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.
For more on Amazon Prime Video, check out these stories:
The first trailer for Disney+’s Percy Jackson and The Olympians has arrived, revealing Rick Riordan and Jonathan E. Steinberg’s upcoming series about the titular demigod Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) and his tempestuous connection to the Gods of Mt. Olympus. Those connections include the mighty and mightily peeved Zeus (the late Lance Reddick), who accuses Percy of stealing his master lightning bolt. Yikes.
Being on Zeus’s bad side is not the only thing troubling Percy. He is just a 12-year-old kid in the modern world, after all, dealing with poor grades, bullies, and the weight of feeling like nobody could possibly understand what he’s going through. Luckily for Percy, though, there are people who understand, including some clutch friends like Grover (Aryan Simhadri), who’s not just your average kid, either, and Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries). This trio will embark on a wild adventure as Percy tries to find the master lightning bolt and bring the madness on Mt. Olympus to a halt.
Percy Jackson and The Olympians boasts a terrific cast that includes Megan Mullally as Alecto/Mrs. Dodds, Jessica Parker Kennedy as Medusa, Timothy Omundson as Hephaestus, Jelena Milinkovic as Nereid, Jason Gray-Stanford as Maron, Lin Manuel-Miranda as Hermes, Toby Stephens as Poseidon, Glynn Turman as Chiron/Mr. Brunner, Adam Copeland as Ares, and Virginia Kull as Sally Jackson.
Check out the trailer below. Percy Jackson and The Olympians premieres on Disney+ on December 20:
Here’s the official synopsis:
Based on Disney Hyperion’s best-selling book series by award-winning author Rick Riordan, “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” tells the fantastical story of a 12-year-old modern demigod, Percy Jackson, who’s just coming to terms with his newfound divine powers when the sky god Zeus accuses him of stealing his master lightning bolt. With help from his friends Grover and Annabeth, Percy must embark on an adventure of a lifetime to find it and restore order to Olympus.
For more stories on 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Marvel Studios and what’s streaming or coming to Disney+, check these out:
There are certain roles that seem so tailor-made for a specific performer that you simply couldn’t imagine anyone else in them. This has been true for Nicolas Cage, a singular presence, to say the least, in a number of his films, most notably Moonstruck, Raising Arizona,Leaving Las Vegas, and Adaptation. These four films helped establish Cage as one of the most intriguing performers of his generation, and now, with writer/director Kristoffer Borgli‘s Dream Scenario, Cage has found another role that fits him like a glove. Or, in this case, like a dream.
Cage plays Paul Matthews, an unassuming, decidedly uncool family man who suddenly finds himself starring in the dreams of millions of people. Well, “starring” might be too strong a word, more like “appearing.” Paul goes from being the type of guy nobody notices in real life to a man everyone keeps seeing when they close their eyes. His dream appearances make Paul famous, and, as the trailer reveals, Paul’s life feels more exciting and filled with more potential than ever before.
But where there are dreams, there are also nightmares, and Paul’s waking life becomes one when he starts misbehaving in people’s dreams. Suddenly, Paul’s fame turns to infamy, and his life begins to unravel in short order.
“Is this a fantasy? A fable? A new kind of horror movie? Actually, Dream Scenario is all of the above and then some…” wrote Peter Debruge in Variety after the film had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. “Cage is comedy gold in one of the year’s sharpest comedies yet,” wrote The Hollywood Reporter’s Michael Rechsthaffen.
Check out the trailer below. Dream Scenario hits theaters on November 10.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Hapless family man Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) finds his life turned upside down when millions of strangers suddenly start seeing him in their dreams. But when his nighttime appearances take a nightmarish turn, Paul is forced to navigate his newfound stardom, in this wickedly entertaining comedy from writer-director Kristoffer Borgli (Sick of Myself) and producer Ari Aster.
