We start with the good news—the actor’s strike is over. After 118 days, SAG-AFTRA and the studios reached a tentative deal on Wednesday, and with that deal, it looks like Hollywood could be back to regular business in as little as a few weeks. The strike officially ended at 12:01 a.m. PT on Thursday, November 9 (according to Deadline), after more than seven months of work stoppage with both the Writer’s Guild and SAG-AFTRA jointly striking for the first time in more than 60 years. It’s excellent news.
For fans of the Venom franchise, the additional good news is, of course, that production can now resume on the third installment. Yet we now know that Venom 3 won’t be arriving next summer, when it was supposed to arrive in theaters on July 12, 2024. Now, Venom 3 will be charging into theaters on November 8, 2024. It’s fitting, in a way, that the antihero with the insatiable appetite will be hitting theaters just in time for Thanksgiving.
Production had begun on Venom 3 in late June in Spain, but it eventually had to shut down once the SAG-AFTRA strike began on July 14. With the later release date, director Kelly Marcel, who co-wrote the script with star Tom Hardy, and her team have more time to get the film into proper shape. The later release date also allowed Sony to get screen time in IMAX and premium-format screens, giving audiences a chance to see Hardy’s lovable lunatic Venom on the biggest, sharpest screens in the world.
Newcomers in Venom 3 include stars Juno Temple and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Plot details are still under wraps.
While Venom 3 and a slew of other films, from Warner Bros. Dune: Part Two to Sony’s Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse and Kraven the Hunter, have seen their release dates pushed back, the good news is that Hollywood will be up and running at full capacity before the end of the year.
For more on the Venom franchise, check out these stories:
Question: if there’s something strange in your neighborhood, who are you gonna call? Okay, now what if that something strange is freezing cold temperatures in July?
The first teaser trailer for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire has arrived, the sequel to Ghostbusters: Afterlife, revealing the Gil Kenan-directed new film that continues the story that director Jason Reitman and Kenan (he co-wrote Afterlife) began in 2021. In that film, single mom Callie (Carrie Coon) and her kids Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) move to a dilapidated Oklahoma house in a small town to restart their lives. Their connection to the original Ghostbusters was significant—Callie’s father was Egon Spengler (the late, great Harold Ramis), and Egon had spent his final years out at that house in Oklahoma, so naturally, there was a bevy of supernatural secrets for his family to uncover.
The Frozen Empire trailer opens on a sweaty summer day in New York City, with shots of beachgoers, Coney Island, and gushing fire hydrants—all the classic motifs of a sweltering summer day in the Big Apple. Yet something strange is going on—a storm cloud is moving towards the city, yet obviously, this is no typical summer soak. It’s a supernatural front that brings with it instantaneous frozen conditions, ruining everyone’s day on the beach and a lot more besides. “For the first time in New York history, people froze to death,” says Patton Oswalt (a newcomer to the franchise), “..in the middle of July.” Then we see some of the original Ghostbusters—Dan Ackroyd’s Raymond Stantz, Bill Murray’s Peter Venkman, and Ernie Hudson’s Winston Zeddmore.
Coon, Wolfhard, and Grace all reprise their roles from Afterlife, as do Paul Rudd, Logan Kim, and Celeste O’Connor. Newcomers include Kumail Nanjiani, James Acaster, and Emily Alyn Lind.
Kenan directs Frozen Empire from a script he co-wrote with Reitman.
Check out the teaser trailer below.
For more upcoming films from Sony Pictures, check out these stories:
Mean Girls is back, and it’s got a song to sing. Paramount’s movie musical, which was first glimpsed by audiences who went and saw Taylor Swift’s concert film in the theater, has revealed its first trailer online. This musical version is adapted from the 2018 Broadway play, itself an adaptation of the hit 2004 film (the original film, the Broadway musical, and this cinematic adaptation of the musical were all written by Tina Fey) and boasts a sensational cast.
If you haven’t yet caught any of the previous iterations, consider this your first day of school. Mean Girls is centered on new student Cady Heron (Angourie Rice), who finds herself accepted into the most popular clique in school, the Plastics, led by their undisputed queen, Regina George (the considerably talented Reneé Rapp). The Plastics are a rough bunch, and Cady will find soon enough that Regina’s an imperious queen whose mean side is considerable. Rice and Rapp will be singing their way into roles first made famous by Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams.
The cast includes Auli’i Cravalho as Janis ‘Imi’ike, Jaquel Spivey as Damian Hubbard, Avantika as Karen Shetty, Bebe Wood as Gretchen Wieners, Christopher Briney as Aaron Samuels, Jenna Fischer as Ms. Heron, Busy Philipps as Mrs. George, Ashley Park as Madame Park, Tina Fey as Ms. Norbury, Tim Meadows as Mr. Duvall.
The trailer doesn’t reveal the musical chops of the cast, but there will be more trailers to come that will likely lean into the songs. The film comes from the directing duo of Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez Jr., with music by Jeff Richmond and lyrics from Nell Benjamin.
Check out the trailer below. Mean Girls arrives in theaters on January 12:
Here’s the official synopsis from Paramount:
From the comedic mind of Tina Fey comes a new twist on the modern classic, MEAN GIRLS. New student Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) is welcomed into the top of the social food chain by the elite group of popular girls called “The Plastics,” ruled by the conniving queen bee Regina George (Reneé Rapp) and her minions Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika). However, when Cady makes the major misstep of falling for Regina’s ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney), she finds herself prey in Regina’s crosshairs. As Cady sets to take down the group’s apex predator with the help of her outcast friends Janis (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), she must learn how to stay true to herself while navigating the most cutthroat jungle of all: high school.
For more films and series from Paramount and Paramount+, check out these stories:
Hollywood’s about to head to Hyrule. The Legend of Zelda creator and game developer Shigeru Miyamoto announced on Twitter that he’s been working on a live-action film adaptation of his iconic game for years with veteran producer Avi Arad (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and many more).
Miyamoto and Arad are turning to director Wes Ball, the helmer of the Maze Runner trilogy and the upcoming Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which was produced by Miyamoto. Miyamoto also produced 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie, a massive hit. The man knows video games and video game adaptations, and Ball has proven he’s adept at world-building and action.
The Legend of Zelda will be co-financed by Nintendo and Sony Pictures Entertainment and comes at a time when video game adaptations are having a major moment. Not only was The Super Mario Bros. Movie a major hit, but The Last of Us was a critical darling this year for HBO (24 Emmy nominations), and recently, Five Nights at Freddy’s, which had a great opening weekend.
