Best of 2022: How “Nope” Production Designer Ruth De Jong Built & Bloodied the Haywood Ranch

Posted on by babrams

It’s that time of year—we look back on a few of our favorite interviews from 2022 in our annual year-end list.

There was a moment when writer/director Jordan Peele and production designer Ruth De Jong realized they were going to shoot Nope practically. Tucked in the Agua Dulce area of California’s Santa Clarita Valley is the Firestone Ranch, which would become the setting for the Haywood home where OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) discover an unexpected visitor living in the sky above them.

“The property is this huge basin surrounded by these hills, which makes it even scarier because there’s no way out,” says De Jong, who reunites with Peele after their work on Us (2019). “When we found this ranch, we knew it was epic and decided to shoot everything practically.”

Daniel Kaluuya as OJ Haywood in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.
Daniel Kaluuya as OJ Haywood in Nope, written, produced, and directed by Jordan Peele.

De Jong designed the ranch from the ground up, researching mid-1800s to 1900s farm houses up and down the California coast and central valley. The end result is a mash-up of different homes that influenced her and set designer Jim Hewitt. “It has a bit of an East Coast vibe, but it’s very true to ranches in California,” she notes. “I wanted it to melt into the landscape but be iconic.”

(from left) OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.
(from left) OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer) in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.

Every detail of the home was grounded in authenticity. De Jong also designed livable places for all the horses within existing arenas and stalls found on the property. “I came up under Jack Fisk (The Revenant, There Will Be Blood) as his art director for ten years, and he is so enthralled about his approach to making things real and true to life. I think that’s now ingrained in my DNA. When I was building the house, the first person I went to was our cinematographer Hoyte [van Hoytema], and I asked if there are any constraints I needed to consider. He was like, ‘Ruth, you design the house you want, and I will shoot the house you design.’ That was really freeing and incredible because it allowed the house to be completely real. We went six feet into the ground and made everything completely structurally sound for the crew to bring dollies up to the second and third floor.”

(from left) Daniel Kaluuya and writer/producer/director Jordan Peele on the set of Nope.
(from left) Daniel Kaluuya and writer/producer/director Jordan Peele on the set of Nope.

De Jong also dove into the background of the characters to develop the design. “Because a ranch like this would be pretty pricey in this day in age, we thought about how the Haywood’s could have afforded this on a horse wrangler salary,” she says. “We said that their father [played by Keith David] bought the house but didn’t fix it up. It has the same vintage wallpaper from the owner’s back 50-60 years ago. The furniture is kind of schlubby and the kitchen has a vintage stove and standard appliances.” Set decorator Gene Serdena filled the home with minimal pieces that had come with them through life – a not too little, not too much approach.

Another key aspect of the ranch was giving Peele and van Hoytema the opportunity to shoot 360-degrees interior and exterior. “I get involved in all aspects of filming, not just how to build the house, but how the crew is going to use it,” says De Jong. “I didn’t want any bogies or base camp to be seen from any angle. To make your movie, every minute of everyday matters. Jordan is such a great proponent of that and said everything on the entire ranch is a hot set.”

 

The approach paid off, especially for a climactic scene near the end of the movie where the house becomes covered in blood because of the entity in the sky attacking them. To pull off the sequence, a vast rain bar system was created along with gallons of food-grade blood that would be dumped onto the house. Over the course of several days, production shot all the interior house shots where Emerald and Fry’s electronics guru Angel (Brandon Perea) are stuck inside as the entity circles above OJ, who is hiding out in a van. Then working with special effects and visual effects, they saturated the earth and house with blood to show the aftermath of the following morning. “All of that was practical,” notes the production designer. “Even the stuff we strapped on the roof. We were throwing everything up there, a wheelchair, and an ice cream machine. It was a lot of fun to shoot.”

Keke Palmer as Emerald Haywood in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.
Keke Palmer as Emerald Haywood in Nope, written, produced and directed by Jordan Peele.

Looking back, De Jong is proud that they never skimped out on doing things practically. Even all the Sky Dancers that were placed in the field to alert the characters of the entity were practical. The electrical department came up with a way to control each one through an iPad. “It’s so satisfying to do a movie as practically as possible,” she says. “It’s an achievement.” 

For more on Nope, check out these stories:

“Nope” Editor Nicholas Monsour Dives Into the Macabre of Jordan Peele’s Sci-Fi epic

“Nope” Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema on Capturing the Epic Scope of Jordan Peele’s Latest

First “Nope” Reactions Say Jordan Peele’s Latest Stunner is Out of This World

New Video Details How Jordan Peele’s “Nope” was Shot With IMAX Cameras

Daniel Kaluuya & Keke Palmer Highlight New “Nope” Trailer & Inside Look

 

The Adam Driver Versus Dinosaurs Film “65” Gets New Release Date

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What happens when you pit Adam Driver and some high-tech weaponry against…some dinosaurs? This conceit alone is enough of a draw for us, but there’s a lot more to his upcoming thriller 65, which finds Driver playing Mills, a spaceship pilot who crash lands on a mysterious planet while ferrying thirty-five sleeping passengers. Once on the planet, and now saddled with only one survivor (a young girl named Koa, played by Arianna Greenblatt), Mills makes a shocking discovery—the mysterious planet? Yeah, it’s Earth, only it’s Earth 65 million years ago. This is why Mills and Koa end up having to face dinosaurs.

65 will now be heading to theaters on March 17, 2023 (moved back a week), and it looks like the type of early-year adventure that could draw in an audience and provide a much-needed shot of adrenaline. The film comes from directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who previously co-wrote, along with John Krasinski, A Quiet Place, so these two know how to set up a tense, pared-down thriller. In this case, they trade those sound-hunting aliens for prehistoric carnivores, but there’s no doubt they’ve deployed what they learned from their critically acclaimed work in A Quiet Place into their new feature.

For a taste of what you’ll be getting with 65, check out the trailer below.

And here’s the official synopsis:

After a catastrophic crash on an unknown planet, pilot Mills (Adam Driver) quickly discovers he’s actually stranded on Earth…65 million years ago. Now, with only one chance at rescue, Mills and the only other survivor, Koa (Ariana Greenblatt), must make their way across an unknown terrain riddled with dangerous prehistoric creatures in an epic fight to survive. From the writers of A Quiet Place and producer Sam Raimi comes 65, a sci-fi thriller starring Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, and Chloe Coleman. Written and directed by Scott Beck & Bryan Woods and produced by Sam Raimi, Deborah Liebling and Zainab Azizi. Also produced by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods.

For more upcoming films from Sony Pictures, check out these stories:

Donald Glover to Produce & Star In “Spider-Man” Movie Based on Villain Hypno-Hustler

“Devotion” Score Mixer Alvin Wee on Letting the Music & Emotion Take Flight

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” Trailer Finds Miles Morales in a Spot of Trouble

“Devotion” Director J.D. Dillard on Leading Jonathan Majors in his Emotional War Epic

Featured image: Adam Driver stars in 65. Courtesy Sony Pictures.

New HBO Max Trailer Reveals New Looks at “The Last Of Us” & More

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HBO Max has dropped a new trailer teasing their 2023 slate, and it’s a heady mix of drama, comedy, dramedy (we’re looking at you, Barry), and more. Arguably the most hotly anticipated new series coming to the streamer is The Last of Us, the hugely ambitious video game adaptation from Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann. The Last Of Us is set 20 years after the fall of modern civilization and stars Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie, two survivors setting out from the quarantine zone on a journey that will be both brutal and heartbreaking.

The new spot also teases upcoming limited series coming to HBO Max, including White House Plumbers, starring Woody Harrelson as E. Howard Hunt and Justin Theroux as Gordon Liddy, two political saboteurs who did President Nixon’s bidding in an attempt to save his presidency and ended up helping destroy it. The new spot also gives you a peek at the fourth installment of True Detective, subtitled Night Country, which is set in Ennis, Alaska and concerns the disappearance of men operating a research station.

Other limited series coming to HBO Max in 2023 include the glitzy drama The Idol, starring The Weekend and Lily-Rose Depp, and the adult animated series Velma (which made headlines this year when it was finally confirmed that Velma is a lesbian), which focuses on the legendary sleuth’s origin story. There’s also Love & Death, Full Circle, and the return of Warrior.

The teaser also reminds us of some of the series that are returning to the streamer, including season four of Succession and the second seasons of Perry Mason, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, and The Gilded Age.

On the comedy side, 2023 will see new seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Barry, Somebody Somewhere, Hacks, Our Flag Means Death, The Other Two, Julia, and The Righteous Gemstones. 

Check out the trailer below:

For more on Warner Bros., HBO, and HBO Max, check out these stories:

First “Barbie” Trailer Reveals Margot Robbie as the Iconic Mattel Doll Come to Life

James Gunn Writing New “Superman” Film About Superhero’s Early Days

“Dune: Part Two” Wraps Filming

First “Joker 2” Image Reveals Return of Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck

Featured image: Anna Torv and Pedro Pascal in “The Last of Us.” Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO

How “Avatar: The Way of Water” Visual Effects Wizards Conjured Underwater Magic

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How long can you hold your breath underwater? One minute? Two? Maybe three? For James Cameron’s highly-anticipated Avatar: The Way of Water, now in theaters, the cast had to take lessons from free diving expert Kirk Krack in order to fluidly capture the transcendent water scenes. Why so? Bubbles.

