“Maestro” Oscar-Nominated Re-Recording Mixers on Building Emotion With & Without Music

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In Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, the music is flipped. Tracking the arc of Leonard Bernstein’s career in tandem with his loving but complicated marriage to Chilean actress Felicia Monteleagre (Carey Mulligan), the film’s music is Bernstein’s music, playing as it did over the course of the composer’s life, whether that’s performed on stage or worked out in the studio at the family’s Fairfield country house. When we revisit emotionally charged, private moments from Bernstein’s life, at a frightfully strained family Thanksgiving, or when he finally lies to his oldest daughter about his affairs, there is no underscore conveying to the audience what to feel. Instead, the dialogue’s weight is underpinned by a seemingly simple but deliberate atmosphere.

Re-recording mixers Tom Ozanich and Dean Zupancic worked to create subliminal rhythms in scenes like these so that even something as ordinary as the wind or a bird coming or going supports where Bernstein is emotionally, whether that’s falling in love with Felicia or concealing huge parts of his life from his children. Their work has led to Oscar nominations, alongside their sound colleagues Steven A. Morrow [sound mixer], Richard King [supervising sound editor], and Jason Ruder [supervising music producer].

We had the chance to speak with Zupancic and Ozanich about the sound department’s supercharged focus on rhythm throughout the Maestro edit, how they balanced key musical moments with an unusual approach to dialogue, and took on the film’s period elements to make them feel true but never gimmicky.

 

Some of Maestro’s most emotionally charged moments take place at parties, particularly at Lenny and Felicia’s home in the Dakota. How did you manage the unusual approach to sound during those scenes?

Tom Ozanich: That was recorded not only by miking up the principal actors, but a bunch of extras, other actors in the scene, and plant mikes. Bradley wanted to have it feel real. For the actors, it did add this real feeling that they had to speak up over a crowd. From a technical standpoint, the tricky part is that all those people are actually talking. The big challenge is maintaining control over what the main actors are talking about at any moment. Because of the proximity to microphones, you sometimes get problems when people standing near Bradley pick him up on their microphone, making their microphone somewhat unusable. It has to be downplayed, or it’s going to cause a bad-sounding version of his. We want him to sound rich and full and close. It’s a constant evaluation of what to use.

Dean Zupancic: And a bit of a dialogue editor nightmare.

Ozanich: Tony Martinez was our dialogue supervisor, and he did a great job of trying to give me all the parts that were actually usable.

Maestro. (L to R) Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein, (Director/Writer/Producer) and Gideon Glick as Tommy Cothran in Maestro. Cr. Jason McDonald/Netflix © 2023.

What did your work entail during big performance scenes, like at Carnegie Hall, where the music is as important as the dialogue?

Ozanich: When we first meet Lenny, and he wakes up and runs into Carnegie Hall, it’s a great example of how we were trying to really make the whole movie musical, even the stuff that’s not necessarily music. In that case, the music is a very featured forefront part of the soundtrack, and then the conversation comes in, and you can follow it, but the music is not trying to back away and give us space for that. We really wanted the music to be this critical center of the film. It doesn’t play like it normally would. There’s a radio broadcast at the end, and you miss a bit of it, and that’s intentional. You hear the key parts.

Zupancic: And when he walks onto the stage, and no one in the audience makes a sound, all you can hear are his footsteps. There are so many subliminal rhythms. In mixing, the mantra of this movie was that it had to be rhythmic to highlight Bernstein’s music. The effects of the crowd mimic the movement of the camera. As the camera turns, the crowds sweep around and by us. There are a lot of little incidentals to make it all feel real.

What’s another example of subliminal rhythm that we hear but a layperson might not notice?

Zupancic: All the scenes have some kind of rhythm. There’s a rhythm to how the winds come in and go away. There’s a rhythm to how the birds are tweeting, whether it’s a dove or a crow. It’s nothing that the audience probably picks up on, but it’s a feeling you get. It’s sprinkled throughout the entire film. It was always the thought to be rhythmic, and that was the first thing we discussed when planning with Richard King to build the effects. And in a lot of transitions, the A-side is going across the cut while the B-side is coming in, so there’s always a fluid rhythm to the cut. There aren’t a lot of hard cuts in the movie.

Ozanich: Which really emphasizes the couple cuts that are deliberately extreme. At the end of Carnegie, there’s this huge applause, and it hard cuts to the dressing room. The same thing happens at the end of the Ely scene. There’s this giant applause, and boom; it hard cuts into the tragedy that then unfolds. One of our main driving motives was to always serve that emotional storyline, so everything is designed to support that.

 

And when we’re out in the country with the Bernstein family, there’s a sense of timelessness, and it’s often very quiet. How did you maintain the emotion in those scenes?

Zupancic: Especially in what we call the big lie, when Lenny’s on the porch talking to Jamie, there are quite a few dramatic dialogue scenes that were not scored, so it was up to the backgrounds to deliver the emotion. Those scenes are tough to mix because you have to sound real, obviously, but we still have to support the emotion of what’s going on. I thought playing a lot of those scenes without music was a brilliant decision by Bradley and Jason Ruder, our supervising music editor, because then, when the music does come in, it’s so much more impactful.

Ozanich: I think one of the great, powerful things about sound is that people don’t think as overtly about what they’re hearing as they do about what they’re seeing, yet all of that is having an effect on your experience and what you’re feeling. Normally, you’d use music to be this underscore, to tell you what to feel, and a lot of the more intimate scenes don’t have it. It’s totally leaning on the actual performances as well as some of the sound.

Zupancic: The other great scene I love, too, is when Lenny’s having the interview outside the pool. The winds are blowing, you feel it, the birds are in the background, but it’s all weaving through what the story is telling us.

Ozanich: That scene has a lot of heaviness to it, in the backgrounds where you feel this weight and a darkness. In that whole scene, Lenny is struggling with what he’s being confronted with in that interview. You contrast that to some of the scenes early on with Felicia, when they’re sitting back to back, and it’s beautiful, it’s light, there are beautiful birds, and you feel like you’re falling in love like them.

Maestro. (L to R) Carey Mulligan as Felicia Montealegre and Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein (Director/Writer/Producer) in Maestro. Cr. Jason McDonald/Netflix © 2023.
Maestro. (L to R) Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein (Director/Writer) and Carey Mulligan as Felicia Montealegre
in Maestro. Cr. Jason McDonald/Netflix © 2023.

Going into the edit, were there any rules or guidelines  to deal with the fact that this is a period piece?

Ozanich: Yes and no. We talked about attempting to do some more dramatic, period-based transitions. Ultimately, we decided not to put the limitations of those time periods there because it felt like that was going to break how real it feels and how tangible they are, sitting there in front of us. What we did decide to do was use today’s technology but make it have a feeling and a flavor of those time periods. So, for some of the older stuff, you wouldn’t have as dense of a track; maybe there’s less background without every detail playing.

Zupancic: We didn’t want to rely on technical gimmicks, i.e., making it sound like a 1940s film, but rather, again, the movie is rhythm and feeling, so make it feel like a 1940s movie, then as you get into color, the feeling of the 1970s, which is a time when more sounds were being played, more detail.

Ozanich: It’s amazing to me because I feel like we didn’t overly focus on that. We did have some intentionality to it, but I just felt like what we’re doing is so subtle, no one is even going to notice it, and yet we’ve had so many people asking, how did we make it sound like that time period?

 

 

For more on Maestro, check out these interviews:

“Maestro “ Production Designer Kevin Thompson on Building the Bernstein’s Lives From Concert Halls to Connecticut

“Maestro” Costume Designer Mark Bridges on Charting the Bernstein’s Ever-Changing Style

“Maestro” Cinematographer Matthew Libatique Makes Music With the Camera

 

 

 Featured image: Maestro – BTS – (L to R) Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein (Director/Writer/Producer), Cinematographer Matthew Libatique and Carey Mulligan as Felicia Montealegre on the set of Maestro. Cr. Jason McDonald/Netflix © 2023.

 

First “Horizon” Trailer Reveals Kevin Costner’s Hugely Ambitious Western Epic

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Kevin Costner’s Horizon isn’t just an old-school Western epic—it’s a four-part film saga he co-wrote, directed, produced, and stars in.

Costner has revealed the first trailer for Horizon: An American Saga, his hugely ambitious post-Civil War epic that pulled him away from another Western you may have heard of, a little show called Yellowstone. The trailer finds Costner marshaling an old-school, sweeping movie that promises all the hallmarks of the genre, including gunfights, wide-open spaces, and plenty of conflict, both at high noon and romantically.

Costner co-wrote the series with Jon Baird, with Chapter One arriving this summer (June 28) and Chapter Two following hot on its heels (August 16), a bold release strategy for a film that Costner has been working towards for three decades.

How personal is Horizon to Costner? He reportedly took a loan out on his home to help finance the series, which was shot on location in Utah.

“When no one wanted to make the first one, I got the bright idea to make four,” Costner said during a chat about the Horizon trailer. “So I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I wanted it to step away from what we usually see in Westerns where there’s a town that’s already there. No one knows how [the town] came to be. There’s a guy who comes in off the horizon, if you will. We don’t know much about him, except that he has some skills he’d like to put behind him and this town ends up needing those stills desperately…too often, it’s just a convenience for the hero guy to knock down a dumb guy.”

Costner has long been connected to the genre—he directed the Oscar-winning Dances With Wolves way back in 1990—to say nothing of his star turn in the phenomenon Yellowstone. Yet perhaps no film, or, that is, films, are as personal to him as Horizon.

“These are real lives,” Costner said about Horizon. “People just making their way, women just trying to keep their families clean and fed … I’m drawn to that. I’m always gonna get to my gunfight, but I’m drawn to the little things that people had to endure. So, to me, Horizon was worth holding on to because I just felt like I wanted to tell it. It grew and it grew and it grew until suddenly I realized that I just had to make it, and I had to look to myself financially to do it — which is not the smartest thing. But I count on the movie speaking louder than anything I can say.”

Check out the trailer below. The first installment of Horizion hits theaters on June 28:

For more on Warner Bros., Max, and more, check out these stories:

James Gunn Reveals First “Superman: Legacy” Cast Photo With Filming Beginning Next Week

James Gunn Teases “Superman: Legacy” Set in Photo With “Peacemaker” Cast

“Dune: Part Two” Review Round-Up: A Breathtaking, Cosmically Scaled Sci-Fi Masterpiece

Everything You Need to Know Before Seeing “Dune: Part Two”

Featured image: An image from Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga: Chapter 1. Courtesy Warner Bros.

“To Kill a Tiger” Director Nisha Pahuja on her Eight-Year Journey to Make her Oscar-Nominated Doc

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One of the year’s Oscar Cinderella stories is the best documentary nomination for director Nisha Pahuja’s To Kill a Tiger. It took Pahuja and her small crew eight years to complete their independent film about a father’s fight for justice after three men abducted his 13-year-old daughter and sexually assaulted her in a poor rural village in India. 

