When Michael Mann’s Heat hit theaters in December of 1995, it gifted us with the first time that Robert De Niro and Al Pacino acted in a scene together. The stars of Godfather 2 had never actually gotten a chance to play off one another, and in Mann’s Heat, while they had an entire movie to enact a brilliant, brutal cat-and-mouse game as Pacino’s Lt. Vincent Hanna tracked De Niro’s criminal Neil McCauley in one of the decade’s most satisfying crime sagas, they finally got to sit down and share a scene in a diner that has now become the stuff of movie history. Now, after writing the novel “Heat 2” alongside co-writer Meg Gardiner, which detailed the lives of Heat‘s protagonists when they were young men, Mann has confirmed that adapting that novelwill be his next film project. He also teased the possibility that Adam Driver, the star of his current film, Ferrari, could have a major role.
Speaking at Deadline’s Contenders event in London this past weekend, this is how Mann replied to a question about whether he’d adapt “Heat 2” for the big screen:
“Yes. Meg Gardiner and myself wrote the novel Heat 2, which came out right when we were shooting Ferrari. It did very well. I plan to shoot that next.”
Deadlinescooped earlier in the year that Adam Driver was in talks to play De Niro’s character Neil McCauley as a younger man. Although Mann was careful about the potential when asked if Driver was his man for Heat 2, he certainly wasn’t denying it.
“Perhaps,” Mann said at the Contenders event. “We don’t talk about that yet. Let me put it this way: Adam and I got along like a house on fire [on Ferrari]. We have the same work ethic – which is pretty intense. We like each other, and we had a great time working together artistically.”
Mann and Gardiner’s “Heat 2” isn’t just a prequel; it also functions as a sequel to the original Heat. The story follows McCauley, Vincent Hanna (Pacino’s character), and Chris Shiherlis (played by Val Kilmer) in the years before the events in Heat, as well as what happens to the survivors of the events in that film after the dust has settled. “Heat 2” follows a younger McCauley and Shiherlis as their crew racks up scores along the U.S./Mexico border, the West Coast, and in Chicago, where Hanna is rising in the ranks in the Chicago Police Department, going after a brutal gang of home invaders.
Heat has become one of the most well-regarded crime thrillers ever made. Recently, Ava DuVernay’s One Perfect Shotfeatured Mann re-creating the particulars of a thrilling heist sequence in that film, one of the most thrilling set pieces of any movie that decade.
It’ll be a while before we know more about where Heat 2 stands, but for now, we’ve got Mann’s Ferrarizooming into theaters this Christmas. Driver stars as Enzo Ferrari as he prepares his team to race in the notorious Mille Miglia, the grueling, deadly 1,000-mile race across Italy. Penelope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, and Patrick Dempsey co-star.
Featured image: VENICE, ITALY – AUGUST 31: Adam Driver and director Michael Mann attend a photocall for the movie “Ferrari” at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2023 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)
As noted in part one of our interview with Paul Cameron, he took his first turns at directing for series helming two episodes of Westworld, and he drew on his experience as a cinematographer and from his work for some pretty important mentors. “I learned so much from working with Tony Scott,” Cameron said, referring to collaborating with Scott on films like Man on Fire and Déjà Vu. “Tony was all about really understanding the authenticity of situations and characters and really digging into the reality of a scene. And, more than anything, watching a very playful director manifest the performance he was going after. He knew what scenes were going to be like in the editing room and had a very playful way of setting things up to ensure that the end result would be what he thought it would be.” Cameron learned, for example, how to apply creative and innovative camera techniques to bring out even more.
Working with Jonathan Nolan on Westworld, he saw a director who “had linear beliefs of story and stayed with it, and doing that within the work of television,” he says. “The reason I started directing there was because I could see somebody setting the bar as high as I’ve ever seen.” He also learned how to handle a massive amount of scenes in a limited time window. “We might lose a day for some reason and need to make it up, and even with all my experience, I was, like, ‘Oh, my God – how are we gonna do all this stuff?’ And, inevitably, we did it. And that gave me great confidence when I went to direct on Westworld. I knew, “Don’t sell yourself short. Go in big, and stay big, and go after it like there’s no tomorrow.’ And that, I got from Jonah.”
L-r: Aaron Paul and Paul Cameron on the set of “Westworld.” John Johnson/HBO
For Special Ops: Lioness, he had to hand his director of photography hat to cinematographers like Niels Albert, John Conroy, and Nichole Hirsch Whitaker, something that can be difficult for someone who’s been in their shoes for so many decades. “It’s a challenge for me – because I’m so trained!” he laughs.
Most important, he says, is to make sure to include them in prep as much as possible, evaluating scenes and locations, “And to really be open to big decisions,” he says. “What is this scene about? What are the storytelling aspects, and how are we going to manifest it in this location?” And if changes occur that reshuffle a day’s shoot, Cameron wants his cinematographers to ask themselves, ‘How do we get the core shots to tell this story?’
For crafting scenes and blocking, Cameron draws on his decades of experience on big films with A-level actors, who often can be counted on to help with problem-solving. “But also talking about script and story, as I’ve done with them over the years. So it’s a very natural thing to talk to them about now, as a director.”
Laysla De Oliveira as Cruz Manuelos with Director Paul Cameron In Special Ops: Lioness, episode 5, season 1, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo Credit: Greg Lewis/Paramount+
Regarding designing coverage, Cameron says it begins with poring over the script, then going to locations, and eventually rehearsing and blocking. With streaming television, he notes, there is often no time to discuss blocking or to get a rehearsal with actors before they go to Hair & Makeup. “Oftentimes, we’re just waiting for them to get out of Hair & Makeup and just run right into the shooting. But I know actors well enough to guess whether they’re going to be comfortable with a particular blocking from working as a DP for so many years.” But that also means being open to other ideas. “You have to be open to blowing apart whatever preconceptions you have and rolling with it. You take a deep breath, and you go for it.”
Cameron has to draw on his years of creative shooting to balance the needs of streaming producers with his desire to keep scenes alive. “A three-page scene can be fairly static. And the last thing I would want to do is shoot closeup coverage of the entire scene. For me, close-ups are extremely important, and there’s the tendency on streaming television to cut back and forth between close-ups. It’s the difference between theatrical films and streaming – films are about plot, streaming is about character. So I’ll shoot those close-ups to satisfy a showrunner, but save the hero close-ups for the times you know you’re going to need them editorially. And keep it real, keep it alive – plan on a particular line that I’m going to rack focus in on Nicole [Kidman] and then pan back to Zoe [Saldana].”
Nicole Kidman as Kaitlyn Meade and Zoe Saldana as Joe In Special Ops: Lioness, episode 4, season 1, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo Credit: Greg Lewis/Paramount+
Directing (and working with) top-tier talent is not new to Cameron, having done so on Westworld, “But working with Zoe Saldaña, Nicole Kidman, Morgan Freeman, Michael Kelly – everybody here is a top actor.” So how does one direct cast members who are already at the top of their game, with decades of experience behind them? “The important thing is to create an understanding with the actors, so they feel that I’m turning them loose right away,” Cameron explains. “Let your instincts come out. Let it all come to the surface, and then let’s see what’s working, what’s authentic. As the director, it’s important to understand where actors are at any point, what they’re trying to convey as a character, and how they’re trying to work the dialogue. Then I have more ability to help them shape a scene.”
BTS L-R Nicole Kidman as Kaitlyn Meade, Michael Kelly as Byron Westfield with Director Paul Cameron In Special Ops: Lioness, episode 5, season 1, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo Credit: Greg Lewis/Paramount+
Sometimes, he’ll feel strongly about the direction of a scene and want it to go a certain way. “And it can take three or four takes of subtly moving something in a certain way. But there are other times where the best thing I can do is just let go and say, ‘You know, they’re portraying these characters, and they are in complete understanding of this dialogue. It’s incredibly powerful. Whatever expectations I have don’t matter because what they’re doing is absolutely amazing. That’s the other part of directing that I’m learning is how to balance conceiving of an idea of the outcome of the scene and being very open to surprises and changes that the actors bring to it. And that’s always the important balance.”
For instance, in a meeting in the White House Cabinet Room in Cameron’s Episode 106, Morgan Freeman’s Secretary Mullins listens to an obviously bogus explanation by one of Joe’s counterparts, Kyle (Thad Luckinbill), and appears to begin responding in support of Kyle’s explanation, before ripping him a new one for his B.S. “With that, during the first couple of rehearsals with Morgan, I could see the direction where he was lighting up to that moment,” Cameron says. “And, after a few rehearsals, we tried a couple of other possibilities, different exchanges around the room. And it was evident that his first choice was the right choice.”
Morgan Freeman as Secretary of State Mullins In Special Ops: Lioness, episode 6, season 1, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo Credit: Luke Varley/Paramount+
Sometimes, dialogue can be filled with so much technical military jargon and instructions that it can be difficult for the audience to follow. In Episode 105, for instance, Kidman’s character delivers a rapid explanation to the San Antonio local authorities of the many complex steps the team will take. “She’s explaining the backbone of the operation and giving them the opportunity to step up to support or step aside – but it’s going to go her way. But it’s really about the subtext, not the details,” Cameron explains. “There’s a layer of dialogue, and then the reality of the meaning. By telling them something a particular way, she’s giving them an opportunity to step away or show support and take the credit for it later. She’s the puppeteer. She knows exactly the outcome of this conversation.”
With such amazing talent in front of his camera, Cameron sometimes just how to allow the actor’s performance to drive his approach. In Episode 105, Saldaña delivers what is probably the series’ longest scene – and one of its most emotionally poignant. On a return from the field, she takes some time to have an important talk with her teenage daughter, Kate (Hannah Love Lanier), one which brings incredible healing to their difficult relationship. “Zoe’s giving 17 years of motherhood in eight minutes. She’s afraid this might be the last time she’ll see her again,” Cameron explains.