The sequel picks up from the 2009 blockbuster exploring the enchanting oceans of Pandora, in particular, the lush island reef village of the Metkayina clan, led by Ronal (Kate Winslet, who could comfortably hold her breath for 7 minutes and 20 seconds) and her husband Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). Physically, these Na’vi are different from their mainland counterparts. Their skin is more green than blue with larger hands, bigger chests, and wider tails, allowing them to effortlessly live an aquatic lifestyle. Characters swim beneath the surface or ride creatures like the long-necked ilu, the flying skimwing, and bond with whale-like tulkun.

A scene from "Avatar: Way of Water." Courtesy 20th Century Studios.
A scene from “Avatar: The Way of Water.” Courtesy 20th Century Studios.
(L-R): Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and a Tulkun in 20th Century Studios’ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2022 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

It’s here the Sully family – Jake (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and their children Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) and adopted teenage daughter, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) – seek refuge and must adapt to ocean life as “The Sky People” have returned to relentlessly hunt them down.

With Avatar, Cameron and the award-winning visual effect team, overseen by Joe Letteri, created motion capture technology that instantly recorded the actors’ performance while simultaneously displaying them as their Na’vi character for the director to see. But that system was designed for dry land. This time around, the hurdle was designing a water-friendly mo-cap system.

On set of 20th Century Studios' AVATAR 2. Photo by Mark Fellman. © 2021 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
On set of 20th Century Studios’ AVATAR 2. Photo by Mark Fellman. © 2021 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

“We created two ‘volumes’,” Letteri says, who again served as senior visual effects supervisor. “There was a ‘water volume’ and an ‘air volume’ because a lot of the action happens at the surface of the water. We needed to capture above and below the surface of the water at the same time, so we created two systems and found a way to lock the two together in real-time so Jim could see the performances.”

Director James Cameron and crew behind the scenes of 20th Century Studios’ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER. Photo by Mark Fellman. © 2022 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.scenes of

At Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment facility in Manhattan Beach, two tanks were built, one for training and smaller scenes and a second that stood 120 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 30 feet deep, holding more than 250,000 gallons of water. This was their “Swiss army system,” where they could simulate large waves, have characters surface, creature interactions, and create other eye-popping action sequences.

Director James Cameron on set of 20th Century Studios' AVATAR 2. Photo by Mark Fellman. © 2021 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Director James Cameron on set of 20th Century Studios’ AVATAR 2. Photo by Mark Fellman. © 2021 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

The two capture volumes, one using infrared to capture performances above the water and the other using ultraviolet light to capture everything below, were positioned one inch from each other so the data could be computed in real-time to a Virtual Camera that displayed the actors’ Na’vi counterpart. To control light reflection, hundreds of small polymer balls were placed on the surface. “This allows the surface of the water to move naturally, the actors to breathe safely and to play on the surface of the water unimpeded and uninhibited in their performance,” notes Lightstorm visual effects supervisor Richard Baneham.

(L-R, Front to Back): Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Kate Winslet, and Cliff Curtis on the set of 20th Century Studios’ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER. Photo by Mark Fellman. © 2022 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

For the performance capture system to work unscathed, the water had to be clear. It meant there couldn’t be any air bubbles, not only from the actors but from anyone entering the tank. Camera operators, lighting, and safety crew all had to hold their breath. Along with additional safety procedures, safety cameras were placed to monitor those in the water.

Behind the scenes of 20th Century Studios’ AVATAR 2. Photo by Mark Fellman. © 2022 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Over 18 months, the actors’ performances were captured not only for Way of Water but for the three pending sequels, Avatar 3, 4, and 5, as all of the sequels were written prior to the start of production, allowing Cameron to shoot stories simultaneously. In capturing the water performances, Letteri says, “It really gave us the movement that you could not get any other way. There’s a shot of Tsireya [Bailey Bass] where she dives down, showing the Sully children how to swim, and they go back to the surface, and she rolls on her back and smiles at them. That’s pure performance in the water. There is no other way you could get that kind of gracefulness other than keyframing, which would take you a long time just for that one shot. This allowed the actors to express themselves in the water.”

“There is a lot of spectacle, scope, and emotion in the movie,” Baneham adds. “We really pushed the motion vocabulary bringing these characters to life. We really wanted to give the audience a sense of place.”

For more on Avatar: The Way of Water, check out these stories:

James Cameron Says “Avatar 4” Script “Goes Nuts”

“Avatar: The Way of Water” First Reactions: A Stunning Visual Masterpiece

“Avatar: The Way of Water” IMAX Featurette Focuses on Jake & Neytiri’s Family

Featured image: Tuk (Trinity Bliss) in 20th Century Studios’ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2022 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

“Kindred” Costume Designer Jaclyn Banner on Dressing the First Octavia E. Butler Adaptation

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Although Hugo and Nebula-winning novelist Octavia E. Butler was the first science fiction writer to ever receive a MacArthur Fellowship and the first Black woman to gain popularity and critical acclaim as a major science fiction writer, many are unaware of her genius and influence on the genre. That is about to change because now, finally, a number of her works are being adapted for the screen. The first is an FX series based on her 1979 novel Kindred created by showrunner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, who executive produces the series with Darren Aronofsky and his partners at Protozoa Pictures. 

Kindred is centered on aspiring writer Dana James (Mallori Johnson), who finds herself inexplicably pulled back and forth in time. Her two anchor points are present-day Los Angeles and antebellum Maryland in the early 1800s, which, as a Black woman, puts her at enormous risk. 

To complicate things, Dana’s white boyfriend, Kevin (Micah Stock), accidentally travels back in time with her to a plantation owned by Thomas Weylin (Ryan Kwanten) and his wife Margaret (Gayle Rankin). Dana has deep familial connections with members of the enslaved who toil on the Weylin plantation. 

As part of this project, Kindred costume designer Jaclyn Banner was tasked with creating hundreds of authentic Regency Era costumes, including over a hundred indigo muslin dresses for the enslaved women on the show. In a chat with The Credits, Banner discussed her process and her part in bringing Butler’s landmark sci-fi novel to life. 

Jaclyn Banner. courtesy of Jaclyn Banner

What was your process in creating the indigo muslin costumes for the enslaved female characters on the show? 

In the book, they are in blue dresses, so of course, that’s something that we wanted to do for the series. I actually did two versions of the dress because, at the beginning of this series, it’s winter. As we go on from episode five through eight, we’re in summer, so I did two different versions, a winter dress and a summer dress. The summer dress is actually more of a teal kind of blue, having a bit more green tones in it, versus the winter dress. It sounds like it’s an easy thing, but no. During this time, the enslaved were given cloth to make their clothes from, and it wasn’t always the most comfortable or the softest of fabrics. It’s muslin, it’s linen, and linen during those days was really rough, so we tried to find the right fabric that would still give that appearance, but our cast and our background actors would have to be in these dresses, day in, day out, working in the heat of Atlanta in the summer, so it was important to make it as comfortable as possible for them. Also, with the climate of the show, and its sensitive nature, it was essential to make people as comfortable as they could be but still give the appearance of clothing from the period. 

Fabrics and illustrations for enslaved costumes. Courtesy of Jaclyn Banner
Fabrics and illustrations for enslaved costumes. Courtesy of Jaclyn Banner

How did you go about sourcing what you needed?

I found the right fabric from Siam Costumes in Thailand. They sent me boxes of various fabric samples that ranged from cotton and linen and muslin to silks and satins, because those are the things that I used for most of Margaret’s costumes. I found the right one for the blue dresses, and they ended up having probably over 100 yards of this indigo fabric, and it was great. Even though it was already dyed, we still had to do our process to it, just to make sure that we got the color right and to get all the excess dye out, so people aren’t sweating and winding up with blue dye all over their bodies.

Enslaved winter dresses and cook house dresses. Courtesy of Jaclyn Banner
Enslaved winter dresses and cook house dresses. Courtesy of Jaclyn Banner

What was the difference between the summer dresses?

For the summer version, we used the same fabric, but at that point, they had run out of indigo, so we had to dye it ourselves. We did various samples, and then the color we ended up using was by accident. With aging and dying, it’s kind of like trial and error. You add a little bit of this color and you see what it does. We wanted to do the same color as the winter dresses, but we got this great sample, and I showed it to Brandon [Jacobs-Jenkins], and he said, “Oh yeah, I love this.” It gave a different feel. It still worked within the realm of the show and with the production design because that was one of the biggest things in finding the right blue. Jerry Fleming, who was our production designer, did a fantastic job of designing the Weylin house, with all the colors in the wallpaper and the flooring and all of that. I was definitely in constant communication with him about each room, Rufus’s room, Margaret’s room, Tom’s room, the library, the office, the foyer, all of these different places, in addition to all of the other sets that we used. So we fine-tuned it, we got it down, and it just worked great. Blue is a universal color and looks good on just about everybody, but in addition to working within the realm of the show and the production design, it was important to find a color that would work well on our various complexions, and both of those colors did that.

Dana (Mallori Johnson) and Kevin (Micah Stock), shown. (Photo credit: Tina Rowden/FX) -
Dana (Mallori Johnson) and Kevin (Micah Stock), shown. (Photo credit: Tina Rowden/FX)

You were very thoughtful about the costumes for the enslaved and made a lot of different little changes depending on the jobs they did.  

Yes. We made a conscious effort not to really show the enslaved how we have seen them before. In Roots, we’ve seen them in clothes that were ragged and haggard, and we’ve seen other shows where they are in really dirty clothing with lots of holes. With this project, we knew it was definitely of a very sensitive nature and could trigger a lot of different things for a lot of different people, so we tried to be conscious of that. We also wanted to show that the enslaved are still human beings. They’re in this situation; some of them think it’s temporary, some believe it’s for life, but some are actually working towards their freedom and trying to get away from that situation. For example, if they worked in the field, of course, they’d be e a little bit dirtier than those working in the cook house. For the people in the cook house, we might put burn marks on their aprons, and a little burn mark on their sleeve, and maybe some food stains and things like that. If there were someone who was forced to be on the floor doing a lot of cleaning, the knees would be a little bit more worn than other characters. 

