“An invasion is here, Rhodey,” says Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), at the top of this new Secret Invasion teaser. “Except we can’t even tell who the invaders are.”
Marvel Studios’ upcoming series is now just two weeks away, and Nick Fury is going to be short on allies and long on enemies. The problem is those enemies will be wearing the faces of allies, even friends. Yet he will have his old buddy, a fellow shape-shifting Skrull named Talos, played by the always delightful Ben Mendelsohn. Fury and Talos became unexpected allies during the events of the 1990s-set Captain Marvel. Things are even more complicated for the duo now, as Fury is thrust into the middle of the intracrine battle within the Skrull community spilling out on Earth. This dynamic duo is faced with a nearly impossible task—defeating an enemy that can wear anybody’s face as the Skrulls infiltrate the corridors of power and take control from within. Their effort is led by Kingsley Ben-Adir’s Gravik, who leads a group committed to taking control of the levers of power on Earth to use its resources for their own needs.
Jackson, Mendelsohn, and Ben-Adir are joined by a stellar cast that includes Emilia Clark as G’iah, Talos’s daughter, Olivia Colman as Special Agent Sonya Falsworth, Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, Killian Scott as Fiz, and Carmen Ejogo and Christopher McDonald in unspecified roles.
Secret Invasion, created by Kyle Bradstreet, promises to be a grittier series. “Even though there are aliens, and there’s going to be extraordinary fight sequences, this is about people on the ground talking to each other, and interviewing people, and really doing hands-on work to get the information needed,” Cobie Smulders told THR.
Check out the new teaser below. Secret Invasion arrives on Disney+ on June 21:
For more on Secret Invasion, check out these stories:
A slew of new images from Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon have arrived, revealing fresh looks at the film’s stars, the production design (led by Stefan Dechant and Stephen Swain, which included building an actual village in the Santa Clarita canyon outside of Los Angeles), and the wardrobe from costume designer Stephanie Portnoy Porter. The images include looks at Sofia Boutella’s Kora, the mysterious woman whose mission to recruit warriors to save a distant, peaceful colony is the heart of the story. You’ll also see Ed Skrein as Atticus Noble, Doona Bae as Nemesis, the late Ray Fisher as Bloodaxe, Staz Nair as Tara, Michiel Huisman as Gunnar, Charlie Hunnam as Kai, Djimon Hounsou as Titus, and E. Duffy as Milius.
Now we also know that Snyder’s sci-fi epic is going to be a two-part story, with part one arriving on December 22, which will also include a director’s cut. The reason for this decision is that Snyder’s vision for Rebel Moon would have been close to a three-hour movie, a length which, as Netflix film boss Scott Stuber explained, viewers on the streamer don’t flock to in the same numbers they do to films that are under two hours long. So, Snyder had a solution—he’ll simply deliver his story in two parts, and, as he revealed to Vanity Fair, part two won’t necessarily follow a year later. In fact, he’s hoping part two can be released right on the heels of part one.
These new images are the best look we’ve gotten at Rebel Moon. Previously, the only actual footage released was this 8-second teaser:
Snyder has been thinking about Rebel Moon for years, in fact, since he was in college. Then, as he became more serious about it, he envisioned the film as a potential Star Wars feature, but that ship sailed when Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012. He next explored the idea with Netflix after the success of his zombie/heist thriller Army of the Dead. Now, we’re months away from seeing part one of a film Snyder’s been thinking about for decades.
Rebel Moon is based on a script by Snyder, his Army of the Dead co-writer Shay Hatten, and his 300 co-writer Kurt Johnstad.
Check out the images below. Part one of Rebel Moon arrives on Netflix on December 22.
Prepare yourself for Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon—which won’t be a single film but possibly the start to a Rebel Moon universe.
Snyder revealed to Vanity Fairthat his plans for his long-simmering sci-fi project have been expanding, and the Rebel Moon that premiers on Netflix on December 22 will be but part one of Snyder’s larger narrative.
The universe of Rebel Moon is something Snyder has been thinking about since he was in college. The film follows Kora (Sofia Boutella), a woman with a shadowy past who is sent as an emissary from a peaceful colony on the distant edge of the galaxy to recruit warriors to help them fight a murdering tyrant and his armies. After discussions with Netflix, it was decided that Snyder’s initial film, which would run for nearly three hours, could actually be two movies.
“[Netflix film boss Scott] Stuber was like, ‘On the service, under-two-hour movies really do better for some reason,’ even though you’ll binge-watch a series of eight episodes,” Deborah Snyder, Snyder’s producing partner and wife, told Vanity Fair. “Zack said, ‘If you ask me to make this less than two hours, I’m going to lose all the character. You won’t care about these people. It’s a character story about how people can change, and redemption and what are you willing to fight for…’ So he said, ‘What if I give you two movies?’”
Yet the wait for part two won’t require a year or more. Snyder told VF he was looking to release part two right on the heels of part one. “Netflix can do things that a traditional studio can’t as far a show close together the movies are released,” he said.
Rebel Moon will now not only be a two-part epic, but Snyder will also release a longer director’s cut. That director’s cut will be more for Snyder’s hardcore fans, the ones who successfully lobbied to get his version of Justice League re-released over at Warner Bros. “I think for fans of mine and people who are ready to take a deeper, harder dive, that’ll be fun for them,” he told VF.
Snyder also revealed to VF that while Rebel Moon will boast plenty of visual effects, he and his team built an actual village in the Santa Clarita canyon outside of Los Angeles, which includes “abandoned starfighter decoys” near a Scandinavian-style village that boasts homes, barns, shops, and a stone bridge vaulting over a river, all set against wheat fields in the desert.
Rebel Moon orbits onto Netflix on December 22.
For more on Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon, check out these stories:
The original cast of the Insidious franchise return for one final, horrifying chapter in Insidious: The Red Door, and the final trailer teases the hell that awaits. You’d think that it would be hard to spook Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson), a man who has seen just about every kind of supernatural demon and has lived—somehow—to tell the tale. His mettle will be tested in The Red Door, however, as he and his college-aged son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) have to plunge deeper into The Further to try and put the horrors of their past to rest at last.
One bravura sequence in the final trailer involves Josh submitting himself to an MRI machine and finding out that he’s not alone inside the machine. (Those things are a tight squeeze, so how that demon gets in there is anybody’s guess.) It’s a classic Insidious sequence, turning a doctor’s visit, already fraught enough as it is, into the stuff of our worst nightmares.
The Red Door represents Wilson’s directorial debut, and it’s a fitting first film for the longtime performer to helm, as he knows this material and the world of the Lamberts better than anybody not named James Wan.
Check out the final trailer below. Insidious: The Red Door hits theaters on July 7.
Here’s the official synopsis:
In Insidious: The Red Door, the horror franchise’s original cast returns for the final chapter of the Lambert family’s terrifying saga. To put their demons to rest once and for all, Josh (Patrick Wilson) and a college-aged Dalton (Ty Simpkins) must go deeper into The Further than ever before, facing their family’s dark past and a host of new and more horrifying terrors that lurk behind the red door.
The original cast from Insidious is back with Patrick Wilson (also making his directorial debut), Ty Simpkins, Rose Byrne, and Andrew Astor. Also starring Sinclair Daniel and Hiam Abbass. Produced by Jason Blum, Oren Peli, James Wan and Leigh Whannell. The screenplay is written by Scott Teems from a story by Leigh Whannell, based on characters created by Leigh Whannell.
For more upcoming films from Sony Pictures, check out these stories:
In the Peacock murder mystery series Poker Face, star Natasha Lyonne drifts across the country as Charlie Cale, an itinerant human lie detector who unexpectedly solves a new homicide each week. No single Poker Face story is like any other. And provoked by malice, rage, or envy, neither are the murders. “We really treated each episode as its own independent movie,” explained editor Shaheed Qaasim (Modern Family, Future Man), who edited the series’ third, fifth, and eighth installments, setting the pace for three completely different worlds.
A feud over the future of a barbecue joint sparks a not-quite-clever-enough murder in scenic rural Texas in “The Stall.” A pair of aging, aggressive, but also fairly funny hippies open Charlie’s eyes to the unusual possibility of nursing home homicide in “Time of the Monkey.” And in “The Orpheus Syndrome,” Qaasim edited the meta setup of a murder tucked away in unedited film footage, culminating in a perpetrator’s meltdown told through stop-motion animation. “A lot of times in television, you’re somewhat limited to the visual language or scope of the show,” the editor said. “But for us, Charlie Cale was our anchor, and outside of that, I had the opportunity to cut and edit a show that best suits that episode and that story and those characters.”