Here’s how the legendary Miyamoto broke the news:
This is Miyamoto. I have been working on the live-action film of The Legend of Zelda for many years now with Avi Arad-san, who has produced many mega hit films. [1]
I have asked Avi-san to produce this film with me, and we have now officially started the development of the film with Nintendo itself heavily involved in the production. It will take time until its completion, but I hope you look forward to seeing it. [2]https://t.co/2H9lzzS5Pv
Speaking with Varietyfor an April cover story, here’s how Miyamoto described the keys to adapting a video game for the big screen:
“The reason we were so resistant and careful to adapt our games into movies is because in video games, there is always a player who overcomes challenges and fights their way through. Their struggle — redoing the levels over and over — is all part of it. Just following the plot points of the video games will never work as a movie. Without the involvement of the player, it won’t meet expectations.”
There are no plot details about The Legend of Zelda at present, but the video game follows the warrior Link on his quest to vanquish the villain Ganon and save Zelda, the princess of Hyrule. The most recent installment of the series, 2023’s Tears of the Kingdom, was another major hit.
For more upcoming films from Sony Pictures, check out these stories:
The Marvels had its premiere in Las Vegas on Tuesday, with additional press screenings in New York and Los Angeles. This means we’ve got your first reactions to co-writer/director Nia DaCosta’s first MCU film, which features the return of Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel as she finds herself teamed up with her estranged niece, Teyonah Parris’s Monica Rambeau (reprising her role from WandaVision) and her number one fan in Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel (reprising her role from her Disney+ series).
The Marvels finds these three, literally star-crossed superheroes (their powers are all mixed up thanks to the cosmic fallout from an anomalous wormhole) facing off against a formidable foe in Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), a Kree revolutionary with a major bone to pick with Captain Marvel. As the final trailer revealed, Dar-Benn’s powers only seem to expand when she fights with the exponentially potent Captain Marvel, so the superhero trio will need to work together to find a way to stop a villain who is every bit Captain Marvel’s match.
“This film is so much fun and exactly what a comic movie should be,” the Washington Post‘s Herb Scribner wrote. “The Marvels is so much fun, action-packed goodness, but genuinely hilarious and exciting to watch from start to finish,” wrote Mary Sue‘s Rachel Leishman. “This thing moves! The location-swap action is a blast,” writes Fandango’s Erik Davis. This is the general tenor of the reactions—genuine delight at a film that’s short, sweet, and filled with well-paced action.
Let’s have a glance at what some of the critics are saying in their first reaction to The Marvels.
#TheMarvels is the most fun I’ve had watching a superhero movie in a while! It’s hilarious, action-packed & full of girl power. Kamala was a stand out & so many moments surprised me. There was a great balance of the team, while dropping shocking bombs that will change EVERYTHING. pic.twitter.com/Zj6Lbc5xKn
Nia DaCosta’s #TheMarvels is a delight! The power-swapping plot is cool & all, but the real fun comes from the stellar chemistry between Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris & Iman Vellani. Low stakes aside, it delivers some of Marvel’s best action & comedy to date! See it with a crowd 👀 pic.twitter.com/Qz8k9j6nAm
#TheMarvels worked for me. Female Avengers team-up movie packs in chuckles, cats, hairballs, and musical sequences. Much more episodic than a cinematic endeavor, but I think that’s its greatest strength. Great post-credits. Loved my leading lady trio. Great visual effects. Jersey… pic.twitter.com/uWk9w4M4Og
All I wanted from #TheMarvels was to have a good time and that movie is stupid fun! Kamala, Monica, and Carol are so much fun together. The swapping, singing, and dancing played better than I thought it would. The cameos, my god those cameos! I’m so happy I saw this in IMAX! pic.twitter.com/seWhnb9fzX
Nia DaCosta’s #TheMarvels is a great time at the movies! It’s well paced & full of frantic, hilarious energy. I even liked it more than 2019’s #CaptainMarvel. This thing moves! The location-swap action is a blast & the end credits scene is 😱 . I’m definitely a fan.
Happy to report #themarvels is a blast. It’s fun, funny & the cast is so good together. Is it one of the best Marvel movies? No. But I had a smile on my face a lot. Definitely worth seeing in a movie theater.
#TheMarvels is so much fun, action-packed goodness, but genuinely hilarious and exciting to watch from start to finish. I love my girls so much and seeing them fight all three together truly is so special. Higher, further, faster baby! pic.twitter.com/epEroO2ClU
it’s no secret i adore captain marvel and wandavision, so #TheMarvels is something i knew I’d have fun with. brie larson, teyonah parris, and iman vellani’s chemistry made this one for me — they had superb comedic timing together but also beautifully worked in the touching scenes pic.twitter.com/BRYh2fcaDm
#THEMARVELS is short, sweet, and a hell of a lot of fun. The main trio is a blast together and it’s great to have action sequences that are exciting again. Probably the most charmed I’ve been by a MCU film since No Way Home, and I can’t wait to see what this film leads to… pic.twitter.com/BA8lkRCjU8
#TheMarvels is actually great fun, with a good complex dynamic between the leading trio at its center. Iman Vellani steals every scene. Some great stylistic action and a hilarious place-swap dynamic. Lots of Meowsomely crazy moments. With also some BIG setup for the larger MCU. pic.twitter.com/BppzxYyoIQ
#TheMarvels flies higher, further and faster than the first movie! Iman Vellani, take a bow. Easily the most fun I’ve had watching a Marvel movie since Spider-Man: No Way Home. pic.twitter.com/labCXnNEta
—This film is so much fun and exactly what a comic book movie should be. It’s funny, silly, short and sweet, action-packed. Loved the cosmic sci-fi moments. Plenty of MCU interconnectivity without being overbearing.
While Marvel Studios’ upcoming new series Echo is directly connected to their previous series, Hawkeye, featuring Jeremy Renner’s ace sharpshooter and his unasked for protegé, Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), it also represents a new approach to how Marvel will handle some of their upcoming series. Echo, which stars Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez, was a nominal villain in Hawkeye, a gifted fighter who was thrust into the underworld at a young age and was a ferocious enforcer. Echo follows Maya, who is Native American and hearing impaired, after the events in Hawkeye and centers her reconnection to her Native American roots as she tries to chart a new path forward. It will be a dark path, as is evident in the first trailer, one that has been shaped from the time she was a little girl by one of Marvel’s most notorious villains, Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio). The series will also include the return of Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock.
Yet despite these connections to the MCU, Echo will be the first series to fall under Marvel’s new Spotlight Banner, which won’t require viewers to possess previous MCU knowledge and which will be darker and grittier in tone and substance than previous Disney+ series. They will, in fact, be more in line with Marvel’s previous TV era on Netflix, specifically Daredevil and The Punisher, and will be geared directly towards a TV-MA audience.