For more on current and upcoming films this fall, check out these stories:
Making a movie is a lot of work. It can be a grueling (if rewarding) experience for everyone, yet it’s safe to say that the level of exhaustion Keanu Reeves feels after filming a John Wick installment is profound. Reeves notoriously pours his heart and soul into filming the action-heavy franchise, which included performing one of the series’ most massively intricate fight scenes in the original 2014 John Wick with a 103-degree temperature (revealed by co-directors David Leitch and Chad Stahelski in the director’s commentary for the film.) “We were pretty dialed in that it was gonna be Keanu [performing the action],” Stahelski said. “He actually had the flu and about a 103-degree fever. He had it rough, all the days to be ill. You couldn’t even get him to sit down. He just did take after take. You can’t film sequences like this unless you’ve got a cast member who goes through so much training, and that’s Keanu. Best guy in the business for that.”
Yet by the time 2023’s John Wick: Chapter 4 rolled around, Reeves was ready to put in one more final momentous performance and call it a day. Speaking with Collider, John Wick producer Basil Iwanyk revealed that Reeves was ready for Wick to be retired—permanently—via a noble death at the end of Chapter 4.
“After the second, third, and fourth movie, making these films is so exhausting, and it destroys Keanu, physically and emotionally,” Iwanyk told Collider. “By the end, he’s always like, ‘I can’t do this again,’ and we agree with him. The guy is just a shell of himself because he just goes off and goes for it. He was like, ‘I wanna be definitively killed at the end of this movie. We were like, ‘You know, we’ll leave a 10% little opening,” Iwanyk said.
John Wick: Chapter 4 ended with what appeared to be a very noble death, and even some peace, for the hardest-working semi-retired assassin in the business. Wick faced off against Donnie Yen’s Caine in a duel; the winner would be freed forever from the clutches of the High Table. In the third round of the duel, Wick is seemingly fatally wounded, and after one final coup de grace against Bill Skarsgård’s insipid Marquis, he apparently dies on the steps of the Sacré Coeur in Paris, expiring while seeing a vision of his late wife, Helen. The film ends with his old friends Winston (Ian McShane) and the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) standing by his graveside.
Director Chad Stahelski had already revealed to Empirethat they’d tested an alternate ending in which Wick survived the duel, but audiences preferred the ambiguous ending that included John’s grave.
So, Reeves asked for Wick to be really and truly killed, and his team obliged with a beautiful but ambiguous ending, leaving open more than enough wiggle room to start exploring John Wick: Chapter 5. Reeves himself has revised his original desire for Wick to definitively be killed by telling Entertainment Weeklyhe’s somewhat open to the idea of returning, with caveats.
“I don’t know, I guess I’m going to have to lean on ‘never say never,’” Reeves told EW. “I mean, I wouldn’t do a John Wick film without [director] Chad Stahelski. We’d have to see what that looked like. For me, it feels really right that John Wick finds peace.”
Perhaps he’ll find peace, for real this time, at the end of Chapter 5.
It sounds as if writer/director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, RogueOne) has pulled it off. Delivering a huge, original sci-fi blockbuster is a hard thing to do in the best of times, and especially hard in a climate that prefers its blockbusters to have built-in IP, yet the first reactions to his latest film, The Creator, suggest he’s done just that. “Masterful,” “soulful,” “visually stunning and emotional,” and “absolutely radical” are a few of the descriptions being bandied about. The full reviews are embargoed for now, but these initial reactions are sure to whet the appetite of sci-fi fans everywhere.
With The Creator, Edwards turns his attention to our growing unease with the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence in a film that puts a human face on the algorithms of doom. The film is centered on John David Washington’s Joshua, an ex-special forces agent grieving his wife’s disappearance (Gemma Chan) who is recruited to take out a weapon created 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, he finds out it’s a small girl named Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles), who is far from your average elementary school student. Alphie is a humanoid robot powered by artificial intelligence that is believed to be the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.