“It has not quite hit me yet,” says Pahuja of what will be her first-ever trip to the Oscar ceremony on March 10. “An awards campaign never figured into what I was trying to achieve or what I was aiming for. This is a small, independently funded production without a major studio or streamer behind it.”

But critical acclaim and a host of festival awards gave To Kill a Tiger momentum even though the Indian-born Canadian filmmaker says her goal was always “about impact. How do we use this film to make change? How do we use this film to advocate for survivors of sexual violence? And how do we use it to encourage men to stand with women and girls? That was always the intention,” Pahuja says.

Nisha Pahuja. Credit: Mrinal Desia.

To Kill a Tiger follows Kiran (her pseudonym in the film) and her parents as they seek justice for the assault with the assistance of activists from the Srijan Foundation, an advocacy organization. The focus becomes Kiran’s father, Ranjit, who, out of love for his daughter, goes against the tribalist, deeply patriarchal culture that blames the victim, with one villager even suggesting that Kiran marry one of her assailants in order to keep the peace.

A scene from “To Kill a Tiger.” Courtesy National Film Board of Canada.

The film began, says Pahuja, as a look at toxic masculinity (that footage will be used for another upcoming film). But gradually, Ranjit’s determined quest for justice and Kieran’s courage in standing up to entrenched misogamy emerged as a specific narrative with universal themes.

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s not a woman or girl on the planet who hasn’t been afraid that this could happen to her. That fear is there for all of us, so I knew that aspect. But, for me, what was so interesting and universal was the hero’s journey. It’s a real David and Goliath story that made it universal, as well as the extraordinary love [Ranjit] has for his child, what he would do for his daughter, battling obstacles outside himself, but also internally: his own fears and insecurities. Those elements made it feel almost narrative, like fiction,” she says.

Over time, Pahuja and her small crew, which included her DP and husband, Mrinal Desai, and their regular sound recordist in India, Anita Kushwaha, achieved trust and intimacy with the family. But the film also gives the antagonistic villagers their say and never demonizes them despite their troubling views minimizing sexual assault. “Because I’ve spent so much time in India and I come from that culture, I am familiar with those attitudes. It’s not a surprise to me; they don’t anger me anymore. I’ve heard them so many times,” says Pahuja. “It is a problem, but what is the solution? How do we change this mindset, this culture? So I focus on that. I saw it from their perspective. I was this outsider, this foreigner coming in and disrupting the peace, order, and how things function there. I can completely understand their anger and frustration because from their perspective, just as Ranjit and his wife loved their daughter and were fighting for justice, those families loved their sons and were fighting to protect them and to keep the peace.”

 

In one jarring scene, some village leaders invade Ranjit’s home, threaten the filmmakers, and try to intimidate them into leaving. The moment underscores the high stakes for both the family and their allies.

“I was scared, but more than fear, it was the sense of guilt and shame and remorse I felt at creating a situation like this,” Pahuja says. “I could have removed those scenes from the film; it would not have affected the story. But the idea of us as a crew and the effect we were having and the impact on the story — that we had become part of the story — was so critical to the film. It makes the film more interesting and forces all of us, as creators of documentaries and as consumers of documentaries, to ask certain questions about [our roles]. I don’t believe we should not do the things we do as filmmakers because so many of us are motivated by change and justice in improving human rights. But, over the course of making this film, I was really forced to confront my privilege and my responsibility.”

Ranjit in a scene from “To Kill a Tiger.” Courtesy National Film Board of Canada.

It is gratifying to Pahuja that Ranjit and his family have embraced the film. But more surprising is that some villagers who initially opposed them have also responded positively.

“The family came to the UK for screenings in London and Birmingham. That was just incredible for everyone: the audience, me, and them. I will never forget that night,” she says. “Then I showed it to others [from the village] because we are doing a big impact campaign with the film, and we want to start it in the community itself. As much as we can, we want to ensure the rift has healed. It’s been six years now. The ward member who is supposed to testify [against the family] loved the film. He said afterward he felt ashamed of himself because he didn’t stand up for the family. He explained he was under pressure and was trying to keep the community together.”

It will also be especially rewarding for Pahuja if Ranjit is able to attend the Oscar ceremony with her. “He will come if we’re able to get his visa on time. I feel, in a way, he and the family are why we are there,” she says. “If it weren’t for their bravery and their courage, we would not have this story in the world.”

 

For more interviews with Oscar nominees, check out these stories:

How Pixar Director Peter Sohn Got Personal in His Oscar-nominated “Elemental”

Co-Director Moses Bwayo on the Harrowing Journey to Capture the Oscar-Nominated Doc “Bobi Wine: The People’s President”

Featured image: A scene from “To Kill a Tiger.” Courtesy National Film Board of Canada.

 

 

Co-Director Moses Bwayo on the Harrowing Journey to Capture the Oscar-Nominated Doc “Bobi Wine: The People’s President”

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Imagine for a moment if a music icon like Beyoncé or Dolly Parton ran for United States President. Cool, right? But imagine, during their campaign, they were arrested, brutally beaten, and thrown in jail by the incumbent government while their supporters were detained, shot at, and killed. As Americans, would we simply look the other way? In Uganda, similar events actually took place leading up to the 2021 presidential election as Bobi Wine, a superstar musician, activist, and former member of parliament, ran for office against President Yoweri Museveni, who had been in power since 1986.

Directors Christopher Sharp and Moses Bwayo first set out to document Bobi’s cultural influence through his music, but the story took a turn as Bobi stepped further into the political sphere, gaining popularity among Ugandans who sought change. What followed was a five-year journey of Bobi’s heroic path leading up to the 2021 election, one riddled with horrific violence and life-threatening uncertainty.

Close to 4,000 hours of footage was turned into a two-hour documentary called Bobi Wine: The People’s President. Now nominated for an Oscar, the film authentically represents “not just the dramatic events unfolding in Uganda, but also the raw and genuine spirit of an inspiring group of people.”

Below, co-director Moses Bwayo shares his experience working on the film, how the government actively suppressed media coverage that supported Bobi Wine, and how he survived the violent acts that threatened his own life.

 

How did you come to meet co-director Christopher Sharp? 

I met Christopher through a mutual friend; we were introduced in mid-2017. Christopher had traveled to Uganda to assemble a team to start the film’s principal photography. We met at a little downtown hotel, and he shared the idea of the film. I felt compelled, and I quickly said yes. Bobi is an inspiration to the youth in Uganda, and his message at the time profoundly spoke to my heart. 

Moses Bwayo, Co-director. Photo courtesy of Southern Films.

Can you talk about how you and Christopher wanted to tell Bobi’s story? 

As documentary filmmakers, Christopher and I wanted to tell the most honest story about the Ugandan struggle for democracy, peace, and freedom. We quickly realized that this story would be best told as an observational documentary through Bobi Wine and those close to him. His wife was a central character in the story. In the five years following Bobi and his wife, we filmed multiple other characters who were essential to the story, but we knew if we stuck closely to Bobi and Barbie, the story would be strong, and through them, we would see the struggles of the Ugandan people. We leaned towards cinema verité to best portray this poignant story. We also wanted to tell an inspirational story, to give hope to our audience and get them to want to act after they saw the film.

Bobi Wine on top of his vehicle with his wife Barbara ltungo Kyagulanyi as they campaigned in Kasanda district, Central Uganda on November 27, 2020.(photo credit: Lookman Kampala)

The documentary uses crowd-sourced footage to help tell the story. How was the team able to collect and manage it all? 

Yes, we had a lot of footage from citizen journalists. One of the film’s producers, John Battsek, helped us assemble a great post-production team that received, managed, and sourced a lot of footage; our co-producer and archive researcher, Megan Horlinghurst, went through tons of footage archives from online sources and media organizations to find what was suitable for the edit. We also collected a lot of footage from the Ugandan public. 

Bobi Wine on a motorbike escaping from police in Uganda Kampala. (Mandatory photo credit: Katumba Badru)

Did the government try to restrict Bobi Wine’s media coverage?

In late 2018, the Ugandan government clamped down on media houses and journalists covering Wine’s political events. This has led to self-censorship by media houses and journalists in the country, and it isn’t easy to find honest reporting there. There has been a rise in citizen journalism around the country. Most of them use their mobile phones to broadcast to social media channels. In the five years of following Bobi Wine, I got deeply embedded in the political movement; I knew lots of bloggers and thought leaders who shared a lot of their content online, and we collected a lot of this footage like the November 18th and 19th murders committed by the military, police, and army; the public filmed and posted videos online, these clips became an asset to tell the story of the November 2020 murders.

Bobi Wine lashes at the Ugandan security personnel who stopped him from getting to the location of his campaign event in Mbale District, Eastern Uganda, November 15, 2020. (photo credit: Lookman Kampala)

What shocked you the most about how far incumbent president Yoweri Museveni would go to retain his power? 

There were multiple shocking moments. However, the most profound moment was the violence that the state apparatus was willing to cause upon the population. The violence was meted upon politicians and their supporters; however, as we got closer to the general election, it was directed towards journalists covering political events. Some media houses had their licenses withdrawn for covering Bobi Wine’s political events. Wine was the primary challenger to the establishment, a now 38-year-long dictatorship bent on consolidating power. This was shocking because journalists are mandated to cover news and report on the situation in the country; it was appalling to witness the situation deteriorate to this level. 

Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni during one of his televised addresses to the country on January 16, 2022. He has been in power for at least the last 37 years. He seized power in 1986 after staging guerilla warfare in 1980 that killed at least 500,000 Ugandans. (photo credit: Lookman Kampala)

Speaking of violence, you were arrested, imprisoned, and shot at while filming. Do you think if you were documenting and supporting Museveni your treatment would have been different? 

Covering Bobi Wine was dangerous for journalists; we were brutalized multiple times. I can’t remember any moment when we interacted with the police or military and weren’t brutalized. As you have clearly stated, I was arrested on multiple occasions and locked up in jail, and as the election drew closer, I was shot in the face at close range. The stakes were high while making this film. I have friends who, until today, we don’t know where they are; others have had life-altering injuries. The police and army protected the Museveni campaigns; on the other hand, his supporters were at no point arrested or had their rights violated in any way. Journalists on his team would get special treatment from the state establishment. 

Bobi Wine assists his music producer Dan Magic into a hospital in Kayunga, Uganda, after he was injured by police teargas canisters and rubber bullets used to disperse crowds on December 1, 2020.(photo credit: Lookman Kampala)

Following the election, Uganda’s internet went offline, and we see Bobi and his wife, Barbie, essentially imprisoned in their home waiting for the results. What were those moments like for the crew?

I spent about 14 days under house arrest with Bobi and Barbie; we were surrounded by the military, police, army, and plain-clothed gunmen; there was a heavy deployment around the house. We were worried that at any moment, the police and military would break into the house; that was our greatest fear. It felt so foreign; we were in the house without access to the outside, and we started running out of food as no one was allowed in or out of the compound. When the police and military later withdrew from the compound, I did not leave immediately. I knew the house was still under heavy surveillance. I knew I might be followed and have the footage confiscated. I waited until Bobi participated in a press conference with many journalists in attendance. I left mixed up in the group of those journalists. I sent the footage ahead of me with a “boda boda,” a motorcycle taxi, so the footage would still be safe if I had been followed. 