The series is noteworthy for its elegant pacing (in addition to his years in the industry, Qaasim also has a background in competitive swing dancing, which he credits as a unique influence when it comes to creating rhythm and timing). It’s also unusual in that each episode introduces a new set of characters, with gruff, wise-cracking Charlie, the story’s lone constant, only appearing later on. We spoke with Qaasim about the challenge this presents in the editing suite, as well as how Poker Face relied on cinematic details, stop-motion animation, and comedy beats to give audiences a fresh take on the classic crime drama.
Predicated on a murder covered up during a podcast, the season’s third episode is particularly emotional, and you get a lot of that from well-placed close-ups. How did you approach those moments?
One of the things that’s unique about the story structure is that we don’t really see our star, Charlie Cale, until the second act. We introduce the characters we’re going to live with and the murder sequence in the first act. It’s a little bit challenging to get the audience to empathize and connect with these characters prior to having our star arrive. So that’s an area where we work really hard. Something that I do is utilize close-ups and very specific moments when you really want to land an emotional beat. A higher level of editing, to me, is not thinking about what you’re showing but thinking about what you’re not showing. That’s what you’re seeing when you notice these close-ups and inserts. I’m holding off on close-ups of these great characters until a very specific time within the scene, and it’s usually the biggest story beat in the scene.
Can you tell us about editing the moment Taffy dispatches with George during a pre-recorded radio episode? It tells so much in a short amount of time.
That was one of my favorite sequences to cut. The detail and the care that goes into the show is one of the things I think people love so much about it. There are all these tiny pieces that we put in place for the audience so that when we get to the second act of the show, and we’re hanging out with our hero, Charlie Cale, and she starts to unravel this mystery, if we’ve done a good enough job in the beginning, filling in the audience with all the information that they need, it becomes extremely rewarding when we start seeing these tiny little pieces unravel — the smell of the wood, and that he had the microphone muted.
We also get a lot of really beautiful establishing shots in this episode. How much creative license did you get to piece those in?
That particular episode was a combination of the director, Iain MacDonald, Jaron Presant, the DP, and me, because, as you notice when you watch the episode, one of the first shots in the first sequence was a long panning shot of George walking across the field at dusk. And that cinematic feel is one of the things that I think is attractive about the show and why it’s captivating audiences. We get the opportunity, because we work with directors like Rian Johnson, to sit in a shot that long. And even though it was a really nice long panning shot of a dude walking across a field, that shot also creates a bit of a hook because we’re like, what’s happening? Why are we looking at this guy? One of the nice things we do as editors is pace and timing and tempo, and that’s an opportunity to use and stretch out time to create a hook so we can create a more intense moment later in the scene.
Moving onto the geriatric murders of Episode 5 — this episode is very funny. Did you feel the editing was able to play into the comedy?
Absolutely. I spent many hours in the cutting room on Modern Family, which is a very funny show, so I think I’ve been well-versed in comedy. For me, comedy is all about timing. One of the moments that I actually quite love in this show — which I find to be a comedy beat, but I know people react to it quite differently — is when Joyce and Irene are telling their story about this guy we see them kill. He reveals to them that he was a rat for the FBI, and he gave them up, ultimately causing Irene the use of her legs because she got shot in the back by a bunch of agents. We play this song as he’s telling this story, and the moment where we reveal he was actually a rat and not this person they were in love with, we cut the music really hard and cut to their faces, and they’re just standing there, frozen. It’s one of my favorite moments on the show. It always got a really strong laugh in the room because it’s so shocking and jarring and unexpected. And that’s one of the joys of having so much experience in comedy, learning these different ways of executing a joke.
As an editor, how do you approach an episode like this, which relies on getting flashbacks right to convey the story?
It’s always really tricky to do flashbacks. That was one that took a lot of different versions in the edit. We had a good amount of footage there, so we could have played a really long, elaborate flashback story if we wanted to. But we decided to play a more condensed story because it was better for the pace of the episode and served the characters better. I’m going to go back to episode three to give an example — we have this dog that’s kind of an a-hole dog. He’s barking, he’s being a jerk. I have people coming up to tell me how funny the dog was. We had to tune the perfect frequency of the dog. There was a point he wasn’t barking enough, and then we did a bunch of barking, and it was annoying. Once we got that perfect frequency, everyone just started laughing. That’s how I look at the flashbacks. Sometimes it’s really a fine-tune thing you have to play around with in the edit. In the case of episode five, I think we found the right frequency for that.
And then we have episode eight, which utilizes stop-motion animation and is a complete departure in tone from the others.
That was directed, written by, and starred Natasha Lyonne. It was quite an epic experience for me to not only work with a writer-director but work with someone who had starred in the episode, too. Without having the right word for it, it’s a very vibey episode. The Nick Nolte character, the monster creator, we kind of modeled off of Phil Tippett, who did a lot of creature effects in Star Wars and many other movies. He was doing stop-motion animation, and as Cherry Jones, who played Laura, starts to lose her mind from murdering two of her old colleagues, she starts to have these stop-motion visions. Phil Tippett actually did the stop-motion animation for us in that episode. She walks into this world of stop-motion, she feels like Arthur’s creatures are attacking her, and she’s seeing a vision of her husband Max, who she ends up murdering, and that leads her off the edge of a cliff. That whole process, between visualizing and conceptualizing what the stop-motion images were going to be into editing a sequence that is very cerebral and abstract, was extremely challenging but also very interesting. I can’t remember the last time I saw a stop-motion animation put into a murder mystery show. It was one of the most awesome opportunities we got.
POKER FACE — “The Orpheus Syndrome” Episode 108 — Pictured: Nick Nolte as Arthur — (Photo by: Karolina Wojtasik/Peacock)
With director Steven Caple Jr.’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts just a few days away from stomping into theaters, the reviews are starting to take shape (bad pun intended) for the seventh installment in the alien robot franchise. The verdict? Thus far, it seems as if Caple Jr. and his cast and crew have managed to breathe new life into this mega-narrative about the war between the Autobots and Decepticons, with Earth caught right in the middle. The new film introduces the Maximals, a group of proud, powerful robots that transform into animals, as well as their ancient enemies, the Predacons, and an even more terrifying legion of robots, the Terrorcons, a sub-group of the Decepticons that turn into monsters.
And Caple Jr., who so capably handled the fisticuffs in Creed II, has a way with filming action. As French Scheck of The Hollywood Reporterwrites, “The many, many action sequences are spectacularly conceived and executed, including a car chase on the Williamsburg Bridge that’s probably still tying up downtown traffic.”
While the robots are always the main event in any Transformers flick, their human counterparts act as both proxies for the audience and comic relief, often in their reaction shots to the insane metamorphosis of giant robots turning into and out of various vehicles, and now, apes, rhinos, falcons and more. How might you behave if your 1977 Chevrolet Camaro turned out to be a sweet, sentient robot who could only speak in radio signals? In Rise of the Beasts, Caple Jr. made the wise choice of casting Anthony Ramos and Dominque Fishback as the two main Earthlings in this movie, and the critics are saying they give the movie a heart and soul that centers the mechanistic mayhem.
Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen), the noble leader of the Autobots, meets his nobility and leadership counterpart in the Maximal’s own Optimus—Optimus Primal (voiced by Ron Perlman), who takes the form of a great robotic ape. Then there’s Airazor (voiced by recent Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh), who turns into a giant Peregrine falcon, Rhinox (voiced by David Sobolov), who naturally takes the form of a colossal rhino, and Cheetor (voiced by Tongayi Chirisa), the swiftest of all the Maximals, who turns into a cheetah. It does seem like a missed opportunity that we didn’t get a cackling Hyenax, a robot/hyena hybrid, but perhaps next time.
Many critics also point out that Rise of the Beasts doesn’t require a Master’s degree in Transformers history to enjoy the spectacle. The film, set in the 1990s, predates most of the action in Michael Bay’s franchise save for the standalone Bumblebee, which was set in 1987.
The cast also includes voice work from the likes of Pete Davidson and performers from Peter Dinklage, Liza Koshy, John DiMaggio, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, and Cristo Fernández.