He was concerned about the length of the scene, so he contacted Taylor Sheridan and asked, “How do we sustain an audience with this eight-minute scene and not crack people because it’s so intense?” Cameron recalls. And Taylor’s response? “I wouldn’t worry about it. There’s a version of the scene where we just cut to Joe looking at Kate in the bed, and she doesn’t say anything. And it should be as emotional as the eight minutes of dialogue.” Cameron then did away with dozens of takes of coverage and just let the camera roll. “I’m gonna sacrifice a number of setups and shots here. We’ll do eight or nine takes. And the actors wanted to do it all the way through. I later tried, in the edit, to find ways to truncate it to two or three minutes. But, invariably, I delivered the eight minutes, beginning to end.”
In many other series, such dramatic family scenes, intermixed with tough military action, might appear trite or forced. But between Sheridan’s writing and the powerful performances of the cast, it is anything but. “It’s really about understanding the writing and understanding the characters,” says Cameron. “Not only the arc of the story but the emotional arc of each character within the story. And that’s the fun for me, directing now. I’m so used to shaping things with cameras and light, and now, I’m trying to shoot things with scripts and actors. It’s a nice transition.”
Special Ops: Lioness is streaming on Paramount+
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Featured image: L-R Austin Hébert as Randy, Zoe Saldana as Joe with director Paul Cameron for Special Ops: Lioness, episode 5, season 1, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo Credit: Greg Lewis/Paramount+
As director of photography, Paul Cameron has shot such disparate films and series as Man On Fire, Collateral, Déjà Vu, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and Westworld. He has worked with a slew of top-tier directors, including Michael Mann, Tony Scott, and Jonathan Nolan. Now, for Paramount+’s acclaimed limited series, Special Ops: Lioness, Paul Cameron – as he did with Westworld – worked both as a cinematographer and director.
Created and written by award-nominated screenwriter and actor Taylor Sheridan, Lioness stars Zoe Saldaña as Joe, the head of a CIA Special Operations unit called Lioness, which recruits and puts into force female operatives who infiltrate terrorist organizations to eliminate specific high-value targets. Here, she recruits a tough Marine, Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveira), sending her inside the family of an important Middle Eastern oilman, Asmar Al Amrohi, known for funding terrorist organizations, in the hope she can eliminate him. Cruz is backed by a raucous but sharp Quick Response Team (QRT), also under Joe’s command, who quickly come to take on Cruz as one of their own.
The cinematographer of a series’ first episode typically sets the show’s look, along with the director and production designer. In this case, Cameron did so with director John Hillcoat, the pair shooting the first two episodes together. There had been a last-minute change in showrunners for the series, with Hillcoat coming on board, quickly sending Cameron the script to see if he would be interested.
“I loved the concept of the show,” Cameron explains. “Taylor generally writes for male characters, so I found this quite intriguing. It felt like a great opportunity to delve into this darker female world.”
Paul Cameron directing actor Laysla de Oliveira, as Cruz Manuelos in Ep. 5. Credit: Greg Lewis/Paramount+
With just three weeks to prep the show, the two began a fast, condensed prep period in August 2022. “I love working with John. We worked like a think tank, working 20 hours a day, trying to figure out how to get this show up and running in three weeks,” setting up camp in Baltimore, which, among other settings, stood in for countless locations in nearby Washington, DC.
The production also shot in Morocco and Mallorca, Spain. The ISIS compound seen in the first episode was shot at a location in Marrakesh, as was the first meet between Cruz and her target, Aaliyah (Stephanie Nur), Amrohi’s daughter, filmed in the city’s new upscale Rodeo Drive-like shopping area, Q Street, subbing in for Kuwait City. The show’s wedding sequences were filmed at a beautiful house on the ocean in Mallorca. Additional sets were also built in Mallorca, including the White House Cabinet Room, seen in several episodes. Beach scenes representing The Hamptons were shot at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, 120 miles from Baltimore.
When Cameron and Hillcoat started, there were no other directors selected. Anthony Byrne was soon brought in to direct two episodes (103 and 104), which were shot by cinematographer Eric Koretz, with Hillcoat directing the final two episodes. That left two more to be assigned. “When I signed on and learned there were no other directors yet,” recalls Cameron, “I set up a call with Taylor right away and told him I would really love to direct a couple of these, and he agreed.”
Cameron assembled a capable team of camera operators, typically shooting three cameras for most scenes: Joe Cicio (A Camera), Kimo Proudfoot (B Camera), and James Ball (C Camera). Cameron had worked with Cicio on several feature films and had even tasked him as a second Unit DP on occasion. “He’s a very authentic person and knows the soul of the material,” Cameron states. “He has good instinct where to get the camera and can get it there.” Though he had never worked with Proudfoot before, the DP appreciated his good sensibility about camera movement and staying with a shot when needed.
In Ball, a renowned Washington documentary cinematographer, Cameron found what he calls his “secret gun.” “It’s important for me to have somebody who not only can help find those key emotional moments, above what the A & B Cameras are getting but to take more chances and really get in there,” he explains. “Oftentimes, when you have two or three cameras, people overlap and tend to like the same shot. If I’m busy as a DP or as director, I need a C Camera to really keep going, like a bull terrier, until I find the shot,” perhaps a look back or glance from an actor, in reaction, that the others may not catch. “That’s the kind of emotional shot I hope to get.”
There was very little second Unit work, he says, but what there was got handled by second Unit director Jeff Dashnaw, who was also one of the show’s stunt coordinators. Second unit cinematography was handled by George Billinger III, whom Cameron greatly admires. “When you have a second unit on a streaming show, there’s so little prep time. And they get thrown into a situation so quickly where they’re being asked to match the look of a show with extreme lenses and a photographic style they might not be accustomed to. And George was able to slide in and do it.”
Because of his training with the likes of Tony Scott, Cameron says his approach to coverage is different from the way most cinematographers tend to shoot. “With Tony, I learned to just be fearless with cameras and put them in places I think are emotionally appropriate and not necessarily coverage-oriented,” he explains. Looking for a shot, say, with a steep angle, a little too close, to make it just the right level of uncomfortable if the scene calls for that. “It’s a matter of what makes it feel right, as opposed to matching focal lengths on lenses and distances, which many shows do.”
Paul Cameron on set of Westworld with Jonathan Nolan. Courtesy Warner Bros.
For example, in the show’s second episode, Joe and Kaitlyn are meeting in a restaurant, common in Washington, where strangers often overhear important policy conversations, and Joe is truly revealing herself to her boss. Cameron photographed the pair as seen through a stained glass divider. “It’s an eavesdropping thing,” he explains. “We purposely sat them near that corner so they could have this conversation. I wanted it to give the viewer an uncomfortable experience, watching a conversation of someone revealing themselves that way.”
Zoe Saldaña and Nicole Kidman’s characters confer in a popular Washington restaurant. Credit: Greg Lewis/Paramount+
While Cameron and Hillcoat originally considered using a large format camera, like the Sony Venice or the Arriflex Alex LF, the two settled on the popular Alexa Mini LF for most of the production.
For lenses, Hillcoat didn’t want to see any lens built after 1980, so Cameron gathered an eclectic set for the shoot, including Canon K35s and Zeiss uncoated Super Speed lenses (with both rear end and no coating). “They all react so differently. The K35s have a great softness on large format, falling off on the edges really nicely. The uncoated lenses have different qualities of halation [spreading of light beyond the source] and blooming and flaring. So if there’s something bright, the image just blooms a little, or the top halates a little bit.”
To develop the look of the show, he and Hillcoat did as many directors and cinematographers do, creating a lookbook of hundreds of photos from feature films and journalistic images, representing the look and feel they wanted to create. Part of that involved allowing for the use of multiple cameras by placing most lighting above rather than putting lighting instruments on the floor. “I took bolder chances so I could move multiple cameras around a room,” he explains.
L-R Charley Tucker as Army Joint Chief, Jennifer Ehle as Chief of Staff Mason, Morgan Freeman as Secretary of State Mullins, and Bruce McGill as NSA Advisor Hollar In Special Ops: Lioness, episode 6, season 1, streaming on Paramount+, 2023. Photo Credit: Luke Varley/Paramount+
As is common with a Paul Cameron show, the image is often very dark, lit by light coming in windows, if at all, and perhaps a few practical lights on set to make it feel real. When important, high-stakes meetings take place, for instance, the setting is often dark, with just the characters’ faces drawing the viewer’s attention.
“I just can’t help lighting and shaping faces with light,” he explains. “I love having these environments dark, with these faces popping off the background. When Joe interviews Cruz in the first episode, inside a barracks during the daytime, the interior is barely lit, save for some light coming in from windows behind them as they talk, the pair almost visible just as silhouettes. “Because that’s the level of discomfort Cruz experiences there and the way she stands up to Joe. In a scene like that, you want to have some kind of emotional impact on the image. It might feel darker – the falloff on the face is greater, and you barely see the eyes, but there’s eyelight in there. You just see them staring at each other.”
Actress Laysla de Oliveira (Cruz) in the barracks set, darkly lit by Cameron. Credit: Lynsey Addario/Paramount+
In the show’s second episode, Cameron was called upon to shoot one of the most difficult – and disturbing – scenes in the series, one in which Joe secretly puts Cruz through a yet-tougher version of a training known as S.E.R.E. – survive, evade, resist – where she appears to have been kidnapped by unknown assailants. They attempt to break her with beatings and torture – so that Joe can find out where Cruz’s true breaking point is.
The sequence was shot, for the most part, with three cameras. “They’re constantly trading off for different moments, racking focus at different points. So I’m constantly choreographing three cameras,” Cameron says. In a way, it’s a classic fight shoot, he says, taking advantage of his many years shooting fight sequences and working with renowned stunt coordinators Jeff Dashnaw and his wife, Tracy Keehn-Dashnaw.