Sophina Brown and Lindsey Blackwell as Sarah and Carrie in Kindred (2022) Photo by Tina Rowden:FX - © 2022, FX Networks
Sophina Brown and Lindsey Blackwell as Sarah and Carrie in Kindred (2022) Photo by Tina Rowden:FX – © 2022, FX Networks

You create elements on costumes that speak to character. Can you give an example viewers can look for? 

Sure. So for Carrie specifically, she’s Sarah’s daughter, and she’s a child, but she’s also one of Rufus’s friends, her and Nigel. Being that she’s Margaret’s dresser, and she is skilled at making clothes, one of the things that we thought would be cool for her, just to set her apart from the other enslaved, was that in her free time, she doodles or embroiders flowers and little things like that on her clothes. The camera may not pick up on this, and it may not be something that anybody else picks up on, but with the younger version of her, during winter, the embroidery on her dress wasn’t that great because she’s working on her craft. Then three years later, when we come back in episode five, and we’re in the summer version, you can see a little bit more of the detail and how she’s been honing her craft. That was something different we did for her to express her character. 

This is the first of Octavia E. Butler’s works to be shown onscreen, which is surprising given how many awards she won as an author while she was alive. 

Absolutely. It’s unfortunate that artists a lot of times get their just recognition when they’re no longer with us. Kindred was written in 1979, decades ago, and finally, her work is coming to light onscreen. There are a number of her books being made into films and series now, but I’m happy that we were the first ones out the gate. I’m proud I could be a part of that. 

 Kindred is streaming now on Hulu.

For more on films and series streaming on Hulu, check out these stories:

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Featured image: Mallori Johnson as Dana James Photo by Richard DuCree-FX © 2022, FX Networks 

Hugh Jackman Dropped a Big Clue About How Wolverine Returns for “Deadpool 3”

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When the news broke that Hugh Jackman was reprising his role as Wolverine in Deadpool 3, the first question was, understandably, but how? Jackman’s iconic embodiment of the adamantium-clawed mutant came to a brutal, beautiful close in James Mangold’s Logan, dying a very definitive, very noble death. Mangold’s Oscar-nominated film gave Jackman’s Wolverine a hero’s death, as he sacrificed himself to save his young, unasked for protegé Laura (Dafne Keen), a little Wolverine, so to speak, created from Logan’s DNA.

Well, Jackman himself has dropped a major clue on how it’s possible Wolverine returns for Deadpool 3 and joins Ryan Reynold’s Merc with the Mouth—and the answer is the multiverse. But of course! Considering that Marvel has gone all-in on the multiverse, with characters increasingly moving across timelines, from Spider-Man: No Way Home to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it sounds as if this device is how Reynolds’ foul-mouthed, beloved Deadpool will encounter Wolverine.

Jackon revealed this during a conversation with SiriusXM. He says that he wasn’t actively pursuing a return to the role and joked that Reynolds was trying to cajole him for years, “annoyingly,” to come back. But then, when he saw Deadpool, he was struck by an idea of Deadpool and Logan in a kind of Eddie Murphy/Nick Nolte dynamic (from 48 Hours for those of you not hip to 1980s movie references). It wasn’t until, however, the notion of the multiverse came up that Jackman saw a way to finally give in to Reynolds and make a Wolverine/Deadpool movie without messing with Logan. Here’s what he said:

“It’s all because of this device they have in the Marvel world of moving around timelines. Now we can go back because, you know, it’s science. So I don’t have to screw with the Logan timeline, which was important to me. And I think probably to the fans too.”

There’s also the fact that Logan is set in 2029, and Deadpool 3 is presumably set before that, so, as Reynolds has stated previously, Deadpool 3 won’t interfere with the Logan timeline.

Whatever it takes to get these two together works for us.

Check out the interview clip here:

For more on all things Marvel Studios, check out these stories:

Disney+ Trailer Teases Look at Marvel’s “Secret Invasion,” “Loki” Season 2 And More

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Composer Ludwig Göransson on the Score’s Secret Weapon

“Deadpool 3” Director Shawn Levy Promises Franchise Remains As Hardcore As Ever

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Hair Department Head Camille Friend on The Sequel’s Stunning Looks

Featured image: Featured image: Hugh Jackman in ‘Logan.’ Courtesy 20th Century Fox.

Disney+ Trailer Teases Look at Marvel’s “Secret Invasion,” “Loki” Season 2 And More

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Disney+ dropped a bite-sized yet satisfying morsel yesterday—a sneak peek at what’s coming to the streamer in 2023. It’s going to be a big year on Disney+, with original new series, Marvel superheroes, Pixar animation, new Disney movies and series, and fresh Star Wars sagas all gathering in one place.

The teaser gives us a glimpse at a few upcoming series from everyone’s favorite galaxy far, far away, which is growing more populated by the season, with both animated series and live-action Star Wars series headed to Disney+ in 2023. Season two of the animated series Star Wars: The Bad Batch arrives at the very beginning of 2023, while on the live-action side, we get a glimpse of the first season of the Rosario Dawson-led Star Wars: Ahsoka and season three of The Mandalorian. 

Meanwhile, we get fresh footage from two of Marvel Studios’ upcoming live-action series, starting with the brand new Secret Invasion, starring Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Ben Mendelsohn as his alien partner Talos. Season two of Loki also arrives, with Tom Hiddleston returning as the titular trickster god for some multiversal mayhem, with his new, complicated love interest Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) and his good buddy Mobius (Owen Wilson). The teaser also hypes the biggest new MCU film to land on the streamer early next year—Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

The teaser also includes looks at Pixar’s Win or Lose and Dug Days, the new Disney series American Born Chinese (directed by Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings helmer Destin Daniel Cretton), the new Disney movie Peter Pan & Wendy, and more.

Check out the sneak peek at 2023 below.

For more on all things Marvel Studios, check out these stories:

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Composer Ludwig Göransson on the Score’s Secret Weapon

“Deadpool 3” Director Shawn Levy Promises Franchise Remains As Hardcore As Ever

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Hair Department Head Camille Friend on The Sequel’s Stunning Looks

“The Legacy of Ant-Man” Special Looks Reveals Glimpse at “Quantumania”

Featured image: Tom Hiddleston is Loki and Owen Wilson is Mobius M. Mobius in ‘LOKI.’ Photo Courtesy Marvel Studios.

“George & Tammy” Creator Abe Sylvia on Crafting a Complicated Love Story

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It’s a story that’s been on Abe Sylvia’s mind for a while. The screenwriter of The Eyes of Tammy Faye and writer/producer of such television series as Dead to Me and Nurse Jackie has always had a soft spot for country music. Blame it on his Oklahoma upbringing. And that’s why Sylvia found the story of George Jones and Tammy Wynette too good to resist.

George & Tammy, the six-episode series he created and wrote, is currently unfolding on Showtime. Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain star as the couple whose love of music and each other made them country legends as it brought turmoil to their personal lives. In a recent interview, Sylvia reflects on the decade-long journey to bring George & Tammy to life.

 

Tell me about the inception of George & Tammy?

I had an idea about a fictional country singer. I probably shouldn’t say this because I still want to do it. I was doing research, and I came across a photo of George Jones and Tammy Wynette in an embrace. The picture really struck me. And it dawned on me—why am I trying to make up a story? No one’s done George and Tammy yet. That was probably 11 years ago. That same weekend, I saw The Tree of Life, and I thought, ‘“Gosh, Jessica Chastain would be an amazing Tammy Wynette.” It was originally conceived as a feature. We were close to going three times. During that time, television came to be the place for grown-up content about complicated adults. And my personal stock in television was on the rise. So I approached Jess and said, “You want to do it on TV?” And she said, “Yeah, we should do it.”

Jessica Chastain is Tammy Wynette. Courtesy Showtime Networks.
Jessica Chastain is Tammy Wynette. Courtesy Showtime Networks.

How did you arrive at six episodes?

I’ve probably written this story 42 times backward and forwards. The TV pitch consisted of the feature script and a plotline for the season. At first, it was ten episodes, then eight. Things fell away as we honed in on the love story and stopped trying to get every fabulous anecdote in. Even though so many of our narrative darlings were never shot, I think the show is better for it. Six episodes just seemed the natural end to that decision.

What was behind the decision to name each episode after a song?

Tammy and George did us the great favor of always singing about what was happening at that moment in their lives. We didn’t add songs just to get the hits in. It always came from a place of where the two were emotionally. We went to the natural beginning, middle, and end of their love story. And the songs revealed themselves. For a while, Episode two was called A Girl I Used to Know, which is a George Jones song. Much of Episode two is about how Virginia Pugh reinvents herself and becomes Tammy Wynette and the Grammy winner who sings Stand By Your Man. We were thinking of using Stand By Your Man later. But Tammy takes a big emotional turn in Episode two. She really sees George as the three-dimensional complicated man that he is and not just a big star and chooses to stand by him anyway. That made us change the title.

Michael Shannon is George Jones and Jessica Chastain is Tammy Wynette. Courtesy Showtime Networks.
Michael Shannon is George Jones and Jessica Chastain is Tammy Wynette. Courtesy Showtime Networks.

George & Tammy is based on their daughter Georgette’s The Three of Us: Growing Up with Tammy and George. What kind of interaction was there with her?