Let’s take a quick peek at some of the reviews. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts roars into theaters on June 9:
TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS is a Transformers movie that cares about those who don’t identify as Transformers people. I am one of them & I had a good time. Yes, I’m still shocked about this too. Strong character work & no homework necessary to enjoy its pleasures. My review: https://t.co/HHwAQRxu0tpic.twitter.com/TrEiLRdKoP
‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ Review: A Less Bombastic, More Relatable Sequel Shows That There’s Still Life in the Machine https://t.co/CMFTSEmUKJ
Director Steven Caple Jr. delivers something that will satisfy both hard-core devotees of the Transformers franchise and hopeless ’90s nostalgics looking for a good time at the movies. https://t.co/PjgUDudhJ3
Featured image: RHINOX in PARAMOUNT PICTURES and SKYDANCE Present. In Association with HASBRO and NEW REPUBLIC PICTURES. A di BONAVENTURA PICTURES Production A TOM DESANTO / DON MURPHY Production. A BAY FILMS Production “TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS”
Let’s take a quick peek at some of the reviews. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts roars into theaters on June 9:
TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS is a Transformers movie that cares about those who don’t identify as Transformers people. I am one of them & I had a good time. Yes, I’m still shocked about this too. Strong character work & no homework necessary to enjoy its pleasures. My review: https://t.co/HHwAQRxu0tpic.twitter.com/TrEiLRdKoP
‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ Review: A Less Bombastic, More Relatable Sequel Shows That There’s Still Life in the Machine https://t.co/CMFTSEmUKJ
Director Steven Caple Jr. delivers something that will satisfy both hard-core devotees of the Transformers franchise and hopeless ’90s nostalgics looking for a good time at the movies. https://t.co/PjgUDudhJ3
“We’ve seen the Maximals in graphic novels, and we’ve seen them in cartoons, but we’ve never seen them in live-action,” says Transformers: Rise of the Beasts director Steven Caple Jr. at the top of this new look at the beastly robots in his new film. Rise of the Beasts will offer audiences a chance to see what these creatures are made of, and why they’re such a key cog in the larger Transformers universe.
“These are really larger than life, likable characters,” says star Anthony Ramos, who plays Noah Diaz, a human who gets swept up in the ancient war between the Autobots and Decepticons, of which the Maximals are on the side of the good guys led by Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) and his band of virtuous alien robots.
The Maximals are led by their own Optimus—Optimus Primal (voiced by Ron Perlman), who takes the form of a great robotic ape. Then there’s Airazor (voiced by recent Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh), a giant Peregrine falcon who Caple Jr. says “carries this sense of regalness with her” but can fight like hell; Rhinox (voiced by David Sobolov), who naturally takes the form of a colossal rhino with “8,000 pounds of sheer force;” and Cheetor (voiced by Tongayi Chirisa), the swiftest of all the Maximals.
Rise of the Beasts introduces not only the Maximals but also their evil beastly counterparts, the Predacons, and the story will explore how these two factions fit into the larger war between the Autobots and Decepticons, as well as the origins of the Autobots’ connection to Earth. And there’s yet one more introduction in the film, that of the Terrorcons, a sub-group of the Decepticons that transform into metallic monsters.
For those who haven’t seen any of Michael Bay’s previous Transformers films, we’ve got good news; Rise of the Beasts is set before any of them, so you don’t need to know the history of these warring metal aliens to enjoy the spectacle.
The cast also includes Dominique Fishback, co-starring alongside Anthony Ramos, Peter Dinklage, Liza Koshy, John DiMaggio, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, and Cristo Fernández.
Check out the new video below. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts roars into theaters on June 9.
For more on Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, check out these stories:
Featured image: L-r, CHEETOR, MIRAGE and ARCEE in PARAMOUNT PICTURES and SKYDANCE Present
In Association with HASBRO and NEW REPUBLIC PICTURES
A di BONAVENTURA PICTURES Production A TOM DESANTO / DON MURPHY Production
A BAY FILMS Production “TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS”
Millennials have been the target of some harsh criticism from all sides, but no other generation has become technologically obsolete quite so quickly. Older generations think we’re whizzes on the computer, but there’s a difference between spending your middle school years figuring out how to instant message your crush and being trained to write code. Yet, going viral over a certain (very young) age almost seems more shameful than being irrelevant. This displacement is brilliantly captured in the comedy series The Other Two, now in its third season.
Cinematographer/director Charlie Gruet fixes a lens on the Dubek family as their star rises. Siblings Brooke (Heléne Yorke) and Cary (Drew Tarver) have been wandering down traditional paths to becoming professional performers, only to hit dead ends. When their young brother Chase (Case Walker) catches a digital wave to fame, the whole family gets in on the act.
“Basically, in season one, we really wanted to remove Brooke and Cary from the bubble that is celebrity as if they were outside looking in,” Gruet explained. “So, we very much were further away, longer lenses, not near the characters, but in with them on a voyeuristic style. And then as the seasons have progressed, by season three, Brooke and Cary are in that bubble of celebrity and in that bubble of fame, so I wanted to bring the camera slightly closer to them and just widen out a little bit. It’s a very subtle shift, but it does happen in this season. We’re not removing them so much from the situation. We’re bringing them into the situation and being there in the proximity. So that translates well to more of the emotion.”
Heléne Yorke in The Other Two. Photograph by Greg Endries/HBO Max
In the Dubek siblings’ journey of self-discovery, things can get heavy. Difficult choices, painful rejections, and missed opportunities punctuate the shenanigans, but a laugh is never too far off. In both of his roles as cinematographer and director of two episodes this season, Gruet is always strategizing techniques to cultivate the unique tone of the show.
“This season, there is definitely a lot more emotion, a lot more heart in the characters and some gut punches in their let downs that occur and the waves that they ride in their emotional arcs,” he revealed. “Juxtaposing that with the absurdist comedy is the way—photographically—we tried to balance those and contrast each other because we didn’t want the whole thing to feel emotional. There are some episodes that are really intense, but then they are buttoned up with a joke or some absurdist moment.”
The storylines often drift into those surreal vignettes that work to make precise and hilarious cultural observations. A superb cast, including comedy heavyweights Molly Shannon, Ken Marino, and Wanda Sykes, is perfectly suited to the style.
Molly Shannon in The Other Two. Photograph by Greg Endries/HBO MaxKen Marino, Molly Shannon in The Other Two. Photograph by Greg Endries/HBO Max
“Later on in the season, there’s some unhinged absurdist comedy that happens,” Gruet revealed. “There’s a lot of distinctly unique set pieces in this season. We tried to keep it grounded. There’s some crazy sh*t that happens, so we don’t want the viewers to let go of their tie to the characters. We want them to stay connected, and we did that by trying to keep them grounded. By keeping the camera with the characters. Using a lot of handheld [camerawork] to keep it authentic.”
Those stylized departures from reality—like a black-and-white homage to Pleasantville and a road trip told through music video—are a signature of the show. They’re often quirky and even campy, but many times they prove to be more revealing than the moments that are played straight. Successfully integrating off-the-wall elements is largely dependent on Gruet’s choices as cinematographer.
Drew Tarver in The Other Two. Photograph by Greg Endries/Max
“Basically, we would identify those really absurd moments and make sure that we’re doing them justice by filming them with the proper lens, the proper angle, the proper framing,” he explained. “What is going to accentuate this absurd moment in the least amount of time and the most efficient way so that we can juxtapose that and contrast that to a more grounded shot that’s right before this? I feel like by adding some of those absurdist elements in there we were able to make the other stuff seem way more normal.”
Heléne Yorke in The Other Two. Photograph by Greg Endries/HBO Max
TV and movies have habitually glamorized a fantasy version of New York City, but The Other Two portrays a more realistic lifestyle. Throughout the series, Brooke and Cary weave in and out of hard times and the high life. Whether attending exclusive affairs or licking their wounds on the couch of their small apartment, the city is a dynamic force.
“I think that the environment and the setting that any story takes place in is as vital a character as the characters on screen, so I want to film it so that we can see the environment,” Gruet explained. “As a cinematographer, with The Other Two specifically, we want to shoot wide enough to see our space and our setting and to inform the scene and emotions through what’s happening around our main characters, but we also like to use slightly longer lenses to feel a touch voyeuristic. We have to find a space that’s big enough, and cameras can be far enough back, so we can use long enough lenses and we can stack the frame with enough foreground elements and background elements. That includes our art department and set dressing and background characters to build and craft these frames.”
Filming on location can be anything but practical at times. Small quarters can be difficult to navigate with the equipment that’s required to shoot a scene. For season three, the crew even built an Applebee’s restaurant and a courtroom on stage. Some of the locations that were real places early in the series have been recreated now that the show has proven its staying power.
“This season, we built Cary’s apartment on stage,” Gruet said. “Cary’s apartment in season two was in Chelsea. It was a real place. It was a ground-floor place, and it was a cool little apartment, but it’s just a little hard to logistically shoot there. In season one, his apartment was absolutely the hardest place to film. It was in the Financial District. It was a very difficult place to shoot.”
