You’ll soon be able to book your return ticket to Panem as The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes nears its mid-November premiere date. Lionsgate has teased the upcoming prequel from longtime Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence with two new teasers and now a fresh batch of images from the film. The images include a look at a young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), some 64 years before the events in the original trilogy, as well as the head gamemaker, Dr. Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis). We also get new peeks at Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), the tribute from District 12 who will fall under the mentorship of Coriolanus as she prepares for the 10th Annual Games.
Also pictured below are Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman (Jason Schwartzman), Coriolanus’s Academy classmates Clemensia Dovecote (Ashley Liao) and Sejanus Plinth (Josh Andrés Rivera), and dean of the Academy Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage).
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will be centered on the relationship between Coriolanus and Lucy. The former was an orphan in the Capitol, and now, at 18 years old, he is attempting to salvage his family’s reputation by becoming a mentor in the 10th annual Hunger Games. Being paired with Lucy will change everything for them both. Yet it’s important to note that Lucy is not simply a proto version of Katniss Everdeen, the often stoic, heroic hero of the original trilogy, played by (of course) Jennifer Lawrence. Lucy will take a different, more intellectual approach to the games than Katniss did.
Check out the new images below. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes arrives in theaters on November 17.
Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow and Viola Davis as Dr Volumnia Gaul in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Photo Credit: Murray CloseTom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow and Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Photo Credit: Murray ClosePeter Dinklage as Casca Highbottom in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Photo Credit: Murray CloseJason Schwartzman as Lucretius ‘Lucky’ Flickerman in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Photo Credit: Murray CloseHunter Schafer as Tigris Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Photo Credit: Murray CloseHonor Gillies as Barb Azure, Konstantin Taffet as Clerk Carmine and Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Photo Credit: Murray CloseRachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird. Courtesy of Lionsgate.Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow and Ashley Liao as Clemensia Dovecote. Courtesy Lionsgate.“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Courtesy of Lionsgate.Josh Andrés Rivera as Sejanus Plinth and Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Photo Credit: Courtesy of LionsgateDirector Francis Lawrence in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Photo Credit: Murray CloseTom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow and Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Photo Credit: Murray Close
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Two new teasers for the upcoming The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes have arrived, inviting us back to Panem some 64 years before the events in the original film trilogy. The new teasers reveal a citadel in its early days, preparing for the 10th Annual Hunger Games. The first teaser is an Academy Orientation Video, led by some of Panem’s most aggressively “patriotic” members. They include Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage), the dean of the Academy, Dr. Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis), the head gamemaker, and two seniors at the academy: Sejanus Plinth (Josh Andrés Rivera) and a young man named Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), who you and I both know will become the despotic ruler of Panem in the coming decades. The second video is a news broadcast led by Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman (Jason Schwartzman), reminding viewers that the annual Hunger Games, in which each district puts up two tributes to compete in the deadly competition, is meant to keep the peace in Panem.
The upcoming prequel, based on a prequel novel by the creator of the whole shebang, novelist Suzanne Collins, was directed by seasoned Hunger Games helmer Francis Lawrence. Joining the abovementioned cast is Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gracy Bair, a young woman who becomes one of District 12’s tributes. She’s ultimately paired with Coriolanus Snow as she prepares for the games. Snow, meanwhile, is driven to salvage his parent’s reputation in the Capitol, and knowing what we do about the man he becomes, there’s no question he’ll stop at nothing to achieve his aims.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes his theaters on November 17.
Check out the Academy Orientation video here:
Check out Jason Schwartzman as Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman anchoring a news update on the 10th Annual Hunger Games:
Here’s the official synopsis for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes:
“Years before he would become the tyrannical President of Panem, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (Blyth) is the last hope for his fading lineage, a once-proud family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol. With the 10th annual Hunger Games fast approaching, the young Snow is alarmed when he is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Zegler), the girl tribute from impoverished District 12. But, after Lucy Gray commands all of Panem’s attention by defiantly singing during the reaping ceremony, Snow thinks he might be able to turn the odds in their favor. Uniting their instincts for showmanship and newfound political savvy, Snow and Lucy’s race against time to survive will ultimately reveal who is a songbird and a snake.”
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Featured image: Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow and Viola Davis as Dr Volumnia Gaul in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Photo Credit: Murray Close
When writer-director Gareth Edwards finished Rogue One, he took a road trip to his girlfriend’s home in Iowa. Along the way, he noticed a Japanese factory in the middle of a cornfield and started dreaming up a new story. Seven years later, Edwards has delivered The Creator. Set in 2065, the movie pits American humans against highly evolved AI robots from “New Asia.”
Starring John David Washington, The Creator (in theaters Sept. 29) unfolds across a succession of spectacular set pieces conceived by production designer James Clyne. Drawing on his early collaborations with Steven Spielberg on A.I. and Minority Report, the Bay Area designer says he and Edwards aimed for a rich mix of influences. “Rather than trying to anticipate where we’ll be thirty or forty years from now, which is nearly impossible, we wanted to go into this sort of future-past, something Blade Runner did really well by fusing fifties noir with eighties tech noir. In our film, you might see a phone on the wall or a turntable in someone’s home. And Gareth purchased a lot of nineties Japanese electronics on eBay that were retrofitted here. Along with all the sci-fi tropes, we wanted The Creator to feel fresh and timeless.”
Speaking from Los Angeles ahead of the film’s red carpet Hollywood premiere, Clyne walked The Credits through a few examples of The Creator‘s eye-popping science fiction.
How did you guys come up with the AI cops in this movie? It’s hard to tell where the head leaves off and the helmet begins.
Gareth wanted to see negative space with all the robots so that when an AI cop turns around in profile, it’s impossible to have them in makeup or some kind of practical effect. We gave the AI cops a wide brim, almost like a visor, with a strong logo on top, and then had some heavy tech giving the robots audio-visual so they can communicate with other robots through Wi-Fi or whatever.
The suicide bomber robots that attack midway through the movie don’t resemble humans at all. They look more like oil drums fitted with robotic legs. What did you have in mind there?
We thought the oil drum look was a great way to make the robot feel dangerous, like a detonator bomb, with caution stripes. Apocalypse Now was a big influence on how we looked at design in general for this film, so we included some very simple Vietnam War-era looks.
How did you film the oil drum robot as it clomps down the bridge toward its target?
We had a stuntman in a black leotard wearing markers to track his movements. He had a pole mounted on his back with a marker showing the robot’s height because it was quite tall. The stunt man running to the bridge and walking up to Alphie — that was shot practically, and then we designed and built the robot digitally in post.
The child robot Alphie, played by Madeline Yuna Voyles, has a human face, but then it gets weird.
We wanted to retain the face so our actors could emote and be unencumbered by anything on top of their faces, but we also wanted to show that Alphie’s a hybrid of human and robot. So then it’s “Okay, if we leave the face alone, where can we take our bigger swing?” One way to do that was to leave off the back portion of the head as if you’ve left off the back of a VCR or something.
That’s the back of the head. What about that cylinder boring clean through the middle of Alphie’s skull?
From the beginning, Gareth wanted a metal ring that you could see all the way through. If you notice, there are multiple rings inside of the hole, which spin at different speeds depending on what Alphie’s feeling when she’s upset or having different emotions. It’s like the mechanical version of a thought bubble in a cartoon.
Then there’s the flying schooner, which almost summons up Viking ships from the 1200s, with the prow, the mast — what inspired this airborne vehicle?
We call it the hover boat, and it goes back to our design language throughout. We could have made it look like a flamingo or a stingray, but we wanted this to feel like an old ship that you might see off the waters of Railay Beach in Thailand, with a keel and a mast and a sail. We shot the actors on this pirate ship-looking boat that’s used to ferry tourists around and figured out all the futuristic design stuff later. It’s this almost backward way of making a movie.
The V-shaped aircraft looks ominous. How did you come up with this airborne weaponry?
It’s a flying military weapon we call the NOMAD, an acronym for North American Orbital… something. The shape itself went through probably 1,000 different sketches that Gareth and I looked at. Finally, I showed him a picture of this bird of prey from the Pink Floyd film The Wall, which has an animated sequence with this black eagle or falcon hovering in the air. Our bird of prey has a menacing, evil presence, but it’s also very graphic and simple.
Also intimidating is the gargantuan tank that rumbles across the jungle midway through the movie. What did you have in mind with the monster tank?