We spoke a great deal. She really didn’t note the scripts, but she asked that we do two things. The first was not to make her mother’s life a tragedy. It ended sadly, and terrible things happened to her, but she was a force of nature. That really changed how we looked at Tammy. She had twenty number-one hits in her lifetime. That is not a tragedy. We talk about Elvis and all his accomplishments. He died of a drug overdose, but his life is not considered a tragedy. Tammy’s is. I thought that was a really interesting distinction. We include some sad things that happen along the way, but we couldn’t lead with the tragedy. It’s unfair. That’s why Tammy enters the show running with a big smile. She was always trying to reach a destination… even with her drug use. One thing she won’t do is stop. It’s what George says. You can’t stop her. That’s her beauty.

And the other thing?

The other thing pertained to George’s sobriety. I think Georgette said, “You know, there are a lot of people in the world who want to take credit for getting my dad clean. My dad got himself clean. Certainly, there were people who checked him into rehab or picked him up and dusted him off many times. But his sobriety belongs to him.” That was a very important aspect of dealing with it.

Michael Shannon is George Jones and Jessica Chastain is Tammy Wynette. Courtesy Showtime Networks.
Michael Shannon is George Jones and Jessica Chastain is Tammy Wynette. Courtesy Showtime Networks.

What else did you learn from Georgette?

She also introduced us to a lot of people that we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to speak to —  her sister Jackie and her brothers Jeff and Bryan. Jan Smith (Tammy’s makeup artist, played by Katy Mixon) is still with us. We had multiple conversations with her. She gave us real insight into Tammy. And then Peanutt (songwriter/ session musician played by Walton Groggins) and Charlene (Kate Arrington) Montgomery — they became good friends of the show. We gave them roles. In Episode four, Charlene is the woman who picks up George when he’s hitchhiking. Peanutt is the street busker in Episode six. He’s singing one of his songs, and George gives him money. That’s the real Peanutt Montgomery. In fact, that was the first musical number we filmed. We were in production for a good deal of the show before we got to the musical numbers. That felt like a really nice segue into the performances.

How did Michael Shannon come to the project?

Michael Shannon was Jessica’s idea. She was very vocal about it. And she was right. He’s just so phenomenal. ln fact, I was on a plane to LA to pitch the show, and across the aisle from me is Michael Shannon. He wasn’t cast yet, but I thought that was a real sign.

Michael Shannon is George Jones. Courtesy Showtime Networks.
Michael Shannon is George Jones. Courtesy Showtime Networks.

Did you talk to him?

I didn’t. But I told him the story later, and he thought it was hilarious.

Did their casting have any impact on the script?

I had to get my George and Tammy down on paper first. Then the three of us read through the scripts, and it was quite a natural fit. We didn’t change a lot of dialogue. If anything, we lost some. Those two play a moment better than I can write it. As we tailored it to Michael and Jessica’s profound instruments, it was, “We don’t need words. We’ll tell this in a look.” That was probably the biggest thing in terms of writing it to them.

 

What would you like the takeaway from George & Tammy to be?

That people experience the show not as a biopic but as an exploration of love…conflicted love. I hope that people see themselves for better and for worse. That’s where great love stories capture us. I hope people come away having had a cathartic experience. It’s like one of those good cries that make you feel better about yourself. You feel wrung out by the end, but you still believe in love.

New episodes of George & Tammy air on Fridays on Showtime.

Featured image: Michael Shannon is George Jones and Jessica Chastain is Tammy Wynette. Courtesy Showtime Networks.

 

Watch Tom Cruise Perform the Most Insane Stunt in “Mission: Impossible” History

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Paramount has released a look at what might be one of the most insane stunts in the history of cinema. Tom Cruise, legendary (among other reasons) for upping the ante with his stunts for each and every Mission: Impossible installment, can be seen in this new featurette pushing the envelope presumably as far as one would think it’s possible to go. The new stunt is for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – Part One. It’s been years in the making, requiring Cruise to ride a motorcycle off a cliff and launch himself into a BASE jump. But of course.

This kind of lunacy is all in a day’s work for Cruise and the Mission: Impossible creative team, especially for Cruise and stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood. Eastwood is featured in the video, explaining that a year of BASE training, advanced skydive training, canopy control, and a slew of other skills were required to pull off the feat. While Cruise is the center of attention, the video shows how it takes a team of experts to deliver a stunt like this while keeping everyone safe.

“This is far and away the most dangerous thing we’ve ever attempted,” Cruise says.

It wasn’t just the aerial work Cruise had to master, but also motocross riding. The Mission: Impossible team built a motocross track for Cruise to practice, learning how to get comfortable riding the bike and jumping far distances. Writer/director Christopher McQuarrie explains that the cameras required to capture all this in the most thrilling way possible didn’t even exist when they were filming the last installment, Mission: Impossible – Fallout.

The years-in-the-making stunt was filmed in Norway and has to be seen to be believed. Check it out here:

Separately, Cruise also jumped out of a plane to thank Top Gun: Maverick fans for coming out to the theater in such massive numbers. This type of thing for him probably doesn’t even get his heart rate up that much anymore, but it’s still worth a watch.

Cruise thanked the fans in the most Cruise-ian of ways, by very casually leaning back and out of a plane over the coast of South Africa. The beauty? He continued his tribute to the fans while in mid-air, taking his very sweet time before pulling the ripcord to release the parachute. In fact, we never see the parachute itself, but we do get to watch Cruise finish his thanks and start spinning crazily towards the beach below.

Cruise made this special announcement while filming Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, which will be released in two parts, a year apart, and represents Cruise’s last mission as Ethan Hunt.

Check out the Top Gun: Maverick special announcement here:

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Featured image: Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT, from Paramount Pictures and Skydance. Courtesy Paramount.

Donald Glover to Produce & Star In “Spider-Man” Movie Based on Villain Hypno-Hustler

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Donald Glover will have a meaty role on and offscreen in an upcoming, recently revealed Spider-Man movie for Sony Pictures.

The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Glover is attached to star in and produce a film set within Sony’s Spider-Man Universe of Marvel characters. The film will be written by Myles Murphy, son of Eddie Murphy, and is said to focus on the Hypno-Hustler, an obscure Spider-Man villain.

The Hypno-Hustler comes from Bill Mantlo, the same writer who brought Rocket Raccoon into the world—now a Marvel Cinematic Universe staple—along with artist Frank Springer. As THR writes, the Hypno-Hustler came out of the disco era, appearing in “Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man No. 24” in 1978. The Hypno-Hustler, real name Antoine Delsoin, leads a band called the Mercy Killers and uses hypnosis technology in his instruments to hypnotize and rob his audience members.

How obscure is the Hypno-Hustler? So obscure he’s often mentioned as one of Spider-Man’s worst supervillains, yet this lack of pedigree is precisely why Glover was interested in the character in the first place. Without a legion of Hypno-Hustler fans, Glover and Murphy will be free to imagine the villain in any number of ways. What’s more, given Glover’s musical abilities, embodying a Marvel character who is also a musician has plenty of appeal. THR writes that the “project could be anything from a disco period piece to a re-imagined modern hip-hop version or even a cyberpunk future play.” We’d honestly see Glover leading a film in any one of those genres.

Glover’s connection to Spider-Man goes back years, when fans were hoping he’d land the role of Peter Parker in 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man. That role ultimately went to Andrew Garfield, but Glover did voice Spider-Man/Miles Morales in the Disney XD series Ultimate Spider-Man in 2015. He also had a small role that never made it to the final cut in Spider-Man: Homecoming (he played Miles’ Morales’ uncle).

Sony’s Spider-Man Universe is expanding, with Kraven the Hunter set to join the Tom Holland-led Spider-Man films, Venom, and Morbius in the growing cinematic family. Madame Web and Spider-Woman are both in development, and Glover’s Hypno-Hustler could be a great addition to this budding universe.

For more upcoming films from Sony Pictures, check out these stories:

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“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” Trailer Finds Miles Morales in a Spot of Trouble

“Devotion” Director J.D. Dillard on Leading Jonathan Majors in his Emotional War Epic

“The Walking Dead” Showrunner Angela Kang to Lead Marvel’s “Silk: Spider Society” For Amazon & MGM

Featured image: AUSTIN, TEXAS – MARCH 19: Donald Glover attends the premiere of “Atlanta” during the 2022 SXSW Conference and Festivals at The Paramount Theatre on March 19, 2022 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images for SXSW)

First “Oppenheimer” Trailer Unveils Christoper Nolan’s Atomic Bomb Drama

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The first trailer for Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer dropped last night, revealing the auteur’s upcoming period epic. Oppenheimer boasts yet another stellar A-list cast as the writer/director now turns his attention to a turning point in world history, focusing on the titular J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the man who risked creating something that could destroy the entire planet in order to save it.

Nolan’s film will explore Oppenheimer’s life and role in Manhattan Project, a government research effort that was created to build and test nuclear weapons that went on from 1942 to 1946. Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory at the time, where the bombs were assembled. He is widely considered to be the key architect of the bomb and a morally and ethically conflicted genius who quoted Hindu scripture while witnessing the first detonation of a nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945; “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

This is not Murphy’s first time working with Nolan, of course. He has had important roles in Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, and Dunkirk. However, this is the first time that he’s the star, and he heads up a sensational cast that includes Emily Blunt as his wife, botanist and biologist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer; Matt Damon as General Leslie Groves. Jr., director of the Manhattan Project; Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Commission; Florence Pugh as psychiatrist Jean Tatlock; Benny Safdie as theoretical physicist Edward Teller; Josh Hartnett as pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence; Michael Angarano as Robert Serber; Gary Oldman as Harry S. Truman; and Rami Malek and Kenneth Branagh in undisclosed roles.

Nolan adapted his script from Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Check out the first trailer below. Oppenheimer drops into theaters on July 21, 2023.