Drew Tarver in The Other Two. Photograph by Greg Endries/Max
The show battled COVID delays and took on challenging schedules that involved cross-boarding in which scenes from multiple different episodes could be filmed on the same day. Gruet bounced between his cinematographer and directing duties throughout production.
“It was a really full, hard schedule. It was a huge team effort from everyone,” he acknowledged. “We had this incredible grip department, electrical department, the art department were amazing, and we all were able to power through it, which was really great. The costumes, makeup, everything.”
Fame is a fickle thing, and the Dubek family knows its pitfalls all too well. Whether their fortunes are up or down, there are more adventures in store.
“The characters are great, and the performers that bring these characters to life do such an amazing job at giving them dimension that I think viewers feel connected to them even at the most absurd moments,” Gruet observed. “I think that was a big risk that [creators] Chris [Kelly] and Sarah [Schneider] took as showrunners was really pushing the stories to go right to edge of, ‘Are we going to cheer for this person now?’ I mean, they’re cringey, but we are.”
New episodes of The Other Two hit Max (formerly HBO Max) every Thursday.
For more on Warner Bros., HBO, and Max, check out these stories:
As we speed ever closer to The Flash‘s June 16 premiere date, Warner Bros. has dropped three new images that highlight the power trio—well, really, power foursome—that will be trying to save the world in Andy Muschietti’s upcoming film. The images reveal Batman (Michael Keaton), Barry Allen/the Flash (Ezra Miller), a different Barry Allen/the Flash (the same Ezra Miller), and Supergirl (Sasha Calle). These three—er, four—will be the superteam at the center of the film thanks to Barry’s meddling with the past and various multiverses in his effort to speed through time to save his mom.
Our featured image finds the two separate Barrys from their respective timelines sitting snugly behind Batman in his Batwing; the second finds Barry filming Supergirl flying solo outside of the plane with his phone; a third finds the two Barrys and Supergirl in the Batcave. These four will be facing off against a host of problems thanks to Barry’s good-intentioned but badly conceived plan to mess with time to save the person he loves the most in the world. One of the ramifications of Barry’s time transgression will be the return of General Zod (Michael Shannon), the ultra-baddie from Krypton who was killed in one timeline in 2013’s Man of Steel but who is very much alive and unwell in the timeline Barry finds himself marooned in.
The Flash has already come in for some rave early reactions—among them are new DC Studios chief James Gunn, who has called it one of the best superhero movies he’s ever seen, Tom Cruise, Stephen King, and the crowd that got a chance to see it at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. What’s interesting is that Warner Bros. has not shown the full movie, with its intact ending, to audiences yet. The film will get only one premiere, which sources have told Varietyis only because the studio wants to keep the secret ending airtight. There are key screenings being held across the world, one in London tonight that Michael Keaton will introduce, as well as in Miami, Toronto, Madrid, Buenos Aires, and in Sao Paolo with Muchietti.
If The Flash does as well as it seems it should, Warners Bros. already has a finished sequel script from David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick. And despite their previous legal troubles, director Muschietti told Discourse if the sequel happens, he can’t imagine anyone else in the role but Ezra Miller. “I don’t think there’s anyone that can play that character as well as they did. The other depictions of the character are great, but this particular vision of the character, they just excelled in doing it. It feels like a character that was made for them.”
Check out the new photos (and the old ones) below. The Flash speeds into theaters on June 16:
Christopher Nolan is arguably IMAX’s best living advertisement. While there are only 25 IMAX theaters in the United States, Nolan has repeatedly used large-format IMAX cameras on his films for years, committed, as he has said time and time again, to give audiences the most immersive experience possible. Now, with his upcoming historical epic Oppenheimer nearing its premiere date, we’re learning a lot more about the lengths Nolan will go to capture his film on IMAX—about 11 miles long worth of film prints.
Nolan’s upcoming deep dive into the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) will be rated R (his first R-rated film since 2002’s Insomnia), as well as the longest film of his career, a little under three hours. The movie, which follows Murphy’s Oppenheimer as he leads the United States’ desperate rush to create the atomic bomb, created 11 miles of film stock that weighs in at around 600 pounds, as the APreported.
As Nolan recently explained in a new Oppenheimer video, “Oppenheimer’s story is one of the biggest stories imaginable. Our film tries to take you into his experience, and IMAX, for me, is a portal into a level of immersion that you can’t get from other formats.” His longtime collaborator, cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, explained how Oppenheimer uses the format not only for the major spectacles (like the Trinity Test, the first detonation of a nuclear weapon), but the quieter moments, too. “IMAX is a format of spectacle, it’s made for vistas and the grandeur, but I got very curious to discover this as an intimate format,” Hoytema said. “The face is like a landscape; there’s a huge complexity and huge depth to it. How can we get this camera closer to people? How can we get this medium also as a very intimate medium.”
Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Courtesy of Universal Pictures.
As for the big moment in the film—the Trinity Test—Nolan told the AP that it was essential to make sure its impact on viewers was never in question.
“We knew that this had to be the showstopper,” Nolan told the AP. “We’re able to do things with picture now that before we were really only able to do with sound in terms of an oversize impact for the audience — an almost physical sense of response to the film.”
And yet, for the Trinity Test, Nolan has already revealed the Oppenheimer team was able to simulate the explosion without using VFX. Practical movie magic, just the way Nolan likes it.
Oppenheimer opens in theaters, big and not quite as big, on July 21.
If you’ve seen Fast X, you saw the genuinely surprising post-credits scene in which Dwayne Johnson reprised his role as Luke Hobbs after a years-long hiatus from the franchise. Now, the man himself and Universal have made it official—he’s officially returning to the franchise for a new Fast and Furious movie.
But here’s the catch—it won’t be in Fast 11 or Fast 12, the upcoming Vin Diesel-led films, nor is it a spinoff like Hobbs & Shaw, which saw Johnson and Jason Statham’s characters go off and have their own adventure. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporterthat Johnson’s new film will bridge Fast X and Fast 11 (Fast X.5, then) and will boast some other stars from the Fast franchise.
Fast X director Louis Leterrier told THR that they reached out to Johnson about the possibility of returning to the franchise with a simple ask; “We reached out to Dwayne and his team, and said, ‘Just come and watch the movie. You have to love the movie first.’ So he came to see the movie and really loved it, and then we started talking.”
Longtime Fast and Furious scribe Chris Morgan wrote the script for the new film Johnson will star in—he’s written six of the franchise’s ten films, but not F9 or Fast X—as well as Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. Johnson is producing the new film, and guess who is included among his producing partners? Vin Diesel.
While the idea of Diesel and Johnson starring in a Fast film again after their very public falling out after 2016’s Fate of the Furious would be intriguing, so far, there’s no indication Diesel will be in Johnson’s new film. However, the fact that Johnson has returned to the franchise and the two stars have seemingly made some kind of behind-the-scenes amends is fitting for a franchise deeply committed to the notion of found family.
Hear it from the man himself:
Hope you’ve got your funderwear on…
HOBBS IS BACK.
And he just got lei’d 🌺😈
Luke Hobbs will be returning to the Fast & Furious franchise.
Your reactions around the world to Hobbs’ return in Fast X have blown us away 🤯🙏🏾🌍
“Oppenheimer’s story is one of the biggest stories imaginable,” says writer/director Christopher Nolan at the top of this new look at his upcoming historical epic about the father of the atomic bomb. “Our film tries to take you into his experience, and IMAX, for me, is a portal into a level of immersion that you can’t get from other formats.”
Nolan has long deployed IMAX cameras to achieve his vision, from the streets of Gotham in his Dark Knight trilogy to his war epic Dunkirk to his time-skipping head-tripper Tenet. For Oppenheimer, however, the technology is also being utilized for a more intimate portrait of a man who is thrust into an inflection point in history. The film focuses on J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) as he leads the United States’ desperate rush to create the atomic bomb. At the time, the notion was they were racing against the Nazis, who were supposedly already well ahead, and the stakes were literally global annihilation. Nolan has turned Oppenheimer’s work on the Manhattan Project into its own ticking bomb of a narrative, yet much of the film’s intensity will be centered on the war within Oppenheimer himself. This is a man who famously quoted the Bhagavad-Gita when he reflected upon witnessing the first detonation of the bomb on July 16, 1945. “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
“IMAX is a format of spectacle, it’s made for vistas and the grandeur, but I got very curious to discover this as an intimate format,” says Nolan’s longtime cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema. “The face is like a landscape; there’s a huge complexity and huge depth to it. How can we get this camera closer to people? How can we get this medium also as a very intimate medium.”