Joining Washington, Voyles, and Chan is a top-notch cast that includes Ken Watanabe (Inception), Allison Janey (I, Tonya), and Sturgill Simpson (Dog). Edwards directs from a script he co-wrote with Chris Weitz, his collaborator from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Check out the early reactions here. The Creator hits theaters on September 29:
#TheCreator is a MASTERFUL piece of original sci-fi. Gareth Edwards is one of our GREAT filmmakers. A soulful, nuanced, Lucas-like interrogation of human beliefs/biases & our insecurity in the face of something greater. Spectacle & heart to the highest order. Pure cinema baby! pic.twitter.com/XPi6jEp2xb
Though it pulls from identifiable inspirations, #TheCreator is 1 of the best original sci-fi epics in years. Massively entertaining, enthralling & profound on every level. Gareth Edwards constructs an immersive world & fills it with compelling characters. Absolutely radical. pic.twitter.com/fjAwuB0VtR
#TheCreator is an ambitious sci-fi odyssey with a profound take on humanity, acceptance & freedom at its core. John David Washington gives a career best performance, while Madeleine Yuna Voyles proves she’s a young actor to watch. The third act surprised me, this film WENT THERE! pic.twitter.com/2UODyqmt15
Gareth Edwards doesn’t miss with The Creator. The movie takes place alongside Terminator 2, Alien, and Star Wars as absolute smashing examples of how sci-fi can parallel our world. It’s easily among the best films of the year. #TheCreatorMovie#TheCreatorpic.twitter.com/bWUDxwIhbH
Visually #TheCreator is PHENOMENAL. If you want a cinematographer on the rise to keep your eye on, it’s Oren Soffer. This movie is one stunning frame after the next. pic.twitter.com/s1swupvGfN
#TheCreator is a masterpiece & one of the year’s best movies. It hits on so many levels with AI being such a hot topic. Gareth Edwards does a masterful job of keeping the audience engaged every step of the way. Madeleine Yuna Voyles has to be in the conversations for The Oscars pic.twitter.com/n8XSTiNqcm
I’m so impressed with what #GarethEdwards pulled off on #thecreator. He’s made an original sci-fi movie in a time where making original movies on this scale is next to impossible and the film delivers on so many levels. Seek this one out and absolutely see it in a movie theater. pic.twitter.com/sQGSGqImG1
Not only is The Creator visually stunning, the story is really emotional, too. I was completely captivated pretty early on. Alphie is adorable! I totally fell in love with her! Love the important underlying themes of accepting those who are different from you. #TheCreatorpic.twitter.com/jnnuMn3teO
#TheCreator is a masterpiece of an #AI story. It had me in tears. Watching a film without knowing how it would play out was such a joy. Gareth Edwards shot a beautiful film. John David Washington deserves to be recognized during awards season. Still thinking about it days later pic.twitter.com/ZH0lbrDBr3
“I’m excited to be back at the TVA” says Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston, at the top of this new behind-the-scenes featurette for season two. The TVA is the Time Variance Authority, the bureaucracy that rules the many temporal threads of the multiverse and where Loki ended up after his many crimes. “The stakes are huge,” promises Sophia Di Martino, who plays Sylvie, one of Loki’s alter egos, his romantic interest, and a rising star in the MCU in her own right.
Executive producer Kevin R. Wright goes on to explain that Loki season 2 introduces “a whole new corner” to the MCU with new characters, one of whom is played by recent Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan.
“I’ve been a fan of the Marvel universe for a long time,” Quan says, “I’m so grateful to be a part of this amazing series.”
Wright also promises that Loki will be dealing with the consequences from season one with his surprising partner in, well, not crime, exactly, more like a partner in trying to save the multiverse, Mobius (Owen Wilson). Mobius has been nudging the usually villainous Loki towards the angels of his better nature. Part of season 2, Wright says, is about Loki exploring his more heroic side.
“He’s found a new family,” Hiddleston says of his trickster God, “there’s a new capacity to make connection. You realize that those connections are all that matter in the end.”
Check out the new featurette below. Loki season two arrives on Disney+ on October 6.