Here’s the official synopsis for Oppenheimer:

Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer is an IMAX®-shot epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it.

The film stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Emily Blunt as his wife, biologist and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer. Oscar® winner Matt Damon portrays General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, and Robert Downey, Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. 

Academy Award® nominee Florence Pugh plays psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie plays theoretical physicist Edward Teller, Michael Angarano plays Robert Serber and Josh Hartnett plays pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence.

Oppenheimer also stars Oscar® winner Rami Malek and reunites Nolan with eight-time Oscar® nominated actor, writer and filmmaker Kenneth Branagh. 

The cast includes Dane DeHaan (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets), Dylan Arnold (Halloween franchise), David Krumholtz (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story) and Matthew Modine (The Dark Knight Rises). 

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Featured image: OPPENHEIMER, written and directed by Christopher Nolan

How The “Babylon” Sound Team Built a Sonic Bacchanal

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The opening sequence to Damien Chazelle’s Babylon (in theaters today) hits you like one of the many lines of powder its characters will ingest. It’s eye-opening, choreographed chaos, leaving you with an intensely euphoric feeling – quite fitting for a story that revisits Hollywood’s infancy of the 1920s and ‘30s when La La Land was a sandbox of drugs, sex, and all night partying. 

It’s here we meet Manny Torres (Diego Calva), a low-level “yes man” with aspirations to make it in the biz, putting together the finishing touches on an elephant-sized bash for the who’s who, including silent movie star Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) and Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), a party-crasher looking to make a name for herself on the silver screen. Bedlam arrives at nightfall when tux-clad half-naked men, topless women, and hundreds of drunkards and coke fiends descend on the mansion of studio boss Don Wallach (Jeff Garlin), drinking and snorting anything and everything until sunrise. The mash-up has serious FOMO vibes and is glued together by the music from a live orchestra playing in the ballroom. That orchestra is led by trumpeter Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), and galvanizing the moment is a tantalizing dance by Nellie, which catches the eye of a producer who needs to replace an actress who happened to die of a drug overdose in a nearby room. It’s her chance at stardom.

Margot Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.

Beautifully shot on anamorphic 35mm push-processed film by cinematographer Linus Sandgren (La La Land, First Man) and exquisitely alluring production design from Florencia Martin (Licorice Pizza), the visual tapestry of Babylon invites you into the world with open arms, though it’s the sonic creativity that subliminally keeps you moving to the beat of Chazelle’s narrative drum.

“His films are very motivated by music,” says production sound mixer Steven Morrow (La La Land). “There’s a lot of discussion in preproduction about certain music hits and cues as well as the feel he [Chazelle] wants. We work heavily with the music department to make sure Damien has all the tools he needs.” Composer Justin Hurwitz returns for his fourth film with the director, and his up-tempo score helps drive the opulent soundscape.

“Damien wanted the sound to be visceral and real, to be a little larger than life,” says the multi-hyphenated supervising sound editor Ai-Ling Lee (La La Land, First Man), who collaborated alongside the likes of supervising sound editor Mildred Iatrou (La La Land, First Man) and re-recording mixer Andy Nelson (La La Land). “Because there’s a lot of action in the frame, he wanted the sound to be as immersive, in a sense, as much as the visuals.”

In filming the epic party, production sound fitted each actor with a wireless transmitter and lavalier to record their dialog. Boom operator Craig Dollinger placed an additional microphone overhead when viable, though the set walls of the Wallach location were lined with mirrors, limiting opportunities. The bigger hurdle for sound though was finding a solution to the music from the orchestra, so it didn’t trample on the dialog throughout the scene. Morrow decided to give each band member an earwig that the music would be played through, allowing them to mimic playing their instruments. The problem: there were dozens of dancers who also needed to hear the music, plus Robbie’s character. Sound utility Bryan Mendoza organized a system to give each one of them their own earwig to hear the songs and dance to the lavish choreography created by Mandy Moore (La La Land).

For Robbie’s dance number, Morrow devised another solution. “Mandy and Margot came up with the song Firestarter [by Prodigy] that she’s dancing to. Everyone else is dancing to what you hear on screen, but Margot had a separate earwig and transmitter so she could hear that specific song,” Morrow notes. “It may not look like it, but that party scene became a technical challenge where we had 42 earwigs going out on two different channels.”

Margot Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.

Lee admits the opening party sequence is heavily driven by music. For sonic clarity, post had to craft a visceral sound effects track that heightened the scene without overwhelming the audience. “Andy Nelson started the mix by setting what’s the loudest he can play the music for the sound effects, like the party crowd, fights, elephant, etc. I made sure not to play them too loud and be specific when we play them, rather than a bed of sounds. This way, if a small sound doesn’t overpower the music, that helps create an illusion that the music is always big, except for certain moments like the crowd cheers taking over the music on the last half of Nellie’s dance sequence,” explains Lee.

Jovan Adepo plays Sidney Palmer in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.

The mantra for production sound throughout filming was to find creative ways to protect the dialogue and not let the music play over entire sequences. Another such instance was a massive battlefield scene that has multiple storylines taking place at once, including Nellie’s first day on set, where she’s asked to repeatedly shed a tear and Jack Conrad climbing a hill to kiss a princess at sunset.

Lukas Haas plays George Munn, Brad Pitt plays Jack Conrad and Spike Jonze plays Otto Von Strassberger in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.
Lukas Haas plays George Munn, Brad Pitt plays Jack Conrad and Spike Jonze plays Otto Von Strassberger in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.

Supervising location manager Chris Baugh found an empty field in Simi Valley where Martin designed a number of open-air sets to represent Kinsocope studio owned by Wallach. “Kinoscope is what you’d call a Poverty Row studio,” Martin says in the production notes, “so we wanted to show how ramshackle and seat-of-your-pants the approach in those days could be. It’s really these pockets of fantasy sprouting out of the desert, where only months or weeks before nothing existed.” Every individual movie set, every painted backdrop – all were created from scratch.”

The colossal sequence had over 700 extras fighting, explosions, horse stunts, and a full orchestra. “On a traditional movie, you would blast the music and the orchestra would play along as the battle takes place. We thought since we had a large earwig count already, why not just give everyone in the orchestra an earwig, including the conductor [cameo by composer Justin Hurwitz]. This way, they can play along to the silent music, and then good sound effects of the battle and everything that’s going on could be recorded.”

Director of Photography Linus Sandgren and Olivia Hamilton as Ruth Adler on the set of Babylon from Paramount Pictures.
Director of Photography Linus Sandgren and Olivia Hamilton as Ruth Adler on the set of Babylon from Paramount Pictures.

Lee sent two sound effects recordists to capture the aural palette during the multi-day shoot. “They were able to set up a bunch of mics around the set to record a wider perspective of the extras yelling, attacking, and the different prop sounds,” mentions Lee. “We thought it might be kind of cool to capture the sound of 1,000 extras with props weapons and hear what it sounds like.” Morrow adds, “It may seem odd to say [to Chazelle] we don’t want to play this orchestra out loud, but in the end, it helps the authenticity of the scene. It lent all that extra sound that would be very difficult to recreate where you have all these extras on the field running at each other.”

In post, the team further pushed the battle sequence, finding moments to aurally heighten the drama of the unfolding storylines. “Justin’s score is driving a lot of the scene forward,” says Lee. “For sound to play it up, we would hit the cut to play in rhythm and pitch to his score.” Mixing in Dolby Atmos created more of an immersive soundscape where they pulled sound effects from the center speaker placing them in different perspectives for viewers to hear and feel.

Morrow admits none of it would be possible without the collaborative nature of Chazelle. “Damien really cares about every aspect of a movie, and you can tell that in the small details. He has storyboards he sends out to everybody to understand what his goals are for the shoot, but he’s collaborative in the sense that he’s not locked into a specific vision. It’s a very rewarding experience working on his movies.”

 

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Featured image: Margot Robbie plays Nellie LaRoy in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.

 

First “Barbie” Trailer Reveals Margot Robbie as the Iconic Mattel Doll Come to Life

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“Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been…dolls.”

This is how the first teaser trailer for writer/director Greta Gerwig’s Barbie opens, with little girls playing with dolls in a beautiful but barren landscape that is meant to evoke, both in sound and image, the iconic prehistoric “Dawn of Man” sequence in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyessy, where a band of apes are ejected from their watering hole.

“But the dolls are always and forever baby dolls,” our narrator continues. “Until…”

Until Barbie (Margot Robbie) appears, larger than life in a striped bathing suit and standing as tall as the monolith behind her. Then, just as the apes in 2001 began to evolve after stumbling upon a monolith and realizing they can use bones as a weapon, the little girls begin smashing their baby dolls after beholding the majestic colossus that is Barbie.

It’s a cheeky, delightfully weird teaser. Gerwig has become a rising star as a writer/director for a reason, and she’s working with a stacked deck here, so hopes are high that Barbie is going to be something special.

The teaser ends with a peek at the world Barbie inhabits, heavy on pinks, with a glimpse of Ken (Ryan Gosling), as well as Issa Rae and Simu Liu’s characters. They’re joined by America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Ariana Greenblatt, Alexandra Shipp, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Michael Cera, and Will Ferrell.

“We like the things that feel a little left of center,” Robbie told The Hollywood Reporter about Barbie. “Something like Barbie where the IP, the name itself, people immediately have an idea of, ‘Oh, Margot is playing Barbie, I know what that is,’ but our goal is to be like, ‘Whatever you’re thinking, we’re going to give you something totally different — the thing you didn’t know you wanted’…can we truly honor the IP and the fan base and also surprise people? Because if we can do all that and provoke a thoughtful conversation, then we’re really firing on all cylinders.”