The tank seemed never to be big enough for Gareth until we got to this final design because he wanted something that looked like it could roll over a whole village. We both grew up on robot tech, and I loved the early cartoons that came from Japan, dubbed in English. So, we both wanted to lean into this anime and manga aesthetic as much as we could. The bright colors were part of the look, too. The Americans were so confident in their machines that they didn’t have to camouflage them. It’s like, “We’re here, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
What about the soldiers’ firearms?
Wētā [Workshop] did the main armory for the hero guns, but we still needed to populate the background guys with weapons. In order to save budget, we literally bought Nerf guns and painted them black or silver. Then, we cut them in half and extended the guns. Ken Watanabe’s character Harun holds a bazooka that I designed based on a yellow and orange Nerf bazooka. We designed a new front end to it, but in reality, Ken’s holding a Nerf gun.
The New Asia cities look amazing, surreal, and yet somewhat familiar. How did you decide on the architecture?
Lilac City is an amalgamation of Tokyo, Bangkok and Beijing. The lower levels are kind of untouched cityscape, but then, as you get higher, I pushed for buildings that would go almost horizontal. Rather than going vertical 100 stories up, our buildings [turn] at a 45-degree angle, then go across and back down to create bridges, which would probably be an impossible engineering feat today.
All this futuristic design embeds itself in a very timely story, given our society’s mixed feelings about AI. How do you see The Creator playing into that conversation?
I think The Creator is an allegory for everything being so contentious in our world today. It’s less about the fear of AI and more about somebody who may not look just like you. They may have different ideas, but they still have emotions and thoughts, and they want to take care of their families. Of course, there’s this fun design and tech and sci-fi, but the bigger idea has to do with how to get along with your fellow man, woman, or entity — whatever form that may take.
Now that the writer’s strike has officially ended, filmmakers, studio bosses, and more will be able to speak a lot more freely and enthusiastically about upcoming projects. (Negotiations to end the actor’s strike will resume on October 2.) One of those individuals who was ready to give some updates on future projects was James Gunn, the co-chief of DC Studios, who is currently in pre-production in Superman: Legacy, the first big film to be released under the new DC Universe banner he and co-chief Peter Safran have unveiled.
Gunn gave some much-wanted updates and clarifications on Threads on Wednesday to fans eager to know more about the new DCU. Some of these questions were about which actors from DC projects of the past would be keeping their roles in the new DCU.
Gunn clarified that the first project that will officially fall under the DCU banner is Creature Commandos, an animated series that will air on Max that tracks a group of military superhumans made up of a human leader, Frankenstein’s monster, the Bride of Frankenstein, a werewolf, and more.
“Nothing is canon until Creature Commandos next year — a sort of aperitif to the DCU — & then a deeper dive into the universe with Superman: Legacy after that,” Gunn answered on Threads. “It’s a very human drive to want to understand everything all the time, but I think its okay to be confused on what’s happening in the DCU since no one has seen anything from the DCU yet.”
Gunn then added an important caveat about who will be playing whom in the DCU. “And, yes, some actors will be playing characters they’ve played in other stories & some plot points might be consistent with plot points from the dozens of films, shows & animated projects that have come from DC in the past. But nothing is canon until CC and Legacy.”
One of those performers from the former DC who will be keeping their roles is Viola Davis, who will continue to play Amanda Waller, both in Creature Commandos and in her own upcoming live-action series Waller. Davis is joined in Creature Commandos by David Harbour (Frankenstein’s monster), Frank Grillo (Rick Flag Sr.), Maria Bakalova (Ilana Rostovic), Alan Tudyk (Doctor Phosphorus), Zoe Chao (Nina Mazursky), and more.
A Blue Beetlefan wanted to know if the film, which starred Xolo Maridueña as a recent college grad who comes into contact with an alien scarab and becomes the titular superhero, would be a part of Gunn’s DCU. “Xolo Maridueña will continue playing Blue Beetle in the DCU, as Viola Davis will Amanda Waller, and John Cena will Peacemaker,” Gunn replied.
So, there’s a bit of clarity on how the DCU is shaping up in the near term. We still have one more project from the pre-Gunn and Safran era of DC Studios coming our way, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which premieres on December 20.
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Featured image: HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – AUGUST 15: James Gunn, Co-Chairman & CEO, DC Studios, attends the Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Studios “Blue Beetle” Los Angeles Special Screening at TCL Chinese Theatre on August 15, 2023 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Warner Bros and DC Films)
Donyale Luna was a whimsical invention. Born Peggy Ann Freeman in Detroit, she molded herself into a star. Luna conceived of and then captured remote dreams of glamour, fame, and adventure in the fashion industry. A tragically forgotten figure, the new documentary Donyale Luna: Supermodel – from director Nailah Jefferson – is a much-needed exploration into the making of an icon.
Composer Kelly Mac absorbs and reflects the complexity of Luna’s life through the film’s score. Luna embodied conflicting ideals that only made her more mysterious. As the first Black model to land on the cover of both Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue, Luna’s impact was profound, yet her essence was ethereal. Her accent was undefined, and her race unspoken.
“We wanted to capture her spirit in a few different themes. We started with these piano sketches,” Mac explained. “The piano just felt right for her because, ultimately, she’s an innocent girl. She’s just a small-town girl from Detroit. She ends up living this kind of grand and fabulous life. We just wanted to stay true to her, but at the same time, my team and I come from this world of pop record production, and we work with a lot of synth sounds and drum samples and things like that.”
The film is segmented by periods of Luna’s life defined by the cities she was primarily living in. From Detroit, she moved to New York, then on to London, Paris, and Rome. Each city is channeled through Mac’s music.
Courtesy of Kelly Mac.
“She is definitely running away to these different cities and different locations a lot. That presented this fun challenge for us,” Mac noted. “When she first moves to New York City, it’s this departure from everything else that we had seen in the film. We had these traditional piano and synth scores in the background. When we get to New York, we tried to incorporate that, but it didn’t quite fit. It felt like the music was too pretty or too light for all these scenes of New York. We see these montages of gritty New York in the 60s. We were trying to figure out a way to get the tone right. We ended up trying a few different things and landed on using the rhythm section for the first time. So, we get drums and bass and the gritty B-3 organ, these syncopated synth horn stabs. Those elements represent the grittiness of New York, but we also wanted to tie it into the rest of the score to keep things cohesive. We ended up layering in these sweeping strings that represent what Donyale is feeling as she’s moving to New York. Her whole world is opening up, and these strings represent the feeling that she has as her world opens up.”
Photograph by Luigi Cazzaniga/HBO
As Luna’s career advanced, she worked her way into the stratosphere of trendsetting circles. Yet, her success hit a blockade in America amid the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Although her work was known at the highest levels in the U.S., painful conversations in the film reveal that she faced racism that kept her from securing top-tier bookings. Confident in her star power, Luna went abroad for greater opportunities.
“One thing that was really cool was how we used themes throughout the project to paint the story of Donyale and everything she was going through. We settled on these piano melodies that are really repetitive and arpeggiated that represent how she was running from her past and running from her pain,” Mac observed. “She was growing up in Detroit and then was made fun of for her look and then ended up running to New York and London and into fashion modeling. Getting on the cover of these magazines and then getting immediately knocked down. Then she ends up running away from all that. So, she is just constantly trying to find an escape with fashion and with art in general. We were trying to paint that picture of her and all the pressures she must have been thinking and pondering in her mind as she was experiencing this. The melodies kind of portray that and hopefully paint that picture.”
Photograph by Luigi Cazzaniga/HBO
Luna burned fast and bright, passing away very young, shortly after her daughter was born. In an extremely personal quest to understand the mother she never knew, Dream Cazzaniga delivers passages from Luna’s journal. Mac’s music, at times, echoes like an artistic interpretation of the emotional readings. The atmospheric melodies capture Luna’s celestial quality.
Photograph by Luigi Cazzaniga/HBO
“We started the process with just sort of these PDFs of Donyale where we would see what she looked like. Just these images of her. That immediately would strike emotions of she’s otherworldly or extraterrestrial even,” Mac revealed. “Then we worked with these rough cuts, and we ended up pivoting quite a lot. We went from rough cut to fine cut and ultimately to the locked cut, where we were able to score more granularly. Throughout most of the process, we were working with a rough cut. So, we were creating these themes and these soundscapes that we would give to the director and music editor, and they would edit things in. We were trying to get the emotional tone right first, and once the tone was right, we could branch out from there and add in more layers and make sure we were hitting certain moments in the film.”