Here’s the official synopsis from Disney+:
“Loki” Season 2 picks up in the aftermath of the shocking season finale when Loki finds himself in a battle for the soul of the Time Variance Authority. Along with Mobius, Hunter B-15 and a team of new and returning characters, Loki navigates an ever-expanding and increasingly dangerous multiverse in search of Sylvie, Judge Renslayer, Miss Minutes and the truth of what it means to possess free will and glorious purpose.
For more on all things Marvel Studios, check out these stories:
The father of the atomic bomb has surpassed Freddie Mercury.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has now overtaken 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody as the highest-grossing biopic ever as it nears the billion-dollar mark at the global box office. Bohemian Rhapsody, which covered the rise of Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek) and his supergroup Queen, brought in $910.8 million at the global box office—from an estimated budget of $55 million. Nolan’s biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) has brought in $912.7. million since it premiered, simultaneously with Greta Gerwig’s record-smashing Barbie, on July 21 in what now all refer to as Barbenheimer.
Oppenheimer has been a revelation. A meaty historical epic that covers the morally thorny and scientifically dense story of Robert Oppenheimer’s work as the director of the Manhattan Project was not expected to be this big of a hit, even if it came with the imprimatur of being a Christoper Nolan film. And yet, both Nolan stans and movie lovers in general have thrilled to Nolan’s nuanced, narratively ingenious film, one that builds to a genuinely astonishing set piece (the iconic Trinity Test) and a riveting conclusion with the various threads Nolan has teased out coming together, capturing not only Oppenheimer’s life but that of his chief rival, Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) and the people they had in common, which included Albert Einstein (Tom Conti.)
L to R: Robert Downey Jr is Lewis Strauss and Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.
As always with a Nolan film, the rest of the cast is excellent and includes Emily Blunt as Robert’s wife, Kitty Oppenheimer, Josh Hartnett as fellow scientist Ernest Lawrence, Florence Pugh as Oppenheimer’s former lover Jean Tatlock, and Matt Damon as Leslie Groves, the military man who put the Manhattan Project into motion.
Oh, there was another big name in Oppenheimer—Bohemian Rhapsody star Rami Malek—who has a couple of crucial small scenes in the film as scientist David Hill. We won’t spoil his role in case you haven’t seen the film yet, but Malek makes the most out of his screen time, something he got a lot more of in his thrilling turn as Freddie Mercury.
Rami Malek is David Hill in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.
Featured image: L to R: Cillian Murphy (as J. Robert Oppenheimer) and writer, director, and producer Christopher Nolan on the set of OPPENHEIMER. Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures.
Kenneth Branagh is back as director and star with his latest Agatha Christie film adaptation, A Haunting in Venice, based on Christie’s novel “Hallowe’en Party.” As with his other adaptations, A Haunting in Venice is a who-done-it in which a great cast joins Branagh’s twisted tale, which in the latest installment includes Tina Fey, Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Dornan, and Kelly Reilly.
Branagh once again plays famed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, but the audience meets a different sleuth in this post-World War II story. He isn’t his usual inquisitive, inspired, confident self. Shaken by the horrors of war, he has decamped to Venice and is retired and living in self-imposed exile. His old friend, mystery writer Ariadne Oliver (Fey), begs him to attend a seance to debunk the medium in charge (Yeoh). It takes place in a decayingand potentially haunted palazzo owned by famous opera singer Rowena Drake (Reilly). When someone at the seance is murdered, Poirot and all those present must remain through the stormy Halloween night until the murderer is revealed. He is compelled to dig in and put aside his own inner demons to solve the crime.
Editing plays a very important part in creating the atmosphere of dread and building the suspense essential to this film’s success. The Credits sat down with A Haunting in Venice’s editor, Lucy Donaldson, to discuss how she so finely calibrated the spooky tension. She speaks of the power of silence and of the real-life Venetian palazzo used as inspiration, which even the locals warned the production should avoid at all costs due to its tortured history.