If this first teaser is any indication, Barbie is definitely going to subvert expectations.

Check out the teaser trailer below. Barbie hits theaters on July 21, 2023.

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Featured image: Caption: MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

“Devotion” Score Mixer Alvin Wee on Letting the Music & Emotion Take Flight

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Growing up in Malaysia, Alvin Wee was drawn to “big action movies” such as the Harry Potter series and Transformers. “I liked sensory overload, the loud, visual spectacle. My favorite movie was Superman with Christopher Reeve. It’s also my favorite score, by John Williams,” says Wee, the Score Mixer on Sony’s Devotion, now in theaters. Wee was also the score mixer for Disney’s Encanto, working closely with composer Germaine Franco.

Wee got to do both epic and intimate with director J.D. Dillard‘s Devotion, the true story of the friendship between US Navy fighter pilots Capt. Thomas Hudner, Jr. (Glen Powell) and Ensign Jesse Brown (Jonathan Majors) during the Korean War when both were honored for their heroism. Devotion is notable for being equal parts action movie with Top Gun– like aerial maneuvers and a poignant drama about the genuine friendship between the two men, one white and one Black, from very different backgrounds.

 

As score mixer, Wee worked in close collaboration with Devotion composer Chanda Dancy. “I appreciate the collaborative process,” says Wee, who studied arranging and jazz composition at Berklee School of Music in Boston. “As a musician myself, I am able to bring more of the production process to collaboration. My goal from the beginning is always the ‘A-ha!’ moment. I live for that moment when the director, conductor, or composer is asking me ‘what if …’ and I’m able to help realize their vision.”

He also credits Devotion sound mixer Joel Dougherty for “making sure the music is well represented. For instance, there’s the big scene when the [fighter planes] get to the bridge, and the plane comes down. It could have been all gunshots and explosions. I like things loud, so I mix loud, but even I thought the sound was exciting … Joel said we needed the music to be just as good as the effects, and it makes the scene. [Director] J.D. [Dillard] had a lot of say, obviously; if the music was not mixed well, it would not have been able to compete with the effects.”

 

Wee’s knowledge of jazz and the technical aspects of production turned out to be unexpectedly useful since Devotion is set in 1950. Dancy composed period music for several sequences, most notably an important scene in a casino in France where the Naval officers meet the young screen legend Elizabeth Taylor.

Jesse Brown (Jonathan Majors) with Tom Hudner (Glen Powell) in Columbia Pictures' DEVOTION.
Jesse Brown (Jonathan Majors) with Tom Hudner (Glen Powell) in Columbia Pictures’ DEVOTION.

“It was a conscious decision to make sure that musically it was appropriate to the time, and Chanda did her own version of it. The casino scene has a big band playing Chanda’s original music, but it’s reflective of the era,” Wee says. “We were in the studio in Nashville, and we used the same setup and the same types of musicians that would have been in a 1950s big band. We used the same arrangements and harmonies. I researched recording and mixing techniques to make it historically accurate. We made sure it was right, down to the types of notes in a solo, the tempo, the sonic representation, whether it sounds like Django Reinhardt or Duke Ellington. We made sure it was done intentionally.”

When he first got to work in the Devotion sound studio, says Wee, “I didn’t see any visuals. Chanda and J.D. were working closely, but at that point, I had nothing but music to go on in the initial mixing,” he says. “Once I started mixing, I got the sense of beautiful, tender moments with pianos, quiet moments in the score that needed sculpting. We wanted big, and we wanted intimate. When Jesse and Tom are having a conversation, we didn’t want music to get in the way. So I went with my instincts. Once I saw the visuals, I knew the communication was right, and the way it translated made sense.”

Jesse Brown (Jonathan Majors) and Tom Hudner (Glen Powell) in Columbia Pictures’ DEVOTION.

Wee moved to Los Angeles to work in music production but eventually found his way to film. He was hired as score mixing assistant on the 2014 movie Kingsman: The Secret Service. “That was my introduction to film music. I’ve never looked back,” says Wee, whose music department credits since then include No Time to Die, Encanto, Top Gun: Maverick, and the upcoming Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody, which reunites him with composer Chanda Dancy.

The top-to-bottom attention to detail in Devotion was all the more rigorous because the film is based on real-life heroes.

“We got to meet [members of Jesse’s and Tom’s] families at screenings, and it makes it more real; there’s a weight to it,” says Wee.

“At the end of the day, everyone is so invested; we all tried to represent the story as well as we could. No one in that room in Nashville was doing it for any other reason. There’s so much to be said about the people who gave their lives for their country. I wanted to make sure it was done accurately and people understand the emotion and heart behind it.”

Devotion is playing in select theaters now.

For more upcoming films from Sony Pictures, check out these stories:

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” Trailer Finds Miles Morales in a Spot of Trouble

“Devotion” Director J.D. Dillard on Leading Jonathan Majors in his Emotional War Epic

“The Walking Dead” Showrunner Angela Kang to Lead Marvel’s “Silk: Spider Society” For Amazon & MGM

Featured image: Jesse Brown (Jonathan Majors) and Tom Hudner (Glen Powell) in Columbia Pictures’ DEVOTION.

“Avatar: The Way of Water” Poised to Make Huge Splash This Weekend

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James Cameron’s long-awaited return to Pandora is tracking to make a monster splash in its opening weekend. Avatar: The Way of Water, riding high on a wave of good reviews and overwhelmingly positive reactions to its visual splendor, is looking to overtake Top Gun: Maverick, Jurassic World: Dominion, and The Batman for the biggest opening weekend. If current tracking holds, it could also become the largest global opening of the year, topping Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

This shouldn’t be that surprising given Cameron’s track record and, specifically, his way with sequels. This is the guy who brought us Aliens and Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Yet, in the weeks and months (and years) leading up to his Avatar sequel, there was plenty of speculation about whether people still cared about the franchise, which debuted in world-beating fashion with the 2009 film but left, according to countless articles since, little cultural impact. Well—according to the most recent numbers, people are enthused about seeing The Way of Water in theaters this weekend. This is the kind of movie that demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible.

The Hollywood Reporter writes that, if current tracking is correct, The Way of Water should bring in between $150-$170 million and between $450-$550 globally. If it falls in the middle range of that global number, it will be the biggest global opening of the year. THR writes that one detail that could act as a potential brake on The Way of Water‘s success is the meaty running time of three hours and 12 minutes, which limits the number of showtimes. The caveat, however, is it’s not facing much competition.

The current leader in 2022 is Disney/Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which pulled in $185 million domestically and $449 million worldwide on its opening weekend. As for the year’s other big openings, Way of Water would also best Paramount’s Tom Cruise-led blockbuster Top Gun: Maverick, which opened to $126.7 million domestically, Universal’s Jurassic World: Dominion, which nabbed $145 million, and Warner Bros. The Batman, which made $134 million.

It all points to what has become a common refrain since the initial reactions to Way of Water were so positive—never bet against James Cameron.

For more on Avatar: The Way of Water, check out these stories:

James Cameron Says “Avatar 4” Script “Goes Nuts”

“Avatar: The Way of Water” First Reactions: A Stunning Visual Masterpiece

“Avatar: The Way of Water” First Reactions: A Stunning Visual Masterpiece

Featured image: A scene from “Avatar: Way of Water.” Courtesy 20th Century Studios.

“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” Animation Supervisor Brian Leif Hansen Packs Puppets With Emotion

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Inside a nondescript warehouse on the outskirts of Portland, a little boy made of wood galvanized efforts by stop motion filmmakers for three years before emerging now to wow moviegoers in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. This dark stop-motion iteration of Carlo Collodi’s 1882 tale, in theaters and streaming on Netflix, takes place in 1930’s Italy, adding Mussolini and forest witches to the story’s signature evil doers: circus master Volpe (voiced by Christoph Waltz) and the monster whale.

Puppets were fabricated in Manchester, England, and Guadalajara, Mexico, then shipped to Portland, where 41 animators teamed with grips, gaffers, lighting designers, camera operators, and scenic artists to create the fairy tale world inhabited by Pinocchio (voiced by English 10-year-old Gregory Mann) and his father Geppetto (David Bradley). Pinocchio co-director Mark Gustafson enlisted veteran Danish stop motion artist Brian Leif Hansen to serve as the show’s animation supervisor. “We averaged 3.8 seconds of animation output per week,” says Hansen, who abandoned his early ambitions to become a chef and instead moved to England, where he helped animate Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. Hansen later served under Gustafson on Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox stop-motion feature, followed by Laika-produced Missing Link and Kubo and the Two Strings.

Speaking from Manhattan, where he helped install the Museum of Modern Art’s “Guillermo del Toro: Crafting Pinocchio” exhibition, Hansen drilled into the painstaking process of bringing 12-inch tall heroes and villains to life.

 

Stop-motion animators move Pinocchio characters in tiny increments to build a scene. What kind of blueprint do the animators refer to as a guide?

The animators rely heavily on these [animatic] storyboards, and the voice actors have already been directed, so there’s a voice track to let them know what’s going on. The animator is like an actor. A director relies on the animator to give life to the character and to give a performance, and most times, they get it right.

This film packs such an emotional wallop. Part of that must come from the way voice actors inspire animators to synch the puppet’s movement to feelings expressed through their vocal performances.

Yeah. Emotions are a very important thing. [As an animator] You’ve got these headphones on, and you’re moving these puppets around; if you listen carefully to the voice recordings, you can hear breath and hear the actor shifting around. So you listen very carefully to the voice, and then you stuff all of that into your puppet in a way that lifts it up, enlarges it to become almost a caricature. You don’t just do it plainly. It’s crucial to have a good sound to work with when you’re creating a performance.