The Spotlight Banner might be new to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it’s actually got a long, rich history within Marvel Comics. Spotlight was an anthology series that began in 1971 and launched new characters with a more grounded approach.
Marvel Studios’ head of streaming, television, and animation, Brad Winderbaum, explained the approach on Marvel.com:
“Marvel Spotlight gives us a platform to bring more grounded, character-driven stories to the screen, and in the case of Echo, focusing on street-level stakes over larger MCU continuity. Just like comics fans didn’t need to read Avengers or Fantastic Four to enjoy a Ghost Rider Spotlight comic, our audience doesn’t need to have seen other Marvel series to understand what’s happening in Maya’s story.”
At a press screening of scenes from Echo, series director Sydney Freeland said that viewers can expect a very different tone, considering that, unlike previous Marvel TV installments on Disney+, Echo follows an ostensible villain.
“People on our show — they bleed. They die,” Freeland said. “They get killed, and there are real-world consequences.”
Those consequences are on vivid display in the trailer, which you can see below. Echo arrives on Disney+ on January 10:
For more on all things Marvel Studios, check out these stories:
In writer Susannah Grant’s adaption of the novel Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, currently airing on Apple TV+, Brie Larson plays a budding chemist, Elizabeth Zott, thwarted in her work by her male colleagues who put politics and patriarchy above credible scientific achievement. Shut out of any hope of a chemistry career despite her brilliance, Elizabeth falls into a television career. It’s the early 1950s, and cooking shows are still relatively new, and Elizabeth, both telegenic and a mother, if not a traditional one, is an excellent cook with a television producer for a neighbor.
Cinematographer Zachary Galler (Paper Girls, Dr. Death), who worked on series’ episodes one, two, five, and six, had to set two stages: Elizabeth’s suburban life, featuring an office romance with cantankerous chemist Calvin (Lewis Pullman) and unexpected journey into motherhood, contrasted with her foray under the harsh lights and even harsher psychological milieu of television stardom. Despite the obstacles she faces, her environments are beautiful, lit in a naturalistic way in Elizabeth’s daily life, and blazing and vivid as she ascends in her studio career.
In either setting, despite being a period piece on its face, the camera work in Lessons in Chemistry intentionally avoids a sense of nostalgia, a tendency we got to speak with Galler about, as well as how he created a show within a show, what makes lighting a lab interesting, and how he and the crew brought a vintage sensibility to Elizabeth’s studio through functional retro-engineered props.
The lighting feels real, whether it’s the sun filtering through the windows onto Elizabeth and Calvin in their lab or Elizabeth, Harriet, and their kids eating dual-family dinner at night. How did you approach that?
We worked with Len Levine, my amazing gaffer, to come up with a plan. We had pretty large builds on these stages and pretty large installs and had to plan for a five-episode arc. Knowing how long we were going to be spending in there, we put in a pretty decent-sized lighting installation and did a lot of it with LED so that we could quickly change from day to night and be able to give the directors and actors flexibility. We used lenses called Canon K35s. They’re like these beautiful old vintage lenses. It was a combination of lighting and those lenses that let us keep it naturalistic. We tried to light more from outside the set than inside, in the interest of creating an environment for the actors to exist in, rather than making them step around too many stands and lights and things like that. Philosophically, to me, everything should be there in support of the actors and great performances because ultimately, that’s what’s going to draw the viewer in most.
Brie Larson in “Lessons in Chemistry.” Courtesy Apple TV+.
Some of the most arresting lighting also seemed supported by what we see on screen, like in the case of the Christmas dinner in the lab in the second episode.
Cat Smith, our production designer, really helped me out by giving me a lot to work with in there. We tried to motivate the feeling of the lighting from the Christmas trees and the Christmas decorations. Spoiler alert: for these characters, this was kind of the pinnacle of their relationship, and we wanted it to feel as magical and fairy tale-ish as possible within the set of rules we had for ourselves.
Brie Larson and Lewis Pullman in “Lessons in Chemistry.” Courtesy Apple TV+.
You also had to create a show-within-a-show once Elizabeth starts cooking for television. How did you make that stand apart from her daily life?
I wanted the show to have a kind of perfection in crispness and sharpness that we hadn’t really seen too much in the subjective, naturalistic parts of the story. In episodes 5 and 6, where she gets into the show, at first, it feels kind of saccharine, and it’s not what she wants. It’s what everybody else wants, and she’s finding her way, and as this character does repeatedly, she smashes through the barriers. It needed to feel sort of fake. It’s all pink. It’s not what she would have chosen. I wanted it to be there as a contrast to the dynamic we had in the rest of the show, this romantic part with her and Calvin that feels warm and soft and moody and cozy. This is a harsher environment where, ultimately, the stakes are very high, but she succeeds. Even though it’s sterile and clean and bright in a way that we haven’t really felt elsewhere in the show, it’s there for her to commandeer and start steering.
Episode 8. Stephanie Koenig, Kevin Sussman and Brie Larson in “Lessons in Chemistry,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
Did you also look to vintage cooking shows for inspiration?
Len, the gaffer, Cat, the production designer, and I did a lot of research about the period and what this place would have looked like had it actually existed. Julia Child is a thing that comes to everybody’s mind, but there were a lot of cooking shows at this time period. And especially researching Los Angeles, to see smaller studios, what the technicians would have looked like, what the lights would have looked like, and how they would have lit the studio, was really fun. Actually, from a prop house, we found a bunch of lights to be on-camera and then were able to retrofit some of them with newer LED technology so that it wasn’t a thousand degrees in the studio, and we could move things around and dim things up and down without changing the color temperature much. At first, I went in and said we should use all period lights; we’ll do it exactly how they did it. Then I realized this is cutting off our nose to spite our face. There’s a much easier way to do it and still keep the aesthetic. But it was cool to use the old stuff that we don’t really get to put our hands on anymore.
Kevin Sussman in “Lessons in Chemistry,” now streaming on Apple TV+.
So what we see on screen while Elizabeth films in the studio is also providing actual lighting?
We’re seeing behind the scenes, so the character has to be lit, but at the same time, if we’re seeing it from the back, we’re seeing those lights. We could do maybe a little augmentation for a closeup. But everything that you see is there. Cat Smith found the old pedestal cameras that had these turret lenses on them, and they were actually working. We installed these lipstick cams that put a small black and white image — it’s a digital image, but you can’t really tell — on the back of these cameras, which is what the camera operators in the 50s would have had so that we could really have the run of the studio. It was all practical, and we didn’t really have to do the effects and be careful about what we were shooting. Cat gave us an entire 360-degree area to play in.