You’ve worked on a number of projects in the horror genre, like The Midnight Club, Ma, and Happy Death Day, or with horror elements, like Midnight Mass. For this film, director Kenneth Branagh referenced The Old Dark House and Black Narcissus, but what were some of the touchstones of that genre that you referenced in this film?
The Old Dark House is definitely one that we talked about and went back to watch because it’s so well set up. A more modern film would be The Others, which has a lot of parallels to our film. Beyond those more obvious ones, I was thinking about Don’t Look Now, which is obviously set in Venice, but it’s a very different Venice, where water is the threat, and the place, which is often represented as beautiful, is very different. The other one that I referenced was The Father, which is about a patriarch with dementia who does not really know what’s real. That also has parallels because it’s a different Poirot that we meet at the start of this film. Normally, we as an audience are just following along, and he’s super confident, but not here. Everything in this film is on a tilt. It’s true I’ve done a lot of genre work in the past, so using that experience in an Agatha Christie film was just a dream come true.
You talk about everything being on a tilt, and that’s articulated in the film’s visual language. The camera work includes many topsy-turvy shots, a lot of shadows, and focused lighting. What kinds of conversations were there with DP Haris Zambarloukos and Kenneth Branagh about that?
Since I work in post-production, I came on at the start of the shoot, so much of the setup had already been done with Ken and Haris, but obviously, I was getting all of this lovely material, an embarrassment of riches, really, and it was my job to take us from wide Venice into this very narrow world that we then become trapped in. With Ken, it’s all very much about clear, precise storytelling. We put so many things in, and then we did a lot of work to step back and commit to what served the story as a whole.
How did you proceed?
We were keen to set up this house as a special place where strange things go on. The way the house is first presented, where they’re on the gondolas coming up to the Palazzo, was a moment we worked on a lot because it’s the place of legends. The inspiration for that setting is a real mansion in Venice called Ca’ Dario, which has a history of owners meeting an untimely death, and apparently, the locals in Venice warned us absolutely not to shoot there. Supposedly intelligent, logical people said, “Shoot anywhere but there.” Reading the history, I can now see why they’d say that. There’s this already existing spooky side of Venice, which I wasn’t aware of but was very much a part of our film.
The palazzo is essentially another character in the film and was created in Pinewood Studios with exacting detail, including intricate ceiling frescoes. There’s also the real Venice and the model of the palazzo. How did you work between those three to build the story?
Yes, we had three elements: the interiors and a couple of exteriors from Pinewood, the model shoot, and Venice. We tried to use all three in one scene and found we could create a seamless presentation. Maxime’s arrival is real Venice; then we have some of the model shoot in there, and then we go into the Pinewood set. We did a lot of work to make sure it was all integrated. The sets of the house itself, a beautiful job by production designer John Paul Kelly, was a place we wanted to present as somewhere with secrets, memories, and an atmosphere.
John Paul Kelly’s concept of the Boathouse. Courtesy John Paul Kelly/Walt Disney Studios.
So, how did you build up that atmosphere?
We weren’t afraid to use silence or really push that theme of listening. We wanted to have Poirot be, at times, in that space on his own, listening to this house because Poirot is Mr. Logic. He prizes fact, order, and method above all, and this house is a contrast to that. We cut without music for a long time because we wanted the story to develop its own pace. We all knew the music was going to elevate it, but for our discipline and practice, Ken had me cut without music. If it can stand on its own without music, then we’re in a good space, but it was also to have that silence and listening. Are there ghosts in this house? Another theme is that Poirot’s confidence is knocked, so we play around with that. Is there a supernatural? Is Poirot in control, or is he not? We really wanted to walk that line.
For more on A Haunting in Venice, check out these stories:
Everybody’s favorite zombie slayer, Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus), finally has his own show. The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon premiered on September 11, the second spin-off from the flagship series that concluded its run in late 2022. Daryl Dixon episode one is now available for your viewing pleasure, for free, on YouTube.