Barbie puts her head on the table. Photo credit: Southern Films.

The film shows Yoweri Museveni supporters and how they organized similarly to Bobi Wine supporters but were never reprimanded for their actions, unlike Wine supporters. Having witnessed the election, do you feel Museveni had enough votes to win? 

Museveni would have lost that election if it had been in a free and fair contest. Yes, we did show some rallies by Museveni. However, we didn’t tell the audience that most of those supported were either paid to attend those rallies or were ferried to those regions from Museveni’s home districts where he enjoys support because of tribalism, which he has encouraged through nepotism. Museveni has lost support amongst the population, and his political party, the NRM, is exceptionally corrupt; they have made politics expensive in general because of the corruption and voter bribery they oversee. 

What do you think is the future of Uganda after Museveni is out of office? 

The people of Uganda have endured 38 years of strongman military rule. Museveni has held a firm grip on power by rigging elections and changing the constitution twice to allow him to run. He continues to oppress his opponents with the state apparatus. Uganda has never had a peaceful transition of power; Museveni came through a long, brutal guerilla war promising a fundamental change and a return to democracy; that war was waged in a densely populated region of the country in central Uganda, the war left over half a million Ugandans dead. The Ugandan people hoped this democrat would provide the much-needed solutions to the country’s problems. However, his regime has been a shadow of his once glorious past. 

Do Ugandans remain hopeful?

Ugandans are hopeful regardless of the continued repression. Uganda is the second youngest nation in the world, with over 75% of the population under 35. The young people of Uganda are ready for change and demanding it. The future of a free Uganda free from political violence and a Uganda that accommodates us all is possible. It is achievable through free and fair elections, and as Bobi Wine says, “Violence begets violence.” 

 

You can watch Bobi Wine: The People’s President on National Geographic and other streaming platforms.

Featured image: Bobi Wine on top of his vehicle during the 2021 presidential campaigns as he solicited for support in Nakaseke, Central Uganda on November 18, 2020. (photo credit: Lookman Kampala)

How Pixar Director Peter Sohn Got Personal in His Oscar-nominated “Elemental”

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How do you make fire feel endearing rather than scary? And how do you turn water into a gusher of emotions? Those were key questions faced by director Peter Sohn when he set forth to make Elemental. The Bronx-born animator previously helped anthropomorphize rats, robots, dolphins, and dinosaurs in Ratatouille, Finding Nemo, WALL•E, and The Little Dinosaur. But never before had he tried to put a human face on earth, air, fire, and water. In directing his Oscar-nominated animated feature Elemental (now streaming on Disney +), Sohn created a fully enflamed hero fueled by the virtues and complexities expected from any big-screen protagonist.

Sohn says, “I was interested in portraying what an urban first-gen character looks like. With Ember, it was more about finding a type rather than [modeling her on] a specific person.” In the film, feisty Ember (voiced by Leah Lewis) has been living contently with her immigrant parents in their district of the segregated Elemental City. Then she meets go-with-the-flow slacker Wade (voiced by Mamoudou Athie) from the water side of town, and everything changes.

Speaking from Pixar headquarters in Emeryville, California, Sohn describes how the Elemental team made fire and H20 look adorable. He also digs into the ways his experiences as a second-generation Korean-American inspired his most personal film to date.

 

You took a big swing by animating fire and water in the form of soulful, wise-cracking, human-like characters. Where did you get the idea?

It started in school growing up in New York when saw the chart of all the elements. They looked like apartment complexes to me and each little box was a different family. I’d make up little jokes about it, like carbon lives next door to mercury, but be careful about the helium; it’s a little gassy.

L-r: Ember (voice of Leah Lewis) and Wade (Mamoudou Athie) in Pixar’s “Elemental.” © 2023 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

Then you became an adult animator and. . . ?

Decades later, other ideas started to shake hands with that world of the elements. One was that I fell in love with someone who was not Korean — my grandmother’s dying words were “marry Korean!”

Instead, your wife is Italian-American, right?

Half Italian, yeah. She’s very fiery, and I’m just a sap.

A sap?

I get very emotional about things. So that sparked the opposites attract idea. And then this idea of fire and water got me to the classical concept of elements, which led me to build the giant Elemental City made of different communities, which connected to my childhood in New York growing up with all these different cultures sort of stacked on top of each other.

In a city where fire-, water-, land- and air-residents live together, a fiery young woman and a go-with-the-flow guy are about to discover something elemental: How much they actually have in common. Directed by Peter Sohn and produced by Denise Ream, Disney and Pixar’s “Elemental” releases June 16, 2023. Concept art by Sohn. © 2022 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

And at the center of it all is Ember. What’s her origin story?

It was a sketch that I did. I like to do free drawing, where I just let the ink line lead me. I drew a little flame and put that flame in a boat over water, and that drawing triggered it all for me. From there, water came very quickly.

L-r: Ember (voice of Leah Lewis) and Wade (Mamoudou Athie) in Pixar’s “Elemental.” © 2023 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved. © 2023 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

Pixar develops movies by subjecting stories to a rigorous peer review process that incorporates specific guidelines. How did that process impact Elemental?

Usually, at Pixar, you go down a path where you build three ideas. Three separate concepts, three worlds, and three storylines of characters. Elemental was not done that way.

How so?

When I got back from doing press for my second movie, The Good Dinosaur, I was invited by the mayor of the Bronx, where I grew up, to give a speech at an event. I got up on stage and just seeing my parents out there in the audience, I lost it because I was so grateful for the sacrifices they made for my brother and me. When I came back from that trip, my boss said, “That’s your movie.” So Elemental started out from that seed.

Then what happened?

The unusual part is that my parents passed away during development. The film had started with this warm heart, but I sort of shifted it into a dark place after my father passed away. The personal loss affected me in a way I hadn’t felt any time before while working on a movie. I was lost in grief, and that spun me for a loop.

How the Pixar structure come into play at this point?

That rigor usually gives you this structural support group, but here, it became almost an emotional support group because my co-workers knew what I was going through. They’d remind me of why I started this project in the first place and helped me find my way back in. But it was a roller coaster as I got deeper into the story.

 

Elemental has a lot to say about first-generation immigrants and their children when Ember decides not to take over the family business and instead leaves home. Did you base some of that inter-generational conflict on your own experience?

I wanted to get into the arts, and that caused a rift with my parents, especially my mother. She grew up at the tail end of the Korean War, so her family had no money. Any time I would draw anything, she’d tear up my papers. My father took my mother’s side until high school when he bumped into an animator working on a TV show in New Rochelle. My father said, “Oh, you’re an animator; how much money do you make?”

Getting straight to the point.

Straight to the point. Once my father understood you could make a living [as an animator], he immediately flipped sides

Creating characters made of fire must have been challenging if only because flame in its natural state flickers constantly, as opposed to the relatively static surface of a regular face. How did you make fire so relatable?

We had to make the audience’s eyes connect to the landscape of a face amid all that busy movement. When you turn on the [visual] effects and put eyes in there, fire just looks like a demonic creature, so we had to travel down many different paths and collect clues so that we could strike a balance where you feel the kinetic energy, but the fire is caricatured so the facial features can sit there in a way that allows us to empathize with Ember. It took a long time to get there.

 

Ultimately, you arrived at Ember’s “campfire”-inspired face and the big, tapering hair?

That was really trying to find the Ying Yang in her relationship with Wade. Ember’s face settles to the bottom, and her energies go up, whereas Wade is shaped like a waterdrop where his face stays up to the top, and his energies go down. When Wade became emotional, he was like a Bellagio water fountain [of tears], so that shaped what he needed to become.

ELEMENTAL – Wade and Ember. © 2023 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

Wade has a great head of water hair. What inspired that look?

There’s that famous [Utagawa ] Hiroshige woodblock [print] of a wave, and we tried to find other iconic looks for the water. That wave on the top gives Wade this uplifting feel, even though he’d be crying a lot. To be honest, Wade was the nightmare. If the ripples and bubbles went too slow, he’d become jelly-like. If the [reflective qualities of the] caustics became too thick, he’d turn into a ghost.

To shift focus for a moment, Elemental required a huge team to put all the pieces together. What kind of impact does your filmmaking have on Emeryville in terms of the local economy?

The studio brings in artists from outside the area and from local colleges like the Academy of Art. They also have [job] fairs within the atrium with business owners who come in to share their wares. The studio has been a huge partner to Emeryville and the whole Bay area.

Elemental sounds like an unusually personal project for you. What do you want audiences to take away from this film?

In a world that has so many sequels, Elemental is an original story. It’s about a young woman falling in love, not just with this water person but with her own family and her father. I want the film to inspire empathy and open up all these different paths with the people in your life. 

Featured image: LIGHTHEARTED FUN — In Disney and Pixar’s “Elemental,” go-with-the-flow guy Wade (Mamoudou Athie) ushers fiery young woman Ember (voice of Leah Lewis) out of her comfort zone to experience Elemental City like never before. Directed by Peter Sohn. © 2023 Disney/Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

James Gunn Reveals First “Superman: Legacy” Cast Photo With Filming Beginning Next Week

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James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy is flying into production. This has been evident in recent posts and updates, but none more so than the first cast photo that Gunn has shared. It was also made crystal clear during an earning’s call with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who revealed that Superman: Legacy begins filming next week.

Gunn revealed this shot of his full cast on Instagram on Thursday, revealing his Legacy team gathered around for a table read. Also in the pic are Gunn himself and his DC Studios co-chief Peter Safran, both probably feeling a sense of genuine joy and excitement over this gathering of performers for the first big film that will fall under their new-look DC.

The photo includes David Corenswet, Gunn’s new Clark Kent/Superman, Rachel Brosnahan, on board as Lois Lane, Nicholas Hoult, shorn of head as the new Lex Luthor, Sara Sampaio, who plays Eve Teschmacher, Terence Rosemore, playing Otis, Edi Gathegi, playing Mr. Terrific, Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen, Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, María Gabriela de Faría as the The Engineer, and Gunn’s longtime collaborator Nathan Fillion, front and center, playing Guy Gardner.

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There’s one notable face not in this photo—newly minted Supergirl, Milly Alcock—who will be leading the upcoming Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. We’ll likely see Alcock in a DC Studios project before her big film, but it’s unclear if that will be Gunn’s Superman: Legacy or another title.

Superman: Legacy is the big kickoff film for Gunn and Safran’s first phase of their new DC Studios, titled Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters. This chapter includes a film series set on Wonder Woman’s home island of Themyscira called Paradise Lost, the introduction of a new Batman in The Brave and the Bold, the aforementioned Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, and Swamp Thing, which will return the infamous monster to the big screen. Also in the mix is Matt Reeves’ The Batman Part II, which will find Robert Pattinson returning to his version of Batman in a film that will exist outside the Gods and Monsters timeline.