Kevin Sussman, Brie Larson and Rainn Wilson in “Lessons in Chemistry.” Courtesy Apple TV+
Outside the cooking show, how did you decide how far along the vintage spectrum to go?
It’s not a nostalgic story. The fact that it takes place in the 50s is part of the story, but it’s not necessarily what the story is about. I think Elizabeth Zott could have existed under circumstances in the 70s, 80s, or 90s, and things would have been different aesthetically, but the themes haven’t changed that much. We didn’t want to look back with rose-colored glasses in a way that sometimes a period piece would. We wanted it to feel alive because the things we’re learning about, what this character is going through, are things that still happen.
The lab scenes are interesting because they’re quite beautiful but also present a lot of real science.
That’s just another testament to Cat Smith’s genius, really. These sets were really beautiful, and then it’s funny, we had these science advisors, and we were also trying to adhere to the book. It’s this huge best seller. We don’t want to mess with the formula that’s working; forgive the pun. But like 90 percent of the things scientists do is just clear liquid going into clear liquids, and so we’re figuring this out in prep, and we’re just like okay, we thought it would be a lot more inserting stuff into test tubes and Bunsen burners. There was just not that much visually that happens. Finding a good amount of glass to keep the space looking busy without having our eyes not be able to understand what’s going on was a fine balancing act. And Calvin’s character had really lived in this space, so there was that added aspect of that patina on everything. The labs were an interesting challenge. It was great because Cat built the floors in a way that we could roll dollies around very easily. It was tricky to shoot because it was just four white walls, and Cat did the best version of it that I’ve seen. I think the props and the set direction really just helped it along beautifully.
Brie Larson in “Lessons in Chemistry.” Streaming now on Apple TV+
For more on Lessons in Chemistry, check out these stories:
The opening half-minute or so of the final trailer for The Marvels connects co-writer/director Nia DaCosta’s movie to major moments in MCU history. From Nick Fury’s initial idea to form a team of superheroes to fight threats too large for any one of them to face alone to the troubling words of the biggest threat of them all (so far), Thanos (Josh Brolin), who promised those Avengers that he was “inevitable,” and even if vanquished, “there will always be more.” Over these words, we see the threat that will center The Marvels, Zawe Ashton’s Dar-Benn, a Kree revolutionary whose anger at Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) is so potent she’ll burn down the world to make her pay.
The final trailer more fully centers Dar-Benn than any previous look at the film and firmly paints a picture of a formidable enemy who can use Captain Marvel’s prodigious powers to make herself stronger. This leads to the trailer’s most surprising moment, the arrival of a beloved character from the larger MCU, Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie. Valkryie tells Captain Marvel, “You can stand tall without standing alone.” This crucial piece of wisdom likely helps the good Captain see that she can use the help of her two new, cosmically intertwined teammates. The Marvels, as the title suggests, offers not one but multiple heroes in the form of Captain Marvel’s estranged niece, S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Harris), and the pint-sized powerhouse who also happens to idolize her, Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani, reprising her role from her Disney+ series Ms. Marvel). These three women find themselves cosmically connected after a mishap with an anomalous wormhole that connects their powers and turns them upside down.
It will take Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, and Ms. Marvel to take down Dar-Benn, with a little help from Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), of course.
The abovementioned cast is joined by Park Seo-joon, Zenobia Shroff, Saagar Shaikh, Mohan Kapur, Jessica Zhou, and Caroline Simonnet.
Check out the final trailer below. The Marvels arrives in theaters on November 10.
FX’s brilliant series is coming back for a third course.
Hulu has officially renewed The Bear, FX’s critical smash focused on Carmen Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), a top-flight chef returning to Chicago and taking over his late brother’s sandwich shop. Of course, for lovers of The Bear, that description barely scratches the surface of what this often very funny and equally dramatic series brings to the table, so to speak.
Creator Christopher Storer has staffed his restaurant-world-focused comedy/drama with a pitch-perfect cast, who, along with White, include rising star Ayo Edebiri as Carmen’s skillful number two, Sydney, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as lovable if erratic cousin Richie, Liza Colón-Zayas as the warm, wise chef Tina, Abby Elliott as Carmen’s sister, Natalie, Matty Matheson as the Jack-of-all-trades Neil Fak, Oliver Platt as Uncle Jimmy, and guest turns from huge stars, including Jon Bernthal as Carmen’s late brother Mikey, Jamie Lee Curtis as volatile mom, Donna, and Gillian Jacobs as Richie’s ex, Tiffany.
The Bear‘s first season has been nominated for 13 Emmys, including Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Lead Actor for White, Outstanding Supporting Actress for Edebiri, and Outstanding Guest Actor for Bernthal and Platt. It was also recognized as an AFI TV Program of the Year and earned a PGA Award, WGA Award, ACE Eddie Award, and more. Season two, bowing this past June, didn’t miss a beat and enjoys a 99% fresh rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
“The Bear, which wowed audiences in its first season only to achieve even greater heights in season two, has become a cultural phenomenon,” said FX entertainment president Nick Grad in a statement. “We’re so proud to partner with Christopher Storer, Joanna Calo, Josh Senior, and the rest of the creative team, as well as the brilliant cast led by Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. What they and the crew have done is truly remarkable, and we and our partners at Hulu join fans in looking forward to the next chapter in the story of The Bear.”
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While we’ll be eagerly awaiting Dune: Part Two to hit theaters on March 15, 2024, it’s not the only story coming to the screen that’s based on “Dune” author Frank Herbert’s rich, complex sci-fi world. A prequel series for HBO, previously titled Dune: The Sisterhood, has been in the works for some time. Now, according to IGN, HBO has confirmed that the official title for the new series is Dune: Prophecy, and we can expect it in 2024 as well.
Dune: Prophecy will be set some 10,000 years before the events in Dune and will focus on the mysterious sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit, members of whom included Rebecca Ferugson’s Lady Jessica Atreides and Charlotte Rampling’s Reverend Mother Mohiam from Denis Villeneuve’s Part One. It was Mother Mohiam who famously forces Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) to put his hand in a box while holding a lethally poisonous Gom Jabbar to his neck, essentially torturing him, a potentially fatal test to see if Paul is worthy. Such is the mysterious power of the Bene Gesserit that a mother as fierce and protective as Lady Jessica would allow her son to endure this hell.
Dune: Prophecy began filming back in November 2022, and IGN reports we will likely see it in Fall 2024. The cast includes Emily Watson, Olivia Williams, Indira Varma, Travis Fimmel, Sarah-Sofie Boussnina, Shalom Brune-Franklin, Faoileann Cunningham, Aoife Hinds, and Chloe Lea. It’s important to note that none of these actors is a part of SAG-AFTRA, so production has not had to shut down.