“It starts with a quick conversation with them, ‘This is what we want this fight to feel like,’” he explains. They’ll craft the fight and film it, showing it to Hillcoat and Cameron for comment. “John and I will look at it, and it’ll be a great three-minute fight, but it might not have a particular impact, editorially. We’re looking at it together in terms of how you build your edit. And where to get that camera to make a particular punch work or be more impactful or more brutal or violent. That’s the goal in a fight.” For placing cameras, Cameron will watch to see where the stunt coordinator is standing. “Where they’re standing, watching the fight, is usually where the camera wants to be,” he notes.
In part two of our feature, Paul Cameron talks about how he applies both what he knows from being a cinematographer and what he learned from his directing mentors to his role as director on “Special Ops: Lioness.”
For more films and series from Paramount and Paramount+, check out these stories:
Greta Gerwig was on hand in London on Sunday to give a special talk at the BFI London Film Festival, interviewed by none other than Succession creator Jesse Armstrong. As you are no doubt well aware, Gerwig’s Barbie is a historic success, becoming Warner Bros.’s most successful film in its 100-year history, a mammoth achievement. Barbie made an astonishing $1.4 billion at the global box office, becoming the highest-grossing film by a solo female director and the number-one movie of 2023.
Gerwig co-wrote (alongside Noah Baumbach) and directed this original look at Mattel’s iconic doll (played, of course, but Margot Robbie, who also produced the film) as she endures a series of existential crises and goes searching for the source of ennui in the real world. The film, which featured a bevy of Barbies and Kens, including Ryan Gosling as Barbie’s travel partner and wannabe boyfriend, also included one major musical and dance sequence, “I’m Just Ken,” which Gerwig revealed to the audience in London was a major source of anxiety for her.
Even before Gerwig filmed the “I’m Just Ken” sequence, she told the audience that she’d had to explain what her goal with it was during a big meeting.
“It just said in the script, ‘And then it becomes a dream ballet, and they work it out through dance,’” Gerwig said to Jesse Armstrong. “There was a big meeting that was like, ‘Do you need this?’ And I was like, ‘Everything in me needs this.’ They were like, ‘What do you even mean? What is a dream ballet?’ And I was like, ‘A dream ballet? Where do I begin!’”
L-r: KINGSLEY BEN-ADIR and RYAN GOSLING on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jaap Buitendijk
Once it was time to start shooting the sequence, Gerwig’s nerves didn’t subside.
“That sequence, in particular, was just filled with choices that thrilled me and made me so happy, but then I’d be driving home at the end of the day and thinking… ‘Oh no!’”
Gerwig cited one of the most iconic singing and dance numbers in film history as a source of inspiration—and comfort.
“I was like, if people could follow that in Singing in the Rain, I think we’ll be fine. I think people will know what this is. So that was the big reference point,” she said. “Even though everything felt right to me and was giving me so much joy in the way we were doing it, it was also like, ‘Oh no, this could be just terrible, but now I’m committed.’”
The song was one of the film’s most beloved moments, hit Billboard’s Hot 100 list, and amassed 5.2 million U.S. streams in its opening week. Gerwig also admitted that during the film’s opening weekend, when it premiered on July 21 on the very same day as Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, which gave the world the Barbenheimer phenomenon, she would go to theaters in New York and stand in the back to gauge people’s reactions to the film.
“I went around to different theatres and sort of stood in the back and would then also turn up the volume if I felt it wasn’t playing at the perfect level,” she claimed. At one such screening, she heard one woman howl with laughter over the joke about the Proust Barbie, one of the numerous specific one-liners she inserted in the film. “And I was like: ‘That joke was for you!’”
Gerwig said she’s currently at work on her next project, although not without fresh trepidation.
“I’m working on something right now, but I’m in the writing process, and it’s hard, and I’m having nightmares,” she said. “I’m having recurring nightmares.”
Featured image: Caption: (L-r) MARGOT ROBBIE, ANA CRUZ KAYNE, Director/Writer GRETA GERWIG and HARI NEF on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Jaap Buitendijk
Writer/director Aristotle Torres‘ feature debut, Story Ave, is centered on Kadir (Asante Blackk), a bright teenager from the South Bronx with a gift for visual arts filled with promise. But when Kadir’s younger brother dies, the loss amplifies the pressure cooker of modern teenage life—the demands of school, the expectations of family—and specifically the life of a kid living life in the Bronx, where an entire world of opportunity and danger is just a few steps out of your front door. Soon enough, Kadir seeks out a new kind of family in a graffiti gang, and to prove himself, he tries to rob an MTA employee named Luis Torres (Luis Guzmán). Luis knows stick-up kids, he tells Kadir—and he’s not one of them. The encounter ends up changing both of their lives.
Luis Guzmán and Asante Black in “Story Ave.” Courtesy Kino Lorber.
“Guzmán and Asante were the heart that kept us going,” Torres says. Luis Guzmán is, of course, one of the most beloved character actors in the business, but for Story Ave, he was always Torres’ first and only choice. “The only role that I knew for a fact I needed, that I wrote for this actor, I couldn’t make the movie without Luis Guzman. He was my first point of attack,” he says. Asante had a big role in Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us, and Torres rounded out the rest of the cast with nimble performers like Melvin Gregg, Cassandra Freeman, Coral Peña, Curtiss Cook Jr. Then there’s Alex R. Hibbert, who starred as a young boy in Barry Jenkins’ seminal Moonlight.
“Alex coming from Moonlight and Asante from When They See Us, those two young men are so poised,” Torres says. “If I were that poised at twenty years old, my god, my life would be so different. [Laughs].They’re so mature and wise beyond their years and very grounded. They understand their purpose from a very young age.”
We spoke with Torres about crafting his moving feature debut.
Let’s start with what drew you to this story?
I’m really proud that my film explores the subculture of graffiti in an emotional way. I think we’ve seen it portrayed as a backdrop or tool for character development, but it’s rarely ever explored in a way where you understand the nuances of the world. At the same time, it’s more so than a movie about graffiti; it’s a movie about the family you choose versus the one you’re born into. And any opportunity to contribute to the conversation of people of color, graffiti artists specifically, and how they’re viewed as vandals rather than artists. It was also an opportunity to showcase the Bronx in a way that contradicts the negative stereotypes about what that place is. These are the things that kept me going and writing the script in an impossible amount of time and kept going when I was rejected by every financier and production company. I knew what my mission was, and the mission was much more important than just making a movie—it was representing this world that made me who I am.
Asante Blackk and Alex R. Hibbert in “Story Ave.” Courtesy Kino Lorber.
Walk me through the scriptwriting process for you.
So we had a little bit of a tumultuous but serendipitous entryway into writing this script. I initially wrote a short in 2017, and it didn’t get into any of the A-tier festivals, but it got into a lot of regionals. My objective at the time was to make it a play. I was talking to Lin Manuel-Miranda’s people about doing a derivative of the short, which is just the robbery and the diner scene. I thought it could live in a really unique way on stage. Then Sundance reached out to me and was like, ‘We saw this short; we think it’s great.’ They were talking to me about the Sundance Lab—the Holy Grail, right?—and they were like, ‘Our application process has closed, but if you can get us a draft in two weeks, we’ll consider it.’At the time I was directing Starbucks’ first campaign ever, it was a two million dollar campaign and the biggest job of my career, a six-figure paycheck. I just remember saying to my ex-girlfriend, ‘I can’t write the script in two weeks. I’m not prepared for my moment.’ I had to email them back and say, look, I’m so honored and humbled by this offer, but I can’t do it.
Understandable reaction. Two weeks is extremely fast.
To their credit, they had more belief in me and the story than I did at the time. They were like, ‘No, we’ll fast-track you to the final round, which will give you five weeks to write it. We really believe in it. But your first draft will be up against everyone’s fourth draft, so it’s a long shot. You probably won’t get in, but if you want to take the risk, here’s the code.’ And I quit the Starbucks job and started. That’s how I had to write the script in five weeks.
Luis Guzmán in “Story Ave.” Courtesy Kino Lorber.
Let’s talk about getting your script in front of your future cast…
I couldn’t make the movie without Luis Guzman. He was my first point of attack. My reps at WME and Lighthouse could not get in touch with Guzman. His reps were like, ‘He’s not doing Indies right now. He’s not looking for this kind of role.’ No hyperbole; it was eighteen months of just waiting for a yes or no. Then, I was DJ’ing for this big promoter, Ruben Rivera, in New York City, who’s also an actor, and one day, I saw him and Guzman curtsied at the Knicks game. I DM him, and I’m like, ‘Dude, I’ve been trying to get in touch with this guy for eighteen months. I hate to ask, but I just need him to read this script.’ And forty-eight hours later, literally, I was on FaceTime with Guzman, and he was crying.
Oh my god.
He was like, ‘I have to do this movie.’Sometimes rejection is rejection, and sometimes rejection is just a test to see how badly you really want it. If I just listened to my reps, it would be another actor in that role, and it would be a different movie, and it wouldn’t be the movie I set out to make. So, my stubbornness played in my favor. [Laughs]
Asante Blackk and Luis Guzmán in “Story Ave.” Courtesy Kino Lorber.
He is one of those guys that truly everyone loves.
Every time we’re in a screening together, as soon as he gets on the screen, everyone laughs. Everything he does, people laugh. And I’m always texting him like, ‘I hate you. You’ve ruined my movie.’ [Laughs]. There’s just a sense of familiarity you get with him, especially who this movie is made for. We grew up with Luis Guzmán; he’s almost like a distant uncle. There’s a certain level of comfort he brings not only to the protagonist, Kadir, but to the audience. What he brings to the film is invaluable.