One of the important technical aspects of Oppenheimer was Nolan’s decision to mix color and black and white. This presented a unique challenge to the production, as Hoytema explains because 65 millimeter black and white was a format that didn’t exist. So, the Oppenheimer team created the black and white film that they used to shoot, testing it by putting the footage up on an IMAX screen and seeing how it looked.
“The results were just magical and inspiring,” Nolan says.
Emma Thomas, Nolan’s longtime partner, both as a producer and his wife, explains that while they’ve been using IMAX cameras on their movies for a long time now, what they achieved in Oppenheimer was unique. “It sort of makes you gasp; you’re right in their experience,” she says.
“It allows you to fully immerse yourself in the story,” Nolan says. “When audiences see this on IMAX on the big screen, they’ll be able to experience an extraordinary moment in human history.”
Check out the IMAX closer look below. Oppenheimer hits theaters on July 21:
The world of Sex and the City has been made whole again, at least for a single scene. Varietyhas learned that Kim Cattrall will return as Samantha Jones in the season 2 finale of And Just Like That, the Sex and the City revival that airs on Max.
Yet don’t expect Cattrall’s Samantha to become a major part of the crew again, so our dreams of the Fab 4 reuniting for good are still on hold. Variety reports she only appears in one scene and wasn’t on set with any of the stars, including Sarah Jessica Parker and showrunner Michael Patrick King.
Samantha wasn’t completely absent from season one of And Just Like That—we learned that she’d moved to London, and Carrie had a text exchange with her. In the finale of season one, Carrie and Samantha made a plan to meet and try to patch up their friendship.
While a single scene in the season 2 finale isn’t quite the reunion Sex and the City fans have been hoping for (we’re thinking more of a long, boozy brunch), it’s still nice to know Cattrall will be on screen in season two. Her power publicist Samantha Jones was Sex and the City‘s id, the woman who said and did all the things the others mostly talked (or wrote) about. In six seasons from 1998 to 2004 and in two movies, Samantha was one of the four chambers of the heart of Sex and the City, an irrepressible and irresistible force of nature.
And Just Like That carried on without Cattrall after some public disputes over the script for a third Sex and the City Film, with Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) becoming a trio and new characters arriving on the scene. It seemed as if Cattrall’s run as Samantha Jones was really at an end.
But as the second season of And Just Like That was being filmed, HBO’s chairman and CEO Casey Bloys approached Cattrall and asked her if she’d come back to the role—as Samantha Jones might have done, Cattrall said yes.
And Just Like That season two premieres on June 22.
For more on Warner Bros., HBO, and HBO Max, check out these stories:
Featured image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 03: Kim Cattrall attends Peacock’s “Queer As Folk” World Premiere Event, in partnership with Outfest’s OutFronts Festival, at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on June 03, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
How confident are the folks behind Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse that they’ve got another hit on their hands? How about confident enough that producer Amy Pascal told Varietythe third film in the trilogy, next year’s Beyond the Spider-Verse, is but one of the Spider-Verse projects they’ve got cooking.
Pascal revealed they’re also working on an animated, standalone Spider-Woman film and a live-action Miles Morales movie. Morales, of course, is the main character in the animated Spider-Verse films. Voiced by Shameik Moore, he’s the Brooklyn teenager who becomes the borough’s one and only Spider-Man (remember, Peter Parker is from Queens) and ends up finding out that he’s hardly the only Spider-Man, or even Spider-Person, in the multiverse. His first adventure, Into the Spider-Verse, was a mind-melting, Oscar-winning game-changer. Across the Spider-Verse, which premieres on June 2, might be even better.
“You’ll see all of it,” Pascal told Variety in regard to the animated Spider-Woman and live-action Miles Morales movies. “It’s all happening.” Producer Avi Arad added that the Spider-Woman movie would appear “sooner than you expect.”
Hailee Steinfeld, who plays Gwen Stacy in the Spider-Verse films, said she’d be extremely game for a standalone Spider-Woman film. “This is my dream job; sign me up over and over again,” she said about voicing the character. “I got to be comfortable! And it’s a dream to be in a space that feels so comfortable but also creative and free and just exciting to be a part of.”
When asked about the fourth film in the Tom Holland-led live-action Spider-Man franchise, Pascal said it was still in the works but was on pause due to the writer’s strike.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is directed by Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, and Joaquim Dos Santos. Joining Moore and Steinfeld in the cast as Spider-Man and Spider-Gwen, respectively, are Oscar Isaac as Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099, Issa Rae as Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman, Daniel Kaluuya as Hobart ‘Hobie’ Brown/Spider-Punk, Jason Schwartzman as Spot, Jorma Taccone as Adrian Toomes/The Vulture, Karan Soni as Pavitr Prabhakar/Spider-Man India, Andy Samberg as Ben Reilly/Scarlet Spider, and Amanda Stenberg as Margo Kess/Spider-Byte.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swings into theaters on June 2.
For more on Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, check out these stories:
Featured image: Spider-Man (Shameik Moore) and Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) in Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation’s SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE.
We are two days away from the premiere of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,which means the reviews are now out, and the question of whether they could possibly top the Oscar-winning 2018 original seems to have been answered. That first film—so insanely ambitious in content, tone, storytelling, and style—set the bar extremely high. It introduced us to Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), a young Brooklynite whose adventures across the Spider-Verse as he becomes Brooklyn’s one and only Spider-Man were dazzlingly realized, borrowing the spirit and vivid color palette from the original comic books and imbuing every single frame with their spirit. It was a triumph in animation and one of the best superhero movies in recent memory, so it was a reasonable question as to whether the new film could swing over that incredibly high bar.
“The film makes you feel like you’re dropping through the floors of a modern art museum on acid, yet there’s a thrilling moment-to-moment logic to it all,” writers Variety critic Owen Gleiberman in his rave review. Bar cleared, it would seem, and he’s not alone in his assessment. Major outlets, from Variety to The Hollywood Reporter to Rolling Stone and Deadline are enthusing over the “sheer panache” (Rolling Stone) of the film, a “dazzling reminder of what superhero movies can be” (IndieWire). “This feels like it could have been the first movie designed to earn a thumbs up from Andy Warhol and Stephen Hawking,” Gleiberman adds.
The film comes from the directing trio of Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson, and Joaquim Dos Santos, with a script by returning writer/producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and David Callaham. Across the Spider-Verse finds Miles growing in confidence and ability as Brooklyn’s Spider-Man, but his world is about to get upended after he follows Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) across the titular Spider-Verse and comes into direct contact with an elite supergroup of Spider-People led by Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), also known as Spider-Man 2099. There are a reported 250+ Spider-People in Across the Spider-Verse, and soon Miles will find himself the target of their suspicion.
Joining Isaac are newcomers Issa Rae as Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman, Daniel Kaluuya as Hobart ‘Hobie’ Brown/Spider-Punk, Jason Schwartzman as Spot, and Jorma Taccone as Adrian Toomes/The Vulture, and Karan Soni as Pavitr Prabhakar/Spider-Man India, Andy Samberg as Ben Reilly/Scarlet Spider, and Amanda Stenberg as Margo Kess/Spider-Byte.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse swings into theaters on June 2. Check out the spoiler-free reviews below:
REVIEW: “‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ is pure nirvana not just for superhero fans but animation nuts — the fluidity and sheer panache of the visuals in virtually every frame of the movie is mind-blowing.” https://t.co/2JHX8k9OCb
When director Rob Marshall cast Halle Bailey to play Ariel in the new live-action film The Little Mermaid, he knew it was important to both bring mermaid energy and believability to everything about this updated version of the character, and that included Halle’s hair. Of all the memorable aspects of Ariel from the 1989 animated feature, her redheaded, flowing locks became one of the most iconic.
Marshall enlisted hair designer and educator Camille Friend to create an equally iconic design for Ariel’s hair in the new film, which follows our mermaid princess as her curiosity about the world on land is amplified by her encounter with Eric (Jonah Hauer-King), the prince of a fictitious Caribbean island kingdom. She gives up her voice for a pair of legs in a deal with sea witch Ursula (Melissa McCarthy) but must share a kiss of “true love” within three days or lose her soul to Ursula forever.
Friend was the perfect person to create looks for Halle’s Ariel, both on land and sea. She had recently come off her Oscar-nominated work as hair department head for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, much of which was filmed in and underwater. Also, as the founder of Hair Scholars, which offers master classes and mentorships to hairstylists wanting a career in entertainment, Friend was an expert in working with all textures of hair.