Prophecy will explore the origins of Bene Gesserit, with sisters Valya (Emily Watson) and Tula Harkonnen (Olivia Williams) at the very center of the action. You might find their last name familiar—they are, indeed, from House Harkonnen, the despotic despoilers of Dune who killed Duke Atreides (Oscar Isaac) in the first film and started a war with House Atreides.
So, it looks like 2024 will be the year of Dune, with director Denis Villeneuve’s Part Two bringing his ambitious adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel to a stunning conclusion, while Dune: Prophecy expands the world and the timeline of one of the greatest sci-fi stories ever told.
For more on the world of Dune, check out these stories:
Featured image: Caption: REBECCA FERGUSON as Lady Jessica in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
Deadpool 3 director Shawn Levy is not the first—or even the four hundredth—director to be inspired by Star Wars, but he’s in a particularly fortuitous position to deploy his inspiration to spectacular effect. Levy’s upcoming Marvel Studios film, which finds Ryan Reynolds’ titular antihero mixing it up with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine (resurrected for the new film despite dying in James Mangold’s 2017 epic Logan), is the franchise’s first film under the Marvel banner. Levy also happens to be working on a Star Warsproject, one in which he’s said that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy has implored him to create a meaningful Shawn Levy story in the Star Wars galaxy rather than try to change his storytelling voice to suit some platonic ideal of a Star Wars film. So, the man is deeply invested in the Star Wars world.
As Levy explained to Esquire, he found himself recalling a specific, iconic Star Wars moment while working on Deadpool 3 and was compelled to share the scene with his collaborators in the middle of filming. Levy describes his memory of seeing Return of the Jedi in 1983 and how one moment in particular created “pin-drop silence” in the theater. That moment was the showdown between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. It’s the scene in “which Luke is hiding from Vader in the Emperor’s room, and Vader gives the speech that ends with ‘If you will not turn to the dark side, then perhaps your sister will,’” as Levy said to Esquire.
This moment stuck with Levy for decades. In the middle of making Deadpool 3, it came back to him. Levy explained:
“For one key scene in the movie, I said to my stunt and action team, ‘Guys, this is the Jedi moment.’ I pulled up that scene of Vader and Luke on my phone and restudied how it was photographed, how it was blocked, the framing, the tempo. The keen Star Wars fan will see the shot in my Deadpool movie that was inspired by a moment that I saw in a theater decades ago. That’s a forever memory. And that’s a treasure.”
Deadpool 3 is currently about halfway through filming, although it was paused on account of the writer’s and actor’s strikes. As negotiations continue on the actor’s strike this week, there’s hope a resolution is coming soon and productions far and wide, including Deadpool 3, can begin.
Ryan Gosling takes a beating and keeps on kicking in the first trailer for David Leitch’s The Fall Guy. Gosling plays Colt Seavers, a capable stuntman who ends up working on a film by Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). Colt and Jody had a fling once, and despite Jody’s insistence there is nothing between them, it seems fairly evident they’ve got enough chemistry to provide her film with all its pyrotechnics.
While Colt and Jody try to put their past behind them and get on with the business of showbusiness, a problem arises on Jody’s set—the star of her film (and the man Colt is doubling), Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), goes missing—thus, Colt is deployed to go track Tom down and save the film. The stuntman becomes the leading man.
Yet Colt’s problems compound when Tom turns up dead, and he finds himself in the middle of an action movie with no safety harness, no wires, and very real danger.
The Fall Guy is inspired by the 1980s TV series of the same name, and with David Leitch at the helm, a former stuntman himself and the man behind the action in Bullet Train, Deadpool 2, Atomic Blonde, and more, you know it’s not going to skimp on the insane action. Leitch directs from a script by Drew Pearce.
Joining Gosling, Blunt, and Taylor-Johnson are Hannah Waddingham, Winston Duke, Teresa Palmer, Stephanie Hsu, and Lee Majors.
Check out the trailer below. The Fall Guy hits theaters on March 1, 2024:
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The first domestic Japanese Godzilla film in seven years is stomping toward theaters in the U.S. The trailer for Godzilla Minus One reveals writer/director Takashi Yamazaki’s vision for a new Godzilla film, as the iconic kaiju surfaces from the depths of the ocean and unleashes his fury on post-war Japan.
Godzilla Minus One is the 37th installment in Toho’s venerable franchise, with Yamazaki crafting a period piece that looks at what happens to Japan as it’s recovering from the horrors of World War II and is suddenly faced with a new adversary, “baptized in the horrific power of the atom bomb.”
It’s a decidedly different Godzilla from the previous incarnations we’ve seen in the American-made Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) and Godzilla (2014) in that this kaiju does not seem like a misunderstood protector of the natural order. Instead, it appears to be more an incarnation of vengeance, even war itself. And that’s before it unveils its atomically charged powers.
Yamazaki is a brilliant VFX artist and CG animator in his own right, having worked on The Great War of Archimedes and Lupin III: The First. This is the third time he’s set his sights on the most iconic movie monster of them all, having deployed Godzilla in Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (2007) and Godzilla the Ride (2021).
Godzilla Minus One recently closed the Tokyo International Film Festival and stars Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, and Kuranosuke Sasaki.
Check out the trailer below. Godzilla Minus One hits theaters on December 1.
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The apes talk in the very first trailer for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. We know what you’re thinking—well, sure, they also spoke in the last Planet of the Apes movie, director Matt Reeves’ excellent 2017 trilogy capper War for the Planet of the Apes—but in director Wes Ball’s new film, they speak with a fluency and clarity that surpasses the humans they’ve displaced at the top of the food chain.
As has been the case since this venerable franchise was rebooted with Reeves’ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in 2014, and only getting more pronounced, the digital effects and mo-cap performances of the people playing the apes are astonishing. In the new film, set years after the death of the valorous chimpanzee Caesar (Andy Serkis), the apes have built a complex kingdom, the cities of man are now overgrown (and perhaps more beautiful because of it), and human beings have been pushed to the margins. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is several generations removed from the reign of Caesar, and a new, less-than-noble ape leader is building a formidable empire in which compassion and kindness, especially for the once-dominant species on the planet, are signs of weakness to be crushed.
The new ape to root for in Kingdom is Cornelius (Owen Teague), Caesar’s son, no less, who now lives in a very different world than his father did. Humans are essentially feral in this new film; the apes reign supreme both physically and intellectually, and yet power struggles within the ape community and an alliance with a young human could change everything.