Mac’s work extends beyond the screen as CEO and Founder of Kelly Mac Music. Her company provides music services for media, such as original music composition, music supervision, songwriting, and licensing.
“I have this background where I have a lot of classical training and can work in those worlds and exist in those spaces, but I’ve also worked with artists that have no musical training at all and don’t speak the language of music theory and work based off of feeling,” Mac explained. “I’m able to bridge both worlds, and that’s where I like to exist is in these places where I can work on media projects but bring this sort of hip hop and R&B pop influence to what I’m doing.”
Classically trained on the trumpet, Mac studied contemporary music and production at Berklee College of Music in Boston. She began creating scores for big bands and jazz ensembles while doing record production with artists outside of school. Her work led her to opportunities scoring the music for BET+ comedy film Block Party and the Essence Magazine docuseries Time of Essence.
“I definitely think it’s an honor to be able to be in the spaces I’ve been in,” Mac reflected. “I got to a point in my journey as a composer that I had so much work coming in that I couldn’t possibly do it all myself. I just ended up knowing a lot of producers and emerging artists and people graduating from schools that were looking for work. It seemed like a natural process to bring them into the company. They had the right DNA for what we do, and their music sensibility matched what we do, and they’re reliable people and are great to work with. It just made sense to bring them along.”
Donyale Luna: Supermodel is now streaming on Max.
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A big fan of classic film noir and thrillers, Grant Singer knew that when it was time to make the leap from directing music videos for the likes of The Weeknd and Lorde to features, he wanted it to be a film filled with twists where every turn is clouded in mystery. Reptile delivers exactly that.
Premiering September 29 on Netflix, Singer’s first directing effort begins with a murder. Real estate agent Summer Elswick (Matilda Lutz) is found stabbed to death in a house she is preparing to show. Tom Nichols (Benicio Del Toro), a detective with a murky past of his own, is assigned to investigate. Initial suspicion falls upon Will Grady (Justin Timberlake), Summer’s boyfriend and boss, who runs the local real estate empire with his mother Camille (Frances Fisher). After all, he found the body. As the investigation unfolds, the suspect list expands to include Summer’s estranged husband, Sam Gifford (Karl Glusman), and a creepy local (Michael Carmen Pitt), whose obsessive interest in the murder uncovers a sordid relationship with the Grady family.
The more Tom digs for answers, the more questions arise about the disturbing details that led to Summer’s death. The uncertainty of the case starts to leak into his personal life, causing Tom to confront past demons and doubt everyone around him, from his fellow officers to his wife Judy (Alicia Silverstone).
Springing from his desire to make a film that evokes a feeling of deceit, Singer described Reptile as a multifaceted deception — both in the experience of the characters and in the storytelling itself. In addition to directing duties, he co-wrote the screenplay with Benjamin Brewer and Del Toro (his first feature writing credit). In deference to the only recently resolved WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, the conversation with Singer concentrated on the directing process. In a recent interview via Zoom, Singer talks about the difference between a music video and a thriller, the art of keeping it simple, and how to generate suspense without really trying.
How did you choose Reptile for your feature-directing debut?
I’m very inspired by movies from the past. I love Hitchcock.I am very influenced by movies like In Cold Blood, The Night of the Hunter, and Serpico. They’re very different from one another, but I think, subconsciously, they are movies that have moved me throughout my life. It made me want to make a crime thriller, sort of contemporary noir. I wanted it to be a film that both felt classical but modern at the end of the day.
Talk about your path to get to this point.
For many years, I was a music video and commercial director. I’m from the generation that looked up to filmmakers who made that leap — Spike Jonze, David Fincher, Michel Gondry, Mark Romanek — all those amazing directors. I felt there’d be a path if I were to start with music videos. This felt like the right opportunity to take that step and pursue my dream of making a movie.
How did Reptile differ from past experiences?
There’s this idea that music videos have to be a spectacle…this big, iconic visual thing that matches the cultural moment of the piece of music. And I think that, in many ways, I was rebelling against that with this film. I wanted to make something a little bit more restrained. I was trying to do something aesthetically removed from my music video work — almost reintroduce myself to what I was interested in with film.
As I mentioned, I love classic filmmaking. I love very simple pans, beautiful dolly shots or boom-ups. I love the restraint of the composition. When you make a film, at least in my experience, it’s like you start from a blank canvas. You think about what you want to do. But when you’re on set, and you’re with these actors, you kind of start fresh. I’m sure I absorbed things that felt intuitively right to me. And I took those things and applied them to this movie — things that I knew would tell the story in the right way.
How did your music video experience help?
You begin to develop your aesthetic, your style… how you like to shoot. That came about through directing music videos. I’m always trying to find that balance between composition and shooting things so that they feel immersive, like you’re in a moment.
Let’s talk about the missing moments. Reptile leaves a lot to the imagination. Talk about the decision to leave some things unanswered.
I wanted to make a film that evoked the feeling of not knowing. Oftentimes, the true crime stories that are the most hidden tend to be the most lasting. So how do you make a film that evokes this feeling, that poses questions, but is still satisfying and rewarding for the viewer? It’s this real elegant card trick as to what you end up revealing and what stays a mystery.
The funny thing about this film is that when we started showing it, people would say, “Wow! It’s really suspenseful.” And I was like, “Okay, cool. That’s amazing.” But when I was directing the scene, I wasn’t thinking, “Damn, how do I make this suspenseful?” It was just in my head. I felt how it should be shot and went with it. I didn’t question myself. Sometimes, doubt or fear can be the enemy of a filmmaker. You question your decisions and are left with nothing right. If there’s a key, it’s following your vision.
I love one-word titles. Reptile felt bold and unique, unlike any other movie that I could think of. There’s a shedding of skin in the film where characters are introduced as one thing and revealed to be something else. Reptile felt like a beautiful and interesting metaphor. It came to me and just stuck.
The title fits the way the story progresses.
I knew that I wanted to make a film that sort of began with—I won’t say a day in the life—but essentially the experience of two characters. Then, you pass the baton and introduce another character. And then, as the film unfolds—unravels—what you perceive in those first opening minutes changes depending on what happens throughout the rest of the movie.
There’s a premonition right from the first line of the movie. Summer opens a kitchen cabinet and jumps. We don’t see what she sees. When she asks Will what it is, he answers, “It must have been a rat.” If you actually go through the movie scene by scene, you’ll see clues and hints everywhere as to what ends up happening. We’re trying to portray the hunter as the hunted. Coppola did that so beautifully in The Conversation.
A thinking man’s thriller…
The key word is ambiguity. A whodunit where everything gets solved may be entertaining while you’re watching, but then you forget about it. We wanted to make a film that poses questions and has mystery. We’re dropping clues throughout the movie. You could watch it maybe two or three times and glean more as you experience it. The hope is that you find them during a second or third viewing, and it makes the film even more satisfying.
Reptile streams on Netflix on September 29.
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Film fans rejoice anytime director Todd Haynes delivers a new feature. His last narrative work was 2019’s Dark Waters (his documentary The Velvet Underground was released in 2021), which feels like a lifetime ago considering all that’s happened since. Now, Netflix has revealed the first trailer for his latest, the dark comedy May December, which features his longtime collaborator, Julianne Moore, in a juicy role inspired by true events.
Moore stars as Gracie Atherton-Yoo, who, as the film begins, appears to be living her best life after 20 years in an idyllic marriage to Joe (Charles Melton), despite the fact that their union was a scandal that resulted in Graice going to prison. Gracie was 36 years old when she first met Joe…who was in 7th grade. Now, two decades later, the actress Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) arrives at Gracie and Joe’s house to do research before she plays Gracie in a film. Thus, the tension in May December is set up—Elizabeth’s questioning and digging into Gracie and Joe’s past unearths uncomfortable truths, while Elizabeth insinuates herself into their lives, toying with Joe in the process.
It’s meaty material for a filmmaker of Haynes’ gifts and a story he lifted from real life. May December is loosely based on the story of Mary Kay Letourneau, an American teacher who was charged with having sexual relations with one of her 12-year-old students.
“Insecure people are very dangerous,” Gracie tells Elizabeth at one point in the trailer, as the stakes of the game afoot between them become clear.
“Haynes’ tonal playfulness has sometimes been overshadowed by the unerring consistency of his emotional textures, but here, in the funniest and least ‘stylized’ of his films, it’s easier than ever to appreciate his genius,” IndieWire’s Dave Ehrlich writes. While Variety’s Peter Debruge says, “Withholding moral judgment as best he can, Haynes keeps things more emotional than intellectual, trusting audiences to do that unpacking on their own.”