The Credits caught up with Friend about how she collaborated with Bailey and the hair, makeup, and special effects teams to create an Ariel that audiences have embraced as the newest live-action Disney princess.
Your credit on The Little Mermaid is as hair designer and personal stylist to Halle Bailey. How did you approach this role, and what was its scope?
They had already started a bit when I came on. Disney and Halle herself were looking for somebody who could design her look and just be there for her. I got the call in LA, and I started with a sketch artist, sending them my thoughts and ideas. We weren’t sure if we were going to wig her or what. After that, I went to meet Halle and her family and really got a sense of who she is. She said, “Camille, I really want to wear my natural hair. Can we figure this out?” And I said, “Yeah, we can figure it out.” So then I went to London, and we just started really playing with color and texture. I want to give so much credit to Rob Marshall and Disney. They were so kind and patient. Rob said, “Camille, work the process. Just keep going.” We started camera testing things, and some things worked, some didn’t, but he’d ask, “What was successful from this test?” It was really beautiful to have that kind of time to figure it out and, in the end, to be able to use Halle’s own hair and make the look really her own.
How did you collaborate with hair and makeup stylist Peter Swords King and costume designer Colleen Atwood to bring various aspects of Ariel’s look together and be cohesive?
I worked really closely with Colleen and Peter. It’s tough sometimes coming in on a movie, but Peter and his team welcomed me more than any team I’ve ever worked with, and it was a great collaboration from start to finish. Colleen laid out everything and discussed it all with me, “When she gets on land, is she going to wear a headband? What’s that going to look like? What’s going to work with her outfit? What’s going to look pretty on her skin?”
Speaking of looking best against her skin, how did you come up with that great color?
Well, no matter what character I design, I start looking at a couple of things, including their facial shape, eye color, skin tone, and the undertone in their skin. What’s going to look best on them? If you design a character and it doesn’t look good on your actor, you’ve failed anyway. That’s why we decided to do more of a mix of gold and ginger or an orange kind of red, which looked beautiful on Halle’s skin. All of those things went into the design process and working with Peter and Colleen.
Ariel wears cowrie shells in her hair. Did the fictitious Caribbean location where The Little Mermaid is based influence your designs?
Well, we did a lot of different research on the Caribbean and what’s there. What we wanted to do is just play with little accouterments in her hair, and there are all kinds of different things in there. There are gold pieces and little jade pieces, and they’re all sewn in her hair, as are the shells, and it’s just reflective of who she is, but we didn’t want them to be right in the front where every time you see her, it’s there. It’s all something just to give a little personality. So it peeks out here and there, kind of like how the water moves. We wanted to keep all those fun elements because she’s a girl.
Ariel’s hair is a sort of a spin on Goddess locs. Can you talk specifics about how you came to the look?
Originally, there was a lot of discussion about putting a wig on her, so we started out trying that, but I’m the professional, and I know Halle’s hairis to her waist. It’s 24 inches of locks. Where do you hide these locks under a wig? You can wrap it tight, but it still creates bulk in the hair. I told Rob, “If we do a wig every scene, you’re going to have to go in and reduce the size of her head so it can look natural.” He didn’t want to do that, so we moved on. Then I chose shading instead of coloring her whole head and just went completely custom when adding hair extensions. It’s 30-inch, custom-colored, and custom-permed hair, which was done by one of my secret weapons, Helene Stahl, who owns Extensions Plus. She does beautiful custom work. She and the girls in her place are artisans. We probably spent $100,000 or $150,000 on hair. We had to take the extensions out every 6 to 8 weeks and start again with all-new hair. I’m so grateful to the producers who understood the process and made it happen.
For this production, the underwater scenes were shot on land, wet-for-dry, as they call it. The performers used skullcap, and their hair was created inside the computer. Was that the case for Halle as well?
Yes, but it goes in and out, so we’d have a scene where part of it was shot that way, and part was with Halle’s hair, so I worked with the effects department before we even started shooting. I built the effects team a wig, a replica of her hair, so they had something tactile. That way, they could see the color, put it in water, or do whatever they needed with it. I’d never done that before. From there, it was very back and forth to really dial in the look. Something else that Rob Marshall did that was new for me was have his editor Wyatt Smith show me where the cuts would be. I got to see where the live-action would switch to visual effects, back and forth in the editing.
Now that the film is in theaters, have you seen a screening and gotten feedback on Halle’s finished look from fans?
I haven’t seen the finished film yet, because I’m working all the time, but the day the first trailer came out was amazing. Instagram had so many posts of joyful little girls, even some talking about Halle’s hair, and my friends sent me so many of those clips. I just laid in bed and cried. I do movies because I love making movies, but when you have the added bonus that you touch people’s hearts? It’s overwhelming. I really have a great job.
The Little Mermaid is in theaters now.
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It’s rare enough to see a production design team and rarer still to see a team of two female Asian American designers, but Cindy Chao and Michele Yu have been collaborating together successfully on both the large and small screens for over a decade. Recently they got a Primetime Emmy nomination for their work on A Black Lady Sketch Show, and now their new project, American Born Chinese, has arrived on Disney+ boasting rave reviews.
American Born Chinese, which is based on the groundbreaking graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang, follows the struggles of everyday teen Jin Wang (Ben Wang) when he unknowingly befriends Wei-Chen (Jimmy Liu), the son of a mythical god, The Monkey King. The story takes place in Southern California but visits mythical realms, including heaven. Ke Huy Quan and Michelle Yeoh, fresh off their Oscar-winning performances in Everything Everywhere All at Once, co-star, and the show features lots of Kung fu, magic, and action but is firmly rooted in immigrant family life.
The Credits sat down with Chao and Yu to discuss their high-profile new series, which has begun streaming just at the tail end of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. They talk about their collaboration, their cinematic inspirations for the look of the show, and the hundreds of family photos that went into authentically recreating the world of an Asian American teen in Southern California.
You’ve worked as partners since college. In what ways do your aesthetics match and diverge, and how does that help bring together your united vision on the projects you choose?
Cindy: Michele and I are very similar, actually; that’s why our partnership works so well. Oftentimes, we finish each other sentences. A lot of it has to do with starting as the art department, just the two of us. That collaboration and our similar tastes in design and artists that we like really brought us together.
Michele: That said, both of us grew up in Southern California, and both of us are daughters of immigrants, but I will say we do have different personal histories. Cindy grew up in Hollywood. I grew up in the suburbs, towards Orange County. We, aesthetically, are very similar, but our differences really come into play in a way that enriches what we do. We dovetail a lot in our decision-making and what we choose to put onscreen, but you’re getting the benefit of two very different life experiences.
How does that express itself in American Born Chinese?
Michele: It was such a benefit because we were telling the story of a Chinese American boy and his family. We had a lot of fun comparing how we grew up and our personal histories and experiences. The really interesting part was the points of difference that we discovered about those things because there’s an assumption, and we went in with the same assumption, that there are more similarities than differences. It’s true growing up as a Chinese American middle-class first-generation person in Southern California is very specific. But there are details that are different. Like Cindy would say, “This is what my kitchen looked like,” and ninety percent of it would be the same as what I grew up with, but that ten percent difference was something that we encountered over and over again with the other Asian American crew members, above and below the line that we were working with. Everybody could walk into the same space that we had created, dressed and decorated with our wonderful set decorating team, and all be wowed by how much the same it is, then there’d be one or two little things that are different. It was always surprising what those differences were.
“What Guy Are You.” YEO YANN YANN, CHIN HAN, BEN WANG. Courtesy: Disney/Carlos Lopez-Calleja.
There are little touches in Jin’s room, like including graphic novels by Asian Americans, that really speak to who the character is and what he loves.
Michele: We worked with a really great team. Our set decorator Lizzie Boyle, and our prop master Todd Daniels, we’ve been working with for years at this point. They’re great at having creative conversations and pitching their own ideas, as well. Cindy and I came to both of them and had a very general framework of what’s important to us, that we feature Asian American artists, and that we understand, geographically, that he is in Southern California, and what that gives him access to in terms of San Diego Comic-Con, stores, and local artists. There were a couple of specific artists that we pointed Lizzie towards, for instance, like Brenda Chi, a local artist who does a lot of plein air paintings of Chinatown. She’s so involved in the culture and Asian American art scene here. We also mentioned Jerome Lu, who has this whole line of toys and art around his character, “the hyperactive monkey.” Then Lizzie and Todd ran with that, did the research, and reached out to a bunch of other artists.