Tell me about the production process.
The hardest thing I’ve ever done. By far. We’re an indie. We’re the little engine that could. We shot in twenty days, with two days of pickups months later. It’s just a grind, man. There are about six or seven scenes in the diner where Luis and Kadir build a rapport with each other. That was thirteen pages of dialogue, and we did all of it in one night. We averaged anywhere between seven to nine pages a day. I’m so grateful for my actors because we just didn’t have the time to explore and discover, so if they weren’t as phenomenal as they are, I don’t know how I ever could have done this film. The reality of the shooting schedule is you have twenty minutes to get the scene, and if you don’t get it, there’s no scene.
And you shot in New York, obviously.
We did, primarily in the Bronx, a little bit in Manhattan in Queens. I hope this movie can showcase the most beautiful and diverse textures that are in the Bronx. They were really welcoming of us, we made sure catering was done from local restaurants, and we tried to get as many background actors from the community as possible. They embraced us, and we embraced them, and it was a really cool experience. I’m honored I get to represent this community and these people. And the biggest validation I’ve gotten so far is from real people from my community who don’t get to see themselves depicted this way. Saying, ‘I’ve never felt so seen. I’ve never felt so safe to be vulnerable in a room full of people.’ It’s just like the highest honor you can receive.
Cassandra Freeman in “Story Ave.” Courtesy Kino Lorber.
Any particular moments during production that stand out to you looking back?
I’d say filming the diner scene, getting thirteen and a half pages shot in one overnight. Even though we’re shooting the scenes back to back, you’re seeing them at different points in the story where the characters are at a different emotional place, so the blocking and grammar have to match that emotional point in the story. And there are only so many ways to shoot two people talking to each other. And doing that for fourteen hours straight is a really tall ask. And then the location—above the diner, there was a pool hall, and when we went to scout it, it was during the day, and it wasn’t opened. Then, when we went to shoot it, they were playing music at concert levels. Thank god that Luis Guzman, the national treasure he is, was able to go up there and talk to them. But you know, every hour, they’d put the music back on. Whether I realized it or not in the moment, all those elements are true to New York City. I think it added to the performance because all the frustrations are the frustrations you feel at that moment. Maybe I’ll do another movie and be on a soundstage, and I’ll have a PA blast some music to annoy us. [Laughs].
Featured image: Luis Guzmán and Asante Black in “Story Ave.” Courtesy Kino Lorber.
Fair Play, writer/director Chloe Domont‘s feature debut, is somehow both an old-school erotic thriller and a shrewd, scalpel-sharp dissection of how far we have and have not come with gender equality in the workplace and in the headspace of men, even those who consider themselves allies.
The film is largely set at the hedge fund One Crest Capitol, where Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) and Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) are low-level but promising analysts trying to take the next step in their careers. The vibes at One Crest Capitol are deeply dog-eat-dog, with the only trappings of a more enlightened age evidenced by a policy against intra-office romance. This is why Emily and Luke keep their engagement a secret, and all seems to be going to plan until one of the firm’s PMs (portfolio manager) is unceremoniously fired—he takes his rage out on a couple of computer monitors—and a promotion for Luke to fill the role seems nigh.
Only it’s the smarter, savvier Emily who gets the gig, turning the erotics depicted between the couple in the film’s early going into the thriller Fair Play becomes. While Luke plays at being both supportive and excited about Emily’s promotion, things between them go from tense to terrifying.
Domont explains how she crafted one of the finest erotic thrillers in years by setting out not to make a female revenge fantasy but rather an exploration of that most exquisitely fragile of constructs—the male ego.
Can you tell me about researching the hedge fund world?
I had a bunch of friends in that world, and they put me in touch with some hedge fund guys, and basically, it started with me taking them out for drinks and getting some of them drunk and asking basic questions, like, take me through your day from the moment you get up to the moment you go to bed. Even the mundane stuff.I wanted a full picture of what the day-to-day is like. Then, I asked about tensions and dynamics between an analyst and a PM. What are the most frustrating moments you’ve experienced with your superior? How do you treat someone who’s beneath you? Once I had a good grasp on it, I took a pass on writing a draft, then I shared it with them and got some notes on authenticity.
The finance jargon feels authentic, as does the poisoned relationships between all the men at One Crest Captial.
Actually, I felt like the finance jargon was the easy part; the harder part was, ‘Do I have a story that people will care about watching?’ [Laughs]. The harder part was crafting the drama and how the conflict would escalate and create this ballooning tension that you don’t know when it’s going to pop, but once it does, it turns into a dogfight. By far, the most challenging part of writing it was figuring out the pace, the tone, and the rhythm.
Fair Play, behind the scenes L to R: Rich Sommer as Paul, Chloe Domont, writer and director and Phoebe Dynevor as Emily. Cr. Slobodan Pikula / Courtesy of Netflix
Was the pacing pretty well baked into the script, or did you find it while in the production and editing process?
Everything was pretty much there in the script. I even put camera directions in the script. I really worked on trying to fully realize every element of filmmaking before we went into shooting because I thought, this is my one shot, you know? Working in television was an amazing boot camp experience for me leading up to my first feature; you always have to cut shots, and you have to know what you have to protect at all costs and what you’re willing to sacrifice. But also, when you get on set, I think the most exciting thing about filmmaking is that you can rehearse it in a certain way and know exactly where your camera is going to be, but then the magic of filmmaking is something unexpected always comes up.
Your script is so tight that I’m sure there are lots of actors who could have done it justice, but I’m curious what you think about why they seemed so perfectly tailored to Alden Ehrenreich and Phoebe Dynevor.
Individually, they’re each such strong, versatile actors that I think they can do anything, but when you put two people together, the stars have to align. Their chemistry was just instant. The film really lives and dies off their chemistry. I remember early on, we’d rehearsed, and it felt electric in many ways, but until you get to shooting, you’re a little bit nervous if that chemistry is going to come through on camera. But I remember we shot the bathroom scene where they’re recently engaged, and they’re slow dancing, and the way they look at each other, it was just so magnetic. I knew at that moment that I had a movie.
Fair Play. (L to R) Alden Ehrenreich as Luke and Phoebe Dynevor as Emily in Fair Play. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix
There are such subtle moments where Luke is trying to do right by Emily and applaud her promotion, but there’s this simmering resentment that we can feel growing inside him. How did you shape those?
What I tried to do with the character and what Alden brought to Luke is he represents a certain generation of men who are caught in the middle between wanting to adhere to a modern feminist society but still having been raised on traditional ideas of masculinity. That doesn’t make him a bad guy at all. He adores Emily because she’s ambitious. He adores her because she’s talented, because she’s a killer; that’s why he’s attracted to her. But at the same time, on some level, you know he was raised under more traditional ideas of gender roles. It’s that conflict that he starts to internalize and doesn’t know how to deal with, and that’s something I wanted to show—how problematic it becomes when someone doesn’t know how to deal with something. But, again, he genuinely is happy for her, but he’s hurt because he thought [the promotion] was his. He has this idea of who he’s supposed to be, the kind of man he’s supposed to become. This sudden flip throws him for a loop in a way he’s not prepared for. I think it’s tough for anyone to think you’re up for a job and your partner gets it, but then, what I’m exploring here are some of these ingrained power dynamics that I think we still haven’t quite figured out yet.
Fair Play. (center) Phoebe Dynevor as Emily and (center right) Alden Ehrenreich as Luke in Fair Play. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix
Your film is set in the aftermath of #MeToo in one of the most male-dominated, nakedly zero-sum capitalist professions. There’s one moment, in particular, when Eddie Marsan’s character Campbell, the big boss, savages Emily in a brutally sexist way that I was hoping you could unpack.
It’s an animal kingdom, you know? It’s every man for himself. I think the #MeToo movement never hit the finance world. There’s a certain level of power and money that you can’t touch. I think people definitely treat each other with more respect, but at the same time, what I wanted to show with Eddie’s character when he finally lashes out at Emily is that this is someone who hired her because he sees her value regardless of her gender and genuinely thinks she’s the best person for the job, and in that way, he’s her champion. But,as soon as she slips, then her failure is through the lens of gender. And I think that’s a double standard that a lot of women face in every industry. Yes, there are these male champions out there that believe in you and support you, but as soon as slip, you f**ked up because you’re a woman. I wanted to show that in the most cutting way.
Fair Play. (L to R) Phoebe Dynevor as Emily, Eddie Marsan as Campbell, Rich Sommer as Paul in Fair Play. Cr. Slobodan Pikula / Courtesy of Netflix
And she absorbs it after some initial shock and keeps pressing on at Crest Capital.
That’s why I had him say it again. The look of shock on her face, like, what did you just call me? And he’s like, yeah, I can say whatever the f**k I want. You don’t like it? Leave. And that’s how it is.
[Spoilers below]
Can you explain how you set up Luke’s spectacular flameout at the office when he attempts to undermine Emily to his final, even more desperate and awful act at home?
In the scene with Campbell when she has to choose how to deal with [Luke’s treachery] and save face at that company because Luke throws her under the bus, Campbell gives her his thirty thousand view of the world, which is this— ‘It doesn’t f**king matter. It’s all about the money. Just move on from it. I don’t care who you kill, I don’t care who you f**k, just do it on your time.’ So she’s sitting on that idea that accountability doesn’t matter, and watching this new woman come in, and Emily’s on the other side of what she’s experienced, this abuse, and she knows everything this young woman is going to go through, that’s what’s in her head when she’s faced with Luke for one final confrontation.
Fair Play, behind the scenes Eddie Marsan as Campbell Cr. Sergej Radovic / Courtesy of Netflix
What did you want to bring across in that final confrontation between Emily and Luke?