You worked as a hands-on animator yourself for about 15 years, and now, with Pinocchio, you’ve graduated to animation supervisor. How did that happen?

Mark Gustafson needed a wingman, somebody who’s done this many times before, to make sure he could deliver this high level of animation. That wingman being me. It turned out we work really well together.

What’s the division of labor?

Mark basically takes care of the emotion and the story, and I take care of all the technical things that need to be working so the animator could do his or her best performance. Also, I’m sort of a cheerleader, keeping up the spirit of this jolly ambiance within the animation department. Animators are artists, so they’re sometimes nervous about their work. And you need to make sure they focus on the right things rather than things that nobody’s going to see.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio - (L-R) Gepetto (voiced by David Bradley) and Pinocchio (voiced by Gregory Mann). Cr: Netflix © 2022
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio – (L-R) Gepetto (voiced by David Bradley) and Pinocchio (voiced by Gregory Mann). Cr: Netflix © 2022

The puppets in Pinocchio are moved by hand 12 or 24 times per second of screen time. How do the animators make that happen?

There’s enough tension [in the gears beneath the silicone surface] to hold a pose. You go in and move the core of the body, arms, legs, then your head, then your eyes and eyelids. Then you step away from the frame and they take a picture. Then you go back in and move everything again. What’s crazy about this process, called straight ahead, is that you don’t have key poses drawn on paper to show where you’re going. The animator’s moving into unknown territory, so you have to have everything planned out in your head before your start. Otherwise, it’s going to go south really quickly. For example, if you come in too high or too low with the puppet’s heel, it’ll look like he’s got a limp. Walking a human is really difficult because the human eye easily recognizes if it’s not perfect. Dogs are easier.

 

In this digital age, it’s refreshing to realize that the human hand, not an algorithm, dictates exactly how high the eyebrow goes or where the finger will point.

Exactly.

Stop motion is so labor-intensive! Just to get the timeline straight, when did you start, and when did you finish?

I started in January 2019. There was only one animator at the beginning. Two weeks later, another couple started, then a third one started. We ramped up to a maximum capacity of 41 animators on 60 sets. We shot the first frame in August 2019 and the last frame this August. We were rushing big time, and everything was being shot at the same time. We had like 30 Pinocchio’s, 18 Geppetto’s, seven Volpes. If there were only one Pinocchio, it would have taken ten years to shoot the movie. [laughing]

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio – (Pictured) Pinocchio (voiced by Gregory Mann). Cr: Netflix © 2022

Different crews for different sets?

Yeah. The Director of Photography, Frank Passingham, had four lighting and camera teams, each with ten or twelve sets. One crew did most of the church sequences. We had two and a half churches. Other people worked primarily on Geppetto’s workshop, which was actually three workshops split down the middle so we could shoot from both directions at the same time.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio - (Pictured) Pinocchio (voiced by Gregory Mann). Cr: Netflix © 2022
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio – (Pictured) Pinocchio (voiced by Gregory Mann). Cr: Netflix © 2022

Count Volpe, the greedy carnival boss voiced by Christoph Waltz, has a huge physical and performance presence. What was it like bringing him to life?

In Guillermo’s terminology, Volpe is a ten. He’s very purposefully the most caricatured being. And he has a Jekyll and Hyde personality: He’s either this showman with the happy face and big arms [waving around], or he’s this narrow-focused meanie. Also, the Volpe puppet was very big, so his joints need to be tight, which made them difficult to move. Most of the time, Count Volpe had to be attached to a rig because he was too heavy to stand by himself.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio - (L-R) Pinocchio (voiced by Gregory Mann) and Count Volpe (voiced by Christoph Waltz). Cr: Netflix © 2022
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio – (L-R) Pinocchio (voiced by Gregory Mann) and Count Volpe (voiced by Christoph Waltz). Cr: Netflix © 2022

Looking back at your immersion for more than three and a half years in the Pinocchio bubble, which sequence stands out as your favorite?

There are so many well-animated shots that I don’t really have a favorite. But the interaction between Geppetto and Pinocchio in the church is beautiful, the argument in the woods between them is genius, Geppetto waking up drunk and discovering Pinocchio for the first time is great, and the songs are funny and cool . . I could go on. But it’s not like there was one big mountain we climbed and everybody cheered when it was over. This was more like hedge jumps in the Olympics.

 

Hurdles?

In Denmark, we call them hedges but yeah, in Pinocchio, there was constant problem-solving that had to happen on the spot, but they weren’t impossible to solve because the problems came a little bit at a time. You had a whole team of collaborators, so you could just pick away at it, slowly.

You’re making progress, three or four seconds a week.

Yes, because if you had to think about the whole movie all at once, you’d just sit in the corner, shaking and crying. Here, we just had to carry on with these little bits that needed to be made, and then after you make all the little bits, you have a big thing.

For more on Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, check out these stories:

Bringing Stop-Motion Puppets to Life through Sound in “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”

“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” Early Reactions: A Stop-Motion Masterpiece

Guillermo del Toro on Why He Set “Pinocchio” in a World of Fascism

Featured image: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio – (Pictured) Pinocchio (voiced by Gregory Mann). Cr: Netflix © 2022

James Gunn Writing New “Superman” Film About Superhero’s Early Days

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As you’ve likely heard, Guardians of the Galaxy and Suicide Squad writer/director James Gunn has taken over DC Studios, along with producer Peter Safran, and the two have made major headlines in the past week and change about coming changes to DC’s superhero universe. Now, we have some concrete news—Gunn is penning a new Superman film that will focus on the superhero’s early days, and the role will not go to Henry Cavill.

Multiple outlets have confirmed Gunn’s script and Cavill’s exit from a role he clearly loved. Gunn’s Superman will not be an origin story but will include a new actor in the role. Cavill confirmed his exit—”My turn to wear the cape has passed.” Cavill reacted to the news on Instagram:

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A post shared by Henry Cavill (@henrycavill)

This news follows the shakeup concerning Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 3, which is not moving forward. Jenkins confirmed the news on Twitter.  Gunn and Safran have a 10-year plan for DC, which they’re presenting in January, so you can expect more shakeups to come.

Hold on, there’s more. Gunn and Safran are in talks with Ben Affleck about staying in the DC universe, but not as Batman, as a director. He’s still got one more Batman turn left in him as he reprises the role in The Flash, which races into theaters on June 16, 2023. Yet now the new DC Studio bosses are looking for a project for him to direct, which is something Affleck was planning on doing years ago on his own Batman film.

Here’s what Gunn shared on Twitter about all the news:

So for Cavill fans, who are legion, there is a chance he could return in some other role within the DC Extended Universe. It’s hard to imagine him playing anyone other than Superman, but stranger things have happened, and recall that some people had a hard time imagining him as Superman when he landed the role back in 2011.

Will we continue to share what news we have from the DC Universe as it unfolds.

For more on all things DC, check out these stories:

First “Joker 2” Image Reveals Return of Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck

“The Flash” Will Speed Into Theaters a Week Early

“Black Adam” Editor Michael Sale Breaks Down That Epic Justice Society Fight

Featured image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – AUGUST 02: James Gunn attends the Warner Bros. premiere of “The Suicide Squad” at Regency Village Theatre on August 02, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)

The First “Scream VI” Trailer Finds Ghostface in New York City

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Ghostface is about to take a big bite—er, slash—out of the Big Apple. The mayhem leaves Woodsboro, California, for the first time in the franchise and relocates to the City that Never Sleeps. Ghostface on a crowded F train during rush hour? Talk about a hellish commute! (Apologies).

The first trailer for Scream IV picks up after the horror in Woodsboro from the last film. The four survivors from the last chapter have left Woodsboro—who can blame them—and have moved to NYC to try and get a fresh start. Sisters Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) are in New York trying to rebuild their lives, yet Scream IV will find a Ghostface copycat doing his (or her) level best to ruin their city escape. Returning stars from the last film are Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown), Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding), and Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere). Newcomers include Jack Champion, Henry Czerny, Liana Liberato, Dermot Mulroney, Devyn Nekoda, Tony Revolori, Josh Segarra, and Samara Weaving.

The franchise began back in 1996 with Wes Craven’s gangbusters original film. Craven ultimately directed the first four films in the franchise, and then directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett took over Scream 5. They return to helm the latest installment, back alongside screenwriters James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, who penned the last entry.

Check out the trailer below. Scream IV hits theaters on March 10, 2023.

Here’s the official synopsis:

Following the latest Ghostface killings, the four survivors leave Woodsboro behind and start a fresh chapter. In Scream VI, Melissa Barrera (“Sam Carpenter”), Jasmin Savoy Brown (“Mindy Meeks-Martin”), Mason Gooding (“Chad Meeks-Martin”), Jenna Ortega (“Tara Carpenter”), Hayden Panettiere (“Kirby Reed”) and Courteney Cox (“Gale Weathers”) return to their roles in the franchise alongside Jack Champion, Henry Czerny, Liana Liberato, Dermot Mulroney, Devyn Nekoda, Tony Revolori, Josh Segarra, and Samara Weaving.

For more films and series from Paramount and Paramount+, check out these stories:

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“Babylon” Official Trailer Finds Brad Pitt & Margot Robbie Living the High Life

“1923” Official Trailer Finds Helen Mirren & Harrison Ford Ready to Defend the Dutton Home

Featured image: “Scream IV” teaser poster. Courtesy Paramount Pictures.