Haynes directors from a script by Samy Burch. Joining Moore, Portman, and Melton are Cory Michael Smith, Piper Curda, D.W. Moffett, Drew Scheid, Elizabeth Yu, Jocelyn Shelfo, Andrea Frankle, and Kelvin Han Yee.
Check out the trailer below. May December is in select theaters in November and arrives on Netflix on December 1.
Here’s the official logline:
Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple buckles under the pressure when an actress arrives to do research for a film about their past.
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Featured image: May December. (L to R) Natalie Portman as Elizabeth Berry and Julianne Moore as Gracie Atherton-Yoo in May December. Cr. Francois Duhamel / courtesy of Netflix
Co-writer/director Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins is finally nearing its premiere date, and a new trailer revealed by Searchlight Studios gives Waititi fans a glimpse at his long-simmering soccer film.
Waititi, who co-wrote the script with Iain Morris (The Inbetweeners), centers Michael Fassbender’s Thomas Rongen, a Dutch soccer coach tasked with taking on the world’s worst soccer team. Rongen is sent to coach the American Samoa national team after their humiliation at the feet of the Australians, who beat them 31-0 in an official FIFA match. Now, with the World Cup Qualifiers looming, Rongen wants to turn these underdogs into a cohesive team and help them recapture their love for the sport.
Waititi was moved to make the film after seeing the 2014 documentary of the same name by Mike Brett and Steven Jamison. Waititi began working on his sports drama while he was also working on Thor: Love and Thunder; however, pandemic delays and scheduling changes pushed Next Goal Wins to this November.
The wait is just about over, however. Joining Fassbender in the cast are Oscar Kightly, Kaimana (coming in for major plaudits from critics), David Fane, Rachel House, Beulah Koale, Will Arnett, Elisabeth Moss, Rhys Darby, Uli Latukefu, Chris Alosio, and Waititi himself.
Check out the new trailer below. Next Goal Wins premieres on November 17.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Directed by Academy Award Winner Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit, Thor: Ragnarok), NEXT GOAL WINS follows the American Samoa soccer team, infamous for their brutal 31-0 FIFA loss in 2001. With the World Cup Qualifiers approaching, the team hires down-on-his-luck, maverick coach Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender) hoping he will turn the world’s worst soccer team around in this heartfelt underdog comedy.
For more stories on 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Marvel Studios and what’s streaming or coming to Disney+, check these out:
In case you missed it yesterday, Adult Swim unveiled the first trailer for Rick and Morty season 7, which includes new voice talent for the two main characters. Those new voice actors replace co-creator Justin Roiland, who is no longer with the series after misconduct allegations.
So who are the new voice actors? For now, Adult Swim isn’t telling—their names will be revealed when the show premieres on October 15.
“We want the show to speak for itself,” an Adult Swim insider explained to The Hollywood Reporter. “We believe in the strength of the season and our new voices, and we want to preserve the viewing experience for fans.”
Season 7 boasts ten new episodes and will be a welcome relief to the legion of Rick and Morty fans who have been watching the real-life Roiland drama unfold for months. Roiland was stripped of his overall deal this past January after being charged with felony domestic abuse in Orange County, California. More troubling news about Roiland followed, including his sending abusive text messages to a fan and unprofessional workplace behavior. The felony charges were dropped in March, yet Roiland’s no longer a part of the series.
You’ll notice when you watch the new trailer that both Rick and Morty sound very similar. Adult Swim sought “sound-alike” voice talent and has promised that their personalities, intrapersonal relationship, and all the cosmic hijinx, high and low, Rick and Morty has brought to viewers for six previous seasons will remain unchanged.
Here’s how the official synopsis for season 7 depicts the changes that have been swirling behind the scenes of one of TV’s most audacious animated comedies:
“Rick and Morty are back and sounding more like themselves than ever! It’s season seven, and the possibilities are endless: what’s up with Jerry? EVIL Summer?! And will they ever go back to the high school?! Maybe not! But let’s find out! There’s probably less piss than last season. Rick and Morty, 100 years! Or at least until season 10!”
Check out the trailer for season 7 below. Rick and Morty returns on October 15 at 11 p.m. on Adult Swim:
For more on Warner Bros., HBO, and Max, check out these stories:
An astonishing 99% of Earth’s inhabitants are lost to history. Magnificent creatures who once roamed, flew, foraged, and swam are no more, yet in Netflix’s new Life on Our Planet, we can watch, with astonishing realism and detail, what their lives were like. The new series, produced by Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television and narrated by Morgan Freeman, aims to retell the nearly four billion years worth of life on the blue planet with a little help from Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects company that George Lucas founded. The first trailer for the series opens with a scene that looks straight out of Jurassic Park, with a triceratops peaceably foraging when a T-Rex comes bursting out of the tree line.
“This is the story of the great battles of survival,” Freeman narrates in his iconic baritone, “and the dynasties that would take over the world.” Life on Our Planet will map the unparalleled drama of life on our planet from the very beginning up to today, some 3.8 billion years worth of triumph and tragedy.
The team behind Life on Our Planet knows a thing or two about crafting award-worthy docuseries. Silverback Films, the folks behind Netflix’s Emmy-winning docuseries Our Planet.
The footage is stunning. The story couldn’t be more epic.
Check out the trailer below. Life on Our Planet streams on Netflix on October 25:
Here’s the official synopsis:
This is the story of life’s epic battle to conquer and survive on planet Earth. Today there are 20 million species on our planet, yet what we see is just a snapshot in time — 99% of earth’s inhabitants are lost to our deep past. The story of what happened to these dynasties — their rise and their fall — is truly remarkable. In partnership with Industrial Light & Magic, the series uses the latest technology and science to bring long extinct creatures back to life, Life on Our Planet reveals the incredible story of life on our planet.
For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:
“Killers of the Flower Moon was a series of murders of Osage men and women to bilk them after the discovery of oil on their land,” says director Martin Scorsese at the start of a new inside look featurette of his upcoming crime saga. “I was drawn to the idea of to tell this terribly tragic story that was never brought to national attention.”
Scorsese’s film is adapted from investigative journalist David Grann’s best-selling 2017 book of the same name. While Grann’s book was centered on Tom White, a former Texas Ranger who came to Oklahoma to investigate the murders (he’s played in the film by Jesse Plemmons), Scorsese and his screenwriter Eric Roth altered the focus of their story from the virtuous White, coming to Osage Nation to solve a crime, to both the perpetrators of the crime and on the Osage themselves.
“One of the keys that I was drawn to this work where friendship and love existed with latent extortion, exploitation, and murder,” says Scorsese.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” premiering October 20, 2023 on Apple TV+.
“Marty was obsessed with telling this story with the most honesty that he possibly could,” says Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Ernest Burkhart, one of the white men who insinuates himself into the lives of the Osage Nation, specifically by marrying Mollie (Lily Gladstone), an Osage woman.
Ernest is encouraged to marry Mollie by his uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro), who sees marriage as the least bloody way to separate the Osage from the wealth. “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.”
“Hale was a very enigmatic presence in Osage country,” says Lily Gladstone.
“He definitely represented somebody who wanted to take advantage of the situation at all costs,” DiCaprio adds.
“I wanted to do justice to the Osage so the audience feels the immensity of the tragedy,” Scorsese concludes.
Check out the featurette below. Killers of the Flower Moon arrives in theaters on October 20:
For more on Killers of the Flower Moon, check out these stories:
Now that the early reactions have confirmed that writer/director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, RogueOne) has pulled off something special with The Creator, all eyes will be on the full reviews when the embargo is lifted this week. Edwards’s new film then premieres this Friday, September 29, in what is one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the early fall. Two new TV spots hype the coming premiere, which had critics buzzing last week after the first press screenings let out.
Delivering a high-concept, original sci-fi blockbuster is a hard thing to do in the best of times and even harder when you’re trying to get them made in a climate that prefers its blockbusters to have built-in IP. Yet The Creator is precisely that, a brand new story from Edwards and his Rogue One collaborator Chris Weitz, and the early reactions have included adjectives like “masterful,” “soulful,” “visually stunning and emotional,” “absolutely radical,” and “one of the best new sci-fi epics in years.” a few of the descriptions being bandied about.
The Creator is centered on John David Washington’s Joshua, an ex-special forces agent grieving his wife’s disappearance (Gemma Chan) who is recruited to lead a team to take out a weapon with the potential to tip the scales of the war between humans and robots decidedly in the robots favor. The weapon was built by the architect of a robot rebellion against humanity that began with a nuclear detonation in Los Angeles and has led to an outright war between humanity and the robot world. Yet when Joshua finally makes contact with the weapon, it wears a near-human face. Her name is Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles), and she’s a humanoid robot powered by artificial intelligence that makes it very difficult for Joshua to treat her as nothing more than a talking, all-powerful bomb.
Joining Washington, Voyles, and Chan is a top-notch cast that includes Ken Watanabe (Inception), Allison Janey (I, Tonya), and Sturgill Simpson (Dog).
Check out the new spots below. The Creator hits theaters on September 29:
Except for a glimpse of his back, we never once see Michael Jordan in person in Amazon Prime’s Air. This Ben Affleck-directed film, in which Affleck also stars as Nike founder Phil Knight, tracks the course of Nike’s surprise successful bid for an endorsement from the greatest basketball player of all time, leading to the 1980s creation of Air Jordan sneakers, which, four decades on, are a multi-billionaire dollar icon of fashion history.
But the people who made that possible behind the scenes look little like what you’d expect. Championing a partnership with Jordan is Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon), a middle-aged dude in trousers that make you wonder why the garment industry persists in manufacturing such pants. Knight wears suits when he isn’t working weekends in the signatures of early 1980s running gear, leggings under shorts, and abundant neon. On the other side of what becomes one of the most lucrative sportswear-sport star partnerships of all time isn’t Michael Jordan, but his mother, Deloris Jordan (Viola Davis), who leads meetings for her son dressed in feminine, crisply tailored suits. And forget about finding a trace of aesthetic, athletic DNA on the shoe design team, led by Peter Moore (Matthew Maher), who skateboards to work in full mid-life crisis leather and designs the Air Jordan prototype wearing vaguely Nordic striped knitwear.
The vision behind these workaday characters who made the Air Jordan possible came from costume designer Charlese Antoinette Jones (Judas and the Black Messiah, Astronomy Club), who was tasked with creating a sense of place among various corporate entities who represent an aesthetic far cry from a pair of Air Jordans or even athletic gear in general. We got to speak with Jones about the Nike of forty years ago, balancing snippets of historical archives with creative license, and her process for Deloris, by far the film’s most fashionable character and the real driving force behind the Nike-Michael Jordan partnership that came to be.
How did you figure out the broad strokes of the looks for Air’s main characters?
Ben had this really specific vision on how to showcase the difference between Nike, Adidas, and Converse. So, based on where we were, the color palette changed, and the styles of suiting and clothing changed. His biggest note to me was Nike’s a scrappy startup. That was the direction for how everyone’s dressed in the office. It’s less put together than Adidas, which is so sterile and so corporate. Nike doesn’t have a lot of money. People aren’t coming in there in thousand-dollar suits, and they’re not dressing over the top and wearing designer. They’re also not wearing Nike gear. During that time period, you’re not wearing gear you’d work out in to work. That’s a faux pas. Phil comes in, and he has a full running look on, but it’s supposed to be a Sunday, and Howard White [Chris Tucker] is dressed up because he just came from church. It was a lot more fun than having to put everyone in sports gear the entire film. We were always very clear: we’re not making a Nike commercial, we’re not making a Jordan commercial, we’re telling the story about how Michael Jordan became the greatest player of all time with the greatest shoe of all time, and how it changed the business.
What was your process like balancing archival research versus creative license?
It was a combination of both. We had an amazing researcher who found photos, and he also had information and notes about the real people, which was helpful. For some people, we might have had three or four photos. From there, I had to use my research and my knowledge of menswear during that period and just come up with ideas based on what was happening in the story. For example, the only photos we have of Peter Moore are of him in a black turtleneck, and it just didn’t work. His character was so interesting and so vibrant, and the way Matt Maher plays him is so interesting and so vibrant. So, I decided everyone who worked in the shoe lab would be a lot more colorful than the people upstairs working in the offices. They needed to be a little more fashion-forward, more stylish. I looked at a lot of images of Studio 54, various fashion weeks and magazines from the early 80s, and of artists like Basquiat and his friends. Peter Moore has on turquoise pants a lot. The shoe lab is its own world. The kooky sweater vests, the plaid shirts, the print on print — to me, that felt creative. With Deloris, there was tons of research. She liked to wear suits a lot, so I thought, let me play with that and push it further. Most of the costumes Ben wears as Phil Knight were recreated from research photos. And then Sonny, I got a lot of notes about him just being really casual. He’s a basketball scout. I love polos, and I love golf polos. The polos became their own character, which was a lot of fun. When the real Sonny came to set, his wife was like, did you steal that from his closet?
Sonny’s signature polos are almost upstaged by his dad pants.
And they still make them, those pleat-front khakis. There are pieces that we made, there are pieces that we sourced that he wears, and there are pieces that are contemporary that are still in existence, like the Florsheim loaders. The pleat-front khakis are Dockers. For me, that’s a lot of fun to think oh wow, there are still men who dress like Sonny.
For a recent period piece like this, do you wind up doing more building or sourcing?
We built a lot. We built all of Ben’s costumes except for the poster tracksuit look — that was an actual Nike archival suit that I sourced. We built the majority of Chris Tucker’s suiting and shirting. We built a couple of Nike recreation polos for Sonny. We also built Deloris’s look when she goes to Beaverton — the blazer, the beautiful blouse. Her necklace was designed and made by me and a pearl vendor I work with. We built Peter Moore’s leather outfit that he skateboards in. It was a lot of fun. I would’ve built way more; we just didn’t have time. I’m grateful we were shooting in LA. I have amazing resources and relationships with vendors, and we were able to find some really great stuff that ended up going on camera that was from the period.
In terms of style, Deloris is the movie standout. How did you develop the range of fashion she wears?
The notes that I got about Deloris were that she was in charge and she was the boss. I wanted to make sure when she was out in the world with her son, with her husband, representing her family as a matriarch, she looked like she was in charge and she looked like she was the boss. She was really dressed up and really fashionable. Because we didn’t have a lot of time with her, I wanted to make a statement every time we saw her. She’s the only female lead in the film, as well. I wanted to play around with women’s fashion during that time, for a woman of her age from North Carolina, and showcase what I knew because my family is from North Carolina. A lot of the women in my family dress like that. So, it was a lot of fun to recall these things and be able to put them on Viola Davis. I loved that contrast when we’re at home versus when we’re out at work, especially as women of color. At home, you can be more relaxed. We don’t have to dress a certain way. Even her being able to make the deal in something comfortable in her home, I thought, was so profound. She’s asking for what her son deserves, and she’s in her kitchen, and she’s wearing pedal pushers and a pastel-printed blouse. It’s the quintessential 80s mom look, and she’s like, give my son his residuals, or it’s no deal.
Juno Temple has taken on a vastly different role from her lovable Ted Lasso character in Keeley Jones in the upcoming fifth season of Fargo. FX has revealed a new teaser for their deliciously demented anthology series, and it reveals Temple as Dorothy “Dot” Lyon, a seemingly typical Midwestern housewife who’s made some questionable decisions in her past, a past she’s tried to outrun. This being Fargo, her past is bound to not only catch up with her but surround her in the most intrusive way possible.
The teaser finds Dot talking on the phone in her kitchen, busily attending to a meal when there’s a knock on her door. A knock is rarely a good thing in Fargo. She puts the phone down and does what any seemingly typical Midwestern housewife would do; she grabs a gun, a taser, and a spiked bat.
Fargo season 5 boasts a stellar cast surrounding Temple. Jon Hamm plays North Dakota Sheriff Roy Tillman, a man who has been searching for Dot for a long time. Sam Spruell plays Ole Munch, a drifter whom Roy enlists to help him track down Dot. David Rysdahl plays Wayne, Dot’s husband. The woman Wayne turns to for help is his mother, Lorraine Lyon, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh. Lorraine is the CEO of the largest Debt Collection Agency in the country.
This is only a snapshot of who’s playing in the Fargo sandbox this season, one of our most reliably intriguing series.
Check out the teaser below. Fargo season 5 premieres on November 21 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on FX and streams on Hulu the next day.
Here’s the synopsis for season 5:
The latest installment of Fargo is set in Minnesota and North Dakota, 2019. After an unexpected series of events lands “Dorothy ‘Dot’ Lyon” (Juno Temple) in hot water with the authorities, this seemingly typical Midwestern housewife is suddenly plunged back into a life she thought she had left behind.
North Dakota Sheriff “Roy Tillman” (Jon Hamm) has been searching for Dot for a long time. A rancher, preacher and a constitutional lawman, Roy believes that he is the law and therefore is above the law. At his side is his loyal but feckless son, “Gator” (Joe Keery), who is desperate to prove himself to his larger-than-life father. Too bad he’s hopeless. So, when it comes to hunting Dot, Roy enlists “Ole Munch” (Sam Spruell), a shadowy drifter of mysterious origin.
With her deepest secrets beginning to unravel, Dot attempts to shield her family from her past, but her doting, well-meaning husband “Wayne” (David Rysdahl) keeps running to his mother, “Lorraine Lyon” (Jennifer Jason Leigh), for help. CEO of the largest Debt Collection Agency in the country, the “Queen of Debt” is unimpressed with her son’s choice in a wife and spares no opportunity to voice her disapproval. However, when Dot’s unusual behavior catches the attention of Minnesota Police Deputy “Indira Olmstead” (Richa Moorjani) and North Dakota Deputy “Witt Farr” (Lamorne Morris), Lorraine appoints her in-house counsel and primary advisor, “Danish Graves” (Dave Foley) to aid her daughter-in-law. Afterall, family is family. But Dot has an uncanny knack for survival. And with her back to the wall, she’s about to show why one should never provoke a mother Lyon.
Featured image: “FARGO” — Year 5 — Pictured: Juno Temple as Dorothy “Dot” Lyon. CR: Michelle Faye/FX
There’s a lean, mean, and deliciously well-made new thriller that’s officially arrived on Hulu, writer/director Brian Duffield’s alien invasion film No One Will Save You.
No One Will Save You is centered on Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever), a talented young woman who’s been alienated from her community and living in her childhood home, the only place she finds any real peace or comfort. That changes one night when she wakes up to some unsettling noises and finds out that it’s even worse than your typical, terrifying home invasion. Oh, it’s a home invasion, alright, but the invaders are not of this world.
One of the intriguing touches to Duffield’s vision is he takes the undeniably bright and likable Dever and gives her a script in which she turns in a nearly wordless performance. And Dever excels in the role.
“Just when you think you have a good handle on where things might be going next, Duffield spins around and spears those expectations in the head with the spire of a miniature church,” writes indieWire‘s David Ehrlich.
“No One Will Save You is so effective and innovative in its approach to a classic home-invasion thriller that it’s a must-see movie,” says Digital Spy‘s Ian Sandwell.
Let’s take a look at what some of the critics are saying. No One Will Save You is streaming on Hulu now:
‘No One Will Save You’ Review: It’s Alien vs. Dever in Hulu’s Clever and Nearly Wordless Invasion Thriller https://t.co/qhusUXOfMY
‘No One Will Save You’ Review – Brian Duffield Delivers Nerve-Fraying Sci-fi Twist to Home Invasion Horror, writes @HauntedMeg: https://t.co/y9XKA70Q4q
Searchlight Pictures has unveiled the first trailer for writer/director Andrew Haigh‘s All of Us Strangers, which recently had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival and earned rave reviews.
All of Us Strangers stars Andrew Scott (Fleabag) and Paul Mescal (Aftersun, Normal People) as Adam and Harry, respectively, two neighbors whose chance encounter leads them on a journey into the past. Adam, a screenwriter, has been working on a project about his childhood and his parents, both of whom died just before he turned twelve. When Adam travels back to the suburban town where he grew up, he finds his old house and, living inside it, impossibly, he finds his parents, just as they were on the day they died 30 years previous.
“A sublime masterpiece. A rumination on grief and love, Haigh’s poignant and understated ghost story is one of the best films of the year,” writes TheWrap‘s Tomris Laffly. “Haigh, whose less is more approach has never been more effective than it is here, always makes sure to leave room in the frame for us to bring our own hurt to the table, whatever form it might take,” writes indieWire‘s David Ehrlich. “Prepare to be wrecked,” writes The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney.
Joining Scott and Mescal are Claire Foy as Adam’s mother, Jamie Bell as his father, and Carter John Grout as young Adam.
Check out the trailer below. All of Us Strangers premieres in theaters on December 22.
Here’s the official synopsis:
One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam (Andrew Scott) has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal), which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life. As a relationship develops between them, Adam is preoccupied with memories of the past and finds himself drawn back to the suburban town where he grew up, and the childhood home where his parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell), appear to be living, just as they were on the day they died, 30 years before.
For more stories on 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Marvel Studios and what’s streaming or coming to Disney+, check these out:
Dumb Money director Craig Gillespie already knew all about “Roaring Kitty” when screenwriters Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo sent him their script detailing Wall Street’s Pandemic-era GameStop fiasco. The David and Goliath showdown pitted YouTube financial guru Keith Gill, AKA “Screaming Kitty,” against hedge fund billionaires who were “short-selling” GameStop stocks so they could drive down the value of the then-obscure video game retail outlet. Gill’s defiant advice to buy GameStop shares attracted some eight million followers. They included Gillespie’s 24-year-old son, who was living at home. “When GameStop happened in real-time, I was watching what my son went through as an investor. There was this very real sense among the people who followed Keith Gill that the system was rigged against them.”
Gillespie made an earlier fact-based film in 2018 when he steered Margot Robbie to an Oscar nomination for portraying Tonya Harding in I, Tonya. With Dumb Money [in theaters on September 22], he cast Paul Dano to play Screaming Kitty and surrounded him with a cast that includes Seth Rogen, America Ferrera, Pete Davidson, Shailene Woodley, and Anthony Ramos.
Speaking from New York, Gillespie digs into Dano’s remarkable performance, details why he and his team completely changed the movie’s third act during pre-production, and explains why he likes actors who know how to “dance with the tone.”
Paul Dano does a great job channeling the real-life Keith Gill, the “Screaming Kitty.” How did you decide to cast him?
When I went through all the videos posted by Keith Gill, Paul was the one who came to mind.
He looks similar to Keith, right?
He looks similar, but also, there’s a sincerity and lightness and vulnerability to Keith Gill, which helps explain why he had eight million followers. In doing my homework on Paul, my son said, “Check out Swiss Army Man,” which I hadn’t seen. The exuberance and joy Paul shows in that film are the qualities that would allow audiences to find Paul as believable and lovable as Keith. We connected, and Paul signed on very quickly.
Paul Dano stars as Keith Gill in DUMB MONEY.
You had only 31 days to film this story that unfolded just a few months ago. By Hollywood standards, that’s a fast turnaround.
It was super-fast. Six weeks out, every Sunday, Paul and I would sit down in Brooklyn, go through the script, and dig into his character. Paul elevated it in such a profound way because Keith was posting these videos every week for a year. Not only did Paul study those videos and get down Keith’s mannerisms, he was also consuming all this information. Paul became almost the gatekeeper for this character.
The GameStop madness was still unfolding during pre-production?
The story was moving so quickly we changed the third act. After I saw the actual congressional hearing, where Keith was the only individual standing up against all these corporations — I thought, “Wow, this is the end of our film.”
Were there other updates?
Yes. Paul and I talked about all the pressure Keith was under. He’s just lost $30 million in 48 hours, he’s been subpoenaed by Congress, and he’s been fired from his job, so we wanted scenes that showed that. When we saw the Daily Mail photograph of Keith, I calledl the writers and said, “We need a scene that shows all this press outside of Keith’s house.” I told my production heads, “If we do this right, you shouldn’t be able to breathe for the second half of the film -— it should be that intense.”
The pressure comes to a head when Keith’s working-class family questions him because he’s invested his life savings in GameStop, and now he can make eleven million dollars simply by hitting “sell” on his app. But for Keith, it’s not just about money.
Exactly. Keith believes in the cause, he believes in his research, and he believes in his heart that GameStop stock is going to go higher. The internet can very quickly sniff out B.S., but Keith is a man of conviction, which is one reason so many people rallied behind this one individual. But obviously, there’s also the pressure of having eight million followers.
Pete Davidson makes an entertaining contrast in his role as Paul’s antic brother, Kevin.
I enjoyed having Pete Davidson and Paul in so many scenes together, and their approach couldn’t be more different.
How so?
Paul’s very methodical and classically trained, whereas Pete’s coming from an improvisational background, so you want to let him loose. It was wonderful to have that edge on set because as much prep as Paul had done, he didn’t know what Pete was going to throw at him. When I told the writers I wanted a scene with the brothers talking about this high-pressure situation, they came back and said they’d found this small article about how Kevin Gill ran a mile naked in a thunderstorm. They wrote a scene around that, and later, when we show Keith getting ready [to testify], Paul called me the night before we shot that scene and said, ‘I want to get in this line ‘I’m running with my d*ck out’ as a callback to that conversation he and Kevin had earlier. Paul was so focused on the journey of his character; you can’t wish for more as a director.
Pete Davidson and Paul Dano star in DUMB MONEY. Courtesy Sony Pictures.
This movie weaves together characters who are connected only through iPhones and laptop screens. Except for Paul and his family, you hardly ever had actors in the same room at the same time. That must have been challenging.
It was a new actor in a new location every week. There was no prep time, so they’d jump right into the scene, and they’d have to do the dance with the tone we were working with.
“Dance with the tone?”
The dance between humor and drama—that’s my sensibility. In life, we use humor in dramatic situations to deflect or use as armor. I try to find actors who can do that dance because I think it’s in their DNA.
You don’t want to over-explain it.
You can’t. You can’t instill that rhythm.
America Ferrara portrays a typical GameStop investor, Jenny. She’s a single mom, a nurse, and money’s tight. How did she find her groove?
America Ferrera and I connected very quickly on an emotional level, understanding that her character represents people who have experienced incredible frustration in this country over the disparities in wealth. We wanted America’s character to show that frustration, but she also needed a deft touch with the humor. You need to find ways to make the characters accessible, and she did that beautifully.
America Ferrera in “Dumb Money.” Courtesy Sony Pictures.
Besides Keith’s family in Brockton, Massachusetts, you’ve got Seth Rogen’s hedge fund millionaire in Florida, the college student investors in Texas, and characters in Connecticut and Pittsburgh. How’d you coordinate all those locations on such a tight schedule?
We shot most everything in New Jersey with the exception of four days with Seth in Los Angeles.
Dumb Money feels very specific to the Pandemic era. The humor, the music, and the likable actors brighten this essentially dark chapter of very recent American history.
One thing I was particularly excited about is the idea of Covid as a backdrop and as a character. In this moment of time, you saw lives being lost, jobs being lost, small businesses shutting down, the isolation, and the government aid that wasn’t coming through. There’s this real disparity of wealth in our country, insulated by Covid, that created that moment.
What do you see as the Dumb Money takeaway?
People should be outraged by the end of this film. As fun a ride as this movie can be, by the end of it, I want you to walk out of the theater and feel like: “This sucks.” And it’s not just about the stock [market]. Our film is a mouthpiece for the frustration people feel.
For more upcoming films from Sony Pictures, check out these stories:
Emmy-nominated editor PeggyTachdjian had never really cut comedy before leaping into the Building, as it were, of Hulu’s hit Only Murders in the Building. The series was created by comedy legend Steven Martin and John Hoffman and is led by Martin, fellow comedy icon Martin Short, and a perfectly cast Selena Gomez as three true crime obsessives living in the same New York City building, the Arconia, who quickly find themselves in the middle of a true crime scenario themselves. The series burst onto the scene in 2021 and was met with rave reviews and, ultimately, a slew of Emmy nominations. Now in its third season, Only Murders in the Building has become one of the most reliably funny shows on TV. It also routinely hits you with an emotional wallop, in what Tachdjian describes as the “joke, joke, joke, pause for emotion, joke, joke, joke” ratio.
Tachdjian earned her Emmy nomination for the third episode of season two, “The Last Day of Bunny Folger,” which, true to its title, tracks the final day for the prickly head of the co-op board of the Arconia. We spoke to Tachdjian about cutting her teeth in comedy in such a high-profile series, the beauty of the subtle moment, and the “hat on a hat” phenomenon in the comedy world.
What were you thinking when you were first told about the concept of the series and the people involved?
Season one wasn’t even out yet, and they were interviewing editors for season two. All that was out on Hulu was the trailer. When I got the call about the show, I went on Hulu and watched the trailer, and all you saw was Selena Gomez, Martin Short, and Steven Martin trying to solve a mystery. I had no concept of what the show was about, but I was like, ‘I love all three of these people, and I want to see them together.’
How do you find the joke or the moment when you’re dealing with such talented comedians and performers who I imagined leave you with an embarrassment of riches?
There’s a certain magic in watching footage. Sometimes, you’ll just hit on a certain take of one of the performers, a certain way they read a line, or a certain way they stepped into the light, and something clicks within you as an editor. You’re like, okay, this is my starting point for the scene. I’ll use that moment to build the entire scene around it. With their comedic timing, so many times it’s about how they react to each other, so you’ll be watching dailies, and some stuff will make you chuckle, but then something that they do will make you laugh out loud, and you’re like, okay, this is the take of this joke that everything else has to work around. This gave me so much joy, and I want to give the world this joy back [laughs].
The pace of the jokes is delightfully quick.
It’s joke joke joke, pause for emotion, joke joke joke. There are so many jokes within a scene. It’s a hat on a hat sometimes but in the best way. You can rewatch a lot of these episodes and catch something you might not have caught the first time. It’s intimidating because I grew up watching Steven Martin and Martin Short, right? So how am I going to do them justice? And also, I was new to comedy. I’ve never really been strictly a comedy editor before. But truly, it’s about their relationship and finding those little nuggets as Charles (Martin) and Oliver (Short) are building a friendship and forming a relationship with Mabel (Gomez).
Only Murders In The Building. Oliver (Martin Short), Mabel (Selena Gomez) and Charles (Steve Martin), shown. (Photo by: Craig Blankenhorn/Hulu)
Can you explain a hat on a hat?
We say that a lot when there’s a joke on top of a joke. You don’t need that second punchline.
I’m stealing this term. Staying with the jokes for a moment, this show appeals to a pretty wide demographic, from longtime fans of Steve and Marty to Selena fans. How does that work itself out in the comedy?
It’s generational. We have people watching our show that are there for Selena Gomez, and then we’ve got people who are watching for Steve and Marty. And the jokes that land for different people are different. There’s a lot of conversation about asking the different generations of people in post-production, ‘Did you get that joke?’ If only two out of ten people got that joke, we’re going to lose it. They’re usually jokes about either Charles or Oliver being old and jokes about references that go over Mabel’s head. Other times, it’s references to things only a millennial would get.
These “how do you not know this?” jokes are consistently funny.
The jokes about technology make me laugh all the time because it’s my constant struggle with my parents. ‘Hey, this is how you upload a file. This is how you send a photo to me.’ And Mabel having to go through it with them just makes me laugh every time.
Walk me through the creation of your Emmy submission episode, “The Last Day of Bunny Folger,” which was season two, episode three.
It starts really early with a table read and a tone read. I got the script long before they shot it. It was going to be my first episode and my first episode of a comedy show, and it’s not that comedic. It’s kind of a sad episode where she’s lonely, and we know she’s going to die at the end; it’s in the title. So, how do you bring the comedy? How do you keep the mystery of who killed her alive, even though you’re in the past? And finally, it was about humanizing Bunny because, by the end of season one, she’s a hated character. She’s been trying to get these podcasters kicked out of the building; no one really likes her, and then she’s dead at the end of season one. Maybe she deserved it? Maybe she did something terrible something to someone? And then, by the end of this episode, you really feel for her. It touched on a lot of common themes in life, like loneliness, feeling left out, and feeling without purpose. I just loved reading it, and I knew it was going to be a different kind of episode.
Only Murders In The Building — “The Last Day Of Bunny Folger.” Bunny (Jayne Houdyshell), shown. (Photo by: Craig Blankenhorn/Hulu)
What kind of conversations did you have with the episode’s director, Jude Weng?
Jude was great. We had a lot of early conversations about humanizing Bunny. Whenever she was shooting, she got really great coverage. There are a lot of really beautiful moments with friends and Bunny’s bird and slice-of-life moments with Bunny that she captured. And Jayne Houdyshell, who plays Bunny, is just an amazing actress. She’s still snarky, and she’s still cursing everybody out, but it’s in this loving way, whereas in season one, she was kind of b*tchy, and now she’s more three-dimensional.
To bring Bunny back from being thoroughly unlikable was quite a feat.
