee Hottle), and Bernie Hayes (Brian Tyree Henry), along with newcomer Trapper (Dan Stevens), who all leave Earth and journey to Kong’s world. For this quest into the barely known, Seresin utilized new Panavision lenses with a bit of edge to them.
We spoke with Seresin about how he embedded beautiful, technical flaws in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire to communicate authentically to audiences and a whole lot more.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is such a candy-colored blockbuster. Which colors did you and Adam want to emphasize?
We didn’t really choose a particular color or color range. What Adam was keen to pursue was a very saturated, heightened reality of color, which served two purposes. It was to bring a totally different aesthetic to the range of environments, but it also opened up an opportunity to add a layer to Hollow Earth to take you to another dimension. The premise was to do something that was saturated and rich.
(Left) BRIAN TYREE HENRY on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “GODZILLA x KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Daniel McFadden
For Hollow Earth, how did you want to create a heightened but also tangible environment for audiences?
Once we realized we were going down this route of an almost surreal color range, then the challenge was, how do we make it accessible and keep the audience in the space of, let’s say, recognition of an environment that they could relate to? The danger is that it’s a location that’s pure fantasy, and you could lose the audience when you apply a heightened palette that creates an animated feel. So we were riding a fine line between what’s almost too much but is also tangible. It took us to a space of wanting to bring a sort of grittiness to the film.
Caption: KONG in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “GODZILLA x KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
You’ve previously worked with Tony Scott and Michael Bay, both of whom played a large role in shaping the modern blockbuster experience. What about this scale speaks to you as a cinematographer?
It might surprise you to hear, but my natural inclination and background is low-key, moody, darker films. I feel more comfortable in that world than anything else, and in a way, it’s an exciting challenge to go into these zones where you’re out of your comfort zone. I guess the most interesting work a person can do is when they’re pushed to somewhere unfamiliar. Not always, but it’s certainly the most interesting journey. The internal conflict is difficult to navigate, but it makes me have to access a space of visualization that is sometimes inaccessible. To your point, Michael Bay was definitely a master at creating that aesthetic, and it’s a language to communicate to the audience.
Caption: KONG in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “GODZILLA x KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
What about your taste for low-key, moody films do you want to bring to Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire?
The nature of effective storytelling is to immerse the audience, bring the audience into the film, into the visual journey. There’s no distance between where they are and their experience of the movie. If you’re an audience that is in it and not standing back observing it, you’ve succeeded. It really transcends genres and approaches. As filmmakers, it’s not really about skills from action movies or drama or comedy. The key rule is to understand that you are communicating truthfully in whatever way you’re telling a story. Whether you are shooting 600-foot monsters or an intimate scene in a love story, you are really doing the same thing.
Caption: SUKO in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “GODZILLA x KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
What were some techniques you really wanted to immerse the audience into Kong’s point-of-view?
We did everything we could just to go, “This happened, and there were some guys with a couple of cameras, and they just filmed this sh*t. Look, there’s people, there’s monsters, there’s debris, there’s emotion, there’s humor, there’s all this sort of stuff.” If we achieve the feeling that I was there, that’s success.
Caption: KONG in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “GODZILLA x KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
How do you achieve that effect with the VFX houses and supervisors? What qualities do you want in the light and the motion to sell that feeling audiences are right there with Godzilla and Kong?
In keeping with what I was saying earlier, we decided on a sort of gritty aesthetic for this film, and to support that, I built with Dan Sasaki (Panavision) some bespoke anamorphic lenses. Dan is a legend and a master of lens building. We furthered an idea that we’d had a few movies back based on a particular set of vintage lenses, which Dan adapted for our live-action cinematography. As we were immersed in this process, I said to Dan, “Here’s what my concern is…what happens in a lot of these films, especially when there’s a big CG component, you have this one look for the live-action, and then you go to the big visual effects shots, and they have a different aesthetic. Not to mention there might be three, four, or five different vendors all making different scenes.” It’s a bit like having three, four, or five different cinematographers and or directors on the same movie.
How do you avoid that problem?
I asked Dan how we keep a consistent visualization on the film, and we came up with the idea and went toAlessandro Ongaro, our visual effects supervisor, and said, “We’re doing this look on the live-action, so we’re starting with this. We’re going to have to get you guys onboard because there’s a certain amount of deconstruction with the imagery that we’re going to have to engineer into the visual effects.” We started an exploration and shot tests. Dan then took the lens prescriptions to the visual effects guys and said, “These are the messed up lenses we’re using. Work out a way to apply that to the CG work.” Alessandro got on board with it and loved this sort of messed up, chromatic aberrations and fringing and selectively defocusing, all this messy stuff.
Caption: Godzilla in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “GODZILLA x KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
You described making movies as a conversation. As a cinematographer, how do you think the conversation between these kinds of films and audiences has evolved over the years?
I am just so happy that the audience is more and more rejecting artifice. We go through these periods where a certain sort of genre will appeal very broadly to audiences, and it’s a cycle that takes us somewhere else. I hope I’m not being overly optimistic, but audiences, and many of the younger audiences, are starting to move a little further away from artifice. It has been happening for a bit, from this sort of superhero-type film to something that feels authentic. Truthful in the sense of as outlandish as the movies can be, we just buy this is a world. It’s real, it’s honest, and it’s full of reflection and inner thought.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is in theaters now.
For more on Warner Bros., Max, and more, check out these stories:
Featured image: Caption: (L to r) GODZILLA and KONG in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “GODZILLA x KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