“What Guy Are You”: BEN WANG, JIM LIU. Courtesy: Disney/Carlos Lopez-Calleja
What are a few things fans of American Born Chinese would be surprised to see on your mood board for the show?
Cindy: we referenced Zhang Yimou, the Chinese film director, when we were looking at concepts for heaven a lot. He really filmed artfully, and the way he used color in his films was beautiful in a way that was hyperrealistic. In our show, heaven had a very specific color to it, and that was influenced and inspired by a lot of his films, particularly House of Flying Daggers.
Michele: The other thing that you would never know, unless you asked us, is for the Wang family house in particular. We incorporated so many details from our own lives and our upbringings. It really was a love letter to our families and our parents.
MICHELLE YEOH, JIM LIU. Courtesy (Disney/Carlos Lopez-Calleja.
What are some examples of that?
Michele: Our team was very diverse, but not everybody grew up as an Asian American kid in the 80s and 90s with the specific upbringing that Cindy and I had. So Cindy and I would add this or that little detail. Like in the kitchen, sometimes we’d have to explain, “No, the dishwasher is not used that way. It’s used as a drying rack for dishes and storage. It’s not actually a dishwasher.” Or, “This is the kind of rice cooker you would use for this number of family members in the house.” Or, “You’ve never seen this hot water dispenser? It’s very common.” Those sorts of details, like what kinds of utensils are in the kitchen, we’d have to explain all of those things to our team decorating the house and getting the props. There are not a lot of resources that already exist for reference photos for things like that, so we actually created our own reference photo database internally for ourselves, with Cindy and I collecting literally hundreds of family photos between the two of us and our friends, scanning them all in, and putting them up online, so that our set decorator, our props person, construction, costumes if they needed it, and the producers and director if they were interested, everybody had the login and could look at this resource of just family photos that we had exhaustively tagged.
Cindy: About those little details, I remember someone was saying, “This is stuff that I was embarrassed to have when my friends came over.” It’s so cluttered. It’s just covered in Saran Wrap and foil and plastic containers to collect food scraps. All this is stuff that I would normally never be proud of, but the fact that we were able to recreate that memory of most people’s childhood homes on film was just a very gratifying experience for ourselves and to share with others, too.
American Born Chinese is streaming now on Disney+.
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“Steven’s creativity is phenomenal,” says producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura at the top of a new behind-the-scenes video for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. “He’s got really inventive and fresh ideas, and he’s bringing a totally different sensibility to this movie.”
“This is the first time the Maximals are ever seen in live-action,” Caple Jr. says, referring to the beastly robots who transform into animals and play a central role in Rise of the Beasts. In a recent clip, we got to see the moment when Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) came face-to-snout with Optimus Primal (voiced by Ron Perlman), the leader of the Maximals. Caught between them are a pair of humans, Noah (Anthony Ramos) and Elena (Dominique Fishback), whose lives will be forever changed as they’re plunged into a coming war with creatures the Autobots and Maximals are wise to fear.
PRIMAL in “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.” Courtesy Paramount Pictures.
Rise of the Beasts introduces not only the Maximals but also the Predacons, villainous beasts who are to the Maximals what the Decepticons are to the Autobots. The film will explore how these ancient yet secretive factions factor into the larger war between the Autobots and Decepticons while revealing new truths about the origins of the Autobots’ connection to Earth. There’s more; Rise of the Beasts also introduces the Terrorcons, a sub-group of the Decepticons that transform into metallic monsters.
“The story takes place in the 90s, so we worked really hard to capture that era, everything from the type of music we’re playing to the clothes Noah and Elena are wearing,” Caple Jr. says. He also adds that when it came to casting, it helped that rising stars Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback are both from Brooklyn. “They brought that authentic Brooklyn attitude that just really pops on screen.”
L-r. RHINOX, WHEELJACK, OPTIMUS PRIME, MIRAGE, CHEETOR, ARCEE, OPTIMUS PRIMAL and Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback, below. Courtesy Paramount Pictures.
One way Caple Jr. set out to give Rise of the Beasts a different look and feel was by choosing epic locations that reflect the size and scope of the story he’s telling. One of those locations is one of the most gorgeous places on earth—Machu Picchu, Peru—where the stunning visuals were only matched by the challenges moving part of the production there presented.
Yet despite whatever challenges the production presented, Caple Jr.’s cast has nothing but love for their director. Both Ramos and Fishback explain in the video that working with him was “all about humanity,” and longtime Transformers legend Peter Cullen said he’s never had more fun on a set. “He instills confidence, and he really is sensational.”
Joining Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback are a slew of talented performers voicing new machines, including Michelle Yeoh, who voices the Maximal Airazor (she transforms into a peregrine falcon), Pete Davidson, who voices the Autobot Mirage (he transforms into a Porsche 964 Carrera), as well as Tobe Nwigwe, Peter Dinklage, Liza Koshy, John DiMaggio, David Sobolov, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, and Cristo Fernández.
Check out the new video below. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts roars into theaters on June 9.
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Featured image: BUMBLEBEE and CHEETOR in PARAMOUNT PICTURES and SKYDANCE Present In Association with HASBRO and NEW REPUBLIC PICTURES. A di BONAVENTURA PICTURES Production A TOM DESANTO / DON MURPHY Production. A BAY FILMS Production “TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS”
A marauding nun married to Jesus takes on an omniscient artificial intelligence in Mrs. Davis, Peacock’s irreverent new thriller set across the globe. Simone (Betty Gilpin) makes a deal with Mrs. Davis, the ubiquitous AI, wherein should she succeed in a quest to find and destroy the Holy Grail, Mrs. Davis, whom Simone believes killed her father, will self-destruct. After linking back up with her wealthy failed rodeo rider ex-boyfriend Wiley (Jake McDorman), the pair set off on a globetrotting journey that’s as much about our complex relationships to technology, faith, and family as it is a madcap caper.
Owen Harris, who directed “San Junipero,” a critical and fan-favorite Black Mirrorepisode, directed this series’ pilot, finale, and episodes two and five. “My episodes were part of this bigger whole we were trying to create, but every single episode was like a pilot,” Owen says. “Each one does something in some crazy way, and it’s big and ambitious and tonally ingests another genre.” By way of example, Owens points out that the series opens with a seemingly free-floating, over-the-top medieval bloodbath and adds a new main character halfway through the season. “I think we ask a lot of our audience in Mrs. Davis, but I feel that we repay their investment in us.”
Punctuated by Simone’s visits to her husband Jay/Jesus (Andy McQueen), Simone and Wiley’s quest levels up thanks to a mysterious man on a desert island, an even odder cabal of women in business suits, and Simone’s mom, Celeste (Elizabeth Marvel). Through it all, Mrs. Davis persists, speaking to the nun doing her bidding via a docile public willing to act as the AI’s literal mouthpiece. We spoke with Harris about the show’s surprisingly retro references, making a theme as outlandish as exploding heads ring true, and the real-world AI that coincidentally came on the scene on the heels of the debut of Mrs. Davis.
What kind of references, if any, did you look to when making the show?
We wanted Simone’s convent to have a particular character and unique twist to it, which was the fact that these were Reno nuns. We built this whole atmosphere that she was going to live within. It was also fun to echo the famous dramatization of that, which was, for all of us, The Sound of Music. And also, there’s a joy to that tonality of being a nun, which we wanted to reflect — when she was in this world, it was a very safe, happy existence that gave her security. The shot where she goes running down the hill in Episode 4 is that moment. But for all of us, it was a show that allowed us to draw on cinematic references that we felt fit within this world. Betty Gilpin coined the phrase “no country for old Looney Tunes,” which sums up one ingredient, which was a mix of this Coen brothers feeling with something sillier and more wacky.
MRS. DAVIS — “TBD” Episode 106 — Pictured: (l-r) Elizabeth Marvel as Celeste, Jake McDorman as Wiley, Betty Gilpin as Simone — (Photo by: Greg Gayne/Peacock)
Looney Tunes is a great reference.
I had Looney Tunes plastered all over the office when I was making it. All those lovely pastels and washed-out colors. We would have liked to have pushed it more, but you’re always using these things as a reference. For us, it was about trying to pull that back down into reality so the more extreme elements of your reference aren’t pulling you into something that feels too cartoonish or takes away from the emotional side of the story.
Speaking of balancing extreme elements with reality, how did you approach the different exploding heads?