It was fun. I think it’s what I like about editing, that you can change people’s minds about things. A certain music cue can make you feel emotional, or a certain look from a reaction shot can make you feel something for someone that maybe you wouldn’t have felt without it. There’s this great moment where Bunny brings over the champagne to celebrate with them, and then as they grab the champagne and the door closes, Jane has this performance where her face just falls completely. I remember seeing it in the dailies and thinking, that’s just heartbreaking, and that’s the magic I was talking about before when, no matter where else the scene goes, that’s the shot I’m using to fit everything else around it. That’s the moment you feel something, and I love being able to get other people to feel that, too.
Only Murders In The Building — “The Last Day Of Bunny Folger.” Bunny (Jayne Houdyshell), shown. (Photo by: Craig Blankenhorn/Hulu)
Featured image: Only Murders In The Building — “The Last Day Of Bunny Folger” – Episode 203 — A foul-mouthed parrot becomes a critical window into Bunny Folger’s last day on Earth. Some of the individuals with whom Bunny crossed paths will surprise both you and our trio… Along the way, a reveal deepens our trio’s need to solve Bunny’s case. Charles (Steve Martin), Mabel (Selena Gomez) and Oliver (Martin Short), shown. (Photo by: Craig Blankenhorn/Hulu)
The second trailer for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is here, inviting you back to Panem to a time before Katniss Everdeen was becoming a living legend and Coriolanus Snow wasn’t a brutal despot but a young striver. Lionsgate has dropped a fresh look at the prequel, which comes from seasoned Hunger Games director Francis Lawrence.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes stars Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird and Tom Blyth as the young Coriolanus Snow and follows them and their Panem-shaking relationship. Seasoned Hunger Games watchers (and readers of Suzanne Collins’s novels) know that Coriolanus Snow will grow up to become the tyrannical president of Panem in the original films (played with impeccable menace by Donald Sutherland); the new film introduces a young Coriolanus when he was an orphan in the Capitol and enrolled at the Academy, some 64 years before the events in the first Hunger Games film, with the 18-year-old Snow attempting to salvage his family’s reputation in a post-war Capitol by becoming a mentor in the 10th annual Hunger Games. Coriolanus is paired with the tribute from District 12, a young woman named Lucy Gray Baird, who could teach him a thing or two as well.
Lucy is not just a prequel version of Katniss. The film, based on the prequel novel by Suzanne Collins, has a totally different approach to the games, which includes manipulating people to achieve her goals.
Joining Zegler and Blyth are Viola Davis as Dr. Volumnia Gaul; Peter Dinklage, playing Casca Highbottom; Josh Andrés Rivera, playing Sejanus Plinth; Hunter Schafer, playing Tigris Snow; and Jason Schwartzman, playing Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman.
Check out the trailer here. The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes his theaters on November 17:
Here’s the official synopsis for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes:
“Years before he would become the tyrannical President of Panem, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (Blyth) is the last hope for his fading lineage, a once-proud family that has fallen from grace in a post-war Capitol. With the 10th annual Hunger Games fast approaching, the young Snow is alarmed when he is assigned to mentor Lucy Gray Baird (Zegler), the girl tribute from impoverished District 12. But, after Lucy Gray commands all of Panem’s attention by defiantly singing during the reaping ceremony, Snow thinks he might be able to turn the odds in their favor. Uniting their instincts for showmanship and newfound political savvy, Snow and Lucy’s race against time to survive will ultimately reveal who is a songbird and a snake.”
For more on The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, check out these stories:
Featured image: Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird and Tom Blyth as Coriolanus Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Photo Credit: Murray Close
Filmmaker Alejandra Márquez Abella learned of José Hernández 15 years ago when his inspirational story made headlines: Hernández, who toiled in the fields as a child alongside his family, is the first migrant farmworker to become a NASA astronaut and go into space — a lifelong dream he realized after nearly a decade of perseverance and pluck and with the unwavering support of his family and friends. When producers Mark Ciardi and Campbell McInnes approached Abella about bringing Hernández’s story to the screen, she jumped at the opportunity, finding the details of his extraordinary achievement fascinating.
The resultant movie, A Million Miles Away, is based on Hernández’s memoir, stars Michael Peña (Ant-Man and the Wasp) and Rosa Salazar (Maze Runner), and was produced by Amazon Studios. Now streaming on Prime Video, it also marks the fourth feature film from Abella, whose The Good Girls in 2018 garnered 14 Mexican Academy Ariel Awards nominations, winning four. Belonging to a new generation of Mexican filmmakers, she was dubbed one of Variety’s “10 Directors to Watch” in 2019.
The Credits recently spoke with Abella about why she took poetic license with the story, how being respectful of the Mexican-American community was paramount, and who she has relished feedback on the film from most of all. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I love the “recipe” structure of the movie, which segments the film according to the ingredients for success told to José by his father. Why was the film packaged this way?
Well, he’s very much attached to his father’s recipe. When José goes and gives his conferences, it’s the center, it’s the heart of his speech, so I knew it was important to him. It was in the editing room that Hervé, my editor, and I noticed that the film was responding to that recipe, and we decided to chapter it and give it that structure. It seemed natural and like the right take.
Your cast and crew are primarily Latino. Was this intentional or due in part to your filming in Mexico?
Yes, we shot in Mexico, around Mexico City. I mean, it was a consequence, I guess, of shooting in Mexico. I definitely had some options, like my cinematographer Dariela Ludlow, for example, has been around with me forever, so I wanted to take her on the ride. I was super persistent in bringing this production to Mexico because I thought it made sense. And then I thought it was very important to have a cast who actually were Mexican-American actors. Almost all of them are. Rosa Salazar is Peruvian-American, which is the exception, but I thought that piece of authenticity had to be in the film.
You are also a co-writer, basing the film on José’s memoir. Did you take any liberties for the sake of the story?
The film is full of poetic licenses because you have to fit a 50-year story into a two-hour movie, which is tough work. But the essence of what happened is there. I think what’s important is there, and the emotion of the underdog achieving the unbelievable is the most important part of it.
It’s a well-paced film, and you certainly had a lot to fit, his whole life essentially.
Yeah, we had to go through a decade in maybe a minute (laughs) in one of those real quick montages that we worked on, but I think that was part of the challenge and the fun of it.
This is a period piece to some extent, with a lot of footage from NASA and the like. What was especially challenging about capturing the feel of the past decades?
I think it’s us speaking about a very specific world in several locations, right? We start with Michoacán in the ’60s. What’s that, how does that look? And then Northern California in the ’80s, and then you go to Houston in the mid-90s and 2000. So, it was challenging in terms of the research that we had to do. My worry was to be authentic and also that the Mexican-American community was satisfied with what we were depicting. I didn’t want to make a cartoon of anything. I wanted to be fair, and I wanted to honor the community.
Tell me about casting Michael Peña, who plays José, and Rosa Salazar, who plays Adela. I felt that his wife was a hero as well for all her support and belief in him.
We didn’t have a doubt about Michael. Michael was always the first name to come up when we were thinking of making this film. I think he’s the best actor in the world, so I felt so lucky that we got to work together. And with Rosa, I think it’s the same thing. She’s such a delightful, creative person and the best collaborator, so it was such an amazing journey to work with both of them. I think they got along pretty nice, and they created their own world. Adela’s character is very important to José’s story in real life, but I think Rosa gave Adela an even bigger role in the story.
Rosa Salazar and Michael Pena star in “A Million Miles Away.” on Content Services LLC
Was José involved in the production or on set? Did he see an early cut?
Yeah, he was reading the scripts from the beginning of the process, and then he came and visited us on set. It was a pretty interesting day to shoot the launch scene with him by our side. And it was very cool for me to have him on my cell, just to text him whenever I had a question or technical stuff. He was always around, so it was a big thing for me.
He loves it! But Adela also loves it, which is better for me (laughs). The real Adela is happy, so I’m happy.
In the film, after liftoff, José looks at his hands. Is this symbolic of his working in the fields and how far he has come?
Yes, completely. I’m glad that you caught it perfectly (laughs). I love it when his father tells him that there’s honor in bringing food to people’s tables. I think that in that moment in the film, he’s reminding himself of that and praising that work ethic that he got from that experience as a kid.
What do you want for audiences to take away from this film?
I think this is a film that speaks about a man who achieved great stuff because he was a migrant farmworker, not in spite of it. So I think I would like the audience to think of themselves in those terms, just being at peace with your origins and what you are and knowing that that’s where your power can come from. It’s not against you, you know? It’s enabling you.
A Million Miles Away is streaming on Amazon Prime now.
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