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Composer Ludwig Göransson on the Score’s Secret Weapon

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One of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever director Ryan Coogler’s closest collaborators throughout his entire Marvel journey has been composer Ludwig Göransson. Beginning with Coogler’s 2018 Black Panther, Göransson has been by his side, helping him breathe life into the music and sounds of the fictional African nation of Wakanda. Along with other key collaborators like costume designer Ruth E. Carter and production designer Hannah Beachler, Göransson’s talent has helped Coogler create the most immersive, richly detailed, vibrant world in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.

For Wakanda Forever, however, the stakes, emotions, and challenges were even higher than on the first film. Chadwick Boseman’s death at the age of 43 in August 2020 devastated the Black Panther family and millions of his fans around the globe. Göransson, who had read the initial, T’Challa-focused script for Black Panther 2, approached the re-tooled story, which Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole agonized over in the wake of Boseman’s death, with serious trepidation. So much of the sounds of the original Black Panther, and many of its major compositional themes, were centered on T’Challa. Göransson and the rest of the Black Panther team had to find a way to tell a new kind of story that would be focused on grief and heartbreak. Art imitating life, on set and in the music studio.

Göransson succeeded, as did Wakanda Forever. Collaborating with megastars (Rhianna and Tems) and lesser-known but no less vibrant talents from Mexico, Nigeria, and beyond, the composer created a singular score for a blockbuster focused primarily on grief and the way the women of Wakanda processed that grief and found a way to carry on.

We spoke with Göransson about finding the sound of Wakanda Forever in ancient graves, music studios in Mexico City and Lagos, Nigeria, and why it was the simplest instrument, the human voice, that became the score’s secret weapon.

What were you thinking musically when you read the revised script for Wakanda Forever after Chadwick passed, after reading the original script written from the perspective of T’Challa?

In the beginning, I had no idea how I was going to do this. In the first movie, a lot of the things that we recorded in West Africa, like the talking drums and the themes, were so tied to T’Challa and Chadwick. After I read the second script, I was talking to Ryan, and I was like, ‘Are we going to re-use any of these sounds and themes?’ So I wasn’t sure how to go about it.  So my approach instead was to start off with a completely new component and culture: Namor and the Talokans.

Tenoch Huerta Mejía as Namor in Marvel Studios’ BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER. Photo by Annette Brown. © 2022 MARVEL.

How did you approach creating the soundscape for this vast, secret underwater empire? 

Namor and the Talokans were inspired by Mayan culture and history. I quickly realized that much of that history was erased; the Mayan music, dances, and books were all erased by force. So we don’t know exactly what it sounded like; there’s nothing scribbled down, and obviously, there are no recordings. In Africa, for example, those traditions are all passed down from generation to generation. But with Mayan culture, they were not allowed to play their instruments or even sometimes speak their language. So, I went to Mexico City, started working with some music archeologists, and tried to reimagine what the Mayan sound and music were like.

(L-R): Alex Livinalli as Attuma and Mabel Cadena as Namora in Marvel Studios' Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2022 MARVEL.
(L-R): Alex Livinalli as Attuma and Mabel Cadena as Namora in Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2022 MARVEL.

And what did you learn?

They’ve found instruments in the graves, like flutes, and you can see on the flute holes where the fingerprints were and which intervals were used the most. You can look at the codex and see different formations of musicians in the drawings, like five musicians playing seashells and three musicians behind them playing turtle shells. So through that research, we started to record and reimagine what Mayan music could sound like. That was an incredible journey because I got to work with these fabulous musicians and was introduced to many instruments I’d never seen before.

What were the instruments?

There’s a flute called The Flute of Truth, which is almost like a dog whistle. It’s played at such a high pitch you can’t be in the same room as the performer because it’s almost like torture. So that’s how it was used, they would play it for someone, and that person would have to tell the truth; otherwise, they wouldn’t stop. When the conquistadors came with their guns, the indigenous people didn’t have those weapons, but they had these instruments, so they would play these super loud flutes and paralyze them.

Which we see in Wakanda Forever when the Talokans use these flutes to hypnotize their enemies. What about the seashell? 

The seashell became Namor’s main theme. So every day, I was recording these musicians and archeologists. At night, I recorded contemporary Mexican artists, singers, songwriters, and rappers to work on the songs for the movie. This was very different from what I did with the previous Black Panther and very different from what I’ve done so far in my career. For Wakanda Forever, I was tying together the songs with the score and making a completely immersive sound experience where you can’t tell the difference between which is which.

How did you actually marshall this vast archive of instrumentation and performances into a coherent score?

It can be a lot, but while I’m recording this material, I’m constantly sending it to Ryan while he’s shooting, and we have this back and forth. Then it was kind of magical a lot of the time, seeing how the songs fit in. In Namor’s origin story, we have a song that became a siren song with Quintana singing this beautiful melody. Then I worked with the rapper Mare, and I remember being in the studio, and she was blowing into the mic. I asked her, what if you start whispering your raps? Then in the film, there’s this underwater birth scene, and we put the mouth blowing there and the whispering there, and it was just a very cathartic, magical experience.

You’ve got the kora (a West African stringed instrument) and traditional African drums like the saber and djembe; you’ve got the flutes and seashells, the orchestral instruments, modern synthesizers, and more. Would you say there was any single instrument or sound that ties the whole score together?

I would say the thing really threading it all together is the human voice. We have some incredibly powerful female voices in the movie, with characters singing or humming, and then the Dora Milaje are doing ululations. When I was sitting down listening to the soundtrack and putting it together, I was listening through the score and thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s like there’s a voice through everything.’ Then when I watched the movie, it didn’t strike me how many vocals were in there; it felt natural. Like Shuri’s theme, the first time you hear it, she’s sitting by the river with her mother, Ramonda. First, you hear Ramonda’s theme, and that’s actually Rhianna’s “Lift Me Up.”

Then a split second later, Shuri’s telling her side of the story. She says she just wants to see the world burn because she couldn’t save T’Challa, and that voice turns into Jorja Smith’s voice singing a different melody. Shuri is split between spirituality and technology, she doesn’t know which path to take. But as she grows and finally finds herself, technology is the one thing that brings the Black Panther back to life. She uses that element, and that voice and the melody turn into a crazy distorted synthesizer to go with that side of her choice, the technology side of her.

You collaborated with so many musicians for this score, including Rhianna, Tems, Senegalese singer Baaba Mal, talking-drum player Massamba Diop, Mexican singer Foudeqush, and a community of Mayan rappers—how do you approach these collaborations?

It’s funny because when I started recording in Mexico, people were like, ‘You’re working on Black Panther; why are you recording in Mexico?’ So obviously, I had to tell them what the movie was about, the Mesoamerican storyline, and as soon as I did that, they thought it was fascinating. So everyone there immediately connected with it. Then when I went to Nigeria and Lagos, I went with Ryan, and it was almost like when we landed, people there knew immediately. They were so ready for it, already knew what they wanted to do, and were so pumped up. It was just about finding the right voices and doing the work.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is in theaters now.

For more on Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, check out these stories:

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Hair Department Head Camille Friend on The Sequel’s Stunning Looks

How “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw Used Light & Shadows

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Production Designer Hannah Beachler Reveals Her Guide to Talokan

Featured image: A scene from Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2022 MARVEL.

“Deadpool 3” Director Shawn Levy Promises Franchise Remains As Hardcore As Ever

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Just because the Merc with the Mouth is moving over to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, don’t expect him to be any less foul-mouthed, ferocious, or funny. That’s the promise that Deadpool 3 director Shawn Levy is making. In a conversation with Collider, Levy says that what fans have come to expect from the Deadpool franchise remains very much intact as they prep the third film, the first to officially fall under Disney’s MCU banner.

Levy is prepping Deadpool 3 with Reynolds and screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. Levy and Reynolds have already made two successful films together—Free Guy and The Adam Project, yet this is Levy’s first time directing Reynolds’ cinematic baby, so to speak, following Tim Miller, who directed 2016’s Deadpool, and David Leitch, who helmed 2018’s Deadpool 2. 

“We are writing, rewriting, developing, prepping Deadpool every day now,” Levy told Collider. “It is such a blast to laugh every day. It is so delicious to hear and write and come up with these scenes where people are just talking foul. And the violence is in your face and hardcore, and it’s very much a Deadpool movie.”

While not a single frame of the film has been shot, there’s already been a ton of excitement surrounding this third go-round thanks, in part, to the announcement that Hugh Jackman will be reprising the role of Wolverine for the film. This is, of course, despite Wolverine’s very dramatic and bittersweet death in James Mangold’s Logan. The film is slated to begin filming around May 2023.

“I’m having so much fun, and I haven’t even hit the shooting floor yet,” Levy told Collider. “I have to say, developing a Deadpool movie is one of the most fun, creative experiences of my life because it’s not just that it’s rated R. It’s that it’s so filled with self-awareness, and that makes in-writing very, very fun in a way that is unique to that franchise.”

Now that the franchise is officially a Marvel movie, all those jokes in the previous two films about how Deadpool couldn’t get any of the proper Marvel superheroes on his side—he even visited Professor X’s School for Gifted Youngsters, and had to “settle” for the likes of Colossus (Stefan Kapicic) will likely be turned on his head. Especially considering Wolverine is now officially in the mix.

Deadpool 3 is set for a November 8, 2024 release.

For more on all things Marvel Studios, check out these stories:

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Hair Department Head Camille Friend on The Sequel’s Stunning Looks

“The Legacy of Ant-Man” Special Looks Reveals Glimpse at “Quantumania”

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” Trailer Reveals Big Changes for Our Galactic Misfits

Featured image: Ryan Reynolds stars as Deadpool in Twentieth Century Fox’s DEADPOOL 2. Photo Credit: Courtesy Twentieth Century Fox.