The whole show is playful in terms of its storytelling. There’s always a sense of play underlying the fake ones, just as there’s also a sense of play underlying the real, emotional ones. I think it’s that tonality that leads to a really interesting reaction to heads exploding or being decapitated, all of which is quite ghoulish, but in this show, the way you manage to pull it off is to land a certain energy or note. Certainly, in the pilot, the decapitation in the car, as they go under the billboard, is meant to ratchet up the absurdity. I think the moment you see this decapitated corpse; you’re already thinking, now you’re really playing with me. Then the fun of that moment is the fact that within that scene, we solve it. But you’ve set it up that in this show, not everything is going to be as it seems and to expect the unexpected.
MRS. DAVIS — “TBD” Episode 106 — Pictured: (l-r) Jake McDorman as Wiley, Betty Gilpin as Simone — (Photo by: Greg Gayne/Peacock)
The show hinges on a lot of religious elements without being religious at all. How did you manage that?
I don’t think for either [creators] Tara [Hernandez] or Damon [Lindelof], it was ever to create an attack or particular commentary on faith or religion or technology, for that matter. These were very important parts of everyone’s lives in one shape or form, so why can’t you tell a story about a nun’s faith and what it means to have that sort of unshakeable faith? On the flip side of that, you have people putting an enormous amount of unshakeable faith into technology. It was just a way of looking at the human condition and how we interact with these things. A lot of us are putting all our faith into technology, but maybe we’re starting to realize that that leaves us a little bit cold. And maybe that faith we turned our back on, maybe we need a little bit of that in our lives. When this was written during the pandemic, I think it brought out feelings in everyone about what it is that we’ve been investing a lot of our time and effort and attention and focus and faith in, and how happy are we with the status quo at the moment? The show lets us open up these points of the human condition and then polarizes it by picking a nun and picking this piece of AI to be at odds with each other and takes you on this ride.
It must be wild having worked on this, and then ChatGPT and Midjourney are released.
The timing is pretty incredible, I think. Again, it just illustrates where we are on the journey in terms of AI. I’ve certainly played around on both ChatGPT and Midjourney and been both impressed but also, like many of us, slightly concerned because we don’t know where this goes and, certainly, in a creative industry, what that could mean. And on the one hand, it’s quite exciting because I think it could accelerate ways of communication, breaking ideas, and looking at things, which I think could be useful, but at the same time, I think we’re so used to creativity, in particular, having a large human component, and the idea of reducing that further and further, is something we should be conscious of and concerned about, in terms of how it affects people’s livelihoods but also how we express ourselves. Mrs. Davis is something that has fun playing in this playground asking these questions, but ChatGPT and Midjourney are in the real world and are affecting people’s lives. We shouldn’t blindly accept what’s put in front of us. We should think about what we do with our time, what we put into these things, and what we get back out of them. I’m not terrified about it, and I will probably embrace it the way we’ve embraced every other piece of technology, but I think we should be a lot more conscious about our choices than maybe we have been.
Mrs. Davis is currently streaming on Peacock.
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“I love you, and I can’t f**king stomach you.” This sentiment, expressed by Shivon Roy (Sarah Snook) to her older brother Kendall (Jeremy Strong), captures the essence of the Roy children’s pain and confusion and the seed of the self-destruction that they’ve tended, with varying degrees of attention, ever since they were old enough to understand just how messed up their family was. Shiv delivered these lines in the climactic final moments of Jesse Armstrong’s pitch-perfect series, revealing that the answer to the question posed by the show’s title is this; it won’t be a child of Logan Roy (Brian Cox).
The battle for who would succeed Logan Roy at Waystar turned out to be one long, bitter joke on the children he so deeply wounded with the intensity and intermittency of his attention. While Shiv’s words were the death knell for Kendall’s dream of becoming successor, it might have been Roman (Kiernan Culkin) who finally broke through to him; “We are bullsh*t,” Roman says to his brother. “We’re nothing.” These are very similar to some of the last words their father ever said to them; “I love you all, but you are not serious people.”
Is any amount of money worth all this psychic pain?
The patriarch and power-hungry world builder-and-destroyer Logan had toyed with his three kids (Connor was never in contention) for years, dangling the possibility of running WayStar after he stepped away or was laid to rest just close enough to their noses they’d run through every wall he erected in their path. Instead, in the end, with the crown tantalizingly at hand for Kendall, Shiv couldn’t stomach giving him the vote that he needed. The board voted in favor, by the slimmest of margins, to hand the company over to the gum-chewing, reptilian-blooded Swedish billionaire Lukas Mattson (Alexander Skarsgård).
And it had looked so promising for Kendall for a decent part of the finale’s run time. “With Open Eyes” began with Kendall and Shiv heading to Barbados to their mother’s Caribbean estate to track down an emotionally wrung-out Roman sporting fresh facial wounds from his run-in with Mencken protestors in the penultimate episode. The kids all go for a late-night swim, and it’s there that Shiv decides she’ll be the deciding vote. They swim over to Kendall and tell him, with mock pomp, they anoint him. For first the time in forever, Kendall smiles from actual joy.
“Finishing production in Barbados, on the one hand, it was magical; on the other hand, it was so incredibly sad,” says finale director and series executive producer Mark Mylod in HBO’s “Inside the Episode” video. “The only way I could do it was to be somewhat robotic, actually. Because I kept getting hijacked by the tsunami of, ‘Okay, that’s the last time we’ll do that…I think the actors felt that as well; there was an odd emotional tension.”
After anointing their brother, the Roy kids take the meager provisions stored in their mother’s fridge and create a disgusting meal—they fix up a smoothie from things that should not go into a smoothie, and then Roman has Kendall dump it on his head. They are acting like children. Like siblings. Like they’re happy.
“We called that ‘The Meal fit for a King,'” Mylod says of the sequence, “that sense of recaptured innocence, kids being kids no matter their income, everything seemed possible, and yet my understanding of the show is always been that it’s a tragedy, and therefore everyone moment of hope like that is so cruel because you’re just waiting for that shoe to drop and for their essential natures to be exposed and to break your heart again.”
While Lukas Matson has been the obvious threat as far as Kendall and Roman are concerned, it’s been Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) who has proven to be the source of Shiv’s most horrific pain. So for Lukas and Tom to come together and join forces would seem like the thing to bring all three Roy siblings together, and this is what looks like is shaping up. Lukas takes Tom out to dinner and propositions him in the only way Lukas knows how; by debasing and humiliating Tom while simultaneously offering him the ultimate prize—Tom, not Shiv, will become the new American CEO of Waystar—but the reason is that Lukas’s relationship with Tom’s still-wife is complicated by the fact that they have the hots for each other. It’s the cruelest way possible to make the offer, but Lukas has been around the Roy family and their hangers-on long enough to know that Tom will accept this humiliation for the bauble.
“The idea of Tom being the eventual successor, that had been something that I thought had been the right ending for quite a while now,” says Jesse Armstrong. “Even though he’s not the most powerful monarch you’ll ever meet, his power comes from Matson. Those figures who drift upwards and make themselves amenable to powerful people are around.”
And yet the crown would still have been Kendall’s had Shiv kept her promise and voted in his favor at that last, final board meeting. But Shiv cuts her brother down at the moment of what would be his literal crowning achievement, and Roman, as Roman has always done, casts a sour eye upon all their efforts and finds them all lacking.
“As with Tom’s betrayal at the end of season three, everything was always working towards this idea of Shiv sabotaging herself and sabotaging the deal,” says Mylod. “Jesse stuck the landing with this climatic showdown with the three siblings. This final ripping off of the bandage to expose that terrible, terrible truth said so succinctly by Roman was such a heart-rending moment and yet so inevitable. Good tragedy should feel inevitable, shouldn’t it? It’s the essential truth of these characters and the consequence of their nature and upbringing; everything led to that one moment. On that level, it’s perfect. Perfectly painful.”
Armstrong explains that while the story of the Roy children will still go on, the show’s interest in them ended when the prize they’d been seeking was finally out of reach. Roman ends up at a bar, drinking a martini, another sad billionaire boy with a head full of snakes. Shiv ends up, as Armstrong explains it, still in play, “in a rather terrifying frozen emotionally barren place, but she has got this non-victory, non-defeat. There’s still going to be movement there, there’s still game to play out, but that’s where we leave it. It feels like it’s going to be hard to progress emotionally, given the things they’ve said to each other.”
And for Kendall? Armstrong’s outlook for him is bleakest of all. “This will never stop being the central event of his life… Maybe he could go on and start a company and do a thing, but the chances of him achieving the kind of corporate status his dad achieved are very low, and I think that will mark his whole life.”