That young human is played by The Witcher‘s Freya Allan. The film’s cast also boasts William H. Macy, Dichen Lachman, Kevin Durand, Peter Macon, Sara Wiseman, and Neil Sandilands in the cast. Director Wes Ball made his name with The Maze Runner series, and he’ll bring his abilities with action set pieces and emotional stakes to bear on the new film.
Check out the trailer here. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes arrives in theaters on May 24, 2024:
Here’s the official synopsis:
Director Wes Ball breathes new life into the global, epic, franchise set several generations in the future following Caesar’s reign, in which apes are the dominant species living harmoniously and humans have been reduced to living in the shadows. As a new tyrannical ape leader builds his empire, one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all that he has known about the past and to make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike.
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HBO chief Casey Bloys gave us some good news at a press conference on Thursday morning—the second season for Craig Mazan and Neil Druckmann’s stellar The Last of Us is expected to enter production in early 2024.
The critically acclaimed adaptation of the video game Druckmann created for Naughty Dog was one of the best series of 2023 (and the best video game adaptation of all time), turning its two leads, Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, into bonafide stars. The gripping first season, which explored a fallen world in the aftermath of a mushroom-borne virus and the journey of two survivors, Joel (Pascal) and Ellie (Ramsey), across a ravaged America in search of a cure for the plague, was the year’s first major hit. It ultimately earned 24 Emmy nominations, including for best actor and actress noms for Pascal and Ramsey and Outstanding Drama Series.
The Last of Us isn’t on HBO’s 2024 slate, which means that we’re looking at a 2025 premiere for season 2. The first season was such a massive success that it was renewed for a second before the season 1 finale aired. Season 2 will be adapted by Mazin and Druckmann from the game’s sequel, “The Last of Us: Part II.” The dual writer and actor strikes put pre-production on hold, but Druckmann and Mazin had already outlined the second season, and Mazin had submitted the first episode to HBO before the writer’s strike began, as he explained to Entertainment Weekly:
With the writer’s strike over and negotiations between the studios and actors ongoing and gaining momentum, things are looking a little brighter in the entertainment industry right now. And although The Last of Us was one of the most relentlessly intense, decidedly dark series on TV, its return to production signals would signal even brighter days ahead.
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A new teaser for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes doubles as a listening party. The new look is set to Olivia Rodrigo’s “Can’t Catch Me Now,” a song that speaks to the situation that the film’s central figures will find themselves in.
The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is set 64 years before the events in the original Hunger Games and is centered on a young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) long before he became the merciless ruler of Panem. Here, Coriolanus is a member of the Academy, trying to turn his own family’s fortunes around, and is tasked with mentoring a young tribute from District 12 ahead of the 10th Annual Hunger Games. That young tribute is Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), and their growing relationship will form the crux of the adventure in director Francis Lawrence’s upcoming prequel.
As the new teaser shows, this is a relationship that no one else wants to see thrive. Not Dr. Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis), the head gamemaker who has crafted the most ingeniously entertaining and lethal games yet and expects all but one of the tributes to perish in spectacular fashion. And not the dean of the Academy and creator of the Hunger Games himself, Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage), who not so gently reminds Coriolanus that their job is to “turn children into spectacles, not survivors.” The young Coriolanus clearly wants Lucy to survive, which is funny considering in a couple of decades, he’ll be all too happy to sacrifice two “tributes” (read, children) from each district to the games.
Yet the feelings between the young Coriolanus and Lucy are real, and they promise to prove to be a defining moment in both their lives and have larger implications for the future of Panem.
Other important characters you’ll get to know in the film are Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman (Jason Schwartzman), Coriolanus’s Academy classmates Clemensia Dovecote (Ashley Liao), and Sejanus Plinth (Josh Andrés Rivera).
Check out the new teaser below. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes opens on November 17 in a theater near you.
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Featured image: Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow and Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Photo Credit: Murray Close
The first trailer for Dan Hartley’s documentary David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived has arrived, revealing the story of the titular young man who was once Daniel Radcliffe’s stunt double, starting with the very first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, back in 2001. David Holmes was the perfect person to double Radcliffe—a gifted teenage gymnast from Essex, England—he began working alongside Radcliffe when the young actor was only eleven and just starting out his long run as Harry Potter. Holmes and Radcliffe went on to form a significant bond over the course of seven films and countless hours on set together, working through increasingly intricate stunts as Harry Potter grew older, the stakes in the film became bigger, and the action became more complicated. Then, a tragic accident while filming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One in 2010 left Holmes paralyzed. It’s how Holmes responded to that accident, the bond between the two young men, and Holmes’ remarkable strength of spirit that forms the crux of Hartley’s doc.
David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived boasts footage shot over the last decade, including Holmes’ incredible stunt work on the Harry Potter series, interviews with Holmes, Radcliffe, family, friends, former crew members, and more. For Potter-heads and for those of us who need a story of resilience, friendship, and community in troubled times, David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived is the film you need right now.
Check out the trailer below. David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived premieres on Max on November 15.
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When it was announced that Hugh Jackman was reprising his role as Wolverine for Deadpool 3, the first question was, but how? The Wolverine we all knew and loved definitely died in James Mangold’s masterful 2017 film Logan, in which an aging, sick Wolverine pulled off his last heroic act and sacrificed himself saving the life of the young mutant Laura (Dafne Keen), who had her own adamantium claws and was created using his DNA. So, while fans were thrilled that Jackman was reprising his most iconic role and doing it alongside his buddy and verbal sparring partner Ryan Reynolds, the question remained of how it was possible and whether Deadpool 3 existed in an entirely different universe than Logan.
Now, Shawn Levy himself has put the question to rest. Speaking with BroBible, Levy explained that the Deadpool 3 team has nothing but reverence for Mangold’s film. In fact, he said that Logan is canon:
“I have always said that I can’t wait for Deadpool 3 to come out because all I want to do is give interviews alongside Ryan where we talk about our reverence for the movie Logan. Logan is canon. We love Logan. That happened. I want the world to know, as the producer and director, all of us share a deep love and respect for Logan, every aspect of how it’s crafted, and all the events that take place.”
The question remains just how Levy, Reynolds, and the Deadpool 3 team actually contend with the events in Logan. One very obvious answer is that Deadpool 3 is very likely set before the events in Logan, which took place in 2029 during a 25-year drought of zero mutant births. Logan delivered an absolute masterclass in gritty superhero storytelling, with stakes so high that not one but two iconic X-Men perish. Even if it’s as simple as the events in Logan taking place in the future when Deadpool 3 begins, it’s still in the minds of fans. That reality, and the fact that Levy and the rest of the Deadpool 3 team love Mangold’s movie, makes how they approach handling Wolverine’s arc in their movie so intriguing. Considering Deadpool 2 played around with time travel and MCU’s own multiverse approach to storytelling, there’s even a chance that Deadpool 3 and Logan directly interact.
Deadpool 3 is currently slated for a May 3, 2024 release, but that’s not set in stone. They’ve shot and edited half of the film but had to pause during the strikes. Once those are over, everyone will get back to work, and perhaps Deadpool 3 will make its original date.
Gen V, the quick-footed spinoff to Prime Video’s debauchery-filled superhero satire The Boys, mimics its collegiate environment in its primed-for-combustion filming style. In the inaugural season’s penultimate episode, titled “Sick,” the main characters are confronted with institutional roadblocks and a boiling fervor on campus regarding supe rights.
“What I think the writers have done so beautifully and brilliantly in The Boys and Gen V is they’ve taken current issues and put the superhero spin on them to make social commentary,” Shana Stein, the episode’s director, said in an interview.
Leading up to the finale (the series has already been renewed for a second installment), the dark secret of Godolkin University is revealed right before its gatekeepers are eliminated. Protagonist Marie (Jaz Sinclair) attempts to enlist the help of conniving politician Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) to take down the inhumane supe prison lab called The Woods, despite her having an agenda of her own. Meanwhile, Asa Germann’s Sam experiences what it’s like to be a normal student — before falling prey to a radicalizing group on campus.
“We had a gazillion hundred extras out there — that was very old school, very low-tech,” Stein said of filming the episode’s frenetic town hall. “It was the first AD and I on stage acting out for the audience how to react to everything.”
We spoke to Stein about Gen V’s “common DNA” with The Boys and what makes the series pop on its own. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How does your approach to this spinoff compare to the predecessor of The Boys?
I’m a huge, huge fan of The Boys. In my prior experience, I did a show that we had multiple spinoffs of. So I was familiar with focusing on the DNA, and then there’s the new twist on it. It’s a combo platter of giving them more of what they want and then something new and unexpected, which I think the writers and producers did such a great job of delivering. It’s got all of the shock and humor and horror, and yet with these younger supes. In The Boys, where it was this big reveal that they were given Compound V, that information already exists here. Now they’re just trying to be supes living their best supe lives. There’s a lot of innocence there, and there’s a lot of hope in them still — it hasn’t been beaten out of them yet.
By the time I came on, they’d already established certain things [about] the look of the show. And they all were really great about communicating the stuff that they wanted to continue. The music is different — it doesn’t have the punk rock that The Boys [has]. It’s got more of a younger, college, more contemporary feel. A lot of the shooting style is similar, although it’s in different lensing. But [there’re] so many more supes that are good guys. Marie, who we’re on our hero’s journey with her … is she gonna change the world, or is the world gonna change her?
How much did you look to the comics that inspired Gen V versus balancing that with other coming-of-age college stories?
[The writers] did such a great job of taking the best stuff from the source material and then also letting it have its own life. I have watched all of The Boys — I want to say three times. I also looked at the original comics as well, which are now all up in my teenage son’s room. This is one of the things I absolutely love about the show: they don’t shy away from politics, they don’t shy away from challenging issues. It deals with some of the mental health issues that people go through, particularly young women in high school and university, with eating disorders and cutting and finding your power. It’s really complicated material that the writers have given us to play with. And I was so grateful to have such really incredibly talented, adept actors that could take it on. Episode 7 is a really emotional episode for a lot of the characters. As a director, it was really fun to work with the actors to bring that to life and give them the space to do their magic.
With this penultimate episode, you’re tying in a lot of the lore from The Boys: We see characters like Victoria Neuman and Grace Mallory. Could you talk about your approach to making sure every plotline is given space? How closely did you work with the writer Chelsea Grate?
Chelsea was wonderful. She was a great partner. She was on set with me every day, and I had her do a lot of prep as well. Michele [Fazekas] and Tara [Butters], the showrunners of the season, were great, and Eric [Kripke] is the master of the universe, and he’s also incredibly reachable. So I feel like if ever there’s a thing that’s a team sport, it’s making serious television. My job as a visiting director is to try to get their vision on the screen.
What were your collaborations like with VFX, and what was your approach to blocking those shots? I wanted to focus specifically on the montage with Sam, where he’s experiencing this childlike joy in discovering college life.
Asa is so lovely and such a wonderfully talented actor. It was such a joy seeing that scene when he was just alone and discovering in Emma’s room, and it was just us and the cameras — that was one of my favorite things to shoot just because we had so much fun with a different moment of the childlike discovery. Then, going to the outside, how he ends up getting involved with the Supe Lives Matter thing, it’s not initially because of that or any kind of alignment ideologically, it’s just because it’s fun, and the kids are out there.
Asa Germann (Sam). Credit: Brooke Palmer/Prime Video
When you talk about blocking, anything that’s stunts or VFX, we prep the hell out of it. First, we discuss it, we concept it, then start to shot-list it, and we’ll walk through what sets we have. When appropriate, we’ll storyboard it, and then I’ll go back and shot-list again. On The Boys and Gen V, they do a pre-vis process, which is wonderful because then everybody can see what we’re thinking. And so when we go on the day, it’s as efficient as possible, and I make sure that the producers are getting the footage that they want. So it’s a lot of communication and a lot of preparation and planning. With the sled coming down the hall, we had to try different things like the rigs that we use. I always say the action is math. It’s this plus this plus this equals your sequence.
“Gen V” Episode 7 director Shana Stein behind the scenes. Courtesy of Prime Video.
Going off of that, the town hall scene is such a pressure cooker environment that requires a lot of movement and coordination across teams. What were your favorite aspects of filming that?
Yeah, that was pretty crazy. We had a very limited amount of time, we had a ton of extras, and we had four cameras; we had it organized by shot lists, and that one we didn’t have a pre-vis on. We had a gazillion hundred extras out there — that was very old school, very low-tech. It was the first AD and me on stage acting out for the audience how to react to everything. We needed our 400 extras to all respond in unison. So Joanna [Moore], the truly amazing first AD, was over there, and I was pantomiming it out for them. It was like ‘Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. Sonic boom! Sonic boom!’ and the whole crowd would turn. Then ‘Laser eyes! Laser eyes!’ That was so much fun. We just had a blast. We just act the fool. We’re the luckiest people alive. We get to play make-believe for a living. I’m eternally grateful. It was a dream come true.
Was there anything that challenged or colored your experience as a director shooting this particular episode?
It just reinforced for me what a team sport it is. I was so excited to come on; I was everybody’s biggest cheerleader. I just tried to create a safe space for everybody to do their job and to bring their best work. Gen V is its own thing within this universe, and it’s got its own tone and allowing that to be there and embracing the differences, and then celebrating also that common DNA.
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The Persian Version won both the Audience Award and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award in the U.S Dramatic Competition at Sundance this year, and for good reason. The film is a feel-good dramedy that combines stories of traditional Iranian culture with those of the Iranian American experience with a decidedly modern touch. The story follows Leila (Layla Mohammadi), a queer Iranian American working to keep her parents and many brothers who love her at a distance while navigating her ever more complicated personal life. The story highlights the complicated bond between Leila and her mother, Shireen (Niousha Noor), whose sacrifices—many for her family—include many secrets about her own past trauma from Leila. As intense as some aspects of the story are, audiences have embraced The Persian Version, which is a fun, dance-filled, and joyous ode to a modern Iranian American family.
Much of the film is based on the life of writer/director Maryam Keshavarz, who herself was the only girl in a family with seven boys. It is in the specificity of her story that The Persian Version thrives because viewers from all over the world have found a connection in some aspect of the family ortheir cultural traditions.
The Credits caught up with Keshavarz at the Middleburg Film Festival. She reveals how she crafted a story that has found appreciation from such a wide audience and shares how the cast and crew grew to feel like family.
Your film is so filled with joy, and as you said, you were moved and struck by the sense of joy your family was able to find, even in difficult times. Can you speak to a few of the ways you injected your film with that joy and some of the responses you’ve gotten from audiences?
Honestly, I was really only interested in making this film if I could show that element of our culture and of my family. Growing up, every time you heard the word Iranian, it was somehow related to terrorism, and it just was not my experience as an Iranian American growing up here. It was just so skewed. I always say, when I introduce the film, “I’m sorry, you get to spend two hours with my family, for better or for worse.” The greatest aspect of showing this is having people who are Irish saying, “It’s just like my family,” or having people who are Mexican-American, or Vietnamese, or German, or whatever, who are different than their family for some reason, or they had issues with their mom, really relating to the film.
In a way, families across cultures are similar in crucial ways…
It is so important to me to show that we’re not so different. If you’ve never interacted with or seen people who are different than you, you can so easily dehumanize them, and so many bad things can result from that. If you feel close to a people, there’s just such a humanity and a connection that can happen. What I wanted to do with this film was create a connection, and I thought the joy and fun in our culture could really bring people in. Within our community, people are so proud because they’ve never gotten to see themselves in a light that they feel is so truthful. It’s been quite emotional, showing it to non-Iranian and Iranian families in the United States.
The movie shows both Iranian and Iranian-American characters, which is rare.
That’s never been done. There are lots of films from Iran, which has great cinema, from Kiarostami to Farhadi to Dariush Mehrjui, who unfortunately was killed recently. You have great Iranian American filmmakers, like Ramin Bahrani or Desiree Akhavan, but there was never anything that connected our two worlds. One of the ways to show our journey as Americans is to honor where we come from.
Silence is both a strength and a weakness, depending on how and when it’s used. Can you talk about your use of silence in the film?
Silence is really a theme in the film. American culture is so much about therapy and about posting everything we do. We overshare in many ways. The thoughts I had around silence are that when you go through a very difficult time, sometimes not rehashing it, putting that trauma in a box, and moving forward is such an important element of older generations. That’s especially true for my parents and the baby boomer era. In every part of the world, they’ve experienced such great traumas, and that’s how they’ve been able to move forward. I thought that was such an interesting concept and how that was handed down to me. Through the filming, I explore different moments in which silence plays an important part. There’s a lot of verbosity and playfulness in the lead character, who not only tells you about her family but about where she comes from between Iran and America, as a playful interplay of her biculturalism, but also, a lot of the film relies on those things that are not said, and in the moments that are so quiet. It’s a play between that, particularly in the mother’s backstory, when we go back to Iran. In that section, there’s very little dialogue. I also play a lot with the environment and silence and how you deal with trauma, even as it’s happening.
Layla Mohammadi as LEILA in THE PERSIAN VERSION. Photo credit: Yiget Eken. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
There’s some great choreography in the movie, and it gives the feeling that not only the characters are close, but everyone in the production became close during filming. Is that true?
There are some things that we had our choreographer do, especially the “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” sequence, and that’s because that has a lot of dancers and was rehearsed for a week or two. Then, for another scene, the actress Niousha Noor said, “I have an idea. This is a family that’s so tight. They would have their own dance. Can we show you something?” She had choreographed, taped, and sent this dance to the brothers, and they were all dancing on their days off together and practicing. When they came to show it to me, they had rehearsed it for a week. I thought it was so fun. Niousha, the actress who plays the mother, had done all that. That’s why, if you notice in the film, that dance scene is mostly in one shot. There weren’t many cuts at all because we knew ahead of time with the choreography would be, so we planned it. And it was really fun because we thought it told the story of the family dynamic in a really nice way.
Layla Mohammadi as LEILA, Niousha Noor as SHIRIN in THE PERSIAN VERSION. Photo credit: Yiget Eken. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
There’s also a powerful catharsis around trauma as part of the arc of your story.
Right. In the end, by speaking the name, there’s a moment where the trauma ends because we’re able to literally name that trauma. And with naming it, it brings new life. It goes from something dead that’s festering in some ways to something alive that can create hope. The name at the end of the film, Arezou, means hope. Arezou is a wish, actually, in Persian. It has many meanings, but Arezou is the concept of hope and a wish combined together. I wanted to leave the audience with that idea at the end.
The aspect of The Persian Version that goes back and forth between Iranian life with the mother’s story and Iranian American life with the daughter really opens up awareness about similarities and differences within families and within cultures.
I wanted that backstory, why people come to the US, to be really prevalent in this film. You look at your parents, and you judge them and wonder why they can’t be more modern. We don’t even practice empathy towards our own parents, but we expect our parents to practice empathy towards us as the next generation. We can never understand who we are unless we look at our parents’ journeys and see them as people. I think of my mother at 14 or my dad at 19, and in that light, everything shifts. You can really understand how trauma affects people’s lives and how it becomes ingrained in the next generation. So much of this film is about acknowledging that and finding a way to move beyond it. For me, this film was a practice in empathy, and I think that’s something this country needs right now desperately. We’ve become so fractured, and we judge and hate people we’ve never met. This film is to challenge you within your own family not to do that, and not to do that also within the greater landscape of American culture.
The Persian Version is in select theaters now nationwide.
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Featured image: Bijan Daneshmand as ALI REZA, Niousha Noor as SHIRIN, Chiara Stella as YOUNG LEILA in THE PERSIAN VERSION. Photo credit: Yiget Eken. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