For me, the ending was always about Emily reclaiming the power that Luke takes away from her. The film always had to escalate to the sexual assault scene in the bathroom because the only way for Luke to reclaim the power in the relationship at that point is through physical dominance. The only way for Emily to reclaim the power again is through physical force as well because this is a man who refuses to be held accountable. So, it had to go to these places for me because I set out to make a thriller about power dynamics on the ugliest level. Sexual assault is not about sex; it’s about power. Then, when it does occur, what’s Emily going to do about it? She tries to confront him on his inability to face who he is. He’s a man who cannot own up to his own weakness and cannot face his own failures, and it causes so much destruction. For me, the last scene is not about female revenge; it’s a scene about holding a man accountable. A man who refuses to be held accountable. The whole movie builds up to the line where Luke finally mutters the words, “I’m nothing.” Once he finally does that, once he’s finally the man who acknowledges his own inferiority, his own weakness, his own failure, that’s the resolution of the film. Ultimately, this is not a film about female empowerment; this is a film about male fragility.
Fair Play. (L to R) Alden Ehrenreich as Luke and Phoebe Dynevor as Emily in Fair Play. Cr. Sergej Radovic / Courtesy of Netflix
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When the horror maestros over at Blumhouse call you into the pool for a swim, you know you’ll be taking that dip at your own risk.
The official trailer for writer/director Bryan McGuire’s Night Swim has arrived, based on the 2014 short film by McGuire and Rod Blackhurst, and boasts a killer cast to turn their inspired short into a proper horror feature. Wyatt Russell (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Black Mirror) stars as Ray Waller, a former major league baseball player whose degenerative illness has forced him into an early retirement. Yet that doesn’t keep Ray from dreaming of a way back to the big leagues. So, Ray, his wife Eve (the always welcome and recent Oscar-nominee Kerry Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin), their teenage daughter Izzy (Amélie Hoeferle, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), and young son Elliot (Gavin Warren, Fear the Walking Dead) move into a new home. The home has a beautiful pool. What could possibly go wrong?
What Ray hopes will happen is that the pool in the backyard, so inviting, so glorious, will help him in his physical therapy and get him back out onto the field. To his defense, the pool does look pretty inviting. Unfortunately for Ray and the family, the pool is actually the liquid locus of some seriously sinister forces, the portal from which the home’s horrific pass passes through.
Night Swim boasts not only the aforementioned cast and the imprimatur of Blumhouse but also horror master James Wan as a producer. The first trailer offers a little taste of the madness to come. Swim at your own risk.
Check out the trailer below. Night Swim arrives in theaters soon:
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It goes without saying that Brian Cox would be excellent in a James Bond movie. But, considering we’re waiting for a new actor to be cast in the role, we’ll settle for Cox hosting 007: Road to a Million, a new reality series that puts real people on a James Bond-like adventure with the chance to win a £1,000,000 prize.
Yet Cox is playing a character here—he’s “The Controller,” the mastermind behind the game that sends pairs of people dashing, a la James Bond, all over the world searching for clues and testing their mental and physical acuity. The Controller decides where the pairs go, what questions they must answer, and what they must do. He watches their every move, “reveling as his often merciless and punishing plans unfold in front of him,” as Prime Video’s synopsis describes. Sounds a lot like Cox’s now iconic Succession character, Logan Roy, doesn’t it?
The new series comes from the producers behind the James Bond films, including Barbara Broccoli, so you can be sure the game is steeped in as much Bondian intrigue as possible. The challenges, the locations, Cox’s all-seeing Controller, and the quality of the production will all feel as 007 as possible. And the tension will build with each question as the amount of money to be won or lost rises every step of the way.
007: Road to a Million will take the competitors and viewers on a world tour, from the Scottish Highlands to a remote Chilean desert, from the twisting alleyways and canals of Venice to the beautiful Caribbean coastline of Jamaica. Nine pairs of people will do their level best to channel James Bond as they puzzle their way across the globe, with none other than Brian Cox watching their every move.
Check out the teaser below. 007: Road to Million streams on Prime Video on November 10:
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With the writer’s strike officially over and negotiations to end the actor’s strike in full swing, hopes are high that things are returning to normal in the entertainment industry. And nothing can make things feel back on track like a fresh season of Saturday Night Live beginning in the fall. This makes the news that SNL has lined up beloved former cast member Pete Davidson as host for the season 49 premiere feel extra promising. Who better to invite us back into hoodie season than Pete Davidson?
SNL will return on October 14 with Davidson and musical guest Ice Spice. One unusual aspect of season 49 is that the entire cast is returning, a rarity for a show that often sees at least one or two cast members head off to work on TV or film projects. Davidson was set to host last season, but then the strikes started and scuttled those plans. SAG-AFTRA has released a statement that clarified that any performer who appears on SNL is not crossing the picket line, which means that the legendary sketch show will be able to go full steam ahead for the season.
The returning cast are Michael Che, Mikey Day, Andrew Dismukes, Chloe Fineman, Heidi Gardner, Punkie Johnson, Colin Jost, Ego Nwodim, Kenan Thompson, and Bowen Yang. James Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman have been promoted from featured player status, and Chloe Troast has been added as a featured player.
By the time Davidson, Ice Spice, and the SNL gang deliver their premiere episode, the actor’s strike negotiations will have been well underway, so who knows, maybe they’ll be over by the time Bad Bunny takes the stage at 8H to host the second episode of the season. It’s fall, the temps are set to drop, the cozy vibes will begin in earnest, and SNL will be back in full swing. In an otherwise topsy-turvy world, this is as comforting as it gets.
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There is no director alive better at depicting the dual nature of a certain type of man, one who makes the sign of the cross with one hand while holding a pistol with the other, than Martin Scorsese. With Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese has turned his attention to the tortured souls of two men in particular, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro). The film, adapted from David Grann’s sensational 2017 book of the same name, is centered on a series of grisly murders of Osage Nation members in Oklahoma at the turn of the 20th century. The Osage had become rich thanks to the discovery of oil on their land, and this made them targets for men like Hale and Burkhart, the former manipulating the latter into helping him pry the money from the Osage through marriage or, if need be, through murder.
“William King Hale is an extraordinary character,” Scorsese says at the top of a new video devoted to De Niro’s character. “He was respectful on the one hand and a murderous thug on the other.” The video follows previous installments looking at DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart and Lily Gladstone’s Mollie Kyle, the Osage woman Ernest falls in love with and marries. This union between Ernest and Mollie is precisely the kind of soft power that Hale advocates for, a bloodless way to take the Osage’s money. “We mix these families together, and that estate money flows in the right direction,” Hale says in a previous trailer. “It’ll come to us.”
“William Hale wanted to take control of Osage wealth and territory at all costs,” DiCaprio says in the new video. “[He was] exploiting and manipulating them.”
“And if necessary, do away with them,” Scorsese adds. “Almost as if it was for their own good.”
In his long, illustrious career, Scorsese has taken a hard look at men like Hale, who believe in their hearts they are owed something, who believe their own spin that they are God-fearing and good men who occasionally have to do awful things for the greater good. And Scorsese has exposed men like Ernest Burkhart, who allow themselves to be manipulated, often against their own interests, to do the bidding of men like Hale. In Killers of the Flower Moon, Scorsese and his co-writer Eric Roth made sure to focus not only on these two white men but on the Osage people themselves. The film is a crime saga, a tragedy, and a historical epic all in one. It’s the story of America.
Check out the character video below. Killers of the Flower Moon arrives in theaters on October 20:
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Joker: Folie à Deux co-writer and director Todd Phillips has taken to Instagram to share a new photo from the upcoming sequel and to take a moment to reflect on the fact that it was four years ago when Joaquin Phoenix and Phillips unleashed their twisted character study of the iconic supervillain of them on all the screen. The original Joker arrived on the big screen on October 4, 2019, immediately announcing itself as something entirely different in the world of movies derived from the comic book universe. It was the first live-action theatrical film within the Batman umbrella to receive an R-rating, for starters, and had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it took home the top prize, the Golden Lion. From there, it went on to conquer not only the box office but become a centerpiece of conversation within the film world and the broader culture. Joker was a film you couldn’t ignore, and Phoenix’s performance was unlike anything we’d seen in a superhero movie, or in this case, a supervillain movie. He went on to win an Oscar for Best Actor.
The new image from the sequel finds Phoenix’s deeply unstable Arthur Fleck enjoying a rain shower. He’s surrounded by a colorful assortment of umbrellas (and the faceless, broad-shouldered men carrying them) but goes without, his face turned to the heavens and bearing a look of inner peace. The last time we left Arthur at the end of Joker, he’d just (extremely belated spoiler alert) gone on a killing spree in Gotham and, in the process, became a folk hero to the downtrodden, poverty-stricken, and deeply pissed-off denizens of the crime-ridden metropolis. Having taken on the alter ego of the Joker, Arthur appeared on Murray Franklin’s (Robert De Niro) TV show and shot the man dead on live TV. Gotham exploded in an orgy of violence, which included the murders of two of its most prominent citizens, Thomas (Brett Cullen) and Martha Wayne (Carrie Louise Putrello). You might have heard they have had a son. The film ends with Arthur locked up in a mental asylum, and there’s an insinuation there that he kills the psychiatrist working with him—it’s not shown, but he has bloody footprints as he leaves a session with her, and we see him being chased shortly thereafter.
How Phillips and his co-writer Scott Silver advance the story from here is anybody’s guess. We know some key things about Folie à Deux; the main one, of course, is the arrival of Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. We also know that the title Folie à Deux refers to a medical term for two or more people suffering from the same or similar mental disorder; presumably, this would be Arthur and Harley. We also know the film has been teased as a musical and includes the return of Zazie Beetz as Sophie Dumond and the arrival of powerhouse performers like Brendan Gleeson and Catherine Keener. After that, however, is pure speculation. Phillips has been keeping us updated with the occasional photo, but the script will be kept in Arkham Asylum for the foreseeable future—Joker: Folie à Deux isn’t due in theaters until October 4, 2024.
Featured image: Caption: JOAQUIN PHOENIX as Arthur Fleck in Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures and BRON Creative’s “JOKER,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Niko Tavernise
For Ahsoka cinematographer Eric Steelberg, lensing the latest live-action Star Wars series was a dream come true. Growing up in thrall to George Lucas’s original trilogy, Steelberg would find himself on set while filming the new series, surrounded by massive spaceships both practical and virtual (the latter thanks to Industrial Light & Magic’s LED immersive soundstage the Volume), astonished by his own job.
“You’re sitting there trying to figure this out and tell the story because it is a job, but then what you’re watching takes you aback. Like, I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Steelberg says.
The new series, the first live-action Star Wars show to spring from one of the franchise’s animated series (Star Wars: Rebels), follows its titular heroine, the rebel Jedi Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), and the return of a terrifically powerful adversary (Grand Admiral Thrawn, played by Lars Mikkelsen, who also voiced him in Rebels) in the aftermath of the fall of the Galactic Empire. Ahsoka’s allies are chiefly her former padawan Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), her trusty droid Huyang (voiced by David Tennant), and General Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Along with Thrawn, her chief antagonists are the formidable Baylan Skoll (the late Ray Stevenson), his protege Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno), and an assortment of bad guys, from droids to assassins, all working in concert to aid the return of Thrawn. Oh, and then there’s the thrilling arrival of Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen, reprising his role), who featured prominently in episode 5, “Shadow Warrior,” as he and Ahsoka tangled and tumbled through their past together in a deeply satisfying trip down memory lane.
We spoke to Steelberg about fulfilling a lifelong dream, from lightsaber duels to speeder bikes and all manner of Star Wars-styled action in between.
As a Star Wars fan, which I imagine so many of the folks working on Ahsoka are, what was it like taking on the responsibility of stepping into arguably the most storied franchise of them all?
It’s a lot of responsibility to take on. What if my fandom doesn’t translate through my work? At the same time, that amount of excitement and fear turns into healthy creative fuel.
Ahsoka has narrative overlap with The Mandalorian, but it’s a grander, more expansive story. Can you talk about the look and feel of the series?
The Mandalorian set the bar very high from what’s to be expected from a TV version of Star Wars. Your barrier for entry is already higher than I’ve ever experienced. And you’ve got the expectations of fans from the movies. I understand wanting the same level of quality. If we’re doing live-action, we’re doing live-action, and I don’t care what the budget is. All that matters is the final result. So people want those big, sprawling epic stories. They want high production value. They want a certain look. So that’s how I went into the project; we’ve all got the expectations of movie-level quality visuals, the technical expectations that were established in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi. So how do we achieve that but make it feel different?
I started with Dave Filoni in prep about how we expand upon those expectations technically and creatively. We referenced the movies—both the originals and the more recent ones—and then it was a lot of references to Akira Kurosawa movies, which was a well-documented influence on both George Lucas and Dave. There are tonal things, letting things play out in wide shots that give it a sense of scale. That was our jumping-off point. Then, it was working with our art departments on what we could create that would show on screen in the best way possible. And this is a different story, based on the Star Wars: Rebels animated series. There are influences, even shots, taken from that. And then, for me, it’s also about how you capture that feeling of this being Star Wars?
How would you describe a shot that feels like Star Wars?
Honestly, it comes down to a kind of gut feeling because some of its editing, some of its production design, some of its framing, and some of its lighting. Also, Star Wars is always widescreen, right? And what kind of screen? It’s always anamorphic. So that’s the most basic version, the visual starting point. From there, looking at the cinematography, for me, it’s the original three movies. That’s what I grew up on. That’s what I fell in love with. I’m always thinking of parallel moments in the original movies we can reference. At the same time, those movies were made in the late 70s and early 80s, so how do you keep that very polished, formal lighting style with the expectations of a modern audience that wants energy and pace? So that was just taken on a scene-by-scene, episode-by-episode process. But overall, it’s very composed, more classically lit, there’s no handheld camera work, everything is very deliberate. Everything is very planned and very designed.
Dipping into your episodes that have aired, can you pull out a sequence or moment that stood out for you?
The things that are classic Star Wars are the things that really got me. Sabine on a speeder bike going down the highway. That was amazing to try and give that an energy and realism I felt like we hadn’t seen before. And then the lightsaber fights, like the end sequence between Shin [Ivanna Sakhno] and Sabine—I was like, Oh my God, I’m shooting a lightsaber fight. This is amazing, and I can’t screw this up.
Even though this is the career you’ve chosen and worked hard at for years, it must still be surreal to go from being a fan of Star Wars to filming a lightsaber duel.
Just being in the cockpit of a spaceship, you know? Having those Star Wars conversations about rebels and shooting in the hangar bay and having these Star Wars ships around, which we did in the Volume in our virtual environment. It’s incredible. It doesn’t get old. You’re sitting there trying to figure this out and tell the story because it is a job, but then what you’re watching takes you aback. Like, I can’t believe we’re doing this; we’re adults playing with lightsabers, but being very earnest and serious about the best way to do it. It’s really hard, and it’s really fun. And there’s a tremendous amount of pride you get from doing something you have such an affinity for.
Ahsoka also benefits from having great villains—it’s very easy to root for Ahsoka, Sabine, Hera, and the droid Huyang [David Tennant]—but then you’ve got these great antagonists in the late Ray Stevenson as Baylan Skoll and Ivanna Sakhno as Shin.
We do. The casting is phenomenal. All the actors are not only perfect in the roles, but all good people, fun to be around, and love their characters. In Star Wars, the villains are sometimes more fun than the protagonists. Ray was fantastic. Phenomenal. Nobody else could do that role. One of my favorite things about my job is I love working with actors. I love watching actors really get into their characters. Ray would be like, ‘How was it?’ And you’d say, great! And you’d hesitate and say, ‘You know, we just missed this one look,’ but you don’t really want to say anything because they did such a good job. And you think maybe you can just work around it, but Ray would say, ‘What do you guys need?’ We’d show him, and he’d just nail it.
There’s a begrudging respect between Baylan and Ahsoka, which reads almost like an intimacy that, so far, has made this a fun series.
I was really proud of episode four. It was really very challenging. Over half of the episode is lightsaber fights, and how do you keep that interesting? But we did. I remember in prep, I read the three or four scripts that were ready, and I remember thinking, ‘My God, how are we going to do this?’ It’s so complex, and what was being asked visually was off the charts for me. You might as well have said let’s actually shoot in space; it was so different from anything I’d ever done, too. I’d done some second unit in The Mandalorian season two, but I’d never done anything like this. But for everyone involved, the fact that it was Dave Filoni asking for it, it might as well have been George Lucas. It’s Dave’s creation, and he’s such a smart, talented, nice person that you want to give him everything he wants as a director. He’s so likable, he’s such a nice guy, you just have this desire to make him happy. Everybody was like, we have to figure this out.
It must help that everybody involved is such a huge Star Wars fan.
It’s funny, my crew and everybody else [on set] acts very professional while we’re working, and then you find out when you’re done that you’ve got these big Star Wars geeks with you. They’re like, “I didn’t want to say anything, but I was really needing out when we did this or that.” These are ultra huge fans, but if you weren’t a huge fan, you’d never make it through this because it’s the hardest work I’ve ever done. The level of passion and skill that you get from people is mind-blowing. It’s not even like playing with the All-Star team; it’s like being on the Olympic team.
Ahsoka is streaming on Disney+
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“I feel immense responsibility playing Mollie Burkhart,” Lily Gladstone says at the top of a new Killers of the Flower Moon video. After dropping a look at Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Ernest Burkhart yesterday, Paramount has now delivered this closer look at Gladstone’s role. When Martin Scorsese’s latest had its rapturous premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Gladstone was showered with both praise and a standing ovation for her work. Sure, DiCaprio and Robert De Niro will always get top billing in any film they’re in, but Scorsese and his co-writer Eric Roth reworked the material to make sure the movie was centered on Gladstone and the Osage Nation. Her Mollie ends up falling in love with Ernest Burkhart and marrying him, a fateful romance that will have implications for the Osage Nation and, eventually, the country at large.
“Oil wealth brought a lot of undesired attention to Osage Country,” Gladstone continues, giving us the frame of Scorsese’s film. Based on David Grann’s best-selling 2017 book of the same name, Killers of the Flower Moon takes a hard look at what happened to the Osage Nation after oil was discovered on their land in Oklahoma. In short order, white people began moving in and making moves, all in the hopes of chiseling the Osage’s wealth right out from under them. A series of brutal murders of Osage Nation people ultimately brought the attention of a Texas Ranger and the US Government, but Scorsese and his co-writer Eric Roth reframed the story to focus on Ernest and Mollie’s relationship, as well as the dark deeds of Ernest’s uncle, William Hale (De Niro), who steered his nephew towards taking what was rightfully Mollie’s and the Osage Nation’s.
“Mollie is really the heroine in a lot of ways,” Di Caprio adds. “Mollie embodies the pain of the Osage people.”
“It’s a powerful film, and I’m honored to stand with the Osage Nation and the descendants of those who perished,” Gladstone says.
Check out the look at Lily Gladstone’s character, Mollie, below. Killers of the Flower Moon arrives in theaters on October 20:
For more on Killers of the Flower Moon, check out these stories:
The God of Mischief is back in just a few days, as Tom Hiddleston returns to the role that made him a star when Loki season two premieres on Disney+. Thor’s mischievous, occasionally villainous, and increasingly heroic brother had a wild ride in season one, handed over to the Time Variance Authority for his many crimes, specifically messing about with the multiverse, in what was supposed to be the start of his punishment. We all know Loki likes to avoid consequences, yet the adventures he got into in season one and the new friends (and romantic interests) he met began to change the usually oh-so-corruptible demi-God.
“The best thing about this job is the set is always alive, and everyone is a part of it,” says Loki co–star Sophia Di Martino in a new extended look at season two. Di Martino plays Sylvie, one of Loki’s alter egos, his romantic interest, and a rising star in the MCU in her own right.
“Tom is really great,” says co-star Wunmi Mosaku, who plays the Time Variance Authority’s no-nonsense Hunter B-15, one of Loki’s main antagonists in season one whose own tragic backstory made her a more sympathetic figure by the season’s conclusion. “He’s always honest and hilarious.”
Another big star returning for more action within the slippery, atemporal world of the multiverse is Owen Wilson. Wilson plays Mobius, another member of the Time Variance Authority, yet one who, like Loki himself, tended to play by his own rules. Mobius became an unlikely ally of Loki and was crucial to helping him and the rest of the TVA locate the real threat to the multiverse.
“Owen Wilson elevates the whole series,” Hiddleston says. “He’s so intelligent and witty.” These words cut to a moment of Wilson, mid-scene, wondering if he has to play the entire sequence with his hands on his hips. “Where did this come from?” Wilson asks, semi-innocently, semi-pointedly, in regard to his hilarious posture in the scene.
One major newcomer to the cast is recent Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan. “The entire experience of shooting this is going to stay with me for many, many years,” says Quan.
“It’s a really special group of people,” Di Martino adds. “Like an extended family.”
Check out the extended look at season two below. Loki returns to Disney+ on October 5:
In telling thetrue story of the 2021 Wall Street GameStop meltdown, Dumb Money (in theaters now) needed to transport audiences straight back to their Pandemic-era head spaces when grassroots investors led by Keith “Roaring Kitty” Gill (Paul Dano) defied hedge fund managers to boost the stock value of a previously obscure company. Intent on setting a period-perfect tone, director Craig Gillespie asked music supervisor Susan Jacobs to wrangle hip-hop tracks redolent of the COVID era.
Jacobs, who previously teamed with Gillespie on I, Tonya and Cruella, came out of music management in the nineties and got off to a fast start, working with Robert Altman on Short Cuts. More recently, she’s become one of Hollywood’s most prolific song-pickers for edgy projects like Promising Young Woman, American Hustle, and Big Little Lies, for which she earned an Emmy award.
Speaking from her New York City home, Jacobs explains how she intermingled expensive hip-hop bangers from Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, and Kendrick Lamar with tracks by unknown artists. “The way Craig uses music, you really have to have quality,” she says, “You can’t be like, ‘Oh, here’s a library track.’ The production has to be just as good as something by Cardi B.”
With literally millions of contemporary songs to pick from, how did you pare down your choices for Dumb Money music cues?
Some of it came right out of the script because the writers Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo were like, “We want to bring people back to Covid when GameStop was goin’ down.” So we earmarked this particular time by using Megan thee Stallion and Cardi B [tracks] and also Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble.” These songs put people right where they were during the Pandemic.
It’s funny how popular songs can instantly take you back to a specific time and place.
Yeah. Megan, Cardi B, and Kendrick were the cornerstones of letting us know where we are. That opening track, “WAP” by Cardi B, was such a huge song during Covid. And the scene where the guy’s doing Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage” dance — that was huge. And then Kendrick Lamar — lyrically, the thing about being “humble” really gives us the emotion of that time.
Powerful tracks…
But the thing that was challenging is that hip hop is ridiculously unaffordable because there tend to be a ton of people involved with samples and all that stuff. Hip-hop tracks go for a really high price.
So once you’ve spent big money to license these cornerstone tracks, where do you go from there?
Our strategy was to fill it with music nobody had ever heard before.
How did you do that?
We had demos or beats and grooves, and it was like, “Let’s go turn this into something.” I went to producers I love and said, “What have you got? Who’s young? I don’t have [much] money, but I have a great movie.” This really fun track, “Stack It,” which plays when Pete Davidson’s driving and the French fries are flying all over — was made in 2019 by this girl [Kay Ro$e] who’s going to law school now.
Which producers did you reach out to?
Mark Batson. He’s won Grammys, he’s worked with Drake, co-wrote with Alicia [Keys], and he loves mentoring young artists, which is why I sent him the movie. Mark watched it and said, “I’m in.” All the artists he brought in are people nobody’s ever heard of before. He made that dance track “You Make Me Wanna Purr” with a young woman who’s never even sung before!
The songs contribute so much to the flow of the story, tying together all these different characters and subplots.
Definitely, I also want to mention this young composer, Will Bates. A lot of big [composer] names were being thrown around, but Craig let me use Will, and I thought he did a great job weaving in [score] between the songs. It’s got a groove, it’s got a hook, and you don’t feel like this is the score and these are the songs. It’s all this super-cool beat-driven thing but with heart. And heart is the most important thing for Craig. I worked with him a couple of times before on I, Tonya and Cruella, but I never got Craig out of the seventies. With Dumb Money, I don’t think any of this music would be on Craig’s Apple playlist, so it was fun to bring him along on this journey.
Whether it’s the score or individual songs, hip-hop somehow seems to be a good fit for everything from billionaire pool parties to college dorms. How is it that you’ve got hedge fund managers like Seth Rogen’s character listening to rap?
Well, Seth Rogen needs to be cool. It’s the world of finance so he’s having parties, he’s having deejays, they’re going to be playing things that are current and edgy.
Vincent D’Onofrio is so formidable as Wall Street mogul Steven Cohen. Did you have a signature sound for his scenes?
We didn’t really go into character as much as the environment in this movie. Paul Dano’s the only character who had thematic material — this little piano motif — but most of it is grungy and hard, like when the [billionaire] guys are playing tennis, and the music’s going “bum bum BOOM, bum bum BOOM.” Will made the music sound like elephants: “We’re going to STOMP. ALL. OVER. YOU.”
Vincent D’Onofrio stars as Steve Cohen in DUMB MONEY. Photo by Claire Folger. Courtesy Sony Pictures.
Another subplot follows college girl investors in Texas.
Everything to do with college was more indie R and B and lighter hip hop. We saved edgier stuff for things like [start-up brokerage firm] Robin Hood. Mark wrote this song called “Litt,” and Craig’s like, “I need it dirtier!” So Mark made it pretty dirty. It’s only 40 seconds in the movie, but then he had to finish it for the soundtrack album, and I told him, “Don’t play that for your momma!”
On a tangent for a moment, this year alone, you music-supervised the Jennifer Lawrence comedy No Hard Feelings, M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin, and five TV series in addition to Dumb Money. You must have a team?
I don’t really have a team. I have one person, Jackie Mulhearn, who’s been with me for 15 years, and I have an intern coordinator person, but I’m such a control freak, I can’t farm anything out. I need to hear it. People can give me playlists to weed from, but nothing gets to the director until I listen. Most supervisors do have teams, and they’re financially doing a whole lot better than me, but that doesn’t matter. I’m like an artisan bread maker. I’m still going to bake my loaf, put my yeast in, and do it the old-fashioned way.
Clearly, your “old-fashioned way” resulted in a very sympatico soundtrack for Dumb Money. I imagine you went back and forth with Craig on both the score and the song choices?
Well, yes, because it’s a collaborative sport, and he trusts me. I told Craig, “We can’t go out to the normal five [A-list composers]. We need to bring on a young composer, and this is who you should go with because so we can balance score with songs.” I love the fact that Craig will say, “Let’s go!” That’s the beauty of working with somebody for a number of years.
Of course, it helps you that you possess a real knack for matching music to film.
Well, I have to look at everything as a whole. I don’t think of songs and scores [as separate elements]. To me, it’s all one picture, and whatever the film needs, it tells me. I might have ideas about what to put in, and I can tell you the film will kick them out really fast. It’ll say, “No, thank you.”
The film tells you?
It does! Some music the film absorbs. Other times, you might think it would be cool to use a brass band, but the picture just won’t take the instrumentation. I always tell directors the script is like an infant baby. Then, after you shoot it, the movie becomes an unruly teenager. This didn’t work; that didn’t work. You just have to pay attention.
“Joaquin was just so incredible,” is how Vanessa Kirby succinctly sums up working alongside Joaquin Phoenix in a new video for Ridley Scott’s eagerly anticipated epic Napoleon. Phoenix plays the titular conquerer and eventual emperor of France —his second time playing an emperor, mind you—he first ruled the world as Roman Emperor Commodus in Scott’s 2000 epic Gladiator—as Scott takes us into the dangerous world of late 18th century France. “Scenes with him just felt really authentic,” Kirby continues, “he was unbelievable about capturing the idiosyncratic, psychological portrait of this unpredictable personality.”
“I cast Joaquin because he was passionate,” Scott says. “When you’re doing a film with Joaquin, he comes alive; he’s evolving into Napoleon Bonaparte.”
“It’s really amazing to watch him touch the really dark places,” Kirby adds. “I could really see him tucking into that kind of psyche.”
Napoleon will take viewers back to France in 1793 in the midst of intense, bloody turmoil as the Jacobins have seized control of the National Convention and are instituting a series of radical measures. An example must be made, and a relatively unknown Napoleon Bonaparte is given a fresh assignment to defend the nation at all costs, and in turn, his ruthlessness serves him well. We see the makings of the French general who will go on to wage some of history’s most infamous battles, using his almost supernatural strategic gifts to build what seems to be an unbeatable army. As his victories mount and his acclaim rise, the General will eventually seize the throne for himself.
Along with Phoenix and Kirby, who plays Josephine, Napoleon’s lover and future Empress, the cast includes Tahar Rahim as Paul Barras, Ben Miles as Caulaincourt, Ludivine Sagnier as Theresa Cabarrus, Matthew Needham as Lucien Bonaparte, Youssef Kerkour as Marshal Davout, Phil Cornwell as Sanson ‘The Bourreau,’ Edouard Philipponnat as Tsar Alexander, Paul Rhys as Talleyrand, John Hollingworth as Marshall Ney, Gavin Spokes as Moulins and Mark Bonnar as Jean-Andoche Junot.
“I’m the first to admit when I made a mistake,” Napoleon says at the end of the first trailer, “I simply never do.” History proved the conqueror wrong, but Scott aims to deliver a film up to the challenge of depicting a man who really did believe himself flawless until, of course, his flaws undid him.
Check out the new vignette below. Napoleon hits theaters on November 22
Here’s the official synopsis:
Napoleon is a spectacle-filled action epic that details the checkered rise and fall of the iconic French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, played by Oscar®-winner Joaquin Phoenix. Against a stunning backdrop of large-scale filmmaking orchestrated by legendary director Ridley Scott, the film captures Bonaparte’s relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his one true love, Josephine, showcasing his visionary military and political tactics against some of the most dynamic practical battle sequences ever filmed.
Featured image: Napoleon (JOAQUIN PHOENIX, center) looks onto the battlefield in Apple Original Films and Columbia Pictures theatrical release of NAPOLEON. Photo by: Aidan Monaghan
“The character of Ernest Burkhart I found absolutely fascinating,” Leonardo DiCaprio says at the top of this new video detailing his Killers of the Flower Moon role. DiCaprio has, of course, re-teamed with director Martin Scorsese for the epic crime saga in a film adapted from investigative journalist David Grann’s captivating 2017 book of the same name. Yet Scorsese and his co-writer Eric Roth refocused their version on the relationship between DiCaprio’s Burkhart and Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), a member of the Osage Nation of Oklahoma. While Burkhart’s feelings for Mollie might be genuine, he is part of a wave of white people who have descended upon the Osage after the revelation that their land sat atop vast oil reserves, making them immensely rich. Steered by his uncle William Hale (Robert De Niro), Burkhart’s relationship with Mollie, whom he eventually marries, carries the benefit of putting Ernest, and, by extension, William, on the path of riches. “We mix these families together, and that estate money flows in the right direction,” Hale says in a previous trailer. “It’ll come to us.”
While Ernest’s true feelings for Mollie grow, so, too, does his uncle’s influence as a series of brazen murders of the Osage people spread. This will eventually come to the attention of the U.S. Government, which sends Texas Ranger Tom White (Jesse Plemons) to investigate.
“Working with Leo and watching this master create this character, it’s unbelievable,” says Gladstone. The character DiCpario’s playing, however, is all too believable.
“I just love money,” Ernest says at one point in the film. “I love it as much as I love my wife.”
Check out the character chronicle video below. Killers of the Flower Moon hits theaters on October 20:
For more on Killers of the Flower Moon, check out these stories:
The first trailer for Leave The World Behind is here, a perfect marriage of material and film talent. The movie is based on Rumaan Alam’s sizzling novel, one of 2020’s must-reads, a genuinely riveting story about two families facing the prospect of complete societal collapse while sequestered together in a house in the Hamptons. Alam’s novel dropped, of course, in the middle of the pandemic, and its story about a society falling apart just outside the front door felt all too resonant. Now, Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail has adapted Alam’s novel for the screen, and he’s brought along a sensational cast and crew to help him deliver the thrills and chills that were so plentiful in the novel.
Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke are Amanda and Clay Standford, a husband and wife who rent a beautiful home in the Hamptons with their kids for a weekend of bougie relaxation. Their idyll is interrupted by two strangers—G.H. (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la)—and they come bearing bad news. There’s been a cyberattack, and they’ve arrived seeing refuge. And before the Standfords can balk at the likelihood of any of this being real, G.H. reveals that he actually owns the house, so yeah, they’re staying. The tension between these two families and the growing horror of what’s happening out in the world is what drives Leave The World Behind towards its climax.
You couldn’t ask for a better cast—not for nothing, Kevin Bacon has a small but important role—and Esmail has proven himself a master of the techno-thriller. While the world may have stabilized compared to how bleak and terrifying things were when the book first came out in October 2020, we still live in uncertain times. Leave The World Behind, at the very least, reminds us that things could always be worse.
Check out the trailer below. Leave The World Behind will play in select theaters in November and then will stream on Netflix on December 8:
Here’s the official synopsis:
n this apocalyptic thriller from award-winning writer and director Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot), Amanda (Academy Award winner Julia Roberts) and her husband Clay (Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke), rent a luxurious home for the weekend with their kids, Archie (Charlie Evans) and Rose (Farrah Mackenzie). Their vacation is soon upended when two strangers — G.H. (Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la) — arrive in the night, bearing news of a mysterious cyberattack and seeking refuge in the house they claim is theirs. The two families reckon with a looming disaster that grows more terrifying by the minute, forcing everyone to come to terms with their places in a collapsing world. Based on the National Book Award-nominated novel by Rumaan Alam, LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND is produced by Esmail Corp, Red Om Films, and executive produced by Higher Ground Productions.
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Featured image: LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND (2023) Mahershela Ali as G.H., Myha’la Herrold as Ruth, Julia Roberts as Amanda and Ethan Hawke as Clay. CR: JoJo Whilden
By now, it’s understood that Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, forever linked thanks to their simultaneous premiere dates as the box office phenomenon Barbenheimer, is likely the biggest positive story of the year in cinema. With the writer’s strike officially over and the actor’s guild meeting with the studios again today to restart negotiations, one hopes we can focus on yet more positive news in the coming days and weeks. For Nolan, the news about his masterpiece just keeps getting better and better, as Oppenheimer continues to reach milestones that even he might not have dared to dream when he was creating his rich, nuanced, three-hour-long biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the father of the atomic bomb.
Oppenheimer has now made a staggering $611 million at the domestic box office, a huge haul for a movie about such a complicated figure that includes no superheroes and was based on no widely beloved intellectual property. As astonishing as the number is, it’s also what the film is doing overseas that is so impressive. Oppenheimer is now the highest-grossing film in Nolan’s career in 64 international markets, fueling it to $933 million at the worldwide box office and counting. While it might just miss reaching the billion-dollar threshold, Oppenheimer is a massive hit by every metric. A long, oft-technical, complicated movie about a historic figure many people knew little about is not supposed to be the type of movie that enchants audiences all over the globe, but such is the power of Nolan’s cinematic voice, and the incredible work of his talented cast and crew, that it’s done just that.
Producer Emma Thomas has already said that we won’t be seeing Oppenheimer on VOD or streaming until sometime in late November, meaning there’s still some theatrical runway left for the film. Nolan has long been a major supporter of the 70mm format, which, of course, can only be seen on a very big screen, so Oppenheimer continues to play at venues that can screen his film in that format, like New York City’s AMC Lincoln Square, which has its IMAX 70mm screen. If you still haven’t seen the film, or if you haven’t yet seen it in 70mm and have a theater capable near you, you’ve still got time.
On Sunday night, the one and only Beyoncé released the trailer for her concert documentary on the final stop of her world-beating global tour. The new movie, Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé, tracks the superstar’s most successful tour to date, with Bey dropping the trailer in Kansas City. The doc will arrive in theaters in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico on December 1 and will be released in additional cities around the world later.
The doc promises to give viewers an inside look at how one of the hardest-working women in music history put together her globe-trotting, historic production. “It is about Beyoncé’s intention, hard work, involvement in every aspect of the production, her creative mind and purpose to create her legacy, and master her craft,” the doc’s synopsis reads. The tour has reached some 2.7 million fans around the world, some of whom crossed borders and oceans to make it to one of the stops.
The Renaissance World Tour kicked off on May 10 in Stockholm and has gone to play in Brussels, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Sunderland, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Marseille, Barcelona, Cologne, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Warsaw, Toronto, Philadelphia, Nashville, Louisville, Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, East Rutherford, Boston, Washington D.C., Charlotte, Atlanta, Tampa, Miami, St. Louis, Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Inglewood, Vancouver, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, and Kansas City. According to Billboard, so far, the Renaissance World Tour has grossed $461.3 million, making it the highest-grossing tour of all time.
Tickets are now officially on sale. This is the first doc to capture one of Beyoncé’s tours since the Netflix film Homecoming, which was centered on her performance at the 2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival performance. Beyoncé’s last film was her 2020 Black Is King, which she wrote, produced and directed based on her music for The Lion King.
Beyoncé’s tour and her coming are playing out while another megastar, Taylor Swift, is also in the middle of her own tour and also has a concert film coming out. Swift’s The Eras Tourdocumentary comes to theaters on October 13. While Beyoncé was playing Kansas City and dropping this trailer, Swift was in New Jersey, watching the Kansas Chiefs and her new boyfriend, Travis Kelce, play the New York Jets. Swift has gone on record in the past as being a Philadelphia Eagles fan (in the song “Gold Rush,” her Eagels t-shirt makes an appearance), but that is a discussion for another time—and probably another website.
Check out the trailer below. Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé hits theaters on December 1:
Here’s the synopsis:
RENAISSANCE: A FILM BY BEYONCÉ accentuates the journey of RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR, from its inception, to the opening in Stockholm, Sweden, to the finale in Kansas City, Missouri. It is about Beyoncé’s intention, hard work, involvement in every aspect of the production, her creative mind and purpose to create her legacy, and master her craft. Received with extraordinary acclaim, Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR created a sanctuary for freedom, and shared joy, for more than 2.7 million fans.
Featured image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 05: Beyoncé accepts the Best Dance/Electronic Music Album award for “Renaissance” onstage during the 65th GRAMMY Awards at Crypto.com Arena on February 05, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