Daryl Dixon catches up with the crossbow-wielding survivor after his departure from The Commonwealth. Daryl has washed ashore on a new continent and eventually finds himself in Paris, where he quickly makes enemies among the power players of a budding autocratic movement in the City of Lights. In the premiere, Daryl meets Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi), a young boy whom a group called the Union believes is the Messiah. It’s a lot for a young man to take on, and Daryl is thought to be the messenger fated to deliver Laurent to the Union in Paris. He’s not enthused by the idea.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon comes from creator David Zabel, and it’s more of a slow-burn zombie thriller compared to The Walking Dead. Joining Reed and Scigliuzzi are Clémence Poésy as Isabelle, Laïka Blanc-Francard as Sylvie, Anne Charrier as Genet, Romain Levi as Codron, Adam Nagaitis as Quinn along with Eriq Ebouaney as Fallou and Paloma as Coco.
If you were a fan of the original, or, even just a fan of the lovable outsider Daryl, the new series is sure to delight. For newcomers who loved HBO’s The Last Of Us and want to keep feeding their insatiable hunger for zombies, Daryl Dixon is for you.
Check out the full episode below. You can watch new episodes of The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon every Sunday on AMC and AMC+.
For more stories on new TV series, check these out:
We were enthused when we heard Donald Glover would be hopping back in the Millennium Falcon as Lando Calrissian. The news broke in late July that Donald and his brother Stephen Glover were penning a new script based on the former’s turn as the young Lando Calrissian in 2018’s Star Wars spinoff Solo: A Star Wars Story. The notion was that the Glovers were going to create a new series about Lando’s adventures as a young man for Disney+. Now, The Hollywood Reporterconfirms that the project will be a feature film instead.
Stephen Glover appeared on the Pablo Torres Finds Outpodcast, posted yesterday, revealing that the current plans are to make a movie for Lucasfilm. These plans are currently frozen in carbonite due to the dual writer and actors strike, but one hopes that they’ll finish the script once the strike is—fingers crossed—resolved sooner than later.
Previously, Disney announced that a Lando series was in the works in December of 2020, with Haunted Mansion and Dear White People director Justin Simien attached to develop it. Simien exited before the Glover brothers took on the script, and as they worked on it, the TV series became a feature film.
As we wrote previously when the initial story of the Glovers’ involvement was revealed, Donald Glover’s portrayal of the young Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams in the original Star Wars trilogy, as well as 2019’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, was the rare case of a performer sliding perfectly into a role made iconic by somebody else before. He has the charisma and sense of mischief that made Billy Dee Williams a breath of fresh air when he made his first appearance as Han Solo’s brother-in-smuggling in The Empire Strikes Back.
Glover had this to say back in April to GQ: “I’m not interested in doing anything that is going to be a waste of my time or just a paycheck. I would much rather spend time with people I enjoy. It just has to be the right thing, which I think it could be. Lando is definitely somebody I’d like to hang out with. We’re talking about it. That’s as much as I can say.”
When Donald Glover met Williams before filming on Solo began, he told THRthe charming story of what happens when exuberance meets cool:
“I was like, ‘I’ve always felt like this character could do this, and he represents this, and I kind of feel like he comes from here, and it’s very obvious he has a lot of taste, so maybe he grew up seeing that from afar? Because I’m like that. Maybe he saw it from other planets and was like, ‘I want to be that. He just let me ramble on and on, and then finally I was like, ‘So, what do you think?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, I don’t know about all that. Just be charming.’“
For more stories on 20th Century Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Marvel Studios and what’s streaming or coming to Disney+, check these out:
The first trailer for director James Wan’s upcoming Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has arrived, unleashing an ocean’s worth of action, an even more jacked Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), and a changed Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa). Arthur, who you might remember is also Aquaman, was a self-described “wanderer” before the events in the first film. He had no home, no real responsibilities, and due to his immense abilities inherited from his mother, Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), the man could finish a bottle of whiskey and still jump into a swelling ocean and go save some otherwise doomed sailors. Life was…good?