For more on Superman: Legacy, check out these stories:

James Gunn Teases “Superman: Legacy” Set in Photo With “Peacemaker” Cast

“Superman: Legacy” Update: James Gunn Teases Superman’s Costume, Miriam Shor Joins Cast

James Gunn Confirms Nicholas Hoult Will be Lex Luthor in “Superman: Legacy”

James Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy” Casts Its Villain

Featured image: L-r: HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – AUGUST 16: David Corenswet attends the Los Angeles Premiere of Netflix’s “Look Both Ways” at TUDUM Theater on August 16, 2022 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)NEW YORK; NEW YORK – APRIL 11: Rachel Brosnahan attends Prime Video’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Season 5 Premiere at The Standard Highline on April 11, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

“The Holdovers” Oscar-Nominated Editor Kevin Tent on Creating a 70s Vibe With Timeless Performances

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Kevin Tent, nominated for this year’s best editing Oscar for The Holdovers, considers himself  “the luckiest editor ever” thanks to his 28-year collaboration with director Alexander Payne. Tent has edited all nine of Payne’s films dating back to his feature directing debut Citizen Ruth (1996). It’s an impressive list that includes Election (1999), About Schmidt (2002), Sideways (2004), Paris, Je T’aime (2006), The Descendants (2011), which earned Tent his first Oscar nomination, Nebraska (2013), Downsizing (2017) and now The Holdovers.

After all these years, Tent says, he and Payne’s creative partnership has a shorthand that often begins before there’s a finished script.

“Even if he’s just circling a project, he’ll send it to me to see what I think,” says Tent, a Buffalo, NY native who moved to California after dropping out of college because “they make movies there.”

“He sent me about 45 pages [of ‘The Holdovers’] up to when the boys leave. Mostly, I was excited about it because he was excited about it so I knew it would be something good. He’s grown as a director, but he’s still basically the same guy I met 28 years ago. He’s just gotten better and more generous and more collaborative. He counts on you, and everyone works hard for him because we are all on the same team. He creates passion for doing a great job which is truly a gift.”

(l-r.) Director Alexander Payne and actors Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph on the set of their film THE HOLDOVERS, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Seacia Pavao / © 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

Payne worked closely with screenwriter David Hemingson to develop the script. The Holdovers, nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, is set in the early 1970s at a fictional New England prep school. Best Actor nominee Paul Giamatti plays a veteran teacher forced to stay on campus during Christmas break to look after several students with nowhere to go. When he and a difficult student (played by newcomer Dominic Sessa) decide to accompany the school’s head cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph, also nominated) on a trip into Boston, the three loners gradually form a family bond.

 

Some critics have compared The Holdovers with Hal Ashby’s The Last Detail (1973), a three-character comedy-drama starring Jack Nicholson about two Navy lifers forced to escort a naive young seaman on a trip to the brig.

Tent says The Last Detail is a movie he and Payne “both love. They do long dissolves, and we’ve always done that,” he says. “AP screened it for the crew. It’s a phenomenal movie. I worked with Ted Demme years ago, and that was one of his favorite movies, too. I still have the VHS tape he gave me to watch.”

The 1970s aesthetic for The Holdovers was intentional from the start.

Payne, Tent says, “wanted it to look like a movie that had been in a vault and hadn’t been seen for a while. He wanted it to look and feel like it came from the ‘70s. That was something he did in production. In post, we did a few things to make it feel grainier in places and added some bits of negative dirt to make it look like it was from the film lab. Eighty percent of the choices we made were related to performance. We didn’t approach it any differently than any of Alex’s other films. As Alex said, ‘Maybe we’ve always been making movies that look like the 1970s.’”

 

The challenge of editing a dialogue-driven character film like The Holdovers is to keep the pace brisk.

“I’m always the one in the cutting room worried about people leaving or starting to think about where they parked the car,” says Tent, who serves as president of the board of the American Cinema Editors (ACE). “But I think the screenplay is so good because you are learning things all along about the characters. That’s part of the job in the cutting room — to make sure you are engaged with the characters. The way it’s written, you keep getting more information about them the deeper you get into the movie. You find out Paul’s mother died and that he was then railroaded out of Harvard, but you find out so late in the movie. Traditionally, they want to jam all that in the beginning, and there’s nothing left to discover.”

 

The Holdovers role was written specifically for Giamatti, who’d previously earned acclaim for Sideways.

“Paul is so good. I knew he would be; when I read the [script], I could see him perfectly in the role,” Tent says. “It was exciting when I was cutting to work with his footage again. There are some tongue twisters in there that David wrote and he just nailed them. I asked AP on the first day how exciting it was to work again with Paul, and he said, ‘We’re both giddy.’”

 

While editing the film, Tent attended an ACE luncheon, he says, and swapped stories with his colleagues about their projects. “One of them had worked with Paul on Billions, and someone else worked with him on another movie, and I was telling them how amazing he is in this film. They laughed and said, ‘Yeah, just cut to Paul.’”

 

For more on Universal Pictures, Peacock, and Focus Features projects, check out these stories:

New “Jurassic World” Director Will Be “Rogue One” and “The Creator” Filmmaker Gareth Edwards

“Lisa Frankenstein” Production Designer Mark Worthington on Reimagining 1980s Horror Comedy

First “Wicked” Trailer Finds Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo Getting Witchy With It

Featured image: (l-r.) Dominic Sessa stars as Angus Tully, Paul Giamatti as Paul Hunham and Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Mary Lamb in director Alexander Payne’s THE HOLDOVERS, a Focus Features release. Credit: Seacia Pavao / © 2023 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

“Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin” Namesake & Co-Writer Robb Armstrong on His Peanuts Immortality

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Robb Armstrong’s JumpStart is the most widely syndicated daily comic strip by an African American in the world. He was inspired to his career as a cartoonist, in part, by reading the Peanuts comics by Charles Schulz and started drawing images from the famed strip as a child. Of course, one major influence was Franklin, the first Black character in Peanuts, who was introduced in 1968. Early in his career, he was able to meet Schulz, and they became friends. In the mid-nineties, a new special necessitated Schulz, or Sparky, as he was known to his friends and family, giving Franklin a last name. Schulz went to Armstrong, his then-longtime friend, and asked if he could name him Franklin Armstrong. 

Now Robb Armstrong has collaborated with the Peanuts production team, which includes Charles Schulz’s son Craig and grandson Bryan Schulz, to write the 51st Peanuts special, Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin. It is Franklin’s first starring role as part of Peanuts animation and explores the character more in-depth. In the special, Franklin is learning how to make new friends based on a notebook from his grandfather. When, after having trouble fitting in, he winds up one of two kids without a partner for the neighborhood Soap Box Derby race, he and Charlie Brown team up, learning how to be better friends in the process. 

The Credits discussed Franklin’s first featured special with Robb Armstrong, including the ways he and Franklin are similar. He also shared how he and his co-writers approached that now infamous table scene from the 1973 Thanksgiving special, in which Franklin sits alone across from the Peanuts gang, reframing the storytelling to be positive and joyful, as they believe Schulz and the 1973 filmmakers originally intended. 

 

Welcome Home, Franklin is the 51st Peanuts special. How did you come to be part of it with Craig and Bryan Schulz and the other members of the team? 

What tends to happen in life sometimes that there are many ideas floating around in the zeitgeist simultaneously, because Charles Schultz as a creator had been under fire for few years because of how Franklin was portrayed, specifically in the Thanksgiving special eating on one side of the table, and it’s an unfavorable moment. The reaction to it was over-the-top harsh, accusatory, and inaccurate. 

Fans of Schulz, and you in particular, know he was the least racist person in the world. 

Exactly. He was the least racist guy in the world. I was just furious about it. Friends of mine suggested I approach the Schulz family on the subject of doing something about it. I had no way of knowing at the time that Sparky’s son Craig and his grandson Brian felt the same way. We’re grown, college-educated men. It’s one scene. Can’t we figure out how to address this? I approached Sparky’s wife, Jeannie, and she said, “Oh my goodness, Craig is also talking about this and looking to do something.” So it was kismet. By the time I got a call from the team, I was strangely expecting it. 

 

What happened from there? 

It all fell together very quickly from there. Craig and Bryan have a history of writing really good specials for Peanuts together. They did The Peanuts Movie, so I was coming into an existing world. I felt exactly like Franklin, coming from the outside into their world and thinking, “I hope I’m a winner.” So that helped, writing for Franklin, because I felt like him. Franklin’s not like a character in JumpStart. I’m very different from those characters. Even after doing it for 34 years, no one has turned to me or expressed my opinion about things. But Franklin, in some ways, is exactly like me. 

Charlie Brown and Franklin Armstrong in “Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin,” premiering February 16, 2024 on Apple TV+.

What are some examples of how you are the same? 

There’s a scene where he’s talking about his uncle being a Negro League baseball player. That’s true. My real-life uncle Eugene Benson played in the Negro Leagues, and it was a thrill to have a scene giving a spotlight to this man who never got any fame or recognition when he played baseball. He mentored Jackie Robinson, the guy deserves a spotlight, and he never really got it. Getting it into the screenplay meant describing this moment to this team, and I’m talking about my real life uncle, and everyone is confused. At one point, Craig said, “Robb, who are we talking about right now, Franklin or you?”

Franklin Armstrong and Charlie Brown in “Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin,” premiering February 16, 2024 on Apple TV+.

What other elements are from your own life? 

Well, Franklin’s plight is from my own life. He’s going through something that I went through when I was 12 years old. I went from an all-Black public school to a private school. It was 98% white and a private school, originally an all-girls school. They boarded and lived there. I really struggled to connect with those kids, but I did. Strangely, my biggest problem was that I had to go home after school. All the boys were day students, so I had to go back home to my neighborhood, which was all Black. It was going back that was the problem. It was being ostracized by the kids I had grown up with. There’s no nice way to put it. They accused me of betrayal. That was really, really difficult. Franklin isn’t going through that same thing, but he feels like a permanent outlier. Wherever he goes is just temporary. His family travels, and he’s never made a real friend. I was able to tap into lots of feelings of marginalization. 

Franklin Armstrong and Linus in “Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin,” premiering February 16, 2024 on Apple TV+.

In his way, he’s like Charlie Brown. 

Yes. It was interesting working with a team that’s been expressing Charlie Brown’s feelings for so long, someone who is also an outlier. He’s from that neighborhood but still feels like an outsider. So they’re both isolated but get thrown together because neither of them gets picked, so they end up together. 

The music in this special is so wonderful. It includes John Coltrane, which is such a nod to Vince Guaraldi. 

I thought it would be great to have a Black version of Guaraldi. Guaraldi’s contributions to animation are unique. He stands alone. If you hear his music for Peanuts specials in the mall or the barbershop or walking down the street, it’s like a pneumonic device. You think Charlie Brown. So I thought Coltrane has the same really cool, meaningful, smoky jazz club vibe. I wanted a Black Vince Guaraldi-type song that you’d hear every time you’d see Franklin. 

 

And there are other great Black musicians represented. 

I made a list with Stevie Wonder, Billy Preston, and James Brown, thinking about representing an era. The list was massive, and what we ended up with was a really beautiful representation of a kind of feeling that is accurate to the Peanuts universe for Franklin. 

The Stevie Wonder song “Happier Than the Morning Sun” was perfect at capturing Franklin’s optimism. How did you choose that out of all his great songs? 

Other Stevie Wonder songs are too popular. Peanuts is not supposed to have something where you turn on the radio, and it already has its own space and separate legacy. You want something that’s familiar but not part of your life already. Peanuts taps into originality and uniqueness. There’s something unique and special to all the specials, and we wanted Welcome Home, Franklin, to have that, too. 

What is one thing about Franklin that everyone should know after seeing this special?

Franklin is a very, very good kid, but like a lot of kids, he’s misguided sometimes. He’s not perfect, but he sincerely values friendship. Anyone who sincerely values friendship, and I think that’s all of us, we all want a good friend. We all want to have the benefits that come from having a good friend, but we often don’t know, and sometimes I don’t know; it’s more important to be that friend. Just be that sacrificing person. Be that person who thinks about someone else first, and then the friendship you’re looking for will come your way. The first move is up to us. That’s what Franklin represents.

 

Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin is now streaminig on Apple TV+

For more stories on Apple TV+ series and films, check these out:

First “Manhunt” Trailer Reveals Apple TV+’s Thriller About Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

“Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” Creators Matt Fraction and Chris Black on What Made Season One Roar

“Napoleon” Production Designer Arthur Max and Set Decorator Elli Griff on Bringing Bonaparte’s World to Life

Featured image: The Peanuts Gang in “Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin,” premiering February 16, 2024 on Apple TV+.

 

 

 

 

James Gunn Teases “Superman: Legacy” Set in Photo With “Peacemaker” Cast

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James Gunn gave two of his Peacemaker stars, Freddie Stroma and Jennifer Holland, a little tour of the lots where he’s set to start shooting a small indie film he’s working on that you might have heard about—Superman: Legacy. 

Okay, while not technically an indie (not even remotely close), Legacy is the first big feature film slated to kickstart the new-look DC Studios, being led by Gunn and his co-chief, Peter Safran. The casting process has been long, with lots of incredibly talented performers vying for roles that they are well aware could change their lives. Now that Gunn’s got his Superman (David Corenswet), his Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), his Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), his Supergirl (Milly Alcock), his Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), his Guy Gardener (Nathan Fillion), his Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo), his Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), and his Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), cameras are getting ready to roll. (There are more—his brother Sean Gunn will play Maxwell Lord, María Gabriela de Faria will play the Engineer, and Sara Sampaio will play Eve Teschmacher.)

Production on Legacy is slated to start on Warner Bros and DC Studios’ lots in Atlanta, where Gunn took Stroma and Holland for their set tour. While the image is really just the three of them standing in front of some sound stages, it further cements just how close Gunn is to principal photography on the film, especially considering reports that there have been recent table reads.

While Holland and Stroma’s work in Peacemaker and on other DC Extended Universe projects was under the previous leadership at DC Studios, Peacemaker will continue into the new era. Although Gunn promises us in the caption to his Instagram photo that the pair are not in Superman: Legacy, who knows where they might find themselves on future DC projects.

Check out Gunn’s Instagram post below. Superman: Legacy is set to hit theaters on July 11, 2025.

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For more on Superman: Legacy and all things DC Stuidos, check out these stories.

New Supergirl Milly Alcock Had James Gunn’s Attention Long Before She Auditioned

“House of the Dragon” Star Milly Alcock Lands Supergirl Role

“Superman: Legacy” Update: James Gunn Teases Superman’s Costume, Miriam Shor Joins Cast

James Gunn Confirms Nicholas Hoult Will be Lex Luthor in “Superman: Legacy”

Featured image: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – APRIL 18: Director James Gunn attends the press conference for “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.3” at the Conrad Hotel on April 18, 2023 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

“Dune: Part Two” Review Round-Up: A Breathtaking, Cosmically Scaled Sci-Fi Masterpiece

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The review embargo for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two has been lifted as if by a fleet of ornithopters (the jet-powered, flapping-winged aircraft introduced in the original film), and the overwhelming critical response can be summed up by a single word: wow. The continuation of Villeneuve’s epic (“continuation” is his preferred description rather than calling it a sequel) possesses all the things you want in a sci-fi epic—astonishing visuals, visceral action set pieces, stellar performances—while also managing the even trickier feat of charging full-force into the complexity at the heart of Frank Herbert’s original source material.

“Villeneuve has made a serious, stately opus, and while he doesn’t have a pop bone in his body, he knows how to put on a show as he fans a timely argument about who gets to play the hero now,” writes the New York Times Manhola Dargis. “This is a real epic, and it is exhilarating to find a filmmaker thinking as big as this,” says the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw. “Dune: Part Two is a robust piece of filmmaking, a reminder that this kind of broad-scale blockbuster can be done with artistry and flair,” adds RogerEbert.com‘s Brian Tallerico.

Picking up where the first Dune left off (here’s a video refresher, too), Part Two finds Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), now under the protection of the native inhabitants of Arrakis, the Fremen, whose desert planet has been the source of intergalactic power-grabbing for years. This continuation includes all the action and a slew of major characters that Villeneuve and co-writer Jon Spaihts wisely left out of the original film so that they could focus Part One on the tragedy of the Atreides family without overstuffing it with Herbert’s hugely populated, vast world. The Atreides’ tragic flaws, arguably hubris and honor in a dishonorable galaxy, led to patriarch Duke Atreides’ (Oscar Isaac) assassination by House Harkonnen after Duke and the entire Atreides clan, including their advisors, soldiers, and various apparatchiks had moved to Arrakis to oversee the manufacture and production of Spice, the abundant natural resource on the planet that galactic forces have been exploiting for generations. This left Paul and Lady Jessica in the wind—or, more accurately, in the dunes.

Part Two is centered on the end game after the Harkonnen’s decapitation of House Atreides and Paul’s increasingly fervent belief that he was chosen to lead the remnants of his House and the Fremen in a battle royale against House Harkonnen and the forces that backed them up, including the galaxy’s prime mover, Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken). Key players include Chani (Zendaya), a Fremen whom Paul first met in his dreams and who has a much larger role in the sequel, as well as newcomers like Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler), Paul’s rival and combatant in one of the original book’s most memorable set pieces.

The cast also includes returning cast members Javier Bardem as the Fremen Stilgar, Josh Brolin as Atreides’ ally Gurney Halleck, and Dave Bautista as Beast Rabban. Newcomers joining Walken and Butler are Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, Léa Seydoux as Lady Margot, and Souheila Yacoub as Shishakli.

Let’s have a quick tour of what the critics are saying. Dune: Part Two opens on March 1.

Featured image: Caption: (L-r) TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides and AUSTIN BUTLER as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Niko Tavernise

Director Sam Mende’s Ambitious Plans to Direct Four Separate Beatles Movies

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Paul, John, George, and Ringo are each getting their own biopic in director Sam Mendes’ hugely ambitious project. Considering it the Beatles-verse, a chance to get inside arguably the most iconic band of all time and view it from the perspective of each of its members.

Mendes seems like a great fit to tackle a one-of-a-kind approach to giving each member of the Beatles their cinematic due. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s taken on British royalty, so to speak—Mendes directed the James Bond films Skyfall and Spectre—and he’s got a long track record of great films besides those.

“I’m honored to be telling the story of the greatest rock band of all time and excited to challenge the notion of what constitutes a trip to the movies,” Mendes said in a statement.

The four films will be under the Sony Pictures banner, and all four are slated for a 2027 release. It’s an intriguing strategy, one that’s never been before, nor has a filmmaker ever created a film for each member of a band. The Beatles’ popularity seems to never wane, and given the success of recent musician biopics and music films, from Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis to Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour to Reinaldo Marcus Green‘s Bob Marley: One Love, the genre is thriving.

Mendes’ upcoming quartet of films will be joining yet more major features pegged to musical legends set for release. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black is coming to theaters this May 10, while director Antoine Fuqua’s Michael Jackson biopic Michael is slated for an April 18, 2025 release.

Mendes also has something else major going for him—the support of the Beatles—marking the first time they’ve backed a scripted film based on their lives. Recently, Peter Jackson’s epic The Beatles: Get Back detailed the lead-up to their iconic live performance atop their Seville Row studio.

“We intend this to be a uniquely thrilling, and epic cinematic experience: four films, told from four different perspectives which tell a single story about the most celebrated band of all time,” said one of the film’s producers, Pippa Harris, in a statement. “To have The Beatles’ and Apple Corps’ blessing to do this is an immense privilege.”

Deadline first broke this story.

Featured image: LONDON – 1964: Rock and roll band ‘The Beatles’ perform onstage in a still from their movie ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ which was released in 1964. (L-R) Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and John Lennon. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

New “Jurassic World” Director Will Be “Rogue One” and “The Creator” Filmmaker Gareth Edwards

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For a moment there, it looked as if the next installment of Jurassic World was going to be directed by David Leitch. However, now Gareth Edwards, helmer of the critically acclaimed Star Wars spinoff Rogue One and the recent sci-fi epic The Creator is taking his blockbuster chops to the land of dinosaurs.

The upcoming film is going to be set apart from the recent Jurassic World trilogy, meaning that Chris Pratt’s Owen Brady, Bryce Dallas Award’s Claire Dearborn, and the original Jurassic Park trio of Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum are not in the new film. However, this next trip into the jaws of a T-Rex was written by screenwriter David Koepp, the man who penned Steven Spielberg’s 1993 original Jurassic Park and the follow-up, Jurassic Park: New World. 

The upcoming Universal Pictures film is set for a July 2, 2025 release, and with that fast timeline in mind and with Leitch and Universal parting ways, Universal and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment needed someone with blockbuster experience and who could be ready to roll quickly, as production is slated to begin this June. Edwards rose to the top of their lists.

Edwards knows a thing or two about colossal lizards—he also directed 2014’s Godzilla, which launched Lengedary’s Monsterverse and re-introduced the King of the Monsters as a misunderstood, if no less destructive, force of nature. He’s proven again and again, with Rogue One and The Creator, that he can create fully realized worlds that pop with memorable characters and lived-in environments, both crucial elements to the Jurassic World franchise.

The new film is being executive produced by Spielberg through Amblin, alongside longtime Jurassic producers Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley.

For more on Universal Pictures, Peacock, and Focus Features projects, check out these stories:

“Lisa Frankenstein” Production Designer Mark Worthington on Reimagining 1980s Horror Comedy

First “Wicked” Trailer Finds Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo Getting Witchy With It

Official “Twisters” Trailer Finds Glen Powell & Daisy Edgar-Jones in Harm’s Way

“Lisa Frankenstein” Costume Designer Meagan McLaughlin Luster on Dressing a Muse and a Monster

Featured image: (from left) A Pyroraptor, Kayla Watts (DeWanda Wise) and Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) in Jurassic World Dominion, co-written and directed by Colin Trevorrow.

Everything You Need to Know Before Seeing “Dune: Part Two”

Posted on by babrams

Warner Bros. has released a new video that will help those of you with a few burning questions ahead of the Dune: Part Two premiere to go into the film feeling properly educated. It might also even entice those Dune holdouts into seeing the first film so they can enjoy director Denis Villeneuve’s critically acclaimed two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic 1965 novel.

If there were one major Cliff’s Notes version of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, it would be that, at its core, it’s a story about warring families. On one side, you’ve got House Atreides, which were led by Duke (Oscar Isaac) and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) in the first film, with their promising son Paul (Timothée Chalamet) showing skills derived from both his parents. Yet when House Atreides was asked by Emperor Shaddam IV (played in Part Two by Christopher Walken, unseen in the first film) to go to the desert planet of Arrakis to help take over the massive manufacturing hub of the planet’s natural resource, Spice, trouble was in the air. Enter the bad family, House Harkonnen, led by Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), who attacked the Atreides in the first film, killing Duke and sending Paul and Lady Jessica on the run in the desert.

The desert of Arrakis is home to a powerful band of people known as the Fremen, led by Stilgar (Javier Bardem) and including Chani (Zendaya), the young woman Paul kept seeing in his dreams. In Part Two, Paul and Lady Jessica will be deeply embedded within Fremen society as Paul plots his revenge against the Harkonnen, his rage and his growing belief that he’s the chosen one sure to have galactic implications. Chani will have a much larger role to play as Paul’s determination to defeat his enemies and lead the Fremen to control their planet will become dangerous itself. Part Two will introduce a slew of characters who were all crucial in Herbert’s original book, including Walken as the aforementioned Emperor Shaddam IV, Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, Paul’s direct challenger, Florence Pugh as Princess Irrulan Corrino, and Léa Seydoux as Lady Margot.

The fight between Paul Atreides and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen is one of the most thrilling moments in Frank Herbert’s original book, a ferocious clash with galactic implications. When we spoke to Dune: Part One and Two co-writer Jon Spaihts about the first film, he explained that he and Villeneuve had left much of the most thrilling action from Herbert’s 1965 novel for the second installment, choosing to focus Part One on the treachery and galactic scheming that led the galaxy to the brink of all-out war. Part Two, however, will feature many of the major set pieces from Herbert’s book and the war that’s been brewing. 

For a proper catch-up via video, check out the below. Dune: Part Two opens in theaters on March 1:

For more on Dune: Part Two, check out these stories:

“Dune: Part Two” Reactions: A Modern Day Sci-Fi Masterpiece

Timothée Chalamet and Austin Butler Tease Ferocious “Dune: Part Two” Fight

Two New “Dune: Part Two” Teasers Arrive as Tickets Go on Sale

New “Dune: Part Two” Images Unleash Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen

Featured image: Caption: (L-r) TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides and JOSH BROLIN as Gurney Halleck in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Niko Tavernise

“Lisa Frankenstein” Production Designer Mark Worthington on Reimagining 1980s Horror Comedy

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In a send-up of 1980s slasher flicks, Lisa (Kathryn Newton), the anti-heroine of writer Diablo Cody’s and director Zelda Williams’s Lisa Frankenstein, spends too much time in an abandoned cemetery and accidentally calls up a deceased 18th-century hottie (Cole Sprouse) from the dead. Since Lisa is already in love with a living boy, Michael Trent (Henry Eikenberry), and her undead admirer is missing a hand and can’t speak, the high schooler finds herself at the center of a love triangle she’s ill-equipped to handle. But Lisa’s romantic complications are secondary, anyway, to two more pressure issues: finding and reanimating her undead pal’s missing body parts at any cost and warding off her new stepmother, Janet (Carla Gugino), a malevolent psych ward nurse.

The secret to helping the Creature become whole again lies in Lisa’s stepsister Taffy’s  (Liza Soberano) tanning bed, an electrically faulty device housed in a backyard shed that doubles as a shrine to Taffy’s many accomplishments, like being a cheerleader. Taffy is a kind and bubbly foil to Lisa’s embrace of the macabre, offset by her popular stepsister and the bright and pastel surroundings concocted by production designer Mark Worthington (WandaVision, American Horror Story). Worthington rewatched original scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis’s early movies before going into Lisa Frankenstein to create a visual pastiche of 1980s horror comedy. We spoke with the production designer about recalling the era’s design tropes, building an abandoned cemetery, and working with his “creative crush,” Diablo Cody.

 

How did you decide what direction to take in terms of making Lisa’s home environment contrast her personal style?

Because it’s stylized horror, you can really lean into some of the cliches or tropes of the 1980s. Pink and sea-foam green are classic colors. Interestingly enough, there was simple, realistic research from the period that was not far off from what we ended up with. That house is Janet. The pastels and round forms of the 80s played really well, especially in contrast to Lisa’s character and where she ends up. She just really stands out in that environment as a foreigner and unwelcome. And it’s fun — it plays into the comedy.

Director Zelda Williams and screenwriter Diablo Cody on the set of their film LISA FRANKENSTEIN, a Focus Features release. Credit: Mason Novick / ©Mason Novick

The houses we see are so architecturally reminiscent of the 1980s. Were those all locations?

Janet’s house interior we built on stage, just because there are a lot of scenes. The exterior house was a gift. We did a little painting, but that house exists pretty much as you see it, which is amazing. The party house was a location. The boyfriend’s house, that’s a location. We spent a lot of time carefully curating those choices to ensure they fit within the period idea, and we also made some alterations to them.

 

How did you approach Bachelor’s Grove cemetery? Was any of that real?

That was really fun. It’s based on a real cemetery outside of Chicago, which actually doesn’t look anything like what we ended up doing. It’s abandoned, Bachelor’s Grove. We took a lot of license because we’re in Louisiana and found a park on the West Bank that has all those tall skinny trees you see in that scene. The ground was completely covered in vines, as you see it. We just thought it was so beautiful, with shafts of light and the graphic quality of those trees and those beautiful vines. The gravestones, the gate, all of that we made and brought in. His stone, of course, was custom.

Did you primarily work with Louisiana businesses while shooting on location?

It’s going to be tough to call up all the names. We worked with a ton of local businesses. We were buying everything down there. I don’t think we really went out of state or out of the New Orleans area for anything. We pretty much-sourced everything in town. And obviously, we had a local crew, which was great. I had experience with that; I did two seasons of American Horror Story in New Orleans.

Cole Sprouse stars as The Creature and Kathryn Newton as Lisa Swallows in LISA FRANKENSTEIN, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Michele K. Short / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

Taffy’s backyard home tanning salon/cheerleading trophy showcase, commandeered by Lisa for her own dark ends, is too funny. Was that on the page as such?

That was originally written for a garage. Then, looking at that location, there was a little shed in the back already there. And we just felt that there was something about the focus of that, how tiny it was, and how it was a separate space for Taffy, that really felt better and more graphic for those scenes. That was also a gift. We could have done it in a garage, but how do we make it private without the neighbors seeing? Putting it back there was really useful for us because they could be in their own world. That tanning bed barely fit in there, which was kind of perfect.

Cole Sprouse stars as The Creature and Kathryn Newton as Lisa Swallows in LISA FRANKENSTEIN, a Focus Features release. Credit: Michele K. Short / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

Was Diablo Cody involved on set?

She was there. She’s great. You never know, when you have a creative crush on people, how they’re going to be. There’s always that fear — are they going to be terrible and a nightmare? And she’s incredibly funny, sardonic, the way you’d expect given her writing, and really insightful and just lovely. It’s funny; my agent sent me the script and said, I’ve got this Diablo Cody thing, and some people have their own opinions about it. I said, are you kidding? I love her. And it’s the best thing I’ve read in a very long time. I love genre anyway, so I was all in.

 

 

For more on Universal Pictures, Peacock, and Focus Features projects, check out these stories:

First “Wicked” Trailer Finds Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo Getting Witchy With It

Official “Twisters” Trailer Finds Glen Powell & Daisy Edgar-Jones in Harm’s Way

“Lisa Frankenstein” Costume Designer Meagan McLaughlin Luster on Dressing a Muse and a Monster

Featured image: Cole Sprouse stars as The Creature and Kathryn Newton as Lisa Swallows in LISA FRANKENSTEIN, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Michele K. Short / © 2024 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

 

“Bob Marley: One Love” Co-writer/Director Reinaldo Marcus Green on Capturing a Legend’s Spirit

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Bob Marley’s family has been trying to create and release a narrative that celebrates the beloved Jamaican performer’s life and music for decades. Only recently did the producers, including Rita, Bob’s wife, and her children Ziggy and Cedella Marley, feel like all the pieces had come together to create a story worthy of Bob’s legacy. The perfect blend of talent to bring Bob’s story to the big screen included casting Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch as Bob and Rita Marley and hiring Reinaldo Marcus Green, director of the Oscar-winning film King Richard, to be at the helm. 

There were other factors important to not just the producers but to the cast and director. The locations of the film that represent seminal moments in Bob’s life had to take place in Jamaica, and Jamaicans had to be represented in the cast and crew. As a result, the finished film Bob Marley: One Love features over 250 Jamaican artists, experts, tradespeople, and performers. 

One Love focuses on the period between 1976 and 1978, a time in which Bob recorded the album Exodus and performed two historic concerts, Smile Jamaica and the One Love Peace Concert, amidst political turmoil and great danger to him personally. 

Since One Love tells the story of one of the biggest heroes in Jamaican history, co-writer and director Reinaldo Marcus Green felt the weight of the endeavor. He has succeeded with the finished movie, as it is being embraced by Bob Marley fans around the world. The Credits spoke to Green about being entrusted with this very important musical hero’s legacy through Bob Marley: One Love. 

 

Kingsley Ben-Adir was great in the role, right down to capturing Bob’s Nine Mile patois.  It’s not a dialect, it’s a language. Can you talk about his work with Fae Ellington to perfect that, as well as her role in the accurate portrayal of Jamaican culture in the film?

Fae was instrumental. She was a friend of Bob’s and a friend of the family. She also grew up when she saw the evolution of patois, the words they used back then, and what was historically accurate. We were incredibly lucky to have a historian like her involved. She was instrumental to us in so many ways, especially with language. One Love is a foreign language film, and it is important when people hear it they try to understand what we’re saying. Given how Bob spoke, we knew that was a challenge in this film. For Kingsley, the process of transcribing the language was probably one of the most difficult challenges of the role because he’s not a native patois speaker. So if we had a rewrite, that would have to get transcribed into patois, but then it would have to get another layer, which would be “Bob speak.” Then, it would have to be written out phonetically for Kingsley to study so that he could not just say the words but understand what he was saying. With that process, you can only imagine how challenging it was.  

Kingsley Ben-Adir as “Bob Marley” and Director Reinaldo Marcus Green in Bob Marley: One Love from Paramount Pictures.

You shot for 26 days in Jamaica. What locations did you feel were essential, and what can fans look for that are authentic to Bob’s life?

Well, Trench Town is a character in the film, really. It’s where Bob grew up. It’s where he played football, and where his friends were, and so we wanted to capture the streets of Trench Town. You see him running, we went to Second Street, where Bob was from. For anybody who has never been to Jamaica, we went to the area that Bob was from, which was key. Fifty Six Hope Road is now a museum. A lot of that original architecture changed, so we actually built a house that was closer to the real Hope Road than the one that currently exists. We wanted to capture the energy of that space, and that was pretty fantastic. 

“Antonio ‘Gillie’ Gilbert”, Stefan Wade as “Seeco Patterson”, Sheldon Shepherd as “Neville Garrick”, and Kingsley Ben-Adir as “Bob Marley” in Bob Marley: One Love from Paramount Pictures.

And the concerts were filmed in the place they were originally held? 

Yes. Smile Jamaica, and the One Love Peace Concert we shot at National Heroes Park. It felt like we were on sacred ground. We were in the same exact location that Bob was when he performed.  To go back, to recreate the stage, that was really special. Everything was a bit lo-fi there, which was kind of great. No fancy lighting. We tried to capture a little bit of that, in a cinematic way, just how lo-fi it was back then. So everything you see in Jamaica is real, and what we built there, we built for accuracy. 

Stefan Wade as “Seeco Patterson”, Lashana Lynch as “Rita Marley”, Aston Barrett Jr. as “Family Man Barrett”, Tosin Cole as “Tyrone Downie”, Kingsley Ben-Adir as “Bob Marley”, Hector ‘Roots’ Lewis as “Carly Barrett”, “Antonio ‘Gillie’ Gilbert”, Anna-Sharé Blake as “Judy Mowatt”, Sheldon Shepherd as “Neville Garrick” and Andrae Simpson as “Don Kinsey” in Bob Marley: One Love from Paramount Pictures.

The concerts had to be quite an undertaking, especially working for the right feeling, but you had real musicians and Kingsley, who had rehearsed Bob’s dancing almost to perfection. 

We were very fortunate to have Neville Garrick who was Bob’s artistic director. He designed the Exodus album cover and did all the lighting for their shows. We had him there to tell us what the lighting was, and remind us of the lights and the colors he chose, and how he always backlit Bob and gave him a spotlight. Those details helped to make that real. 

Kingsley Ben-Adir as “Bob Marley”, Anna-Sharé Blake as “Judy Mowatt”, Lashana Lynch as “Rita Marley”, and Naomi Cowan as “Marcia Griffiths” in Bob Marley: One Love from Paramount Pictures.

Rita’s story is Bob’s story. How did it shift in the process of the production, and what elements of her part of the story did you feel were essential? How did Lashana, who is of Jamaican descent, uniquely bring that to life? 

I read Rita’s book when I was in prep, and it changed everything for me because it was a unique perspective. It was raw, hard, and heavy. It wasn’t reflected in the early drafts, so  I knew there was an important perspective there. To me, one of the single most important things that I learned was that Rita taught Bob about Rastafarianism. That was a monumental gift. It changed his life forever. It’s what he sang about and what gave him his spiritual guidance. Rita was responsible for that. She was not just the mother to his children and other children; she was also a band member, so it just gave her this unique perspective, and for our production, a unique perspective into Bob’s life. That became the spine of our film. And then Lashana, being of Jamaican descent, had that pridefulness and ferocity as an actress and was protective of the culture and of the dimensionality we were trying to create with our story. She demanded excellence and wanted to honor his legacy, as we all did.

Lashana Lynch as “Rita Marley” and Kingsley Ben-Adir as “Bob Marley” in Bob Marley: One Love from Paramount Pictures.

There is a spiritual aspect to the story. You can’t extricate Bob Marley from the Rastafarian religion. 

Spirituality was in everything that Bob did, and it was important that we reflected that Bob was operating on a different plane, a deeper consciousness. To reflect that, we wanted to show visions in conjunction with the flashbacks. How can we visually capture that Bob saw and predicted things? For example, apparently, he had predicted the shooting before it happened. He had seen it in a vision, which was interesting to know about Bob. Our film takes on a slightly different shape because the story we were trying to tell was a little bit of “Redemption Song.” It’s Bob redeeming himself from the demons of his past. Oftentimes, it’s young kids who feel like they carry the burden of their parents, and I think Bob carried that burden of an absent father. He was running from that part of his life for a long time, and his spirituality saved him and lifted him up. I wanted the visions in the film to reflect that. There’s a transcendence that his music has. In Rastafarian culture, you don’t die. He may have left the physical world, but spiritually, he’s here, and his music and message are still here, and that’s a beautiful thing.

Bob Marley: One Love is in theaters nationwide. 

 

 

 

Featured image: Kingsley Ben-Adir as “Bob Marley” in Bob Marley: One Love from Paramount Pictures.

“Say It Loud” Director Deborah Riley Draper on Telling the Complex James Brown Story

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It doesn’t take much to get filmmaker Deborah Riley Draper going when it comes to the topic of James Brown. Her new documentary James Brown: Say It Loud (airing Feb. 19 and Feb. 20 on A&E) chronicles the music titan’s remarkable journey from his 1933 birth in a South Carolina shack through his early days as a “buck dancer,” his imprisonment at age 16, the 1956 breakthrough hit Please Please Please, his legendary 1964 TAMI Show appearance, his emergence as a Black Power champion following Martin Luther King’s death and the lasting impact of his extraordinary backup band the JBs, whose taut Afro-Funk rhythms laid the foundation for hip hop and made Brown the most sampled recording artist in the world.

A perfectionist on stage — a bassist wryly recalls in the documentary how Brown fined him and other players $50 each time they hit a bum note — Brown offstage led a highly imperfect life beset by domestic violence, drug use and a second prison term in 1988 followed by a reputational renaissance in the years before his death on Christmas day 2006.

It’s a lot to take in.

But the Georgia-based Draper came well prepared to render James Brown in all his complexity: It turns out that her fascination with the showman ran in the family. “Before I was born, my mother took the train from Savannah to New York City just to see James Brown at the Apollo Theater with her sister,” Draper says. “She loved ‘Get on the Good Foot.’ And my uncle Ed had a little club on a dirt road where they played his music all the time. I thought, ‘Wow, what a magnetic pull this man had on the men in my family and the women in my family! I wanted to understand that.”

The documentary interweaves archival performance footage with interviews featuring Brown’s children. Bootsy Collins, LL Cool J, Chuck D, Jimmy Jam, and Terry Lewis, along with executive producers Mick Jagger and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson.

Draper, whose previous films include The Legacy of Black Wall Street about the prosperous Black community destroyed in the 1921 Tulsa riots, spoke from Los Angeles about Brown’s artistry, his flaws, and his activism, which included a little-known trading stamp program bearing Brown’s likeness.

 

Dealing with a man as famous as James Brown, you must have gone through tons of archival material.

I watched hundreds upon hundreds of hours of archival [footage] and listened to so much music. I was trying to hear clues about his life experience, like when we hear [King Records owner] Syd Nathan in the studio telling James Brown how to sing.                              

It’s crazy! Where did you locate the audio?

Harry Wagner at Universal Music Group is kind of the vault custodian. We’d spend Friday afternoons on Zoom; I’d say, “Harry, I know there must be some studio chatter in that vault; go find it!” and he was able to find six or seven-second snippets where you get to hear the interaction and the dynamic. For me, making this documentary was an exercise in listening but also an exercise in finding the most primary source material that we could so we could get an unvarnished look at the man.

How did you decide to structure James Brown’s life story into four distinct chapters?

It’s funny because last week, I looked back at the treatment I submitted [to get the job of director], and it’s so close to what the film ended up being because I knew exactly what I wanted to do in every episode to understand the making of James Brown. What constituted this young child who was born dead? How did he understand his own ability to entertain? That led me to buck dancing and the connection to enslaved people using their talent to entertain white people as a means to economic survival. And then I wanted to look at the part of his life where James Brown was considered an influential civil rights activist, the man who wrote “Say It Loud” on the back of a napkin in his private jet. I wanted to understand his voice before that was written, and his voice after that was written, and how he interacted with his masculinity with his blackness, with his politics, with the cultural currency that he gained and lost and gained and lost throughout his life.

 

So many comebacks. Prison. Endorsing Richard Nixon. Tax problems. Death of his third wife. Drugs. Prison again. How do you account for James Brown’s tenacity? 

There were so many comebacks; to do that you have to have talent, sure, but you also be confident. No matter where you come into his life, James Brown had the work ethic and resilience that could never be taken away from him. 

To depict James Brown’s early years, you blend audio interviews with evocative black and white archival footage portraying the Jim Crow South of the thirties and forties when James Brown came of age.  What was your source material?

We used archive houses at HBCUs [Historically Black Colleges and Universities] and also used Children’s Games and Logging, which were shot on a 16-millimeter film in 1928 by Zora Neale Hurston, one of the first black female directors. Almost 100 years later, I got to use her footage to help the audience understand what the South looked like and felt like authentically.

In 1964, James Brown delivered this now-legendary “T.A.M.I. Show” performance right before the Rolling Stones took the stage. Did you want to present that gig as a pivotal moment?

It was important to show young James Brown tearing the roof of the joint on the same stage as Smokey Robinson and Mick Jagger. It was great to sit down and talk to Mick Jagger about the moment when he saw what James Brown unleashed on stage. You look at the audience in that tape, they were mesmerized, regardless of race, regardless of gender – – mesmerized.

Jagger talks to you about the thrill of standing backstage and watching James Brown in action.  

James Brown had that kind of impact on everybody who saw him. Talking to QuestLove or Bootsy Collins or LL Cool J or Chuck D or Jimmy Jam or Terry Lewis, there’s a direct line from James Brown as a performer and entertainer and how he managed himself. His life is a lesson, and I hope Say It Loud, the documentary, is a lesson to all of us to own our voices, to say it loudly so people hear you and speak for the people who couldn’t speak before you and speak loud enough for the people who come behind you so they can take it and run with it. Like hip hop did with [1970 single] “Funky Drummer” – – they took it and ran with it!

 

Your documentary captures James Brown in all his complexity, including the fact that the man who preached love in his music sometimes engaged in domestic violence. How did you approach that aspect of his private life?

I addressed that [violence] by talking to the people who were in the house – – his daughters, Deanna and Yamma. I wanted to understand it from their perspective and get as close to the experience as I could. I thought it was important to look at the entirety of James Brown on stage but also off stage and look at who was his father? Who was his mother? What did that house look like?

James Brown’s father beat his mother. She abandoned him when he was three years old.

That’s why we have Dr. David Wall Rice and Deanna Brown, Black trauma specialists who can unpack Black identity. We know through science that trauma is trans-generational and inter-generational. Trauma doesn’t go anywhere if it isn’t treated. It comes back, and you may not be able to control when it comes back or how it comes back. So I wanted to let his daughters talk to help the audience understand that we’re dealing with a human who had his trauma, who had his demons, and who was both a creative genius and flawed.  

James Brown was very tuned in to the Black community from a business standpoint. In making Say It Loud, were you mindful of how your project could economically impact the local communities where you filmed?

Absolutely. We shot in Augusta, Atlanta, and Savannah, Georgia, so all of those people were local hires in terms of crafts services, in terms of transportation, and even our motion graphics team is based in Atlanta. We impacted every economy where we worked because we hired from the locations in which we were shooting. Side story: Doctor Deanna Brown Thomas’ husband owns a seafood restaurant in Augusta, so when we shot there, we ate there. It was important to me that we supported black restaurants wherever we could.

What was the most surprising thing you learned about James Brown during the making of this film?

Trading stamps.

Not many people know about Brown’s 1969 experiment.

It took me by surprise. An attorney for the Black Panthers, a football player [Art Powell], and James Brown came up with these Black and Brown trading stamps that could be used in Black businesses [in Oakland, California]. They were a strange triumvirate, creating what was almost like cryptocurrency for its time. They tried to establish a pattern of empowerment and entrepreneurship, which was extraordinary even though it was short-lived.

Do any of these James Brown trading stamps still exist?

The University of Virginia has some in its special collection, and I have a copy of the stamp. I bought it on eBay.

For more stories on A&E, 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Marvel Studios and what’s streaming or coming to Disney+, check these out:

“X-Men: 97” Trailer Reveals Marvel’s New Mutant-Powered Animated Disney+ Series

What Does “The Fantastic Four” Retro Illustration Suggest About Marvel’s Big Announcement?

Marvel Reveals “The Fantastic Four” Cast Including Pedro Pascal & Vanessa Kirby

Featured image: “James Brown: Say it Loud.” Courtesy A&E Networks.

Christopher Nolan Wants to Make a Horror Movie

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You know who also wants Christopher Nolan to make a horror movie? More or less everyone.

Nolan revealed his desire to make a horror film at the British Film Institute on Thursday, which would give him another genre to master. Nolan has already put his stamp on superheroes (The Dark Knight trilogy), sci-fi (Inception, Interstellar, Tenet), and the biopic (his massively lauded Oppenheimer), and he seems well-equipped to put his distinctive spin on horror, too.

“I think horror films are very interesting because they depend on very cinematic devices,” he said during his conversation at BFI. “It’s really about [provoking] a visceral response to things. So, at some point, I’d love to make a horror film. But I think a really good horror film requires a really exceptional idea — and those are few and far between. So, I haven’t found the story that lends itself to that. But I think it’s a very interesting genre from a cinematic point of view. It’s also one of the few genres where — the studios make a lot of these films — and they’re films that have a lot of bleakness, a lot of abstraction. They have a lot of qualities that Hollywood is generally very resistant to putting into films, but that’s a genre where it’s allowable.”

Nolan went on to say that there’s certainly a case to be made that Oppenheimer functioned, in part, as a horror movie. But it was also multi-genre, something he took advantage of.

“Certainly Oppenheimer has elements of horror — which I definitely think is appropriate for the subject matter,” he said. “The middle of the film is very heavily based on the heist genre, and the third act of the film is the courtroom drama. And, the reason I settled on those two genres for those sections, is they are mainstream genres in which dialogue and people talking is inherently tense and interesting to an audience. That’s the fun thing with genre — you get to play with a lot of different areas, whereas in different type of film, you really wouldn’t be allowed to.”

There are plenty of auteurs who have put their personal stamp on the horror genre, perhaps nobody in recent years as emphatically as Jordan Peele, whose Get Out and Us were horror films that could have only been made by him. (Peele then created a delicious horror/sci-fi hybrid with Nope.) Nolan is another filmmaker with the ability to mold any genre and make it his own. There’s little doubt that a Nolan horror movie would be distinctly, definitively a film only he could have made. Here’s hoping we get to see it.

For more on Nolan’s last film, the Oscar-nominated (many times over) Oppenheimer, check out these stories:

Christopher Nolan on What Draws Him to Crafting Large-Scale Movies

“Oppenheimer” Has Reached Another Milestone for Christopher Nolan

“Oppenheimer” Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema on Making History With Christopher Nolan

“Oppenheimer” Production Designer Ruth De Jong on Helping Christopher Nolan Build the Bomb

Featured image: L to R: Cillian Murphy (as J. Robert Oppenheimer) and writer, director, and producer Christopher Nolan on the set of OPPENHEIMER.

“Dune: Part Two” Reactions: A Modern-Day Sci-Fi Masterpiece

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The first reactions for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two are swelling across the internet from critics like so many sandworms across the country. The overall gist? Dune: Part Two delivers in a major way.

Villeneuve and his co-writer Jon Spaihts had boldly decided way back when they were working on the first film to break Frank Herbert’s colossal, iconic source material into two parts. That meant they left a lot of meat on the bone and many of Herbert’s most thrilling set pieces and action sequences for the second film. Now that critics have seen the film and are able to share their reactions online, it looks as if the tactic has paid off.

The second installment picks up where Villeneuve’s first film left off, with Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), relying on the desert-dwelling Fremen to help them survive the brutal dunelands of Arrakis and help them plot their revenge against their enemies, which include House Harkonnen and, possibly the leader of the entire galaxy, Emperor Saddam IV (Christopher Walken, a new addition).

After a long wait, Dune: Part Two is finally upon us, coming to theaters on March 1, with its stars, including Chalamet, Zendaya, and newcomers Florence Pugh and Austin Butler, finally able to promote the film. The cast also includes returning stars Javier Bardem as Stilgar, Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck, Stellan Skarsgard as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Dave Bautista as Rabban Harkonnen, and Charlotte Rampling as Reverend Mother Mohiam. Newcomers joining Walken, Pugh, and Butler include Léa Seydoux as Lady Margot and Souheila Yacoub as Shishakli.

Let’s take a quick peek at what some critics say. Dune: Part Two arrives in theaters everywhere on March 1:

Featured image: Caption: (L-r) TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides and AUSTIN BUTLER as Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Niko Tavernise

“X-Men: 97” Trailer Reveals Marvel’s New Mutant-Powered Animated Disney+ Series

Posted on by babrams

Marvel has dropped the official trailer for X-Men: 97, a revival of the beloved animated series from the mid-90s that spawned an entire generation of fans, both for the mutants and for those unbeatable costumes (Wolverine’s banana yellow suit is so iconic that Hugh Jackman dons it in the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine).

Beau DeMayo (The Witcher) is the series’ head writer, and he picks up the story from the classic cartoon, which ran from 1992 to 1997, providing fans of the former show and new viewers alike a reason to tune in. X-Men: 97 will follow the former series’ finale, “Graduation Day,” in which (super belated spoiler alert!) Professor X dies. The trailer unveils the mutant A-team—the aforementioned Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops, Rogue, Beast, Gambit, Jubilee, Bishop, Morph, and more, all trying to carry on Professor X’s legacy.

Doing right by Professor X has been a central point of tension in the X-Men universe, from the animated series to the feature films. Members of the X-Men differ widely in their approach to protecting both their fellow mutants and humanity, a task that’s made all the more difficult by the latter’s often hostile, even violent response to mutant existence. Cyclops, for example, has always favored the noble,  straightforward approach. His foil and tormentor has long been Wolverine, the gruffiest, roughest of the X-Men. That dynamic looks like it will continue in X-Men: 97.

So, too, will the X-Men’s longstanding adversaries, including the ever-powerful Magento, the ying to Professor X’s yang. The cast includes Ray Chase as Cyclops, Jennifer Hale as Jean Grey, Alison Sealy-Smith as Storm, Cal Dodd as Wolverine, JP Karliak as Morph, Lenore Zann as Rogue, George Buza as Beast, AJ LoCascio as Gambit, Holly Chou as Jubilee, Isaac Robinson-Smith as Bishop, Matthew Waterson as Magneto and Adrian Hough as Nightcrawler.

Check out the trailer below. X-Men: 97 arrives on Disney+ on March 20:

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What Does “The Fantastic Four” Retro Illustration Suggest About Marvel’s Big Announcement?

Featured image: Marvel’s “X-Men ’97” is coming to Disney+. Courtesy Disney+.

What Does “The Fantastic Four” Retro Illustration Suggest About Marvel’s Big Announcement?

Posted on by babrams

Yesterday, Marvel made major headlines (and filled the hearts of many fans on Valentine’s Day) by revealing the cast of their upcoming, long-awaited reboot of The Fantastic Four.

As expected—but until yesterday unconfirmed—Pedro Pascal has indeed been cast as Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, and he’ll be joined by Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/the Thing. It’s major news, as the Fantastic Four are literally Marvel’s First Family, the very first superheroes created by the legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

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 taking their time on how to reintroduce such legendary characters who, if all goes well, might finally make up for the loss 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 will also make sure their 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).

That style and tone might have been hinted at (let’s be honest, definitely was hinted at) in a new illustration Marvel revealed with the announcement—a snazzy illustration depicting the four stars, with Moss-Bachrach’s Ben Grimm fully in Thing mode. 

Here’s the art for The Fantastic Four that Marvel shared on Instagram:

It’s a great illustration, yet it also offers some potential clues as to how Marvel and director Matt Shakman are approaching re-introducing one of the most iconic super-teams in the canon. In the comics, the Fantastic Four’s abilities stemmed from exposure to cosmic rays while on a mission in their role as astronauts. This exposure is what gave the foursome their awesome abilities, from Reed Richard’s super elasticity to Sue Storm’s invisibility. The script for the new film comes from Josh Friedman, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer.

The illustration offers a few clues. The most obvious is the overall aesthetic, with the retro title, the mid-century modern costumes and furniture. More interestingly, look at the magazine Ben Grimm is reading—it’s an issue of Life from December 1963. That makes it a fairly safe assumption that The Fantastic Four will be a period piece set in the 60s, which is something Shakman proved so capable of capturing with his stellar period work in WandaVision.

If The Fantastic Four is indeed set in the 1960s, that means it’ll exist apart from what’s going on right now in the major MCU timelines, possibly in a parallel world, considering we haven’t heard about them in any of the MCU films (you think someone like Nick Fury would have mentioned them by now). This will offer Marvel and Shakman something of a blank canvas, manna from heaven for filmmakers and performers looking to make the film their own. Sure, Marvel will connect The Fantastic Four to the broader MCU, with 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars as the most likely convergence point for the Fantastic Four to merge with the rest of the franchise if they follow the storyline from the “Secret Wars” comics run from 2015. Yet, for now, setting the film in the 1960s and giving the characters the literal time and space to do their own thing sounds like a great plan for Marvel.

For more on all things Marvel Studios, check out these stories:

First “Deadpool & Wolverine” Trailer Reveals the MCU’s Version of a Super Bowl Showdown, Complete With Claws

Mark Ruffalo Not Returning as Hulk in “Captain America: Brave New World”

“Deadpool & Wolverine” Makes History as Most Watched Trailer Ever

First “Deadpool & Wolverine” Images Tease the Start of a Beautiful Relationship

Featured image: Logo art for The Fantastic Four.