But now, Arthur has responsibilities, including a family and a kingdom to protect, which means he’s got way more to lose. The first full trailer for the long-awaited sequel paints a sharper picture on the man who aims to take all that away from him—Black Manta—still seething from not only being bested by Aquaman in the first film, but because he blames Aquaman for his father’s death.
Now that Arthur’s the King of Atlantis, Black Manta’s revenge plans include not only wiping out his whole family but the entire kingdom and everything it holds together. Vowing to burn Atlantis to ash, Manta’s vengeance needs to be met head-on. So Arthur recruits somebody he thinks might be able to help, somebody who knows a thing or two about what it’s like to have a burning desire to take him out—his brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson), the villain of the first film who ended up imprisoned after his attempt to claim the throne for himself. And they’ll need all the help they can get now that Manta is bigger, badder, and stronger, with a much more powerful weapon, the Black Trident.
Joining Momoa, Abdul-Mateen II, and Wilson are Amber Heard as Mera, Nicole Kidman as Atlanna, Temuera Morrison as Tom Curry, Dolph Lundgren as King Nereus, Jani Zhao as Stingray, Vincent Regan as Atlan, and Randall Park as Dr. Stephen Shin.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will be the last film to bow for DC Studios that doesn’t carry the direct imprimatur of new bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran.
Check out the trailer below. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom hits theaters on December 20:
Here’s the official synopsis:
Having failed to defeat Aquaman the first time, Black Manta, still driven by the need to avenge his father’s death, will stop at nothing to take Aquaman down once and for all. This time Black Manta is more formidable than ever before, wielding the power of the mythic Black Trident, which unleashes an ancient and malevolent force. To defeat him, Aquaman will turn to his imprisoned brother Orm, the former King of Atlantis, to forge an unlikely alliance. Together, they must set aside their differences in order to protect their kingdom and save Aquaman’s family, and the world, from irreversible destruction.
All returning to the roles they originated, Jason Momoa plays Arthur Curry/Aquaman, now balancing his duties as both the King of Atlantis and a new father; Patrick Wilson is Orm, Aquaman’s half-brother and his nemesis, who must now step into a new role as his brother’s reluctant ally; Amber Heard is Mera, Atlantis’ Queen and mother of the heir to the throne; Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is Black Manta, committed more than ever to avenge his father’s death by destroying Aquaman, his family and Atlantis; and Nicole Kidman as Atlanna, a fierce leader and mother with the heart of a warrior. Also reprising their roles are Dolph Lundgren as King Nereus and Randall Park as Dr. Stephen Shin.
For more on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, check out these stories:
Netflix has unveiled the first trailer for Wes Anderson’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, the auteur’s adaptation of a Roald Dahl short story that recently had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and is premiering on the streamer at the end of the month. As usual in any of his films, Anderson’s short film has a sensational cast, including his longtime collaborator Ralph Fiennes, alongside Benedict Cumberbatch, Sir Ben Kingsley, Dev Patel, and Richard Ayoade.
This is Anderson’s second adaptation of a Dahl story; his first was his rapturously received 2009 stop-motion film Fantastic Mr. Fox. And for Anderson fans, who are legion, the news gets better—not only will Netflix be releasing The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar in late September, but it’ll mark the beginning of a series, with one new short film premiering every day for four days. The Swan, The Ratcatcher, and Poison will follow, all based on Dahl’s short stories.
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is concerned with the story of Henry (Cumberbatch), a compulsive gambler who learns about a guru in India who can see without using his eyes. Henry believes if he can learn this skill, he’ll be able to cheat at gambling and never lose a hand for the rest of his life. Needless to say, things don’t get exactly according to Henry’s initial plan.
The trailer is a bounty of Andersonian detail, every frame exquisitely calibrated, every shot a work of art. There is probably nobody more aesthetically suited to adapting the work of the legendary Dahl, and it’s extra sweet that The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is only the first in a series.
Check out the trailer below. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar premieres on Netflix on September 27.
For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:
