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Total Film Magazine Jan21 Flipbook PDF
Total Film Magazine Jan21
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EXCLUSIVE! STAR WARS + MARVEL+ WANDAVISION 52 NEW DISNEY PROJECTS COMING YOUR WAY...
INSIDE PHASE 4’S BONKERS NEW CHAPTER
FAST & FURIOUS 9
HEADS UP OUR
2021 PREVIEW
“We’re ready to rip the doors off the franchise” Vin Diesel
“Fast 9 is definitely a reason to go to the cinema” John Cena
ETERNALS I SHANG-CHI I DUNE BLACK WIDOW I LUCA I SPIDER-MAN 3 HALLOWEEN KILLS I THE SUICIDE SQUAD TOP GUN I WEST SIDE STORY I BOND…
VANESSA KIRBY ROSAMUND PIKE RALPH FIENNES CAREY MULLIGAN
What 2021 film are you looking forward to the most? Tell us @totalfilm #TF2021vision
GROUP EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JANE CROWTHER (JC) [email protected]
WELCOME TO
@totalfilm_jane No Time To Die (third time’s the charm!)
DEPUTY EDITOR MATT
MAYTUM (MM) [email protected] @mattmaytum Mission: Impossible 7
REVIEWS EDITOR MATTHEW
LEYLAND (ML) [email protected] @totalfilm_mattl The Boss Baby: Family Business
NEWS EDITOR JORDAN
FARLEY (JF) [email protected] @jordanfarley The Truffle Hunters
PRODUCTION EDITOR ERLINGUR
EINARSSON (EE) [email protected] @ErlingurEinars The Matrix 4
ART EDITOR MIKE
BRENNAN [email protected] @mike_brennan01 No Time To Die
FILM GROUP
Editor (SFX) Darren Scott Art Editor Jonathan Coates Deputy Editor Ian Berriman Production Editor Ed Ricketts
Contributors
Editor-at-Large Jamie Graham (JG) Top Gun: Maverick Art studio Robert Crossland, Georgina Hodsdon, Catherine Kirkpatrick, Cliff Newman Prepress and cover manipulation Gary Stuckey Hollywood Correspondent Adam Tanswell (AT) Contributing Editors Kevin Harley (KH), James Mottram (JM), Neil Smith (NS), Josh Winning (JW) Contributors Musanna Ahmed (MA), Paul Bradshaw (PB), Tom Dawson (TD), Richard Edwards (RE), Matt Glasby (MG), Simon Kinnear (SK), Leila Latif (LL), Ann Lee (AL), Matt Looker (MLo), Chris Schilling (CS), Kate Stables (KS), Gabriel Tate (GT), Anton van Beek (AvB), Amy West (AW) Entertainment Editor, Gamesradar+ Jack Shepherd (JS) [email protected] Zack Snyder’s Justice League Photography Alamy, Getty, Rex, Trunk Archive Thanks to Nick Chen, Rhian Drinkwater (Production), Roy Delaney (Production)
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Head of Brand and Trade Marketing Nada Khalil Head of Subscriptions Sharon Todd Direct Marketing Campaign Manager William Hardy Head of Newstrade Tim Mathers
print, PRODUCTION and DISTRIBUTION
Production Manager Frances Twentyman Head of Production, UK & US Mark Constance Production Project Manager Clare Scott Senior Ad Production Manager Jo Crosby Digital Editions Controller Jason Hudson Printed in the UK by William Gibbons & Sons, on behalf of Future Distributed by Marketforce, 2nd Floor, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HU. Tel: 0203 787 9001
Management
Chief Content Officer Aaron Asadi Brand Director Colin Tough Content Director, Games & Film Daniel Dawkins Head of Art & Design Rodney Dive Commercial Finance Director Dan Jotcham
I
t’s 2021 and we are readying ourselves for the mother of all movie years after the drought of 2020. It’s going to be so big and burly in cinematic terms, we could only think of one franchise to head up our 2021 preview – the most bombastic and bonkers of them all, Fast & Furious 9. Get your engines ready for even more cinematic scope and excitement, cos we’re covering everything you can get in your eyes – hopefully on the big screen – over the next 12 months. And guys, it’s not ALL Disney… This month, I sat down with two powerhouse performers to discuss their careers, Rosamund Pike and Vanessa Kirby, both of whom have thoughtprovoking movies out this year. I also had a conversation with another pair of British treasures in Ralph Fiennes (who can do different accents at the drop of a hat), and Carey Mulligan to discuss their awards contender, The Dig. Elsewhere, we had a tête-à-tête with another couple, Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen, to try to pry details of what we can expect from WandaVision out of them. But fear not, it’s not all talk and no trousers… we might actually get the films we thought we were getting this year. Get in gear… we’re off!
ENJOY THE ISSUE!
All contents © 2020 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents or any other changes or updates to them. This magazine is fully independent and not affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein.
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Call Sheet THIS ISSUE’S EXTRAS
ISSN Total Film 1366-3135 We encourage you to recycle this magazine, either through your household recyclable waste collection service or at a recycling site. We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from responsibly managed, certified forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. The paper in this magazine was sourced and produced from sustainable managed forests, conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic standards. The manufacturing paper mill and printer hold full FSC and PEFC certification and accreditation.
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Future plc is a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange (symbol: FUTR) www.futureplc.com
Chief Executive Zillah Byng-Maddick Non-executive Chairman Richard Huntingford Chief Financial Officer Rachel Addison
JORDAN FARLEY
JAMES MOTTRAM
NEWS EDITOR
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
JANE CROWTHER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Caught up with Vin Diesel and John Cena for this month’s F9 feature and asked the question everyone wants to know: who can knock back more bottles of Corona?
Emily Blunt had to explain to The Rock that “crotchety” was a Britishism for grumpiness and not a situation in one’s crotch during my Jungle Cruise interviews.
Rosamund Pike asked as many questions as I did during our chat. She finished our conversation by quizzing me on the best Christmas movies she should watch.
Tel +44 (0)1225 442 244
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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Contents #307
THIS ISSUE 34 2021 PREVIEW Forty pages dedicated to the year we’ve all being waiting for. Including... 36 FAST & FURIOUS 9 Vin Diesel and John Cena bro-off some steam. 40 ETERNALS Marvel’s new/old heroes prep for immortal combat. 43 NO TIME TO DIE James Bond will return. 44 TOP GUN: MAVERICK Why the sequel will take us on its miiighty wings. 04
56 DUNE Sci-fi with more spice than a multi-pack of Nik Naks. 68 THE SUICIDE SQUAD Is it a sequel? Is it a reboot? No, it’s Super-Gunn! 76 WANDAVISION Olsen/Bettany talk telly. 80 VANESSA KIRBY Matchmaking, Margaret and M:I with the Pieces Of A Woman star. 84 THE DIG In a big muddy hole with Mulligan and Fiennes.
EVERY ISSUE 3 EDITOR’S LETTER Plus the team’s celebrity (internet) connections. 6 DIALOGUE A query about dialogue! Most Ronseal page ever. 90 TOTAL FILM INTERVIEW Rosamund Pike on Bond, I Care A Lot and why Dwayne Johnson is a true rock.
JANUARY 2021
TEASERS 9 DISNEY Star Wars, Marvel, Alien… It’s Mouse House mania! 12 CHRIS EVANS Cap’s swapping the shield for Star Command. 14 PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN Revenge thriller that leaves expectations for dead. 17 TOM AND JERRY We chase down the makers of the big-screen adap. 21 THE MAURITANIAN Kevin Macdonald on his Guantanamo drama. 31 IT SHOULDN’T HAPPEN TO A FILM JOURNALIST Regrets, our Jamie Graham’s had a few... 33 THE HERO Big baddies and small dogs with Mads Mikkelsen.
TOTAL FILM BUFF 124 IS IT BOLLOCKS? Could Kevin Costner’s longbow save a child’s life? 125 TOP 10 This month: Trees. MIA: Chris Pine, Leslie Ash, Colin Fir(th), David ’Arbor. 126 FLOP CULTURE Why Fincher’s Fight Club was KO-ed at the BO. 130 60-SECOND SCREENPLAY We are so going on Kurt and Goldie’s naughty list...
‘WE OWE THE LOYAL FANS THAT HAVE SUPPORTED US A FINALE LIKE NOTHING THEY’VE EVER SEEN’ VIN DIESEL
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76 SCREEN 100 SOUND OF METAL Drumroll, please, for Riz Ahmed’s surefire-hit drama. 102 WONDER WOMAN 1984 Easily the best late Amazon delivery of the past year. 104 SYNCHRONIC Paramedics versus the psychedelic in timely sci-fi.
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106 BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS You’re my besht new doco, you are. Love you [hic]. 108 BLITHE SPIRIT Noël Coward update: not bad, not great, just medium. 109 FARGO Back for its 25th b-day, and still as chipper as ever. 111 FATE: THE WINX SAGA It’s Boarding School Of The Rings in Netflix’s magical new YA fantasy series. 112 IT’S A SIN New ’80s-based drama by Russell T. Davies. He’s always on our mind.
68 90
34 A NEW YEAR HOPE Your first resolution: get up to speed on the cine-treats in store with our bumper 2021 preview.
114 AMERICAN GODS S3 Ricky Whittle on his little trip to Lakeside. No, not that one. 115 SNOWPIERCER S2 A first-class conversation with sci-fi stars Daveed Diggs and Sean Bean. 116 BACK S2 The long-awaited return of Mitchell and Webb’s pub-centric sitcom. 117 SOUNDTRACKS The Godfather: classical? No, it’s Don’s music. 120 GAMES PREVIEW Halo, what’s all this? 122 BOOKS Attack of the tomes...
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Dialogue Mail, rants, theories etc.
EMAIL [email protected] WRITE Total Film, 1-10 Praed Mews, London W2 1QY (postal addresses will be used for the sole purpose of sending out prizes) gamesradar.com/totalfilm twitter.com/totalfilm facebook.com/totalfilm Drop us a line [email protected]
TF’S CINEMATIC AGONY UNCLE HAS YOUR BACK.
DEAR WINGMAN
Why is it that when I watch Blurays at night I have to use subtitles? I have to keep the volume down due to any action, music, unnecessarily enigmatic animals, etc. Therefore the dialogue is always whispery, like the characters know others are asleep. I’m not too tech-savvy, so my attempts to rectify this are always to no avail. Do I need an expensive sound system? Or is there a way to turn up just the dialogue? PETE, YORK
WINGMAN SAYS...
Over to our noise expert, Din-man: “You might try poking around in the TV set-up menus; some brands feature dedicated dialogue-boosting settings, while others have different listening modes for different types of content (films, music, etc). Or check out the Blu-ray menus themselves. As well as 5.1 mixes, there may also be stereo soundtracks which theoretically should be better for nighttime listening. Alternatively, invest in some good-quality headphones – then you can crank it as loud as you like without ruining anyone’s night!”
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
STAR LETTER
★
And so the Greek god Cronos slams shut the festering yearbook of 2020 and casts it into the great fire pit of history. As he begins flicking through a new tome for 2021, I think I can hear him say, “By the beard of Zeus, so many bloomin’ good movies! Dune, A Quiet Place Part II…” Followed by, “I’ll go to the foot of Olympus’ stairs! Top Gun: Maverick, West Side Story, Jungle Cruise…” And then, “Ooh, lo and behold: Last Night In Soho, Minions 2, Venom: Let There Be Carnage… And good to see a few old friends in Eternals.” But lastly, he says, “Oh, oh dear, well, life can’t all be ambrosia: Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway.” HERMES, VIA EMAIL Come on Herms, no need to ruin it by being a grump about that rascally rabbit. What, are you worried that even with your winged sandals, Pete would beat you in a race round the marrow patch? Glad you’re stoked for 2021’s slate, though; read
more in our god-like (no disrespect) preview starting p34. Hermes and everyone with a letter printed here will receive a copy of Nic Cage/Tony Jaa sci-fi fight-fest Jiu Jitsu, out now on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD via Signature Entertainment. Didn’t send an address? Email it! Please allow additional time for the postie to hike up Mount Olympus.
FUR GODS’ SAKE Peter Rabbit is unperturbed by put-downs from ancient deities.
SIGNIFICANT COVER
I
have been a subscriber for many years and thoroughly enjoy the magazine. I thought that the Christmas 2020 issue might just be a rehash of articles from the year, but once again you proved me wrong with fresh insights into the film world. Your readers’ letters tend
REFLECTIVE INTEREST CURVE™ THRILLED ENTERTAINED FLIPPIN’ ECK!
Cake from Tom Cruise!
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Upset that lineup doesn’t include Chewie Asks A Question
Disney+ announcement overload!
WW84 screening invite!
BAD TIMES… WEEK
Wishing we’d asked Santa for Top Gun 2 as well
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DEADLINE
SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS
SIGN AT UR E EN T ER TA INMEN T, NE T F L I X , S ON Y
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OFFICE SPACED Chatter ‘gems’ overheard in the Total Film office this month…
“Just make sure you say, *‘Who’ s Queen??’” * “I once made the TF Interview cry” “Fave hospital-scene trope: *empty gurneys everywhere to aid your escape”
to concentrate on articles in the mag without much comment on the covers. However, the cover of issue 306 is outstanding, and so evocative of what we have all been going through. I shall frame it, and suggest that whoever designed it deserves an Oscar. Congratulations! DAVID PHILIP, VIA EMAIL That would be our very own A-lister, Art Editor Mike Brennan, who thanks you humbly for your praise and has the taxi booked for the Dolby Theatre. Mike’s design genius is matched only by his unwavering dedication; if he did get an Oscar, he’d likely have it melted down and mixed with the printer’s ink so that every page could have some added Hollywood sparkle. Might need a Bafta, too if we’re doing a supplement.
WRIGHT ENTERTAINMENT
I
saw on your website the story about Edgar Wright’s viewing list during lockdown [gamesradar.com/uk/edgarwright-lockdown-viewing-list]. A quick count told me he had watched 359 films. We UK folk went into lockdown in March, so disbelief aside, I just wanted to question the commitment required from a man in his profession to be able to watch two-three films a day. Big films, too. Wish I had that time to put into films. Did he do nothing else? MIKE, VIA EMAIL He did! He took time out to write for TF about his list-athon (see feature, TF306). We have no doubt Edgar was able to maintain a work/Blu-ray balance; two to three films per day simply requires devotion, discipline and a decent tea-tray for when you need to feed mouth as well as eyes. Also, he may well have watched the short version of A Short Film About
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Killing, which would’ve saved him a good 27 minutes.
BOLD FRONT
I
ssue 305 was as brilliant as always, but I’m surely not the only person who misread the cover writing. I honestly thought Gary Oldman was starring in a film called W*nk! OWEN HOLLIFIELD, CAERPHILLY
BTW, you really don’t want to get any closer than that to Space Baby; his carelessly painted eyes will have your soul for breakfast.
VIRAL MARKETING
I
A GOOD MANK As always, Gary Oldman goes hard in his performance here. Throbbing soundtrack, too.
’ve come up with a few surefire movie ‘reimagining’ suggestions for Hollywood studios that will reflect our new, uncommon times: ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice, Then Insists On A Photo No idea what you mean. With The Door Open’; Glad you liked the issue, ‘Lara Croft: Fridge Raider’; though. As soon as we ‘Lassie Come Home heard about Fincher’s And Leave That Mink film, we just knew we • VIDEOS • REVIEWS Alone!’; ‘Finding Wifi’; could pull it off. • TRAILERS • NEWS ‘Groundhog Months’; ‘Dr. No Appointments Left’; and of course, the follow-up to Roman Holiday, s a man in his forties, I try to ‘14 Days Quarantine In Milton Keynes’. pretend I know what I’m doing with new technology when, in reality, JACK HARGREAVES, ADDINGHAM I rarely have a clue. However, new tech does sneak into my subconscious at Seriously, give that man a threetimes. In response to Neil Livesey’s letter picture deal right there. Does re: holiday bootlegs (TF305), I sat for a ‘Groundhog Months’ star Bill Worry good five minutes tapping my finger on and Hand-wash McDowell? the page trying to get the ‘Space Baby C-3PO’ picture to enlarge for a better look. I could hear my kids going, “Aw bless,” from the other side of the room. DOMINIC HOLDER, NOTTINGHAM
HAVE YOUR SAY
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gamesradar.com/ totalfilm
TAPPED OUT
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Happens to the best of us, Dominic. Now please stop trying to plug your phone charger into the mag’s spine.
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JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
COMING ATTRACTIONS This year’s most promising debut p14 Animated icons leap to live action p17
America’s darkest chapter interrogated p21 Children’s author gets an anti-biopic p30
EDITED BY JORDAN FARLEY
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DISNEY ROUND-UP
A Big Plus
DISNEY I At the recent Investor Day, the Mouse House dropped the motherlode. TF unpacks all the details we can physically cram in…
DISNE Y
1 STAR WARS 10 December 2020 will be a day long remembered… After the divisive sequels and The Mandalorian’s restorative successes, Disney’s Investor Day announced sundry new beginnings for matters Force-related, including a prequels reunion. Set 10 years post-Revenge Of The Sith, Obi-Wan Kenobi will see Ewan McGregor’s Old-ish Ben re-encountering Hayden Christensen’s Darth Vader, whose return comes with director Deborah Chow’s tease: the former buddies with braids will “get into it again”. Diego Luna will also fight again in “spy thriller”-y (says Kathleen Kennedy) Rogue One spin-off Andor. Meanwhile, The Mando brings us two
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new babies in the much-wanted Ahsoka and Rangers of The New Republic, leading to a ‘climactic story event’. Elsewhere, Lando and High Republic-era “mystery thriller” The Acolyte are incoming, as are three animated shows: The Bad Batch, Visions and A Droid Story. And theatricals? Wonder Woman’s Patty Jenkins brought the goosebumps with a teaser for her X-wing fighterpilot film Rogue Squadron. Taika Waititi has a “unique” project in development, which leaves Rian Johnson/J.D. Dillard’s projects uncertain. But we won’t be starved for Star Wars in the meantime, or other Lucasfilm titles: Indiana Jones 5, Willow, and an adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi’s Children Of Blood And Bone were confirmed.
LOGO-A-GOGO The Disney top brass should have been interviewed in front of this, like they do on the football.
2 MARVEL SHOWS Aside from dropping trailers for WandaVision, The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, What If…? and Loki, Disney confirmed Kate Bishop for Hawkeye. Playing Jennifer Walters in She-Hulk, Tatiana Maslany will be joined by guaranteed (Tim Roth, Mark Ruffalo) and rumoured (Charlie Cox) Marvel vets; Moon Knight was also teased. Iman Vellani looked pitch-perfect in Ms. Marvel’s series sizzler, while other titles include Ironheart, with Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams; Armor Wars, with Don Cheadle protecting Stark tech; Secret Invasion, reuniting Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn; shorts series I Am Groot; and James Gunn’s Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special.
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
3 MARVEL MOVIES Looking beyond previous MCU announcements, Xochitl Gomez will play America Chavez in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, and Jonathan Majors’ Kang The Conqueror is confirmed for Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, while Christian Bale’s Thor: Love & Thunder role is confirmed to be the vengeful, multi-timeline trouble-causer Gorr the God Butcher. The MCU Spider-Man’s sure-handed Jon Watts will direct the Fantastic 4’s MCU debut, Candyman’s Nia DaCosta is confirmed for Captain Marvel 2, and Black Panther 2 will not recast T’Challa following the awful loss of Chadwick Boseman.
4 PIXAR
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After Onward and Soul, Pixar is readying various fresh/familiar titles for screens small and big. On Disney+, Up’s talkative mutt visits suburbia for the Dug Days series; Lightning McQueen and Mater will reunite in a Cars series; and sundry Pixar characters will populate Pixar Popcorn’s mini-shorts. As for newer faces, original series Win Or Lose will plot the multi-perspective journey of a middle-school softball team. On the big screen, Domee Shi’s Turning Red will tell the story of a teenager who turns into a big red panda when she gets over-excited (relatable!). Finally, Chris Evans fronts Lightyear, described by Pete Docter as the film that birthed the Buzz toy.
5 NOAH HAWLEY’S ALIEN We only need to know one thing. Where they are… Destination Earth is the pitch for Fargo show-runner Noah Hawley’s in development FX Alien series. In 2017, we laid out our own Alien revival pitch: “Nudge the Xeno to the shadows, [and] let him rip in a desperate scenario with earthy characters.” Hawley concurs, going by interviews and his Earthbound promise. With his Star Trek film in “stasis”, Hawley told Observer.com he wanted strong characters in Alien. “Then we drop the aliens back in and we go, ‘This is great. Not only is there great human drama, but there’s aliens!’” Game on, man.
6 DISNEY+ LIVE-ACTION MOVIES The 300-year (OK, near-30…) wait is up: Disney+ has confirmed the sequel
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
to witchy Halloween staple Hocus Pocus, with Adam Shankman directing. Other familiar titles include a Cheaper By The Dozen remake, featuring Gabrielle Union, and two sequels: Amy Adams’ Enchanted follow-up Disenchanted and the Whoopi Goldberg-fronted Sister Act 3. Robert Zemeckis’ Pinocchio (with Tom Hanks) will now debut on Disney+; ditto David Lowery’s Peter Pan & Wendy. Three sports movies will also (based on Keanon Lowe, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Chris Paul) hit Disney+, while Squirrel Girl fans might want to try Flora & Ulysses, the intriguing-looking tale of a female comic-book fan and her superpowered squirrel.
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7 DISNEY ANIMATION Disney+’s ani-wing brims with franchise revisits, including Simon Pegg-fronted movie The Ice Age Adventures Of Buck Wild and the previously announced Night At The Museum movie. A Diary Of A Wimpy Kid ani-movie also beckons, while liveaction/animated hybrid Chip N’ Dale: Rescue Rangers movie will see Akiva Schaffer directing John Mulaney and Andy Samberg. Four ani-movies will bank Disney+ serial extensions (Baymax!, Tiana, Moana, Zootopia+), while new titles include Disney’s team-up with African company Kugali for original sci-fi series Iwájú. Raya And The Last Dragon will hit theatres and Disney+ premier access simultaneously, while Hamilton stans can look forward to Colombia-set fable Encanto, with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
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8 STAR Time for bed, kids. Joining Disney+ in February 2021, this parentally controlled brand tile will host the more grown-up titles – mouthful billing: “general entertainment content brands” – from sundry Disney-owned studios, including FX, 20th Century Studios, Searchlight and Freeform. Alongside alongside catalogue titles, new headline draws include Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez in the comedy show Only Murders In The Building; plus Kate McKinnon in The Dropout, the story of con artist Elizabeth Holmes. Meanwhile, Michael Keaton, Peter Sarsgaard and Rosario Dawson will lead Dopesick, a “harrowing” series about the opioid epidemic rather than a solo vehicle for Snow White’s pal Dopey. KH
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JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
HOT RIGHT NOW
Chris Evans
IS HEADING FOR INFINITY…
T
he first time I saw the suit I thought, ‘This could be the suit I die in,’” Chris Evans told us from the set of Captain America: The First Avenger. A decade on, it’s safe to say Evans owned that suit. And he will soon own another suit, as worn by another American (and fleetingly Spanish) hero.
ETA | 17 JUNE 2022 / LIGHTYEAR OPENS NEXT YEAR. THE GRAY MAN AND DON’T LOOK UP ARE TBC.
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2020
A UGUS T/A R T S T R EIBER
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A minor storm in a spacesuit emerged at news that Evans would voice Buzz Lightyear in Pixar’s Lightyear. What about Tim Allen? But Evans soon issued reassuring words from Instagram: “Everyone can rest easy… it doesn’t step on a single thing.” And when the man who aced the tonal high-wire act of Cap (and made light of a recent, er, accidental online exposure) advises optimism, it’s best to sit back and, like he says, “get very excited”. Not that Buzz is the only project on Evans’ launchpad. He’ll soon reunite with MCU directors Joe/Anthony Russo for tantalising Netflix thriller The Gray Man, co-starring Ryan Gosling and Evans’ Knives Out sparring partner Ana de Armas. Also on Netflix, Adam McKay’s asteroid-themed political satire Don’t Look Up beckons. Evans is no stranger to politics, though his attempts to cut through toxic times have been typically humble. Recently, he co-founded the website A Starting Point, designed to help “create informed, responsible and empathetic citizens”. On screen, meanwhile, he’s garnered many votes of approval. In his early work, Evans mixed modest muscularity with a lightly cocksure swagger and comic dexterity: witness his (perfectly decent, incidentally) Human Torch in Fantastic Four, or his self-mocking Lucas Lee in Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. Lately, that easy charisma has helped Evans diversify. In Knives Out, he carried wickedness and fine knitwear with equal poise. On telly, his character work in Apple TV+’s Defending Jacob drew praise; on stage, he banked Broadway buzz for Kenneth Lonergan’s drama Lobby Hero. Rumour-wise, a proposed Little Shop Of Horrors remake might fulfil his musical dreams. But in the meantime, infinity and beyond await. “Trust me when I say that they REALLY know what they’re doing,” Evans says of Pixar. Oh, Captain: you had us at “Trust me.” KH
EXCLUSIVE
Gateway Drug
SYNCHRONIC I The minds behind The Endless return with another trippy thriller.
J
SIGN AT UR E
ustin Benson and Aaron Moorhead aren’t yet household names, but if you’ve seen any of their previous films, you’ll already know not to miss any future ones. Their earlier work includes cabin horror Resolution, Linklater-meets-Lovecraft romance Spring and brainbending cult movie The Endless; Synchronic is their biggest yet, a step up in both star power and budget. Teasers meets the directing duo at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Synchronic – which stars Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan as New Orleans paramedics attending to inexplicable, fatal overdoses tied to the titular drug – has just premiered. “It’s definitely a step up in the most basic way, in budget and scale,” says Moorhead. “But also, when it comes to the things that we like to talk about, I do think that we got to go even deeper and harder into the themes that were in our last film, The Endless. Friendship and death were side-themes of The Endless. But this was something we got to approach fully and head on.” Minor premise spoilers follow, so look away if you’d rather the mystery unfold just as the directors intend. “It was pretty neat [at the TIFF premiere]
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to have most people not even knowing it was about time travel,” says screenwriter Benson (both guys are also credited as producers and editors, while Moorhead’s the cinematographer). “That’s really fun. When you’re creating your film festival materials, you’re very carefully writing the logline, and what
OUT OF MIND Jamie Dornan and Anthony Mackie play New Orleans paramedics (below).
logline ends up on IMDb. You’re trying to hold as much back as possible. Those are also usually the things that make the movie more sellable…” Yes, Synchronic is a time-travel movie, but not like you’ve experienced before. “The first kernel of [the idea] was watching Back To The Future and realising that it wouldn’t work if Marty McFly weren’t white,” says Moorhead. “It was a funny idea at first, and then we realised that it’s actually a very serious and dark stain on human existence that history has only been kind to heterosexual white males.” Beside BTTF, Benson and Moorhead also looked at other genre titans. “We wanted to infuse this film with an enormous amount of dread, and that’s hopefully where the horror component would add to the sci-fi,” says Moorhead. “So we watched movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey – very large ones that still really worked on a visceral level. Alien is another great example, despite being a slasher, but there is this dread pervasive through the entire thing. So it was more of an atmosphere that we were trying to replicate, rather than other movies’ mechanics.” If you haven’t checked out their work yet, now is the time. MM ETA | 29 JANUARY / SYNCHRONIC OPENS IN CINEMAS THIS MONTH AND COMES OUT ON DIGITAL 12 FEBRUARY.
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EXCLUSIVE
The Avenger
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PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN I Emerald Fennell’s twist on the revenge thriller is a provocative stunner.
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t all began with a striking image. Talking-point thriller Promising Young Woman – which was unleashed on audiences at the Sundance Film Festival way back in January 2020 – is the feature directorial debut from writer/director Emerald Fennell. “I don’t usually put pen to paper at all until it’s completely finished in my head,” she tells Teasers of her writing process. “But the first moment for me was a girl on a bed, drunk, and somebody’s kind of taking her clothes off, and she’s sitting up and revealing that she’s not drunk. I guess that was the starting point.” That’s the bombshell idea at the heart of Promising Young Woman, a twist on the rape-revenge genre that was a mainstay of exploitation cinema. Cassie (Carey Mulligan) goes to clubs and pick-up spots, acts inebriated, and just waits for a guy to swoop in and take her home, maintaining the act until the big reveal. It’s an immensely assured debut: a pastel-coloured shocker that blends tension, social commentary and dark humour with disarming confidence. “The main surprise about making this film is that there’s nothing in this movie at all – a single thing – that hadn’t been a joke in a movie or TV
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show in the last 15 years,” says Fennell. “Everything that we find shocking in the film – it’s stuff that is in every raunchy comedy movie, or in even family sitcoms.” Promising Young Woman stars an expectation-busting Mulligan, who was “top of my list,” says Fennell. “Cassie is incredibly damaged, and is in a cycle of really, increasingly dangerous self-harm. I really wanted someone who would just ground that, and just be real.” Fennell employs several familiar faces as the string of douchey guys that Cassie gets involved with, and gave them some unusual notes. “With all
of them, I was like, ‘As far as you are concerned… this is a romcom, and you are the lead of the romcom. This is the beginning of a kind of romcom.’ This is the thing: it’s about context, and what’s been culturally appropriate for so long.” The idea is a film like this could shine a spotlight on a subject that too often goes unacknowledged. “I hope that making it an enjoyable movie – at least to some people – will enable that conversation to be easier for people to have,” says a self-deprecating Fennell. And, after all but vanishing from the schedule earlier in the year due to the pandemic, PYW is now set for an early 2021 release, where it’ll be debuting on the big screen (hopefully). “It’s a dark comedy and it’s also a sort of horror movie, and I think with those two genres, you do really benefit from watching it with other people...”MM ETA | 12 FEBRUARY / PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN OPENS NEXT MONTH.
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Film quotes pose as questions. Film stars try to cope.
IN THE CROSSHAIRS THIS MONTH DAN STEVENS Are you talkin’ to me? I suppose it’s a version of me, talking to a version of you. I mean, the preposition is key, really. I’d rather talk with you than at you. But talking to you? I suppose, yes, I am.
What’s your favourite scary movie? The Witch is mega, mega scary, I think. It’s a brilliant film. One that endures is The Shining on VHS when I was nine. I taped it off the telly, and then watched it during the day, on my own, and completely terrified myself. Just scarred myself for life.
You talk the talk. Do you walk the walk? Well, walking in LA is a weird thing. People look at you quite strangely if you walk anywhere too far. But I do like to get out and hike, and I do miss pounding the streets of a city like New York or London. I really like a good urban hike.
Why do we feel it’s necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable? [laughs] That is a good question. I think it’s just human instinct to want to blather and whiffle. It’s one of the great joys of being a human, really, and I’m always seeking out good conversationalists, really, who are happy to yak about all sorts of bullshit. That is definitely my jam.
Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? Yes, I have. They are an excellent dancer, and they have all the best tunes. Do you have an “off” switch? Yes. It’s usually activated by lying in a hammock. [I have] a couple of quiet weeks [over Christmas] where I will be trying to spend as much of it in a hammock as possible. But with three kids, two cats and a dog, that is not always easy [laughs]. How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight? You can know that you don’t really like getting in a fight. But that said, I do quite enjoy fighting on screen. The Guest was pretty full on. There was an extraordinary fight scene that we choreographed and filmed for Call Of The Wild where Harrison Ford and I just went at it for… it felt like days. It was really bitter night shoots. And he’s really intense, and likes to do things pretty much for real. And then I watched the movie, and they pretty much cut the whole thing [laughs]. Days of torture for nothing. What will you be drinking, sir? Mostly coffee with some kind of weird milk. Whatever you’ve got. Macadamia nut, I’ll try. Every time I go in a store,
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‘HARRISON FORD AND I JUST WENT AT IT FOR… IT FELT LIKE DAYS. AND HE’S PRETTY INTENSE’ there’s a new, weird milk. Things I didn’t realise you could make milk from, appear in cartons. But, yeah, I don’t do well with milk from animals, so I’ll try any version of a weird milk. What kind of man are you? Father. Brother. Husband. Uncle. Son. Hopefully a kind one.
Is there anyone on the other side that you think of? Yeah. I was lucky enough to work with Robin Williams, and then devastated to lose him. I think of him every time I set foot on a film set. And I was also really honoured to work with Chadwick Boseman, and I’ve been thinking about him a lot recently as well. So, yeah, I would say those two. MM ETA | 15 JANUARY / BLITHE SPIRIT IS IN CINEMAS AND ON SKY CINEMA THIS MONTH.
Dan Stevens as Charles Condomine in Blithe Spirit.
Do you think there’s anything wrong with your mind, really? No. It’s filthy and fascinating, just the way I like it. I try to keep myself in check, physically and mentally. And occasionally I’ll tune into The Archers. I haven’t listened to it every day for years and years, but there have been spells in my life where I will sort of lean on it as a sort of audio comfort blanket. It’s very useful.
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Taxi Driver, Full Metal Jacket, Batman, Deadpool, Fight Club, The Shining, 12 Angry Men, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Léon, Scream, Pulp Fiction, Blithe Spirit
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SK Y CINEM A , GE T T Y
YOU TALKIN’ TO ME?
Is life always this hard, or is it just when you’re a kid? Well, I think being a kid this year has been pretty weird. I think there’s going to be studies and books and all sorts written about the impact that this year has had on all of us, but especially kids. I’ve had a couple of things [filmed under Covid restrictions]. It’s pretty strange, you know, just everybody in masks and visors. I think I had nine tests in one week at one point. It’s good to know, I suppose, that you have, or haven’t, got it. But it did feel a bit mad. And my nostrils felt very violated.
ON-SET EXCLUSIVE
Battle Royale
TOM AND JERRY: THE MOVIE I The old rivals take their fight to New York…
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WA R NER BR O S , GE T T Y
grew up with the cartoons, so we wanted to stay as true as we possibly could,” says director Tim Story (Taxi, Ride Along) on the set of Leavesden Studios in Hertfordshire. “There’s an awful lot of violence! But the violence is from a slapstick, physical comedy kind of thing. We do not pull any punches in terms of impact, and the fact that Tom and Jerry really do try to kill one another.” Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera in 1940, cat and mouse rivals Tom and Jerry are best known for smacking the shit out of each other over 161 theatrical short films by MGM, though there have also been several spin-off TV series, a derided 1992 feature film and 13 DTV movies produced since 2002. In this big-screen iteration, the clashing ’toon titans will occupy a liveaction world, just as they did when they cameoed with Gene Kelly in Anchors Aweigh (1945) and Esther Williams in Dangerous When Wet (1953). And what a world: a glitzy hotel in Manhattan where Jerry takes up unofficial residence, causing event planner Kayla (Chloë Grace Moretz), who’s hosting the wedding of the year, to enlist the services of Tom. Chaos, naturally, ensues. “This movie is not ‘in your face’ for 90 minutes,” says Story as he walks TF around the enormous hotel lobby set, all
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the while explaining that the cartoons’ kamikaze carnage alone would not sustain a feature. “What’s really been great is having the human characters, and their story. And once we put Tom and Jerry in, it goes to the next level.” Talking of next level, there has not yet been an animation/live-action mashup to equal Who Framed Roger Rabbit, so it’s that film that Story and his team keep returning to. “At this point, there have been things that are technically better, but it just hits the tone right. You have really great actors who live in the same space as a cartoon, but are never cartoonish.” He grins. “My biggest hope is to make people laugh.” And violently so, no doubt. JG ETA | 19 MARCH / TOM AND JERRY: THE MOVIE OPENS IN CINEMAS IN TWO MONTHS.
MOUSE GUEST Chloë Grace Moretz looks stern as event planner Kayla, but says that acting opposite stand-in props was thoroughly odd and unnerving.
CHLOË GRACE MORETZ Did you grow up a fan of Tom and Jerry? I’m a massive fan of all cartoons. I love that Tom And Jerry has always been a silent cartoon. You don’t have to follow what they’re saying, you get to interpret it. Kayla does that. She understands their miming and speaks for them, in a way. Are you and Tim Story both out of your comfort zone for this movie? We look at each other and go, “I think it’s going to play when the animation is in there.” [laughs] I’ll be acting opposite a stick with orange tape on the top. And when I improv, the animators can create [around it]. There’s never a dull moment. I’m having a beanbag thrown at my face, or there’s an adult man barking on the floor [playing Spike Bulldog]. Is it liberating? It’s freeing, but it’s also making me a little crazy! For instance, I’m caring for inanimate objects too much. At home, I accidentally slam my door too hard and say, “I’m so sorry”. Are you more like Tom or Jerry in real life? I think I’m quite savvy, so maybe Jerry. And I don’t think I can be as cool as Tom. JG
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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CAN WE TALK ABOUT...?
WARNER BROS’ BIG GAMBLE
Why a hybrid streaming release is the way forward (for now)…
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n early December, Warner Bros dropped a bombshell. Following Wonder Woman 1984’s lead, every one of its 2021 releases – including big-screen behemoths Dune, The Matrix 4 and Godzilla Vs. Kong – would premiere simultaneously in cinemas and on Warner-owned streaming service HBO Max for 31 days. In the UK, it’s thought that films could land on PVOD as little as 28 days after debuting in cinemas.
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WA R NER BR O S
After months of major studios nibbling away at the once-sacrosanct theatrical exclusivity window, this was the inevitable, but no less epochal, conclusion. The move threatens to change film distribution forever as, despite claims this is a “unique one-year plan” from Warner Bros. chairman Ann Sarnoff, it’s difficult to imagine this particular genie ever being fully escorted back into the bottle. Filmmakers – who weren’t consulted in advance of the decision – reacted with frustration. Christopher Nolan pulled no punches, saying “filmmakers went to bed thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service”. Legendary, who ponied up 75 per cent of Dune’s budget, is exploring legal challenges. Behind the scenes, Warner has well and truly fluffed it. But for audiences, the pros outweigh the cons. At least in the short term. Vaccinations may already be under way, but social-distancing measures will be necessary for the foreseeable future. Releasing films on a relatively inexpensive streaming service doesn’t just eradicate accessibility concerns for the most vulnerable, it’s a rational acknowledgment that ‘business as normal’ simply isn’t on the cards for the next 12 months. The alternative – no major movies till 2022 or later, when the box office has a hope of returning to pre-pandemic levels – would be disastrous for everyone, not least cinemas. Because, crucially, Warner is giving audiences the option of an optimal theatrical experience where it is safe to return, providing the exhibition industry with a lifeline at a desperately challenging time. There’s little doubt that driving subscribers towards flailing streaming service HBO Max is the overriding goal for Warner, but the benefit for audiences over the next year shouldn’t be dismissed. JF
THE NEXT BIG THING
MATILDA DE ANGELIS IS TAKING WING
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ecipient of a ‘Shooting Star’ award at 2018’s Berlin International Film Festival, Italian singer and actress Matilda De Angelis had a successful end to 2020, starring in Netflix comedy drama Rose Island and opposite Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman in The Undoing. She’s now filming Hemingway’s Across The River Into The Trees with Liev Schreiber, and is fielding phone calls from Hollywood… Your character in Rose Island takes zero shit… The position of women in the ’60s was very different. Gabriella is really ahead of her time. She studies, she’s a teacher, she’s educated, she works. She’s independent.
How did you find working in America on The Undoing? It was big deal for me. It’s really rare for Italian actors to work abroad. I want to work with as many directors and actors as possible, on whatever projects I feel: ‘I want to tell this story.’ Was it weird being nude just two feet away from Nicole Kidman? It was actually hugely fun. I really felt comfortable with myself. Nudity and your body is just another tool to express yourself. Sometimes, I feel that emotional nudity is way more difficult to sustain and to feel. Some people have said the nudity was gratuitous… It was important for the character. I don’t like nudity when it’s taken for granted. But in this specific case, it was perfect, and it was necessary for Nicole’s character to feel that awkwardness around Elena. V I T T OR IO Z UNINO CEL O T T O/GE T T Y IM A GE S
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It’s a film about standing up to corrupt leaders. Is now a good time to land? Our politics are really polarised nowadays. It’s very hard to imagine living based on human rights and freedom and brotherhood. We need this kind of revolutionary act.
After The Undoing, are you now getting sent Hollywood scripts? Yes. It’s going well! I have recently found an American agent, so we’ll see. JG ETA | OUT NOW / ROSE ISLAND IS NOW ON NETFLIX. THE UNDOING IS AVAILABLE ON DIGITAL HD.
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
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EXCLUSIVE
Freedom Fighter
THE MAURITANIAN I Kevin Macdonald directs the true story of a Guantanamo detainee.
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rom Zero Dark Thirty to The Report, Hollywood depictions of the war on terror all have one thing in common – they’re told from the American perspective. “What we’ve never seen is a man accused of terror, who’s humanised within that system,” director Kevin Macdonald tells Teasers. “This is a story of a really remarkable individual who survived incredible and horrendous treatment, and has emerged with his spirit intact.” The individual in question is Mohamedou Ould Salahi (A Prophet’s Tahar Rahim), a Mauritanian national who was detained at Guantanamo Bay detention camp for 14 years. During this time, Salahi was subjected to dehumanising “enhanced interrogation” techniques, which he chronicled in Guantánamo Diary, a memoir written and published (in a heavily redacted form) while he was still behind bars. Salahi’s memoir proved an invaluable resource for Macdonald, who tapped into his documentary background for the film’s gruelling detention-camp sequences. “Where we were absolutely rigorous about accuracy, because it feels so important, is in the physical environment, and the treatment he received in Guantanamo,” Macdonald explains. With records still
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largely classified, Salahi would describe experiences beyond those recorded in his memoir. There was only one detail Macdonald was forced to leave out. “In reality, when Mohamedou was tortured, all the guards were wearing Star Wars masks,” Macdonald says. “There’s a great bit in the book when he
THE BAD ’BATCH? Benedict Cumberbatch plays Stuart Couch, tasked with prosecuting Mohamedou Ould Salahi (below).
describes having been beaten up, and he’s on the floor in his cell, and he hears the guards outside arguing about who gets to be Luke Skywalker! Of course, we couldn’t get permission [from Disney] to use those masks...” The film ventures beyond the openair cages of Guantanamo in telling the parallel stories of Salahi’s defence lawyer Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster), and military prosecutor Lt. Colonel Stuart Couch (Benedict Cumberbatch) – who is seeking the death penalty at the behest of the US government. “We decided early on that we wanted to also have the perspective of the two lawyers. It’s the book ‘plus’,” Macdonald says. “The whole film is trying to say: ‘This is an amazing human story. It’s not a political story.’ And the same goes for Hollander and Couch; they’re just extraordinary, interesting individuals.” But first and foremost, The Mauritanian is Salahi’s story, and he had some choice advice for Macdonald when it came to committing his ordeal to the screen. “He said to me, ‘I don’t want to make one of those slow, boring, European movies that you people make,’” Macdonald laughs. “‘I want this to be a Hollywood movie that people want to watch.’ So that was ringing in my ears.” JF ETA | 26 FEBRUARY / THE MAURITANIAN OPENS IN CINEMAS NEXT MONTH.
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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EXCLUSIVE
NOW EWE SEE ME
RAMS I Iceland’s award-winning woolly drama gets an authentic Australian treatment.
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s director Jeremy Sims was taking his 2015 film Last Cab To Darwin around the film festival circuit, he repeatedly encountered Grímur Hákonarson’s Rams. So when he was approached to direct an English-language, Australia-based remake, he was already well acquainted with the Icelandic original. “There’s a beautiful austere energy to that film, which I admire greatly,” Sims tells Teasers. “[but] I needed to know more about the community.” Rams tells the story of two sheepfarmer brothers, Colin (Sam Neill) and Les (Michael Caton) who live next door to each other but haven’t spoken in 40 years. When Les’ prize ram is diagnosed with a lethal disease, their world is turned upside-down as the entire valley they live in must be culled of sheep. Distraught at losing his beloved – and rare – flock, Colin decides to hide a ram and three ewes in his house. That’s where the similarities to the original end, however. Exploring “the selfishness of the act”, Sims and screenwriter Jules Duncan highlighted the effect the brothers’ actions and fraught relationship have on the local community. “Because it is
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a disease,” Sims explains. “It affects everyone around them.” Originally pegged for the role of Colin, Sims cast his Last Cab To Darwin star Caton as the troubled Les. “Michael has a lovely, beautiful, complicated dark side that he doesn’t reveal to many people because he’s generally known as a comedian,” the director explains. Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson, meanwhile, play Colin and veterinarian Kat, respectively. “Sam is very similar to Sigurður [Sigurjónsson, star of the Icelandic original],” Sims says. “He’s a phlegmatic character, he doesn’t really allow the world
LOOKING SHEEPISH Sam Neill (above) and Michael Caton (below) play feuding brothers in a tender farming drama.
to affect him much, and if he could, he wouldn’t affect the world too much either. And that’s a fantastic energy to start with that character. Sam’s a great lead actor.” Key to opening the myopic world view of the brothers to the larger community is Richardson’s Kat – a new character created by Duncan and Sims. “We got an opportunity to cast someone who’s an outsider,” Sims recalls. “[The producers] said, ‘If you could have anyone from England, who would you have?’ And I went, ‘Well, she’s my favourite actress, so if I could, I’d have her!’ She brought great choices to the character, she brought edge to the story, all that naturalism that she’s so extraordinary at.” Much like Colin’s sheep, Rams itself managed to defy the odds against a deadly disease, as Covid threatened to scupper its theatrical prospects altogether. Coming out in Australian and New Zealand cinemas in late 2020, it topped the box office in both countries. Sims reflects: “It will have a life now. As a filmmaker, particularly the older you get, you just want your film to have a life.” And we’re happy it will. EE
ETA | 5 FEBRUARY / RAMS OPENS IN CINEMAS NEXT MONTH.
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SIGN AT UR E
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SOUND BYTES Quotable dialogue from this month’s movies – and their stars
“I can’t begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self.” Juno star Elliot
Patty Jenkins isn’t a fan of
Justice League’s theatrical cut either.
Page announces he
is transgender in a social-media message.
£50,000 The bargain price for
Maverick’s Top Gun bomber jacket at a Prop Store auction last month.
“ALL OF US DC DIRECTORS TOSSED THAT OUT JUST AS MUCH AS THE FANS DID.”
“THAT’S WHAT I SLEEP WITH EVERY NIGHT. THE FUTURE OF THIS F***ING INDUSTRY!”
DUNGEON MASTER Chris (or should that be ‘Crit’) Pine will star in a new Dungeons & Dragons movie for Game Night directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley.
“David brought a physicality to Darth Vader that was essential for the character. He made Vader leap off the page and on to the big screen.” George Lucas pays tribute to David Prowse, who died at 85.
GOOD THING BAD THING
Whatever you do, don’t break Covid-safety rules around Tom
Cruise.
GE T T Y, PA R A MOUN T P IC T UR E S , DISNE Y/L UC A SF IL M
BABYLON BOO Emma Stone won’t be reuniting with Damien Chazelle for Hollywood period drama Babylon, though Margot Robbie is in talks to replace.
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The title of Jessica Chastain’s upcoming spy movie, and the number of days (more or less) to wait till its new January 2022 release date.
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“WARNER BROS. MIGHT JUST HAVE KILLED THE DUNE FRANCHISE.”
Denis Villeneuve isn’t mincing his words over the decision to release Dune on HBO Max.
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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BETWEEN TAKES
MATTHEW MODINE
The Wrong Turn: The Foundation star on Kubrick, toxic ooze and wrinkly butts. What’s the first thing you do after arriving on set? Depending on how far the drive is – go pee [laughs], and have a cup of coffee so I can go pee again.
him from going to the gas chamber. And while I was defending him, I looked over at him, and he had his head down – I thought out of shame. He was looking down because, while we were filming, he was texting. Come on, man.
Do you have any on-set superstitions? I just like everyone to be as prepared as possible. It’s not the knowing of the lines – it’s knowing the lines to the degree that there’s nothing more logical than to say what is scripted. Best on-set experience? I’ve been so fortunate to work with so many amazing film directors – Alan Parker, who we lost this year, on Birdy. And, of course, Stanley Kubrick. [Full Metal Jacket] is the one that has the longest lasting memories, for a multitude of reasons, and the complexities of who Kubrick was, and how his films continue to be relevant. Worst on-set experience? The first thing that comes to mind is that horrible Beckton Gasworks, also on Full Metal Jacket. It was the most toxic environment I’ve ever found myself in in my life. The earth was dyed blue from chemicals. The ooze from the buildings had spilled, like some horror movie, and was oozing its way to the Thames. You’re going home and taking a bath, and the dirt that came off you dyed the porcelain blue. And now it’s some of the most expensive real estate in London.
Most embarrassing moment on set? The most horrible thing was on this recent movie I did called Breaking News In Yuba County, and the director insisted on seeing my full butt, and we negotiated side-butt. I told him, “No one wants to see my old, wrinkly butt having sex with this woman.” I think it was really just him that wanted to see it. But that’s a story for another day.
‘I TOLD HIM, “NO ONE WANTS TO SEE MY OLD WRINKLY BUTT HAVING SEX WITH THIS WOMAN”’
How did Wrong Turn: The Foundation compare to the average set? It was pretty jovial. There’s a lot of young people that are working in the film that I didn’t have anything to do with. I mean, my daughter goes missing. I go to try to find her, which takes me into this bizarre world of people that wear dead animals on their heads! Do you take a mobile phone on set? There’s no place for them on set. I was doing a film with this kid where I was defending him in a trial to try to keep
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
Best wrap party? That was the Gillian Armstrong movie I made called Mrs. Soffel. She, being from Australia, and that kind of crazy joie de vivre that Australians have – they played outtakes from the movie and everybody got rip-roaring drunk. It was a wonderful way for us all to say goodbye to one another. Most memorable end-of-shoot gift? I gave Stanley Kubrick a pocket watch. I found it at an old antique watch shop on the King’s Road, and had it inscribed with “Ars longa, vita brevis”, which means, “Life is short, and art is long.” The humility of his acceptance of that gift was one of the more beautiful things that I’ve experienced. JF
Matthew Modine in a less murderous still from Wrong Turn.
ETA | 29 JAN / WRONG TURN: THE FOUNDATION OPENS IN CINEMAS THIS MONTH.
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SIGN AT UR E EN T ER TA INMEN T, GE T T Y
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Ever taken any ‘souvenirs’ from set? I haven’t stolen them, but I have my glasses from Full Metal Jacket. My Mickey Mouse watch. I was very honoured to have photographs that I took with a Rolleiflex camera in the Stanley Kubrick exhibition at LACMA, in addition to giving them Joker’s glasses and the ‘Born to Kill’ helmet, and my Mickey Mouse watch.
ON-SET EXCLUSIVE
Class Dismissed
SCHOOL’S OUT FOREVER I Teen boys face the apocalypse in a blackly comic Brit thriller.
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R EBEL L ION F IL M S T UDIO S
ack in July 2019, when Teasers visited the set of School’s Out Forever, times were simpler. Though always a film in which a viral superflu wipes out 93 per cent of the population, this was a fiction that Teasers could place firmly in the realm of fantasy. Ten months and counting into life during the Covid pandemic and School’s Out Forever hits in harder and more unexpected ways than ever intended.
“There’s been something quite macabre about it, the coincidence of it,” says writer-director Oliver Milburn. Lest anyone think this is a bad taste cash-in on a global crisis, not only is the book it’s based on eight years old, but so, too, is Milburn’s script, which spent almost a decade in development. “It’s a weird mix of excitement and fear. Obviously not excitement about the pandemic, but that we might have hit on something.” On set at London’s Eltham College – doubling today for fictional private school St. Marks – Teasers is witnessing the calm before the storm. Sitting in the office of Anthony Head’s scornful headmaster, scholarship student Lee Keegan (Oscar Kennedy) faces expulsion when cannabis is found in his backpack. But the meltdown from his father doesn’t materialise on the drive home. Instead,
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he’s distracted by crowds at petrol stations, the rush at supermarkets and headlines about closed borders… “The film is definitely a worst-case scenario,” Milburn chuckles. “People have done very well, by and large, in the real-life scenario. My pessimism meant that in the film, they didn’t!” As society
TESTING TIMES Oscar Kennedy (left) and the students of St. Marks find themselves on a crash course in survival tactics.
collapses into chaos and violence, Lee returns to the last sanctuary – St. Marks – where teachers and students have swapped algebra lessons for firearms training. Think Lord Of The Flies meets The Walking Dead, minus the zombies. “The film juggles dark humour and serious subject matter, because that’s how I am as a person,” says Milburn, whose “North Star” for judging the film’s tone was RoboCop’s horrifying and hilarious boardroom scene. “If the film had taken itself too seriously, then the kids running around with guns would be offensive, really. It would be using that for thrills, in a sort of voyeuristic way, without seeing the satirical side of it.” Made for just £1 million, School’s Out Forever is the first release from UKbased Rebellion Film Studios, who also have Judge Dredd TV series Mega-City One, and Duncan Jones’ Rogue Trooper in development. “I felt the pressure of being the first film out of the gate for this studio, and wanting to provide them with something that felt like a movie with a real budget,” Milburn chuckles. “So it was written within an inch of its life of what you can achieve on that money, while still keeping it feeling like a real, heavyweight thing.” JF ETA | 15 FEBRUARY / SCHOOL’S OUT FOREVER IS OUT ON VOD, DVD & BLU-RAY NEXT MONTH.
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EXCLUSIVE
SCARE B&B
THE RENTAL I Dave Franco on his directorial debut about a nightmare getaway.
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ave Franco is best known as an actor, but has also previously directed a number of well-received shorts. “I’d been wanting to take the leap to directing a feature for a while,” he tells Teasers, “but, candidly, I was a little bit nervous, because I knew there would be a little bit of a spotlight on me where people would sit back and think, ‘Let’s see what this fucker thinks he can do.’” Franco shows just what he can do with his feature debut, The Rental, which he co-wrote with Joe Swanberg. “When we finished it, I realised that I knew these characters and this story more intimately than anyone else,” he says. “All those fears of directing a feature went away, and were replaced by feelings of excitement. Then when I was on set that first day, I realised I knew a lot more than I thought I did, because of the fact that I’ve been on so many sets as an actor…” It’s also a surprisingly actor-driven piece. Set mostly in the confines of a seaside rental, the film follows four tight-knit friends, comprising two couples: Charlie (Dan Stevens), his wife Michelle (Alison Brie), Charlie’s brother Josh (Jeremy Allen White) and Mina (Sheila Vand), who’s Josh’s
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girlfriend and Charlie’s business partner. “Our goal from the beginning was to create a tense relationship drama where the interpersonal issues between the characters were hopefully just as thrilling as the fact that there’s a psycho villain lurking in the shadows,” says Franco.
UNHAPPY HOLIDAY Franco’s directorial debut is a claggy and claustrophobic somebody-else’shome invasion spine-chiller.
That fear factor impinging on the complex group dynamic is rooted in Franco’s own anxieties. “I was inspired by my own paranoia about the concept of home sharing,” he says. “I think about how our country is as divided as it’s ever been, and no one trusts each other, and yet we trust staying in the home of a stranger simply because of a few positive reviews online. That being said, I still use Airbnb. In fact, I stayed in an Airbnb while filming this movie.” The five-week shoot was tough: two-thirds took place at night, and the mostly single location was battered by rain and 50mph winds. But Franco had moral support: Brie is his real-life wife. “It was so nice to have her there with me as a form of support where, as a first-time director, there were inevitably moments where I would get into my own head, and start to doubt myself,” he says. “She was always there to build me up in the right ways.” And they might be re-teaming again soon. “I would love to direct more films in the thriller/horror space,” says Franco. “But also, my wife and I wrote a romantic comedy during quarantine for me to direct and for her to star in. It’s a completely different vibe than The Rental…” MM ETA | 22 JANUARY / THE RENTAL LAUNCHES ON PRIME VIDEO THIS MONTH.
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EXCLUSIVE
Nappy Days
THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS I Alec Baldwin’s back in the highchair, now with backup.
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hey grow up so fast. The last time we saw Ted (Alec Baldwin), he was crawling around the kitchen, wetting himself and secretly running an underground network of intelligent, business-minded babies. With the first film told in flashback, the sequel picks up Ted’s adult story as the billionaire CEO of his own corporation – forced back into nappies by a magical milk formula that transforms him into a one-year-old. Throw in his big brother Tim (also magicked back into a baby), his niece Tina (a real baby), Jeff Goldblum playing an evil nursery teacher, plus an army of tiny ninjas and you’ve got a bigger, cuter, loonier ’toon sequel to the 2017 DreamWorks blockbuster. “We didn’t just want to make ‘a bossier baby’,” says returning director Tom McGrath. “The new generation is much more in touch with their emotions, so we really wanted to play the millennials off against the old-school business world.” Amy Sedaris voices Tina, the family’s new Boss Baby and the perfect foil for Baldwin’s dry wit and Goldblum’s smart sarcasm. “She’s pure energy,” laughs McGrath. “Alec has that Mad Men mentality and Jeff is Jeff, but she’s more about hugging the
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competition. It’s personal for her, it’s not business. She’s just so smart and witty – in a charming, manipulative kind of way!” After coming up with a dozen ideas for the sequel while making the first film (“With every animated movie there’s always a three-hour version you end up
CUT OUT FOR IT Ted (Baldwin) and Tina (Sedaris) face a whole new set of problems.
boiling down to 80 minutes”), McGrath wanted to make sure his own experience was still at the heart of everything. “My brother is a stay-at-home dad, and I came to Hollywood to make movies,” he says. “I’ve always worked hard, but I’ve never had my own kids. There’s envy on both sides of that, I think. I don’t always pick up the phone as much as I should. This movie is about how you can get estranged from your siblings as you grow up, but it’s about it never being too late to have a second chance.” Of course, it’s also about a fight between 200 sword-wielding ninja tots, plus a lot of baby body-swap comedy and an explosive set-piece chase staged on the back of a running dog. “It was a challenge, for sure!” laughs McGrath, who was less than halfway through the film when lockdown forced all his animators to work from home. “The silver lining here is that the people making it got to be with their own families while they were working. We had people’s kids walking into production meetings all the time, so it was actually pretty handy to see if they started laughing at whatever we were working on!” PB ETA | 26 MARCH / THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS IS OUT IN TWO MONTHS.
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EXCLUSIVE
TALE OF THE UNEXPECTED
TO OLIVIA I Director John Hay brings us the darker side of Roald Dahl…
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irst things first. To Olivia might feature author Roald Dahl, but this is not a biopic, says director John Hay (Lost Christmas). “I didn’t want to do a bouncy Roald Dahl story about the writing of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. I very much wanted to do a story that was about a couple going through grief. It could have been anyone… we’ve all suffered grief.” The film is set in the early 1960s, with Dahl (Hugh Bonneville) not yet a famous author. Rather, To Olivia focuses on his marriage to Hollywood actress Patricia Neal (Keeley Hawes) and the horrors they go through when one of their three children at the time, seven-year-old Olivia, dies from measles encephalitis. With Dahl drowning his sorrows, To Olivia treads a darker path than you might expect. “All the studios wanted it and many rejected it, because it didn’t have sufficient Easter Eggs,” says Hay. “It wasn’t really the Roald Dahl story.” As it’s adapted from Stephen Michael Shearer’s Neal biography An Unquiet Life, that’s maybe no surprise, and her time starring with Paul Newman in Hud features prominently in Hay’s film. To Olivia arrives at a time when Dahl is in the news again, with his
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family recently apologising for his anti-Semitic comments. “I personally welcome the apology. I really do,” says Hay. Nevertheless, he hopes it won’t overshadow Neal’s story. “It’d be [a] real shame if Pat was once again subsumed into the Roald Dahl bandwagon.” There is added poignancy, too, with the appearance of actor Geoffrey Palmer – who died last November – in his final role. “He’ll be very, very, very, very sadly missed by me personally,” says Hay. “Hugh gave me, as my wrap present, a picture of [Geoffrey] with his arm around me. It sits right above my desk and will remain there to the end of my days.” JM ETA | 19 FEBRUARY / TO OLIVIA OPENS IN CINEMAS AND ON SKY CINEMA NEXT MONTH.
FAMILY FORTUNES Hugh Bonneville plays a pre-fame Dahl, with Keeley Hawes as his wife Patricia Neal (above); Sam Heughan plays Neal’s co-star Paul Newman (below).
HUGH BONNEVILLE To Olivia looks like it’s going to be a cosy biopic, but it’s anything but… It’s deceptive and, I think, almost Dahlesque. You think it’s going to be a sweet story about a lovely boy wanting chocolates, and then you realise… be careful what you wish for. But it also shows an ordinary family with its ordinary tensions. They just happen to be – particularly one of them – in the public eye. What did you think of Dahl’s drinking? He seems almost explosive around his kids… Like anyone who drinks, there are moods, and there are tones. And there’s nothing more dangerous than the dark, brooding person who’s drunk, because you don’t know what’s going to come next. I think that volatility, that potential for explosion, is there. But let me be absolutely clear… there’s never any evidence that he was physically cruel to either Patricia or to the children. Finally, Julian Fellowes is penning a Downton movie sequel. What can you tell us? The script is in fine fettle! I think it will be the absolute tonic that the world will need by the time it comes out, if indeed we can get to shoot it in 2021, which we’re hoping to. JM
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annes Film Festival, 2008. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull has played out of competition the previous day, and this afternoon, in the prestigious Carlton Hotel on the Croisette, a star-studded meet-and-greet has been arranged for a roomful of journalists. There are probably 100 of the world’s press gathered, sorted into groups of five or six at regular intervals around the room. The idea is that Steven Spielberg and his stars will be brought in one by one and guided from group to group to shake hands and have a quick chat. Lovely. So in comes Ray Winstone, Jim Broadbent, Cate Blanchett; the system works like a dream. Then Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf arrive together. They look pissed off and walk straight through the room and out onto the balcony, closing the doors behind them. No dice. Oh well, Spielberg has been saved for last, and the room buzzes with excitement. Here he is! Wearing a trademark baseball cap! But 90 per cent of the press forget they’re professional journalists and surge forward like fanboys. He’s mobbed. I stand my ground, determined to be respectful, and now and again I catch a glimpse of his baseball cap. And then he is gone. To this day I’ve never met the director who shaped my dreams as a kid, as a teen, as an adult.
NO CIGAR Every film journalist has people they’d especially like to meet. And every film journalist has ‘the ones who got away’. In my 24 years
It Shouldn’t Happen To A Film Journalist Editor-at-Large JAMIE GRAHAM lifts the lid on film journalism. THIS MONTH THE ONES WHO GOT AWAY.
PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE
“See, George; that’s the guy who stood there like a lemon. Ya know, Steve, I think he might be crying.”
on the job, I’ve been fortunate enough to interview many idols and icons, from Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep to Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Soderbergh. I’ve even met Danny Dyer, three times. But I also have the gigs that were not to be, and they haunt me to this day. I lost a coin flip with a colleague to interview Leonardo DiCaprio. I was going on set of Peter Jackson’s King Kong in New Zealand only for it to clash with the only week’s holiday I had booked that year. Same for a set visit to Atlanta for Doctor Sleep,
‘NOW AND AGAIN I CATCH A GLIMPSE OF HIS BASEBALL CAP. AND THEN SPIELBERG IS GONE’ GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM
meaning I lost the chance to step into the Overlook Hotel that had so haunted my entire life. And Ingmar Bergman, my all-time favourite film director, agreed to do one UK interview for the release of a 31-disc DVD boxset in 2006; I was flying to the island of Faro, where he’d filmed so many of his masterpieces, to meet the great man himself... and then he changed his mind and cancelled the week before.
These are, naturally, absolute first-world problems, and my career has been far too blessed to curse my luck. But we all have our heroes and the people whose work means everything to us, and such close calls can’t help but rankle. So while I’ve walked the Fox studio lot with James Cameron and asked Robert De Niro when he last called someone a “fockin’ mook” and shared a Japanese dinner with Dario Argento, I will never quite get over the fact that I was an hour away from interviewing my favourite working filmmaker in his home when it fell apart. The writer/director in question was none other than Paul Thomas Anderson, whose There Will Be Blood had been chosen as TF’s Film of the Decade. We’d arranged an interview to coincide with the days I was in LA on a film junket, and after a final confirmation that morning, I was getting into a cab to take a ride to PTA’s house in the San Fernando Valley where he shot Boogie Nights and Magnolia when he sent me an email postponing our chat because of a family emergency. Given I was leaving LA the next day, the access-all-areas interview became a chat on the phone. First-world problem? Certainly. But kinda devastating nonetheless. Jamie will return next issue… For more misadventures, follow: @jamie_graham9 on Twitter.
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EXCLUSIVE
Conspiracy of Silence
THE DISSIDENT I Unpicking the shocking murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi…
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he date 2 October 2018 is a date destined to live long in the memory. That day, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi walked into his country’s consulate in Istanbul and never came out. There to collect paperwork for his upcoming marriage to Turkish PhD student Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi was brutally murdered. His death sent shockwaves through the world. “The days that followed the story got crazier and crazier,” says Bryan Fogel, whose new film The Dissident traces the aftermath of Khashoggi’s unlawful killing. As Fogel soon discovered, despite Khashoggi’s close ties with the Saudi royal family, his writing made him an enemy of the state. “His country was silencing him,” Fogel says. “And what he was advocating for was freedom of speech, freedom of press, human rights, women’s rights, some sort of parliamentary democracy in his country, that all power cannot be held by one single person.” His premeditated murder saw him ambushed, suffocated and dismembered inside the Saudi embassy. Fogel contacted the Washington Post, the paper Khashoggi wrote for, and thanks to his reputation as director of the Oscar-winning doping-in-sport doc Icarus, was given the greenlight to further investigate this horrifying
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incident. First, it meant gaining the trust of Cengiz. “Because that was the love story. That was the emotional story. That was the story behind the story. That was why somebody would care.” He spent weeks in Istanbul, getting to know Cengiz “over many, many
DARK FATE Khashoggi (above right) had known the Saudi royal family for a long time (above left); he was preparing to marry Hatice Cengiz (below) when he was murdered.
meetings”, without cameras. “Every time I saw her, I would just cry,” he recalls. “It was emotionally devastating. The two of us bonded and I said, ‘Look, if you trust me, if you will let me do this, I promise I will protect you, I promise I will be your protector, I will never do anything without your permission.’” Yet Cengiz is just part of a complex web that Fogel untangled. Courting the Turkish authorities, and even securing CCTV recordings from inside the Saudi embassy that contained footage of Khashoggi, Fogel also spent time with Omar Abdulaziz, a fellow Saudi dissident now hiding out in Montreal, Canada. Fogel filmed him for months but left the interviews behind to gain his trust. “I probably left him with $40-50,000 worth of camera cards,” he recalls. Since completing the film, Fogel has continued to work with Cengiz to shed light on Khashoggi’s murder and the Saudi authorities’ brazen actions. But does he ever worry about his own safety? “There’s always going to be a creak in the ceiling, there’s always going to be a door rattling,” he says. “Making films is my ability to try to bring stories – that might otherwise remain in darkness – to people. So if I start thinking about all the possible outcomes, I don’t think I’d ever be able to do this.” JM ETA 5 MARCH / THE DISSIDENT OPENS IN TWO MONTHS.
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Mikkelsen is on an extended hot run, and now Fantastic Beasts beckon…
secret… there is no way they can keep their thoughts to themselves. And women don’t have that issue, so obviously there is an interesting power balance going on there! What do you see as your major career turning points? Bond [Casino Royale] was one turning point, obviously, in the sense that it was a huge film for me to do in the American and European market. I would say the first film I did over there, King Arthur… just being part of that world was a turning point. My very first feature film, with Nicolas Refn, Pusher, was a kick-start and a turning point. So there’s quite a few of them out there. Can you pinpoint how your Hollywood career started? I know I got the job on James Bond because of Open Hearts, made by Susanne Bier, where I play a very soft man, who is a doctor, and for some reason they thought I could be a baddie in a Bond film! So sometimes it’s strange. Do you mind playing villains? I’ve done a few villains. I’ve also done quite a few normal people and quite a few crazy people. I try to find something that is different from film to film. I mean, I think a Marvel film is very different from a James Bond film, which is again very different from the Hannibal TV show. They’re all villains in their own world, but they’re very, very different villains. So I tried to find something new in the characters.
THE HERO
MADS MIKKELSEN Raise a glass to the Great Dane…
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S T UDIOC A N A L , S ON Y, ME T R ODOME , GE T T Y
e it Europe (The Hunt, Pusher) or Hollywood (Rogue One, Doctor Strange), Danish star Mads Mikkelsen is in that career sweet spot. Incoming in sci-fi Chaos Walking and award-winner Another Round, the 55-year-old will also take over from Johnny Depp in Fantastic Beasts. Spectacle doesn’t scare him, it seems. “Sometimes you want to go out and have a sword in your hand!” In Another Round, you play Martin, deep in a midlife crisis, who experiments with daytime drinking. Did you ever drink on set? No, we didn’t. Because we were doing it so many days in a row. And keeping a level of [alcohol] would be impossible; you’ll have to drink two bottles of scotch every day. And people would fall asleep.
You worked with Another Round director Thomas Vinterberg before on The Hunt. Does that hold a special place in your heart? The Hunt was extremely big and personal for me because I won [Best Actor] in Cannes, and for the film community, if they didn’t know me, it would probably have opened their eyes a little bit.
You play a teacher, but what kind of student were you? Myself? Hmm. Good question. I was not very good at sitting still. But I was pretty fast [at learning]. I nailed it pretty easy. It came easy to me, a lot of it. So when I hit high school, and I entered into teenage territory, I lost all that. I was just focused on the girls and having fun. So the train left without me there.
You’re also in Doug Liman’s Chaos Walking. What can you tell us? It’s a very interesting, bizarre and kind of beautiful story. Men cannot keep a
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VICES & VILLAINY (top to bottom) Mikkelsen in his breakout role in Pusher (1996); taunting Mr. Bond in Casino Royale (2006); being a bad role model in Another Round (2021).
‘WHAT JUST HAPPENED HERE? WHY ME? WHY AM I INVENTING THE DEATH STAR?’
Does it surprise you that you’ve been in so many pop-culture touchstones? Yeah, it does! If you’d asked me 10 years ago, I would never have guessed that would happen. It would be strange for me not to say I am surprised. In the midst of it, it’s just happening, but when you stop and you look back, you go, “What the fuck just happened there? Why me? Why am I inventing the Death Star? That’s pretty cool!” How did you spend 2020 in lockdown? I was planning to learn a few languages. I never got around to it. But there was so much to do. I had so much tennis I had to play. We got a little dog. And we spent a lot of time with a dog! JM ETA | 5 FEBRUARY / ANOTHER ROUND OPENS NEXT MONTH.
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47 MUST-SEE MOVIES Encompassing postponed 2020 big-hitters and brand-new thrills, 2021 is packed with movies we cannot wait to finally see. From superhero tentpoles and franchise-starters, to subtle dramas and bombastic animations, it’s set to be one hell of a year for film. Grab some popcorn as we shine a spotlight on all the upcoming cinematic highlights… EDITED BY MATT MAYTUM WORDS BY PAUL BRADSHAW, RICHARD EDWARDS. JORDAN FARLEY, JAMIE GRAHAM, ANN LEE, JAMES MOTTRAM, JACK SHEPHERD, AMY WEST
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FAST & FURI
FAST 9 DIRECTOR Justin Lin STARRING Vin Diesel, John Cena, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Charlize Theron, Sung Kang
OUS 9
MUST-SEE, WHY?
Justin Lin returns to kick off one last trilogy…
The turbocharged franchise revs up its next huge installment...
The future of film has never felt more uncertain than right now. As major Hollywood players bet big on the streaming future at the expense of the debilitated exhibition industry, the outlook for cinemas certainly seems grim. But not if Vin Diesel has any say in the matter. “I am so committed to the theatrical experience,” Diesel tells TF from his home in the Dominican Republic. It’s here that Diesel’s spent the year plotting the final two chapters in the Fast Saga (more on those later), recording his debut album (!) and remotely working on videogame Ark 2, where he plays a dinosaur hunter from the 24th century – you know, the typical lockdown experience. “Obviously, I’ve dedicated my life to [the cinema]. It’s so meaningful and so cherished. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that we’re going to be there on 28 May with a movie that everybody is going to want to see together.” There are myriad reasons why even the most lavish home-cinema setup just won’t cut it for Fast & Furious 9, but hovering near the top of the list is director Justin Lin. After joining the family with underrated third entry Tokyo Drift (a film even Christopher Nolan has a “soft spot” for), Lin transformed the franchise into a turbo-charged juggernaut with series standout Fast Five. The London-set F&F6 was supposed to be the end of the road for Lin, wrapping up character arcs that had been in the planning since his earliest conversations with Diesel in 2005. But just when Lin thought he was out, they pulled him back in. “Between 6 and 9, Vin would just call me up, and we would talk about Dom,” Lin tells TF from the Universal lot, where he’s putting the finishing touches on Fast 9’s colour grading. “At first, I would say, ‘Vin, you do know I’m not coming back, right?’” But Diesel wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Bringing [Justin] back was something I started plotting before we even started filming Fast 8,” Diesel recalls. “I even did a Dodge commercial and had him direct, just to slowly bring him back. The timing worked perfectly. He was ready to rip the doors off the franchise by last year, when we filmed Fast 9.” Describing the science-defying set-pieces that he, Lin and screenwriter Daniel Casey have cooked up for F9 as “like nothing you’ve ever seen”, Diesel credits Lin as the ultimate Fast director, thanks to his deft ability to balance the series’ improbable mix of earnest character drama and outlandish vehicular mayhem. From JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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2021 PREVIEW rocket-powered Pontiac Fieros to ‘magnet planes’ (“That’s actually a piece I had inside my action vault since I left… it’s been years in the making,” Lin exclaims), the trailer alone is full of wonderfully preposterous WTF moments. But nothing glimpsed so far comes close to the sight of Dom’s beloved Dodge Charger rope-swinging – for want of a better description – across open water.
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BALANCING ACT The stunts in Fast & Furious 9 aim even higher than in previous entries.
making him the “greatest hurdle” Dom and the family have ever faced, according to the man who plays him, John Cena. “There is an old saying that blood is thicker than water,” Cena tells TF from Canada, where he’s currently shooting The Suicide Squad spin-off series Peacemaker. “For me, having four brothers, I can say I have had the absolute brawls of my life with kin. It’s almost like it’s accepted.” When it comes to where Jakob has been all these years, and why he’s stepping out of the shadows now, Cena is staying schtum, but teases that “Fast 9 will not only answer a lot of the questions that many people around the globe have had, but it will leave them asking more questions...” For Diesel, the introduction of Jakob and the resulting exploration of Dom’s flesh and blood family provided the opportunity to bring the Toretto story full circle for what is now a 20th-anniversary sequel to 2001’s The Fast And The Furious. “So much of our story originates from the first film, and anecdotes that we can remember from 20 years ago when we were introduced to these characters,” Diesel muses. “As we are seeing Dom now become a father, another vehicle with which we were able to explore fatherhood was this unfinished business with a blood relationship – to have a man, who’s all family, understand that there’s something in the past that is unresolved, is fascinating.” Speaking of unresolved pasts, after years of outcry, justice will finally be served for Sung Kang’s Han, who
somehow returns in Fast 9, despite being sent to the scrapyard in the sky by Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw in the post-credits scene of Fast 6. There’s also the small matter of precisely what Roman and Tej are planning to do with that rocket-powered car… And while Lin maintains that the unexpected extra year of postproduction hasn’t resulted in any pickups or plot changes, it has allowed a director so often forced to fly by the seat of his pants to savour the filmmaking experience (“Usually at this stage the sun is coming up and I’m running to catch a plane to the UK premiere”), and submerge himself in the Fast Saga’s final chapters. “When we started talking about 9, we knew we had more ideas than just one movie,” Lin reveals. “To be in postproduction but, at the same time, writing [Fast 10 & 11], it really helps both processes.” But it’s Diesel, perhaps more than anyone, who already has the finish line in his sights. “Fast 9 is designed to be the prequel to the finale and establish a narrative that could stand over multiple films,” Diesel explains. “We owe the loyal fans that have supported us a finale like nothing they’ve ever seen. [Fast] 9 is an amazing film, it’s going to be a thrill for people to see. But it needed to lay the groundwork for the final finale, which will have to be broken into two films because there are so many elements to wrap up. It’s a very, very exciting.” Even after 20 years and nine films, the Fast Saga is only just getting started. JF ETA I FAST & FURIOUS 9 OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 28 MAY. SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS
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ou watch these movies, and you can probably guess my grade in physics at high school, right?” laughs Lin. “When I pitched the idea of the swing, I could see just the fear in the crew’s eyes. I get a joy out of that look. It’s usually 20 seconds of ‘What the hell?’ and then they’re like, ‘OK, we’re going to have to take a car, and we’re going to have to put it on a helicopter, and do this and that…’ That one was a pain, but there are a couple of things you haven’t seen yet that freaked them out even more!” And yet, as fun as swinging a supercar from a helicopter undoubtedly was, it wasn’t the (only) reason Lin returned. “I know that the theme of family has become a drinking game for some of the fans,” the director acknowledges, with a chuckle. “But when I woke up that morning and had the idea of exploring Dom and Jakob… that was always the reason to come back.” Yes, Dom’s long-lost little brother surfaces in Fast & Furious 9, and it’s fair to say they haven’t been on each other’s Christmas card lists for quite some time. Jakob’s lengthy collection of qualifications include master thief, assassin and high-performance driver,
FAST 9
BLOOD BROTHERS On screen, Dom and Jakob are as closely matched as they come. But what about Vin and John? We put the real-life Toretto brothers to the test. WHO CAN DRINK THE MOST CORONA IN A SINGLE SITTING? Diesel: That’s a tough one. Brother John is a red wine guy, and over the decades I’ve acclimated to Corona. If it was whiskey he’d send me home laughing. Cena: Definitely Vin. It would be a great drag race in the beginning. About halfway, we’d be pacing. And then you’ve got to go with the experience. He’s had Corona barbecues for 20 years now. I think he’d manage to pull away and leave me in the dust.
WINNER DIESEL WHO’S THE BETTER DRIVER? Cena: It depends on what we’re driving. I think if you do a large engine, American, it’s Vin all day. If you want to dive into the Honda element, or the Japanese stuff, I think I’ve got him. It all depends on the vehicle. Diesel: I’d just lap him.
WINNER DIESEL WHO CAN CHANGE A TYRE FASTER? Cena: I’ve absolutely got this one. Only because I’ve had to change a lot of tyres in my lifetime. This is one I’m going to claim for me.
WINNER CENA WHO’S THE BEST DRESSED? Diesel: If he wants to, John can suit up really nice. The first time I met him, he looked like James Bond. He had the best suit on in the world. It was in my gym. I was like, “Wow, you dress up!” Cena: That’s is absolutely Vin. I either wear workout clothes or a suit, probably with a waistcoat. Those are my two choices. Vin actually knows what cool is. I have no clue, so I just stick to the basics and look like I’m going to sell you some bonds.
WINNER DIESEL WHO’S THE BEST TRASH TALKER? Cena: I’d call that a draw, only because I know that Vin has been able to talk some trash in his time. I’ve also fancied a career, myself, in being able to talk trash in front of a live audience. You can flip this, heads or tails.
WINNER TIE WHO HAS THE HIGHEST PAIN THRESHOLD? Cena: I’m not talking trash about Vin here, but I’m going to say me. And that’s strictly to do with my documented body falling apart in WWE. I’ve had the right side of my body collapse. I’ve had my nose put on the side of my face. I think I can rightfully claim that.
WINNER CENA WHO’S THE BETTER SINGER? Diesel: Ouch! Wow, that’s a tough one. He can sing! I can’t put anything past him. That’s what I love about him. I believe that John Cena is one of those types of people who can master anything. It was my daughter’s birthday earlier this year, and he had promised her that he was going to learn Mozart on the piano, and he sent her a video of him playing Mozart for her birthday. That was the most beautiful thing. But, all that being said, I did literally just spent the night in a recording studio…
WINNER DIESEL
FINAL SCORES
DIESEL 4.5 CENA 2.5 GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM
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Immortality beckons for Marvel’s new heroes… DIRECTOR Chloé Zhao STARRING Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, Angelina Jolie, Kit Harington, Gemma Chan When Kevin Feige announced that Eternals was going to be “entirely new and entirely different”, he wasn’t kidding. Arriving as part of Marvel’s Phase 4, this tale of a group of god-like TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
immortals offers the biggest injection of new characters into the MCU since 2014’s Guardians Of The Galaxy. At the helm is Chloé Zhao, the hugely talented director of The Rider and the Venicewinning Nomadland. “I was a big fan of the MCU… I have been for a decade and, yeah, it just made sense,” says Zhao, explaining
LIVE FOREVER Director Chloé Zhao reckons that it’s the diversity of the Eternals cast that makes the project so compelling.
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DISNE Y
ETERNALS
why she decided to take on this adaptation of Jack Kirby’s 1976 comic. Scripted by hot newcomers Kaz and Ryan Firpo, Eternals also assembles a hugely exciting cast to play this race of ancient, superpowered aliens who have secretly walked among humans for thousands of years. Leading the pack, as wise guru Ajak, is “firecracker” Salma Hayek, says Zhao. “She’s got so much more life in her in a day than I have had my whole life! That woman is a blast!” Joining her are Angelina Jolie (as Thena), Richard Madden (Ikaris) and The Big Sick’s Kumail Nanjiani (Kingo). Other Eternals include Don Lee (Gilgamesh), Brian Tyree Henry (Phastos), Lia McHugh
ETERNALS BLACK WIDOW Worth Russian out for…
DIRECTOR Cate Shortland STARRING Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, Rachel Weisz, David Harbour, Ray Winstone
MUST-SEE, WHY?
We’ve been waiting for a standalone Black Widow movie since the superspy first popped up in the form of Scarlett Johansson in Iron Man 2, and the wait became excruciating when the film was postponed twice in 2020, S.H.I.E.L.D.-ing itself from the Coronavirus. In May, we trust, it’ll finally be here, giving us a conspiracy plot that digs deep into Natasha Romanoff’s past, when she trained for the KGB. Along for the thrill-ride will be her ‘sisters’ from the program Yelena (Florence Pugh) and Melina (Rachel Weisz), along with their father figure Red Guardian – played, judging from the trailer, with a splashes of humour and pathos by David Harbour. “Marvel allowed me to be myself,” says director Cate Shortland, known for heart-wrenching dramas Somersault and Lore. “It’s spectacular and fun, but we were allowed to be really nuanced, and to make a character-driven movie.” We at TF Towers are especially looking forward to Johansson and Pugh sharing a screen, and Shortland promises they won’t disappoint. “It was really beautiful seeing them together. You’ve got these two really strong, smart women across from each other, and they’re both really sexy, and they both have a really good sense of humour. Florence is totally an anarchist on set. She’s a Mack Truck. She just powers through moments. And I think that was great for Scarlett, because she had to come up and meet that.” JG/JS ETA I 7 MAY 2021
Marvel goes epic, with a visionary director best known for intimacy.
(Sprite) and Lauren Ridloff (Makkari), who will play Marvel’s first deaf hero. Yet that doesn’t come near to completing an ensemble that also features Game Of Thrones’ Kit Harington, as human-warrior Dane Whitman, Gemma Chan as fanfavourite Eternal Sersi, and Dunkirk’s Barry Keoghan as the aloof Druig. “I think that the whole Eternals cast… they’re diverse, not just in ethnicity, but in their background, as individuals,” says Zhao. “They’re quite unique individuals and when you put them together, there is a chemistry that excites me.” Set after the events of Avengers: Endgame, the plot is still very much GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM
under wraps, beyond that the Eternals must defend Earth from the Deviants, a rival ancient race. What is certain is that the gods are clearly looking over Eternals – the film shot in the UK and in the Canary Islands, wrapping in February 2020, just before the Covidinspired lockdown. While Eternals’ release still got pushed back a year, to November 2021, Zhao’s been left to figure out how to finish post-production remotely. “You want us to be able to screen it for an audience. And that’s been tough,” she sighs. “But we’re figuring out creative ways of doing it.” A Zoom test-screening, maybe? The gods will be watching… JM ETA I 5 NOVEMBER 2021
MUST-SEE, WHY?
Scarlett deserves this. And so do we.
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2021 PREVIEW MUST-SEE, WHY?
SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS
Spectacular action and a good chance Captain Marvel will pop up given Cretton worked with Larson on Short Term 12, The Glass Castle and Just Mercy.
Marvel is kung-fu fighting…
DIRECTOR Destin Daniel Cretton STARRING Simu Liu, Michelle Yeoh, Awkwafina, Fala Chen, Florian Munteanu In December 2018, Kim’s Convenience star Simu Liu [pictured below] posted a tweet asking Marvel for the title role of what will be the 26th movie in the MCU, and the first to centre on an Asian superhero. And wouldn’t you know it, he got the part, with director Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12, Just Mercy) saying, “He’s awesome. There’s just an undefined thing… when somebody pops.” Debuting in Special Marvel Edition #15 (December 1973), Shang-Chi is a mystical
master of kung fu. His appearance was based on Bruce Lee and, in the 1980s, Stan Lee wanted to do a TV show starring Lee’s son Brandon in the role. That didn’t happen, and neither did a movie until now, though Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and Stephen Norrington (Blade) were both circling a project in the early 2000s. Now, finally, Marvel is giving Shang-Chi his moment in the spotlight, and he’ll be going up against arch nemesis The Mandarin (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) – the real one this time, not the fake conjured by Ben Kingsley’s actor Trevor Slattery in Iron Man 3. Awkwafina will also appear in an undisclosed role.
“It’s really exciting to me to be able to fill a movie like this with a bunch of Asian faces and be able to see [more] sides of these characters than what we have seen before,” says Cretton. “Growing up, I didn’t have a superhero that looked like me… I couldn’t be more excited.” Cretton won’t spill any beans other than to say “it’s going to be a really good film”, but MCU fans will recall that the titular terrorist organisation Ten Rings were behind Tony Stark’s kidnapping in the first Iron Man. Don’t be surprised if we now learn they’ve been secretly pulling various strings all along. JG ETA I 9 JULY 2021
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SHANG-CHI MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 7 Cruise looks to scale even greater heights… DIRECTOR Christopher McQuarrie STARRING Tom Cruise, Simon Pegg, Vanessa Kirby, Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell
MUST-SEE, WHY?
NO TIME TO DIE
Daniel Craig is set to hang up the tux in explosive style.
How do you top Mission: Impossible – Fallout? Returning writer/director Christopher McQuarrie says, “I threw everything I had at the last movie. I’m starting from scratch. We like a challenge and this will be the biggest challenge yet.” But if that sounds like even he is daunted, forget it – McQuarrie and Tom Cruise are all about learning from each new Mission and taking that into the next one. “With Fallout, I learned to lean on a specific emotional trajectory for Ethan,” McQuarrie says. “We couldn’t be sure it would work. Now we’re ready to take that further.” Little is yet known about the top-secret plot, but we do know that IMF agent Eugene Kittridge is back, 25 years on from the original Mission: Impossible. There will be a huge car chase in Rome, and there have been sightings of Cruise driving a motorcycle off a cliff in Norway and parachuting to the ground. Meanwhile, some excited Norwegian locals also spotted Cruise whizzing by on a train. Yes, not in a train, but on a train. Tom waved at them as he went by, and their TikTok video went viral. “I’ve seen the grand plan for the next one-and-a-half movies,” says Simon Pegg, who is back as brainbox Benji Dunn. “They’re fucking insane.” JG ETA I 19 NOVEMBER 2021
MUST-SEE, WHY?
McQ says the stunts are “obscene”.
Third time’s a charm.
S ON Y, PA R A MOUN T, DISNE Y
DIRECTOR Cary Joji Fukunaga STARRING Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Ana de Armas, Christoph Waltz Following near misses in April and November 2019, all sights are now set on 2 April 2021: the long, long-awaited date that Daniel Craig’s Bond will (touch wood, fingers crossed…) bow out on the big screen in No Time To Die. But with an estimated $250m budget to recoup, and Covid still an ongoing concern, Eon and director Cary Joji Fukunaga know better than to never say never. “I’m hopeful that it’ll come out,” Fukunaga tells TF. “But what comes first is the health of the world, and entertainment like our film is obviously secondary to that.” What seems to be clear, at least, is that a streaming release is out of the question for a series that’s been synonymous with the big screen for almost 60 years, after the biggest players in town reportedly turned down MGM’s eyebrow-raising $600m asking price. Regardless of when or where the world gets to see No Time To Die, the landmark 25th Bond film is ready to send Craig’s retired MI6 agent out on an all-time high, with the introduction of Rami Malek’s villainous Safin, the return of Christoph Waltz’s Blofeld and the high-profile debut of Lashana Lynch’s new 00 agent, Nomi. The time has (finally) come. JF ETA I 2 APRIL 2021 GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM
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2021 PREVIEW
TOP GUN: MAVERICK Cruising altitude.
DIRECTOR Joseph Kosinski STARRING Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
MUST-SEE, WHY?
We’ve waited three decades. It’s time to buzz the tower again.
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It’s been a long time coming (and then some, thanks to a couple of Covid-induced delays), but the long-awaited Top Gun sequel is almost upon us. Tom Cruise dons the shades and flight jacket again to reprise Maverick, his most iconic role outside of the Mission franchise. More than 30 years after the original, your need for more speed is set to be sated. “We kicked around a bunch of ideas,” producer Jerry Bruckheimer tells TF of cracking the story for the long-gestating follow-up. “Tom became more interested, and he said that maybe the time is right. We first developed some concepts that didn’t work. Then, Joe [Kosinski] had an idea we liked. So, we took him to Paris where Tom was shooting one of the Missions. Tom loved the idea. That’s where it all started.” Scant plot details have been revealed thus far, but we do know that the film sees Maverick training a new generation of pilots who have graduated the Top Gun program, and one of those youngsters is Lieutenant Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw (Miles Teller), son of Goose. What we also know to expect is spectacular aerial footage. The cast really take to the skies in F-18s, and are filmed with 6K cameras in the air. Cruise even devised a special training regime for the young actors, having experienced the nauseating effects of the G-force on the original movie. “So this time around, Tom, the avid pilot who can fly anything, recalling that experience said, ‘We’ve got to train them to be able to handle the G-forces,’” explains Bruckheimer. “He was so generous and so giving to the actors, he fully committed to and personally designed the training programme that took three months for the actors to complete.” That attention to detail, plus the involvement of the Navy – “with us every single day” according to Bruckheimer – means that TG:M should really soar. MM ETA I 9 JULY 2021
MAVERICK
NOBODY It’s a Wick-ed game.
DIRECTOR Ilya Naishuller STARRING Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, RZA, Aleksey Serebryakov, Christopher Lloyd, Humberly González
MUST-SEE, WHY?
Bob Odenkirk turns John Wick.
“Our goal with Nobody was not to get crazy,” claims Ilya Naishuller, the Russian-born filmmaker behind 2015 action fest Hardcore Henry. If you’ve seen Nobody’s bonkers debut trailer, in which Breaking Bad’s Bob Odenkirk unleashes Wick-ian levels of ultraviolence on the Russian mafia, you – like TF – might be questioning that ‘not crazy’ part. “Well, in terms of the action, I think we reach a solid 8 out of 10,” Naishuller laughs. “And considering we have Bob in there doing crazy things… we could probably even go for 10.” That’s more like it. Where Nobody does aim to dial down the crazy is with the “grown-up” story underpinning the bone-crunching action. Odenkirk plays Hutch Mansell – a suburban family man who’s humiliated when he fails to defend his family during a break-in. But Hutch is far from a cowardly nobody. He’s a man with a dormant set of particular skills, and fears what might result if he lets his simmering rage bubble to the surface. “I think it’s very relatable,” Naishuller smiles. “I might not be a 50-year-old suburban dad, but I sometimes wish that I could stand up to bullies. I wish that I could be a much more macho version of myself. Apart from all the wish-fulfilment male fantasies, it has at its heart a struggle and an inner conflict. The bigger stakes are all happening in his mind.” With John Wick’s Derek Kolstad on scripting duties and co-director David Leitch onboard as a producer, comparisons to the beloved Keanu-fronted action franchise will be inevitable. But Naishuller maintains that Nobody has plenty to offer beyond surface similarities. “If you look at any hitman movie, they’re always going to have elements that rhyme, but there are elements that give Nobody much more depth than you’d expect from an action film, which I’m very proud of.” Time to get crazy. JF ETA I 5 MARCH 2021 JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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2021 PREVIEW
GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE A guaranteed hit…
DIRECTOR Navot Papushado STARRING Karen Gillan, Lena Headey, Michelle Yeoh, Carla Gugino “There were times when I was pinching myself, ‘Oh, wait a minute, I’m doing this crazy movie that we wrote from scratch.’” So says Navot Papushado, director of Gunpowder Milkshake, an explosive concoction about three generations of hitwomen. Karen Gillan’s Sam follows in the footsteps of her estranged mother, Scarlet (Lena Headey), when she’s indoctrinated into a life of violence by ‘The Firm’. Trained as a deadly assassin, a job gone wrong leaves Sam looking after an eight-year-old girl, Emily (Chloe Coleman). Her new predicament means she must join forces with her mum, who has her own kick-ass crew, The Librarians (Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh and Carla Gugino). Papushado (Big Bad Wolves) promises a unique genre mish-mash for his action original: “This combination of a little bit of Alfred Hitchcock, a little bit of Sergio Leone, a little bit of Akira Kurosawa – it just came to be one thing, this
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genre blender around a gun for hire, an assassin, and a samurai.” He also calls it “film noir meets spaghetti western”. He’s full of praise for his leading ladies, who went hands-on with the stunts and gunplay. “I owe them a great debt because they were really inspired and encouraged me to push the script further, and push their characters further.” Anticipating a hard R-rating, he adds, “It’s just a violent movie. It’s about three generations of assassins, and there’s all this violence. I don’t think we left anything on the editing floor.” And as for that title? “It hits you in the face,” grins the director. “It hits you really hard. It’s a milkshake of tones and inspirations from all these directors like Michael Mann and Jean-Pierre Melville and Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and Looney MUST-SEE, Tunes, and all the way to Tarantino WHY? and John Woo and the Coen Truly original actioners brothers… I think it’s going to don’t come along often enough. be a blast.” Just don’t expect anything vanilla. MM ETA I 2021 TBC
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A QUIET PLACE PART II
MUST-SEE, WHY?
Journey into fear…
Horror movies don’t get much more tentpole than this.
S T UDIOC A N A L , PA R A MOUN T P IC T UR E S
DIRECTOR John Krasinski STARRING Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Cillian Murphy, John Krasinski, Noah Jupe, Djimon Hounsou
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In 2018, John Krasinski’s high-concept horror movie (in a post-apocalyptic world, creatures hunt humans by sound!) took a whopping $340m from a $17m budget. Its world fired the public’s imagination, and there was still so much more to explore: are there other survivors beyond the farm of the Abbott family, and if so, how are they going about it? “If the first [movie] was intimate, almost like a homegrown western, this is more of a travelling western,” says Krasinski, who compares the “epic” feel of A Quiet Place Part II to films like There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men. Intriguingly, the action will begin just seconds after the first movie finished on such a cliffhanger, and will pitch the Abbott family – mum Evelyn (Kransinki’s real-life wife, Emily Blunt) and kids Regan and Marcus (Millicent
Simmonds, Noah Jupe) – out into the big wide world, with their danger increased by the death of dad Lee (Kransinski) at the end of the first movie, and by the less-than-quiet presence of Evelyn’s new-born baby. On their travels they will meets strangers (Cillian Murphy, Djimon Hounsou) who might be friend or foe, and the story will also do a Godfather: Part II in going backwards as well as forwards – expect to see Day 1 of the devastation. “It’s something perhaps a lot of us around the world are thinking about right now – can you still extend your hand to your neighbour when you’re in the midst of a harrowing environment?” says Blunt of the film’s theme of community, while Krasinski says that if the first movie was about the fears of parenting, this is about that moment when you have to let your children go. “That’s what growing up is all about,” he says, vowing this super-sequel will offer a journey as emotional as it is terrifying. JG ETA I 23 APRIL 2021 JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
2021 PREVIEW
THE FOREVER PURGE DIRECTOR Everado Gout STARRING Ana de la Regeura, Tenoch Huerta, Josh Lucas, Cassidy Freeman, Leven Rambin “It’s like, ‘OK, we have this experiment, but what happens if we unleash it?’” Everardo Gout tells Total Film about his upcoming action-horror The Forever Purge, the fifth and final instalment in the Purge franchise. “It takes everything one step further.” In 2013, the original centred on a wealthy family’s fight for survival during an annual event that sees all crime, including murder, made legal for 12 hours. Its sequels built on that ultra-violent vision, exposing how the free-for-all affects different kinds of people, many of whom can’t handily afford to fortify their homes with steel shutters. Set after the first four, unlike recent prequel The First Purge, this new instalment
There’s method to the madness…
follows Adela (Ana de la Reguera) and Juan (Tenoch Huerta), who find solace at a Texan ranch, having fled a drug cartel in Mexico. But their newfound peace is disrupted when a group of outsiders decide to extend their carnage beyond the titular window of time, rendering nowhere (and no-when) safe. “It’s an amazing story of Latinos and Americans coming together to overcome despair and evil,” teases Gout, who says opening the world up sets it apart from earlier outings, which all take place over the course of one night, and enabled him to deliver something “more artistic” and grounded. Fear not though, it still has ambitious set-pieces in abundance. “We did one very complicated scene on a one-take,” Gout explains. “It starts in a car, then goes out on to the streets, up into a building... When we got it, everyone
exploded with joy. We’re in the entertainment business. If we can’t even entertain ourselves, what’s the point?” Blending thrills and sociopolitical commentary is something the Purge movies are well-known for. With this one, creator/ writer James DeMonaco hopes to “set the record straight’’ on the series’ overarching themes, condemning certain goings-on perhaps more strongly than before. “‘I want my intentions to be crystal clear on what I think about violence and what’s going on in the world.’ That’s what he told me,” recalls Gout, claiming the film is like a social litmus test. “It’s dystopian, but he’s trying to get us to look in the mirror. It makes you think, ‘Shit, if I get pushed into a corner, would I do the same?’ Once you open that door, how do you close it again?” AW ETA I 9 JULY 2021
MUST-SEE, WHY?
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The thought-provoking franchise comes to a thrilling close.
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MUST-SEE, WHY?
HALLOWEEN KILLS J A K E GIL E S NE T T ER / UNI V ER S A L P IC T UR E S , R YA N GR EEN/ UNI V ER S A L P IC T UR E S
DIRECTOR David Gordon Green STARRING Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Anthony Michael Hall, Nick Castle “The second you start lighting things on fire, everything gets trickier!” laughs David Gordon Green, resurrecting Michael Myers for the second time with Halloween Kills. “Sometimes when I look at franchises that get bigger and badder I think they lose some of the heart. I have to keep in mind that the origin of this movie is only a few steps away from grindhouse.” Keeping John Carpenter close to watch over every decision (“I think he trusts me a bit more now…”), Green wanted Kills to pick up right where his 2018 Halloween sequel left off – with Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) struggling to deal with a whole new trauma in the wake of Michael Myer’s new disappearance. GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM
It’s the explosive middle chapter in the sequel trilogy.
Your worst fears take Shape again...
“When we made the last one we wanted to find a way for someone who’s never seen the original to get up to speed with the story,” says Green. “But this one gets right to the action. It’s very aggressive. It’s more efficient. We wanted it to be an explosive middle chapter before things get streamlined and personal again.” Reaching back deeper into the mythology to bring back key characters from the 1978 original, Halloween Kills sees Myers hunted by a mob – with Laurie leading a group of survivors that feed off a flood of mass hysteria and panic. “It’s about the creation of fear,” explains Green. “It’s one thing to be afraid of the Bogey Man, to have someone who might be in the closet, under the bed, creeping around in your house… But what we wanted to explore next was confusion, misinformation
and paranoia. What happens when fear goes viral? You can’t just stick your head under the covers any more.” Expecting to start his delayed third chapter, Halloween Ends, next year, Green has had plenty of time to think about the legacy he wants to leave, and for him it’s all about respecting the mask. “We looked at Jaws a lot,” he says. “You don’t need a backstory on the shark. I think a lot of Halloween fans want to know more about Michael, but I don’t ever want to know that some childhood trauma defined him. Michael Myers in my mind has achieved the same mythology as Dracula and The Wolfman. These are not just fun experiences we have in the movie theatre eating popcorn and jumping out of our seats – it’s an anxiety that crosses over into fear in the real world. That’s where I get scared.”PB ETA I 15 OCTOBER 2021 JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
2021 PREVIEW
MINARI
MUST-SEE, WHY?
It won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Sundance 2020.
An American dream story like no other DIRECTOR Lee Isaac Chung STARRING Steven Yeun, Alan Kim, Han Ye-ri, Noel Kate Cho, Will Patton “There was something so magnetic about him. I wanted to keep watching his audition tape over and over.” Director Lee Isaac Chung is raving about Alan Kim, the adorable breakout star of his touching coming-of-age drama Minari. The eight-year-old makes his acting debut in the gentle drama about a South Korean family who move to a tiny farm in Arkansas to carve out their own slice of the American Dream. They’re soon joined by their ballsy and wickedly potty-mouthed grandmother (Yuh-jung Youn). Minari is loosely based on Chung’s own childhood with Kim cast as the filmmaker’s mischievous on-screen alter ego, David. Newcomer Noel Cho plays his older sister, Anne, while Han Ye-ri and Steven Yeun (Burning) take the role of their parents, Monica and Jacob. “It’s a mix of many things,” Chung says. “Starting as a personal memoir, folded into an Asian family drama, a Southern Gothic, and a classic western.” Chung knew from the start that he didn’t want to make a straightforward biopic. “I was wary of making
a strict recreation. I felt there were ways I could let my memories turn into a fictional film that could work on its own.” And work it most certainly does. The film charmed the socks off audiences when it premiered at Sundance with its intimate and heartwarming depiction of immigrant family life, and is now generating some serious awards buzz. Since stepping out of the gory shadow of The Walking Dead, Yeun continues to prove how remarkably talented he is as the headstrong father determined to make their new life work even as the hardships start piling up thick and fast. “He doesn’t fit within any easy categories,” says the director. “You can see in his other works that he is always redefining himself. He does this in a way that invites the viewer in, to let us all understand that impulse in ourselves.” While the film focuses on the immigrant experience with tender compassion, its universal themes of love and unity are sure to resonate with everyone. Chung is keeping his fingers crossed. “I hope the film will stay within others’ memories in a good way.” AL ETA I 19 MARCH
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MINARI
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THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY MUST-SEE, WHY?
Expect the director of Precious to be up for more awards.
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DIRECTOR Lee Daniels STARRING Andra Day, Trevante Rhodes, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Garrett Hedlund, Evan Ross, Tyler James Williams, Natasha Lyonne When Lee Daniels was 15, Diana Ross was a force in his life and he was a big fan of Sidney J. Furie’s 1972 biographical-drama Lady Sings The Blues, in which Ross portrays the great singer. It wasn’t until Daniels was 40, though, that he got into Holiday’s music and “understood her pain”. Now 61, Daniels has chosen Holiday as the subject for his first feature since The Butler in 2013. Based on a script by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter Suzan Lori-Parks, The United States Vs. Billie Holiday covers the last 15 years of the singer’s troubled life, and her harassment by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. “I was blown away by her story, which was really a story of the government coming after Billie,” says Daniels. “They didn’t want her singing ‘Strange Fruit’, which is about the lynching of African-Americans. They knew she was addicted to drugs, and they kept planting drugs on her when she was trying to stop.
And she just continued to sing the song. To me, she was a Civil Rights Leader, and I don’t think she gets the credit for that. This film explains how ‘Strange Fruit’ really kicked off the Civil Rights Movement.” Trevante Rhodes (Moonlight, Bird Box) plays Jimmy Fletcher, one of the first Black FBI agents, hired to infiltrate Harlem. Fletcher was charged with bringing down Holiday and entered into a tumultuous affair with her. As for Holiday, her huge shoes are filled by the singer Andra Day. “I really didn’t care whether they were an unknown or a star, I was just looking for someone to inhabit Billie’s spirit,” says Daniels. “Andra brought the soul of Billie. She hadn’t acted before, but there was a rawness and a vulnerability. She was pretty breathtaking in the auditioning process.” With filming beginning in October 2019, Daniels had no idea just how relevant his film would become by time of release. “I didn’t know that we’d be in the middle of this civil war in the United States,” he says. “Half of this country feels, to me, as if they’re racist.” JG/MM ETA I 12 MARCH 2021 JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
E ONE , A LT I T UDE
The FBI target the jazz legend…
2021 PREVIEW
THE ELECTRICAL LIFE OF LOUIS WAIN
MUST-SEE, WHY?
It’s Cumberbatch at his most eccentric.
Benedict Cumberbatch’s art attack. DIRECTOR Will Sharpe STARRING Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy, Andrea Riseborough
LAST LETTER FROM YOUR LOVER
“I can’t think of anyone better,” says Sharpe. “He has such a good grasp of these psychological characters who have fast, febrile brains. I always want to embrace the messiness of humans. I really felt that Benedict was game.” Wain’s life was sadly marred by tragedy, but Sharpe hopes that the film will be a touching reminder of what an inspirational man he was. “I had a lot of admiration for him. I want it to be an uplifting film that doesn’t shy away from the struggles that he had, but shows that he had a way through it. Love played a big part in that.” AL ETA I SECOND HALF OF 2021.
MUST-SEE, WHY? We’ll all need comfort-viewing cosiness in 2021.
Memories are made of this…
DIRECTOR Augustine Frizzell STARRING Felicity Jones, Shailene Woodley, Joe Alwyn, Callum Turner, Nabhaan Rizwan, Ben Cross When director Augustine Frizzell started looking around for a new project to work on, she knew pretty much what she wanted – and exactly what she didn’t. “I’d done my film [2018’s Never Goin’ Back], which was teens, drugs and comedy and I did [the pilot for HBO’s] Euphoria, which was teen, drugs and chaos. And I was like, ‘I just want something really beautiful!’” She even started using the distinctly Danish word ‘hygge’. “It basically means cosy. I want the movie version of a cup of hot tea, basically.”
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
No wonder she jumped at the chance to direct Last Letter From Your Lover when she got sent the script, adapted from the 2011 book by best-selling author Jojo Moyes (Me Before You). “I’d never read the book. I’d actually never even heard of Jojo Moyes,” says the American-born Frizzell, who was nevertheless enchanted at the idea of shooting a film in London and Majorca, which doubles for the 1960s French Riviera. Dubbing it “wildly romantic”, Frizzell immediately fell for the story’s charms, in which Ellie (Felicity Jones), a journalist in modern-day London, finds a letter sent from one lover to another half a century earlier. The more she reads, the more she uncovers about
Jennifer (Shailene Woodley), whose affair with the young Anthony (Callum Turner) looks to be at the expense of her loveless marriage to husband Laurence (Joe Alwyn). Just to add to the drama, Jennifer has amnesia following a car accident, ensuring that Last Letter To Your Lover has all the ingredients for a slushily romantic ride. At least that’s what the test screenings scores say. “The number one comment afterwards was ‘feelgood’,” says Frizzell. “And I thought, ‘OK, perfect! That’s exactly my goal!’ I just want people to walk out smiling and crying and just giving their partner a kiss and a hug, happy to be in love or looking for love.” JM ETA I 12 MARCH 2021
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S T UDIOC A N A L
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Imagine Benedict Cumberbatch sporting one of his finest moustaches and surrounded by cats. Lots of cats. No, it’s not your favourite internet meme come to life, it’s a new biopic of eccentric 19th-century artist Louis Wain. Best known for his psychedelic pictures of anthropomorphised felines, Wain was hugely influential even though he never became a household name. The film depicts the many obstacles he faced, but at its heart it’s a moving love story between the painter and his wife Emily (Claire Foy).
Just don’t expect it to be a conventional period drama. Director Will Sharpe, who won acclaim for his work on Channel 4 comedy Flowers, wanted it to be a celebration of Wain’s life that was as surreal and colourful as the art he created. “It’s a film that tries to capture the look of his pictures through the design, the performances, the dialogue, the music,” he says. “Trying to build what we call Wain’s world!” Cumberbatch’s SunnyMarch company is co-producing the film, which was shot over nine weeks in and around London. The actor is in his element as Wain, who found solace in his furry muses as things started to fall apart.
LOUIS WAIN
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2021 PREVIEW
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MUST-SEE, WHY?
Holland reteams with the directors of Avengers: Endgame for an entirely different kind of epic.
CHERRY
DIRECTORS Anthony Russo, Joe Russo STARRING Tom Holland, Ciara Bravo, Jack Reynor How do you follow up the highest-grossing film of all-time? For Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo, the answer was reteaming with their Spider-Man, but on a much more intimate scale. They focus on a single character rather than a roster of superheroes with their sprawling adaptation of Nico Walker’s semi-autobiographical 2018 novel, Cherry. The book and the film follow the titular young man through his experiences as an army medic in Iraq, to the opioid addiction that resulted from his PTSD. “We responded so strongly to the story, and we felt that it was an important movie to make right now, TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
because it was dealing with issues that are very timely,” Anthony Russo tells TF. “It became very easy at that point… we just fell into it creatively, and that was it.” Choosing a project of this scale was partly inspired by their early-career mentors, Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney. “One thing they taught us was ‘one for you, one for them,’” says Joe Russo. “It’s a philosophy where you have to prove that you can make money. You prove to corporations and the world that you can make money. But once you do, you’ve got a lot of brand leverage and media profile out of those projects, and then you can use that to leverage more artistic or difficult endeavours to get made.” Having brought Tom Holland into the MCU as Peter Parker, he was the first choice the
Russos had for their lead, after they “gained an understanding of him on a deeper level as an actor” over the course of three Marvel movies. It’s a hugely demanding role for the 24-yearold Brit, one that doesn’t shy away from the problems that Walker faced, before, during and after his tours of duty. It’s a story that means a lot to the directors. “It’s a very, very personal story,” says Joe Russo. “Nico Walker grew up in Cleveland where we grew up. He had a very different life experience than we did. Like Nico, we have a lot of experience with opioid addiction. We have a lot of friends and family that we’ve lost to the opioid crisis, and others that are struggling with their sobriety. So this was a very personal film for us.”MM ETA I 12 MARCH 2021, APPLE TV+ SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS
A P P L E T V+, S ON Y P IC T UR E S R EL E A SING , GEM EN T ER TA INMEN T
Tom Holland and the Russos spin a new kind of story.
CHERRY UNCHARTED
A videogame movie to treasure? DIRECTOR Ruben Fleischer STARRING Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Banderas, Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle Can Uncharted, the first feature of Sony’s PlayStation Productions, break the videogame curse? And will it gift Tom Holland his next franchise in the form of the Indiana Jones-alike Nathan Drake? Big questions, but what we do know for certain is that this movie is set before the main timeline of the games and will show how a younger Drake came to meet his BFF Sully (Mark Wahlberg). We also know it’s been in the works since 2008 – so long, in fact, that Wahlberg has gone from playing Drake to his older mentor Victor Sullivan. It all sounds rather tumultuous, but Holland offers assurances that everything came right in the end. He promises action and adventure, saying, “It’s one of the best scripts I’ve ever read. I’m super-excited. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”JG ETA I 16 JULY 2021
MUST-SEE, WHY?
It could launch a franchise, with future movies charting the action of the games.
CHAOS WALKING
Spidey and Rey are hunted by Hannibal Lecter… DIRECTOR Doug Liman STARRING Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley, Mads Mikkelsen, David Oyelowo, Cynthia Erivo, Nick Jonas
MUST-SEE, WHY?
Could be the start of the next red-hot YA franchise.
Not only did Tom Holland have four wisdom teeth removed during filming, but he broke his nose in a fight scene and passed out during an underwater sequence. The movie was similarly in the wars, with a reported $15m spent on reshoots. Still, our hopes are high for Doug Liman’s (The Bourne Identity) adaptation of the first book in Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking trilogy, in which Daisy Ridley crash-lands on a planet named New World where all of the inhabitants are men who are all afflicted by ‘the Noise’ – a force that puts all of their thoughts on display. Soon Ridley’s Viola is on the run with the help of Holland’s New World-er Todd, while Mads Mikkelsen’s bad guy is in pursuit. “I seek out challenging projects… [and this is] the most creatively challenging thing I’ve ever worked on,” says Liman. JG ETA I 5 MARCH 2021
UNTITLED SPIDER-MAN SEQUEL Into the Spider-Verse…
DIRECTOR Jon Watts STARRING Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alfred Molina, Jamie Foxx, Marisa Tomei “Absolutely insane,” is how Tom Holland describes the top-secret plot. And boy, it seems like he’s not kidding given it’s not just Spidey (Holland), MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) who are back in this third instalment – they’re being joined by the MCU’s Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), plus Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 and Electro from The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Yep, it appears we’re about to get a live-action Spider-Verse. What’s more, whispers suggest that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s webslingers might also feature in the multiverse, along with Kirsten Dunst’s MJ and Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy. Exciting – and even more so when you remember that Spider-Man: Far From Home culminated with Spidey’s identity being revealed to the world. JG ETA I 17 DECEMBER 2021 GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM
MUST-SEE, WHY?
This could be Spider-Man on an Avengers: Endgame scale.
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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2021 PREVIEW
MUST-SEE, WHY?
Spice up your life…
DIRECTOR Denis Villeneuve STARRING Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Javier Bardem On 10 December, director Denis Villeneuve wrote a piece in trade bible Variety blasting the decision to make his sci-fi epic Dune available on streaming service HBO Max day-and-date with its theatrical release. But, silver linings and all that, this quote leapt out: “Dune is by far the best movie I’ve ever made.” Whoa. This coming from the modest man behind sci-fi insta-classics Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. Featuring a spicy cast that includes Jason Momoa, John Brolin and Stellan Skarsgård on top of the stellar names listed above, Dune will tackle Frank Herbert’s dense 1965 tome by splitting it over two movies. Great idea – as David Lynch found out with his 1984 version, there’s just too much detail for one picture: think Game Of Thrones in space. Stripped to its essence, Dune follows Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), scion of a noble
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GODZILLA VS. KONG It’s a monster mash…
DIRECTOR Adam Wingard STARRING Alexander Skarsgård, Millie Bobby Brown, Kyle Chandler, Julian Dennison, Ziyi Zhang
W WA R NER BR O S , S ON Y
Like all of Warner Bros.’ 2021 movies, the fourth title in the MonsterVerse will now debut day-anddate in cinemas and on streaming channel HBO Max in the US, though you’d be mad to settle for seeing these titans clash on your TV. Plot-wise, we know Monarch will unearth clues to the creatures’ origins, and that a conspiracy is threatening to wipe all said creatures from the Earth. Director Adam Wingard (The Guest, Blair Witch) insists there will be a bigger focus on character than in the franchise so far MUST-SEE, (“the arcs they have, how they relate WHY? to one another, and most importantly, Because it’s GODZILLA VS. KING KONG, how they relate to the monsters, and dammit!!! how the monsters relate to them”), but it’s the Big G slugging it out with everyone’s favourite giant gorilla that we’re here for. Still want more? Early action figures suggest Mechagodzilla will be tag-teaming. JG ETA I 21 MAY 2021 TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
family, as he’s gifted the sand planet Arrakis, aka Dune. Sounds like a bum deal, but Arrakis is rich in melange, a spice that lengthens lifespans, heightens awareness and is vital to space travel, enabling navigators to safely tackle warp space. Other leaders of rival families naturally want to control this spice – none more so than the villainous Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård under six hours’ makeup work). And if that’s not danger enough, Arrakis is also home to a more pressing peril – sandworms that grow up to 750 metres in length. As you’d expect from Villeneuve, Dune will blend spectacle, characterisation and ideas with fierce intelligence. “You can see it… as a powerful, epic adventure story, but it has so many themes that make the book so rich,” he says. “We tried to keep the richness in the movie… [which] is kind of a call to action for us to change things, especially for the youth.” JG ETA I 1 OCTOBER 2021
VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE A sequel to lose your head over…
DIRECTOR Andy Serkis STARRING Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Woody Harrelson, Naomie Harris, Stephen Graham Andy Serkis replaces Ruben Fleischer as director for this sequel and promises “an extraordinary piece of cinema.” Well, he has got four Oscar nominees in his principal cast, and we can expect some serious smackdowns given Woody Harrelson is playing Cletus Kasady, the serial killer who becomes symbiote Carnage (“He’s a tortured soul,” says producer Avid Arad). It’s also thought that Naomie Harris is playing Carnage’s historic accomplice and love interest Shriek, and Michelle Williams, who is back as Eddie Brock’s ex-fiancée Anne Weying, says she wants more She-Venom action this time around. It will be a lot for Eddie/ Venom to handle, and that’s before you consider that other Sony superheroes like Morbius, Black Cat and Jackpot could cameo, and Marvel’s Kevin Feige says “it seems likely at some point” that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man will play a part. JG ETA I 25 JUNE 2021
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DUNE
Villeneuve was obsessed with the book as a teen. Of the film, he says, “It’s like I’m dealing with the pressure of the dreams I had when I was a teenager… and I was a big dreamer.”
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MUST-SEE, WHY?
It’s could be building towards Venom vs. Spidey…
THE MATRIX 4 You’ll have to see it for yourself… DIRECTOR Lana Wachowski STARRING Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II “Many of the ideas Lilly and I explored 20 years ago about our reality are even more relevant now,” said Matrix 4 director and co-writer Lana Wachowski in a statement. “I’m very happy to have these characters back in my life.” She’s not the only one. Little is yet known about this fourquel, but with Keanu Reeves returning as hacker-turned-messiah Neo, Jada Pinkett-Smith back on board as freedom fighter Niobe, and Carrie-Anne Moss completing the holy Trinity, you can count us in for another slab of mysticism, ass-kicking and mind-bending virtual reality – and even more so given Jonathan Groff (Mindhunter), Neil Patrick Harris (Gone Girl) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman) are wading into the action, with the latter MUST-SEE, rumoured to be playing a younger version WHY? It’s been 18 years since of Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus. With Matrix Revolutions. Time Warners moving the release date forward to expand cinema’s from April 2022 to December 2021, it horizons again. seems that confidence is high. Whoa! JG
ETA I 22 DECEMBER 2021 JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
2021 PREVIEW THE KING’S MAN Manners maketh mayhem…
DIRECTOR Matthew Vaughn STARRING Harris Dickinson, Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Tom Hollander
MUSTSEE, WHY?
Tom Hollander plays three roles! Rhys Ifans plays Rasputin! You’d be mad (monk) to miss it.
The third movie in Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman franchise is a prequel set in the early 20th century, telling of how a cabal of tyrants and criminal masterminds plot to cause a war that’ll kill millions. On the side of good will be Ralph Fiennes’ Duke of Oxford – the original King’s Man – who takes Harris Dickinson’s Conrad under his wing. Just don’t expect a repeat of the surrogate father/son story that played out between Colin Firth’s Harry and Taron Egerton’s Eggsy in Kingsman: The Secret Service. “I’m not interested in doing that,” dismisses Vaughn. “Do you think that would excite me as a director, to just make the same film but put them in a period piece?” There will be surprises, certainly, plus a slew of set-pieces that look to such masters as Buster Keaton and Errol Flynn. “Imagine if they had the equipment we have now and they did that!” grins Vaughn. JG ETA I 12 MARCH 2021 TBC
CRUELLA
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Disney goes black-and-white…
2 0 T H CEN T UR Y S T UDIO S , DISNE Y
DIRECTOR Craig Gillespie STARRING Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Mark Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Emily Beecham, Jamie Demetriou One of Emma Stone’s earliest roles was voicing a dog for Disney Channel’s The Suite Life Of Zack & Cody (2005), and now here she is playing mutt-menace Cruella de Vil in Disney’s live-action prequel film. Of course, in 1996 we saw Glenn Close own the role, but as the casting of Emma Stone suggests, this will be an origin story designed to show us what turned Estella de Vil into Cruella, the fur-flaying fashionista we all love to hate (let’s hope it does a better job at explaining an iconic killer than Rob Zombie’s Halloween or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning). Stone calls the character “larger than life” and says, “It’s been a great experience to play around with her backstory and discover what makes her the woman she becomes in the story we’ve seen.” Early pics have shown Stone sporting red hair, punk-rock boots and sooty eyeliner – the story is set in the 1970s – and we can hopefully expect some real attitude given it’s directed by Craig Gillespie of I, Tonya and Lars And The Real Girl fame. “I was a big fan,” co-star Mark Strong says of his director. “It was fantastic being on set. It’s such a massive production.”JG ETA I 2021 TBC
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
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CRUELLA THE FRENCH DISPATCH The wonderful world of Wes…
DIRECTOR Wes Anderson STARRING Timothée Chalamet, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Benicio Del Toro, Frances McDormand
MUST-SEE, WHY?
Anderson’s first live-action pic since The Grand Budapest Hotel back in 2014.
A new Wes Anderson movie is an event, and The French Dispatch, which brings to life a collection of stories from the final issue of an American magazine published in a fictional 20th-century French city, is said to be the auteur’s biggest, boldest and most bonkers offering yet. “This one is incredible. It’s beautiful, it’s fun, it’s mad, it’s everything,” exclaims composer Alexandre Desplat, and the gorgeous trailer, hopping between timeframes and black-and-white and colour, certainly backs up all that he says, with its typically symmetrical compositions and dreamy palette. Described by Anderson as “a love letter to journalists” (music to TF’s ears), The French Dispatch is inspired by The New Yorker and its co-founder Harold Ross, whose on-screen avatar is Bill Murray’s editor Arthur Howitzer Jr. The rest of the players, meanwhile, are starry even by Anderson’s standards, with 20-odd stellar names adorning the cast list. JG ETA I 2021 TBC
MUST-SEE, WHY?
It’s 60 years since the Disney animated classic 101 Dalmatians, and this has pedigree.
DEATH ON THE NILE Sex and death…
DIRECTOR Kenneth Branagh STARRING Kenneth Branagh, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Letitia Wright, Annette Bening
MUST-SEE, WHY?
Branagh’s talked of there being an Agatha Christie extended universe.
“It’s a very dark, very sexy, unsettling kind of film,” stresses Kenneth Branagh of his follow-up to Murder On The Orient Express. “It certainly delivers on the travelogue as it takes you to big and exciting places, but… it has to do with love, possession, lust, jealousy – big primal emotions.” As the title suggests, we’ll this time find Ken’s moustachioed Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot aboard a luxury cruise liner on the Nile, with his much-needed holiday interrupted by mystery involving Gal Gadot’s wealthy heiress. Given the cast includes Armie Hammer, Letitia Wright, Russell Brand, Annette Bening and French and Saunders, there’s no shortage of suspects. Branagh is keen to point out that Agatha Christie’s “surprisingly youthful, sexy, and dangerous” book also allows him to dig deeper into Poirot: “We could follow his story, in as much as it reflects on romance and love and sex, back in his life.” JG ETA I SEPTEMBER 2021 TBC
GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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2021 PREVIEW MUST-SEE, WHY?
Wright’s always been a huge fan of psychological thrillers. You can bet he’ll put his stamp on the genre.
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LAST NIGHT IN SOHO DIRECTOR Edgar Wright STARRING Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Terence Stamp, Diana Rigg, Rita Tushingham “The idea for the movie is the result of 25 years of living and working in Soho,” says Edgar Wright of his sixth feature. “I spent so much time looking at the architecture, thinking, ‘What have these walls seen?’ And walking the streets late at night. Soho’s become a lot more gentrified, but it still has that darkness just under the surface. It’s one of those places where you only need to stand still for 60 seconds for something strange or magical or weird or dark to happen.” As far as plot is concerned, Wright, always conscious of viewer enjoyment, wishes to say as little as possible. So let’s just leave it at the barest of outlines: in 2019, Eloise (McKenzie), a young woman from the country, arrives in TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
Edgar Wright shows his dark side…
London to pursue her passion for fashion design. Things don’t go great. Meanwhile, in 1965, singer Sandy (Anya Taylor-Joy) similarly discovers that the big city’s supposedly gold-paved streets are riven with cracks that can swallow you whole. Wright has been mulling Last Night In Soho for a long time, and first mentioned it aloud to friends in 2013. He then amassed five years’ worth of research, including lots of interviews with “people that were pertinent to the plot”. One of the friends he told about it was screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns (Penny Dreadful, 1917), and when Wright finally settled down to pen the screenplay, he invited her to co-write. It was a smart decision given she could bring a female perspective to a movie about two young women, and she’d lived above Sunset Strip on Soho’s Dean Street for many years, and worked in the Toucan pub. SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS
LAST NIGHT IN SOHO MORBIUS
MUST-SEE, WHY?
There will be bloodsucking…
The trailer suggests Leto’s performance will bury painful memories of his Joker in Suicide Squad.
DIRECTOR Daniel Espinosa STARRING Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Tyrese Gibson, Michael Keaton, Jared Harris, Abraham Popoola Venom took a huge bite out of the box office and Sony continues its Marvel universe with Jared Leto playing Morbius. A cult favourite, the titular antihero is biochemist Dr. Michael Morbius, whose efforts to cure himself of a rare blood disease lead him to experiment with bat DNA and infect himself with a form of vampirism. “This is somebody who has a lot of conflict in his life,” says Leto. “We’re not walking such a clear path. There’s not a clear line between what’s right and what’s wrong… Morbius is an imperfect person.” Morbius promises to be towards the darker end of the comic-book spectrum, while the casting of Michael Keaton has invited speculation that he’s playing villain Vulture. A crossover with the MCU? Maybe, maybe not, but Leto promises, “All hell breaks loose.” JG ETA I 19 MARCH 2021
GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE They called the original Ghostbusters…
DIRECTOR Jason Reitman STARRING Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson
MUST-SEE, WHY?
Proton packs and practical effects? We’ve been waiting 32 years for this.
UNI V ER S A L
“I nearly slimed myself,” said Paul Rudd when he was asked to join the long-anticipated sequel to Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II. We know the feeling, for Ghostbusters: Afterlife is not only directed by Jason Reitman, son of original helmer Ivan, but brings back Sigourney Weaver, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Bill Murray, to say nothing of iconic vehicle Ecto-1. The action will see a mum (Carrie Coon) and her two kids (Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard) inherit a farm in Oklahoma, only to find themselves and the local town beset by supernatural shenanigans. Good job the family discover their ties to the OG Ghostbusters. “This is the next chapter in the original franchise,” says Reitman. “What happened in the ’80s happened in the ’80s, and this is set in the present day.” We’re sold, as is Weaver, who says, “It’s going to be crazy working with the guys again!” JG ETA I 11 JUNE 2021
It will come as no surprise that Wright watched many, many movies to get into the headspace required. “Beatles, James Bond, The Avengers, Twiggy on Carnaby Street – that’s the stuff that endures, the zeitgeisty stuff,” he says of Last Night In Soho’s ’60s strand. “But then obviously the reality of it is the darker side. I started watching a lot of these cautionary tale movies. As, I guess, almost a pushback to women’s liberation, you’d have a lot of films, mostly written by men, that sort of put people in their place. There would be a girl coming to London and it’s ‘The Big City Could Destroy You!’ There are tons and tons of movies like that, some good and some very moralistic or sensationalistic. Watching these movies started to really crystallise the idea. Like, what if the movie is that story twice, in two different periods?” Two times the thrills, twice the dread? Count us twice as excited. JG ETA I 23 APRIL 2021 GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM
CANDYMAN
Jordan Peele resurrects the iconic bogeyman…
MUSTSEE, WHY?
The buzz promises a stylish, scary, supersmart update.
DIRECTOR Nia DaCosta STARRING Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Colman Domingo, Vanessa Williams
“What happens when the ghost stays but the people who he haunts change?” ponders Candyman star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who plays a painter returning to his childhood home in search of inspiration. No surprises for guessing what he finds instead. “It gave us the opportunity to explore that narrative, and to explore how the motivations change from CabriniGreen in 1992 and Cabrini-Green in 2020. Is this monster motivated by the same things?” While the real-life horror of gentrification will inform this sequel/reboot, you can bet your right hand there will be lots of creeping dread and explosive jumps to hook viewers, too. “It’s fun being scared,” chuckles director Nia DaCosta, recalling the screenings. “This movie doesn’t hold back. The reaction was strong!”JG ETA I 27 AUGUST 2021 JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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2021 PREVIEW
MINIONS 2: THE RISE OF GRU Prepare for turbulence.
DIRECTOR Kyle Balda STARRING Steve Carell, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Taraji P. Henson, Pierre Coffin
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
MUSTSEE, WHY?
More villains, more Minions: a recipe for success if there ever was one.
IL L UMIN AT ION EN T ER TA INMEN T/ UNI V ER S A L P IC T UR E S , UNI V ER S A L P IC T UR E S , PA R A MOUN T P IC T UR E S
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Between them, Gru and his loveable band of helpers, the Minions, have grossed $3.7bn worldwide over four movies to date. No wonder this next instalment – a sequel to Minions that also serves as a Despicable Me prequel – is holding out for a cinema release, having been postponed from 2020. Minions 2: The Rise Of Gru sees the pint-sized supervillain-to-be attempting to join a bad bunch known as the Vicious 6. “It’s not exclusively a Gru origin story, but more like a Gru and a Minions origin story,” director Kyle Balda tells TF. “What were the trials and tribulations they went through to form their relationship that becomes really important in a Despicable Me film? So it’s sort of like a bridge, I would say, between Minions and a Despicable Me movie.” The first Minions film established how the yellow dungaree-wearers wanted to serve the best villain boss they can. As Minions 2 is set in the ’70s, though, Gru is still a kid (voiced by a high-pitched Steve Carell). “We started talking about: where was Gru’s head at when he was 11?” continues Balda. “How does he relate to these guys who forced their way into his life? And all with the backdrop of the era of the ’70s.” Amid the familiar faces, the Vicious 6 promise to provide big laughs for the adults in the audience, not least through the inspired casting. The group is lead by Taraji P. Henson’s Belle Bottom, and also features Svengeance (Dolph Lundgren), Nunchuk (Lucy Lawless) and Stronghold (Danny Trejo). “We really wanted as many action heroes from this time to pay homage to the characters that we were portraying,” says Balda. Best of all, Jean-Claude Van Damme plays the lobster-armed Jean Clawed. “We wanted a character that felt like he was a little bit unhinged,” laughs Balda. “When we pitched this to Jean-Claude Van Damme, he was quite keen to unleash himself. He’s quite manic and crazy.” Sold. MM ETA I 16 JULY 2021
MINIONS 2 MUST-SEE, WHY?
Did you not read the elevator pitch?
RUMBLE
Monsters go to the mat… DIRECTOR Hamish Grieve STARRING Will Arnett, Terry Crews, Geraldine Viswanathan, Ben Schwartz, Tony Danza, Chris Eubank How’s this for a genius concept: in a world where monster wrestling is a global sport and monsters are superstar athletes, a teenage girl named Winnie (voiced by Blockers’ Geraldine Viswanathan) sets about coaching a loveable underdog beast named Steve (Will Arnett) into being a champion. “The elevator pitch was Rocky meets Godzilla,” laughs Hamish Grieve, here making his directorial debut after working as a story artist on Shark Tale, two Shrek sequels and Monsters Vs. Aliens. “It’s this idea of a giant monster and mushing that together with a classic underdog sports movie. We’re used to seeing these monsters smash up cities and be quite frightening. The idea that we could tell a classic Karate Kid-style story was fun.” Sixteen monsters appear in the movie, with their striking appearances informed by the natural world – albeit with different creatures smashed together. “Our smallest one is 25ft tall, and then we have a couple that are 80ft tall,” says Grieve, explaining they had to find clever ways to put them in the same frame as 5’5” Winnie. “We never got into the full Godzilla 300ft tall, because it would be impossible to make the world work!” JG/MM ETA I 21 MAY 63
THE CROODS 2
History’s first family has company. DIRECTOR Joel Crawford STARRING Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Peter Dinklage, Leslie Mann
MUST-SEE, WHY?
Early buzz suggests an improvement on the well-loved original.
Arguably the most underrated animation of the last decade, 2013 ’toon The Croods is held in such high regard at DreamWorks that a rushed, cash-grab sequel was never an option. “People loved The Croods, and they’d been trying to make another one,” says A New Age director Joel Crawford. “But it’s a high bar.” After helming the Trolls Holiday Special, Crawford pitched an idea for a Croods follow-up that didn’t just continue the story of overprotective dad Grug (Cage), adventurous daughter Eep (Stone) and inventive outsider Guy (Reynolds), but one that spoke to our increasingly divided world as the Croods encounter a second prehistoric family on their journey to find a new home. “The Bettermans are a more evolved family,” Crawford smiles, pun fully intended. “These two families couldn’t be more different. The Croods lead with their heart, and the Bettermans lead with their brain. Of course, there’s conflict. But they learn not just to live with each other’s differences but to almost celebrate them.” Also starring The Last Jedi’s Kelly Marie Tran as Eep’s new bestie Dawn, the film is set to explore the origins of humanity’s first BFFs. “It’s beautiful, and it’s ridiculous,” Crawford laughs. “And it’s so fun to watch them enjoy each other’s worlds.” JF ETA I 5 FEBRUARY JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
2021 PREVIEW
MARRY ME
MUST-SEE, WHY?
The world needs a four-quadrant romcom right about now.
J-Lo goes loco in love…
DIRECTOR Kat Coiro STARRING Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson, Sarah Silverman, John Bradley
COMING 2 AMERICA All hail Prince Akeem. Eddie Murphy is back…
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
“I think that this movie was essentially made for fans,” says director Craig Brewer, talking about Coming 2 America. The looong-awaited sequel to 1988’s Coming To America, in which Eddie Murphy played an African prince who arrives in the States to find his bride, this follow-up sees Murphy’s Akeem about to become king in his native country Zamunda.
A L L EN F R A SER / UNI V ER S A L P IC T UR E S , A M A Z ON
DIRECTOR Craig Brewer STARRING Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, Jermaine Fowler, James Earl Jones, KiKi Layne, Wesley Snipes, Shari Headley
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She’s a mega pop star, who discovers her latest beau is cheating on her. He’s a high school maths teacher, who happens to be holding up a sign that says ‘Marry Me’ at one of her concerts. And so what happens? She plucks him out of the audience and a whirlwind romance starts. So begins Kat Coiro’s charming-sounding Marry Me, a romcom that, the director promises, you can take the whole family to. “I think the world right now kind of wants to embrace romance and positivity and they want to feel good,” says Coiro (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia). “And to me, yes, it is a romcom. But I also think it’s a multi-generational film that parents, older kids and grandparents can all watch together. For me that has been missing – a film that I can go to with my mom and with my daughter.”
Based on the graphic novel by Bobby Crosby, one of the film’s biggest draws is seeing a post-Hustlers Jennifer Lopez, who plays Latino singing sensation Kat Valdez, in her element. “I mean, without Jennifer, this movie wouldn’t have been possible,” says Coiro, “because you need someone who can credibly play one of the most famous, magnetic people on the planet. And she brought so much of herself to the role.” With a Notting Hill vibe to the story, the casting of Wilson as Charlie was just as crucial. “I needed somebody who could feel kind of strong, independent and attractive, while living this much smaller life than her because you have to believe that Kat Valdez – this powerful, beautiful, wealthy, talented, famous woman – would fall for him on an elemental level.” The question is, can their tryst survive her fame and his love of long division? You’ll have to wait until June to find out… JM ETA I 18 JUNE 2021
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MUST-SEE, WHY?
After a three-decade wait, this has been a long time Coming…
John Landis’ original film practically invented movie Easter Eggs – including throwback gags to the Landis/Murphy hit Trading Places – and Brewer was happy to pay fan service. “We have plenty of Easter Eggs,” he grins. For starters, expect a return to the first film’s barbershop - where Murphy and co-star Arsenio Hall played multiple roles. “I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.” With a script co-written by Kenya Barris and both Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield, who penned the origina, C2A sees Akeem returns to America with his constant companion Semmi (Hall) to find his long lost son, a hustler named Lavelle (Jermaine Fowler), to groom as heir to the throne of Zamunda. “We’re in a different world than we were 30 years ago, and Akeem is dealing with a whole new set of problems,” says Brewer. While Akeem is facing the responsibilities of fatherhood, the director, who previously made Dolemite Is My Name with Murphy, promises the script has the same soul and sweetness that the first film had. “People have an emotional tie to Coming To America,”
explains Brewer, “and I just wanted to make sure that we were telling a story that could also tug on your heartstrings a little bit as well.” Returnees include Shari Headley (as Akeem’s wife, Lisa) and John Amos (as his father-in-law and owner of fast-food restaurant McDowell’s), and the legendary James Earl Jones as Akeem’s father. “So much of what the movie is about… is a lot about the themes that James Earl Jones is known for,” adds Brewer. “James Earl Jones is the father of the world if you ask me. He’s Darth Vader. He’s Mufasa. He was the voice of CNN…!” While the film will be playing on Prime Video in some territories, including the UK, Brewer is happy to embrace the streaming revolution (Dolemite was similarly on Netflix), particularly in this time of Covid. “What we’re hoping is that everybody can get together safely with their family,” he says. “It’s a movie that the whole family can watch, from your kids all the way to Grandma. Just get everybody together and have a good time.” JM ETA I 5 MARCH 2021 JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
2021 PREVIEW
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For a summer holiday, courtesy of Pixar.
Summer bromance…
DIRECTOR Enrico Casarosa STARRING Drake Bell, John Ratzenberger When Pixar’s next film was first announced – a coming-of-age story set over an Italian summer – Twitter users were quick to wonder whether it was the animation studio’s answer to Call Me By Your Name. “That’s funny,” laughs Luca director Enrico Casarosa. “I love Luca [Guadagnino, CMBYN director]. He sounds really awesome. You know, [the comparison] did take me a little bit by surprise, but the relationship is very much at the core of the movie, you know? Of course, this is a very innocent year. We’re at the age where we’re, you know, 12, and there’s definitely no romance to our side!” There’s also another key element that separates Luca from previous coming-of-age TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
stories. “It’s really a story about a shy kid, a timid kid, meeting a troublemaker, and them having this crazy adventure, and growing up,” explains Casarosa, who previously directed delightful Pixar short La Luna. “Of course, there’s this kind of strange, literally fish-outof-water story part of it...” Yep, the Pixar twist here is that both young pals are actually sea monsters from below the water’s surface, and transform into gilled, flippery creatures when wet. Despite the outlandish premise, it’s a deeply personal story for Casarosa, who grew up on the Italian riviera, and drew on one of his own childhood friends when creating the character of Alberto. “It was definitely inspired by my best friend when we met when I was 11.” The sea monster side of the story is also inspired by Casarosa’s background. “I
remember how all these little coastal towns have these weird little tales. St. George and the dragon – St. George, in Liguria, around Genoa, is kind of a big figure. Certainly the iconography is all over the place...” The cute, pared-back style of the characters will also seem familiar to fans of La Luna. “I kind of love this slightly more 2D kind of influence,” Casarosa explains. “We ask ourselves a lot, how do we bring textures that are handmade? How do we bring some watercolour textures? How do we bring pastels…?” After the trials of 2020, Luca could be the perfect cinematic escape. “I was wanting to take people to Italy, and wanting to take people to the summer of our youth,” smiles Casarosa. Pass the gelato… MM ETA I 18 JUNE 2021 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS
DISNE Y
LUCA
MUST-SEE, WHY?
MUST-SEE, WHY?
RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON JUNGLE CRUISE
Old-fashioned swashbuckling with a dream duo.
Meet Disney’s newest hero
Johnson and Blunt take the ride of their lives
DIRECTORS Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada STARRING Kelly Marie Tran, Awkwafina
DIRECTOR Jaume Collet-Serra STARRING Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Paul Giamatti, Jack Whitehall, Édgar Ramírez
“This is a project that we’ve had going for a while at Disney Animation Studios,” says producer Osnat Shurer. “It’s evolved and evolved.” A few elements have endured, such as a divided land and a magical dragon. “And it always had a really strong, cool, badass protagonist.” That protagonist is of course Raya (Kelly Marie Tran). She must track down the last dragon, Sisu (Awkwafina), to restore balance when an evil force reemerges to threaten the world. “It’s the theme of trust in the broken world,” says director Don Hall. “How do you trust when the world is broken? That became sort of the galvanising idea.” The filmmakers worked closely with the ‘Raya Southeast Asia Story Trust’ of expert consultants, to ensure that this fantasy world was depicted in a culturally sensitive manner. “They were really there to build this with us, and to make sure that we were being respectful, and being truthful, to our inspirations,” says director Carlos López Estrada. “The movie hasn’t even come out yet, and already there’s such a huge response to just the specificity that’s in the film,” says screenwriter Qui Nguyen. “I think being a person of that community, the grander Asian-American community or Asian community, you knew that this was going to be a big deal.” MM ETA I 5 MARCH 2021
Growing up in Florida, Dwayne Johnson was no stranger to Disneyworld. “I kind of grew up a Disney baby,” he says. And that includes Jungle Cruise, the pleasure-boat attraction that takes you into the depths of the Amazon rainforest. “I loved that ride,” he grins. “It has this vintage quality from 1955 to… today!” Picking up where Pirates Of The Caribbean left off, Jaume ColletSerra’s Jungle Cruise turns the ride into a swashbuckling adventure, with Johnson playing Frank, the grumpy captain of a riverboat who gets embroiled with Emily Blunt’s scientist Dr Lily Houghton – “a great adventurer, courageous and tenacious”, she says. Co-starring Jack Whitehall as Houghton’s gay brother McGregor (his casting caused a bit of a stir online), the film is also replete with “references”, says Johnson, to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, Spielberg’s Indiana Jones series and Romancing The Stone. Featuring The Undoing’s Édgar Ramírez as the villain, the quest takes everyone into the Amazon (though it was shot in Hawaii and Atlanta). “We’re all wanting the same thing,” confirms Blunt, “this magical tree which could heal all wounds and illnesses. So it could change the world.” A race to find a miracle cure? Sounds familiar. JM ETA I 30 JULY 2021
MUST-SEE, WHY?
Adventure awaits in a wildly detailed fantasy world.
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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DC’s Squad take pointers from another bunch of A-holes.
The definitive take on the bad-guy superteam? TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
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WA R NER BR O S
THE SUICIDE SQUAD
MUST-SEE, WHY?
THE SUICIDE SQUAD
DIRECTOR James Gunn STARRING Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Peter Capaldi, Viola Davis When Amanda Waller first assembled the Suicide Squad, it was never about rehabilitation. The head of Task Force X made no secret of the fact this ragtag assortment of supervillains and criminals GAMESRADAR.COM/TOTALFILM
had been brought together because they were expendable – living to fight another day was never part of the deal. Warner and DC see things slightly differently. While the 2016 Suicide Squad movie was something of a disappointment (critically, if not commercially), they’re giving Harley Quinn and her associates a shot at
redemption, although though the mission will be very different second time out. “We don’t call it Suicide Squad 2 because it’s a total reboot,” producer Peter Safran (Aquaman, Shazam!) says. “It’s The Suicide Squad and people should be extremely excited about it.” Now armed with that all-important definite article, The Suicide Squad have a new handler, and when it comes to marshalling groups of morally ambiguous super-types, few can rival James Gunn. The Guardians Of The Galaxy writer/director has made the jump from Marvel to DC – he’ll be going back the other way for Guardians 3 and the Holiday Special – and is making substantial changes to cinema’s baddest supergroup. While the return of Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) and their handlers, Waller (Viola Davis) and Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) blurs the lines between sequel and reboot, the film features a predominantly new line-up. “The villains I used come from all over DC and from different time periods,” Gunn explains. Many hail from the obscure outer reaches of DC’s extensive comic back catalogue, so don’t be surprised if King Shark, Weasel and Polka-Dot Man are household names to rival Rocket and Groot this time next year. While big names like Idris Elba (Bloodsport), former Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi (The Thinker) and WWE’s John Cena are all on board – Cena’s Peacemaker already has an HBO Max TV spin-off in the works – they’re all expendable in Gunn’s eyes. “No character was protected by DC,” the director has said. “They gave me carte blanche to do what I wanted. That was one of the things we agreed to before I came to work for them. I wasn’t looking for shock value but I wanted the audience to know anything could happen.” While plot specifics are still under wraps, we do know the new-look Task Force X will be sent on a mission to the Latin American island of Corto Maltese, to destroy a laboratory called Jotunheim. As Safran explained during the DC Fandome sneak peek, “This is a gritty 1970s war movie combined with the brilliance of James Gunn’s characters and comedy.” Gunn’s take on The Dirty Dozen has also leant heavily into the original Suicide Squad comics run written by John Ostrander. “I actually had a long talk with [him] about this,” Gunn reveals. “I said, I don’t think of this movie so much as an adaptation of your comics, I think of this movie as a sequel to your run in the comic books. What would John Ostrander be doing with these characters if it was 30 years after he first started?” We can’t wait to find out. RE ETA I 6 AUGUST 2021 JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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MUST-SEE, WHY?
Did we mention it sold for $30m?
WEST SIDE STORY
MALCOLM & MARIE
DIRECTOR Steven Spielberg STARRING Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez, Patrick Higgins, Rita Moreno
DIRECTOR Sam Levinson STARRING Zendaya, John David Washington
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And the Academy Award goes to…
Take another look at the opening musical number in Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom and then tell us that Steven Spielberg reimagining West Side Story isn’t an ace idea. Great as the Robbins and Wise 1961 screen version of the Broadway play is, it’s ripe for reinvention. With Spielberg behind the megaphone, expect this riff on Romeo And Juliet set in the world of New York street gangs to star actors who are actually the correct race, and to utilise gritty, energetic location shooting. Screenwriter Tony Kushner (Munich, Lincoln) says, “There were aspects of urban life that weren’t touched on in the 1961 movie.” With a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, West Side Story features ageless tunes, and Spielberg says the message is also startlingly relevant. “That time has returned, and it’s returned with a kind of social fury,” he says. “I really wanted to tell that Puerto Rican, Nuyorican experience of basically the migration to this country and the struggle to make a living, and to have children, and to battle against the obstacles of xenophobia and racial prejudice.” JG ETA I 10 DECEMBER 2021
MUST-SEE, WHY?
At 74 years of youth, this is Spielberg’s first musical
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
We all know that English filmmakers Rob Savage (Host) and Ben Wheatley (the not-yet-released In The Earth) made movies during lockdown, but the first production to be written, directed and completed during the pandemic in the US is Malcolm & Marie. A two-hander scribbled and helmed by Sam Levinson (Euphoria and the underrated Assassination Nation), it stars Euphoria’s Zendaya and Tenet’s John David Washington as the eponymous director and girlfriend whose relationship is tested when he returns home from his movie’s premiere and waits for the first reviews to drop. Sounds simple enough, right? Like a filmed play, perhaps. Written in six days and shot, in black-and-white, in two weeks, with cast and crew adhering to safety guidelines. But consider this: Netflix took one look at the finished film and snapped it up for a cool $30m, to say nothing of the mountains of cash they plan to splash on an awards campaign. “I am so grateful to this cast and crew, many of whom are my Euphoria family, for coming together during such uncertain times,” said Levinson when the sale was announced. “We felt privileged to be able to make this film together and we did so with a lot of love.” JG ETA I 5 FEBRUARY 2021
DISNE Y, SE A R CHL IGH T P IC T UR E S , NE T F L I X
Spielberg makes a song and dance…
NOMADLAND
MUST-SEE, WHY?
It’s currently the awards front-runner.
THE BEATLES: GET BACK
NOMADLAND
DIRECTOR Peter Jackson STARRING John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Yoko Ono, George Martin
DIRECTOR Chloé Zhao STARRING Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Bob Wells, Linda May, Ryan Aquino, Patricia Grier, Gay DeForest
In 2018, Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson again opened up a vivid, breath-taking world to viewers with the documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, which restored, dubbed and colourised World War 1 archival footage to place viewers right in the trenches. Now he’s doing a similar thing for The Beatles. Compiled from 55 hours of unseen footage and 140 hours of mostly unheard audio recordings, The Beatles: Get Back sits in on the band’s recording sessions for their legendary studio album Let It Be, and showcases the entirety of their final live gig as a group – the iconic 42-minute Savile Row rooftop performance. “Working on this project has been a joyous discovery,” says Jackson of his immersive doc. “I’ve been privileged to be a fly on the wall while the greatest band of all time works, plays and creates masterpieces.” It was clearly a process that Paul McCartney enjoyed, too: “I am really happy that Peter has delved into our archives to make a film that shows the truth about The Beatles recording together. The friendship and love between us comes over and reminds me of what a crazily beautiful time we had,” he says. JG ETA I 27 AUGUST 2021
“It’s interesting because there’s so many people on the road now,” says Frances McDormand, star of Nomadland. “Especially because of the economic situation, but also because of being locked in and locked down. People are answering their wanderlust and their feeling of confinement.” Directed by The Rider’s Chloé Zhao, McDormand plays Fern, a sixtysomething woman who loses her husband, home and job after the ’08 recession and travels the Midwest in her van. Already winning Venice’s Golden Lion and Toronto’s Audience Award, Oscar buzz is growing for a film that feels like the perfect antithesis to 2020. Expect nuanced character study, gorgeous landscapes and a level of realism aided by Zhao casting real-life ‘van dwellers’ around McDormand, who just melts into this mobile community. “For a lot of them, they didn’t know who she was, which really helped,” says Zhao. “And you can imagine what Fran is like: there is no entourage.” JM ETA I 19 FEBRUARY 2021
And the band played on…
Frances McDormand hits the road…
MUST-SEE, WHY?
Bob Iger, executive chairman of The Walt Disney Company, promises “the spectacularly restored footage… looks like it was shot yesterday.”
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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JUDAS
JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH Get Out stars reunite for blistering true-life drama…
DIRECTOR Shaka King STARRING Dominique Thorne, Jesse Plemons, LaKeith Stanfield, Daniel Kaluuya, Martin Sheen
An important story brought to us by dazzling talent.
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SAMARITAN
MUST-SEE, WHY?
As Avery says, “What kid didn’t fantasise about having a superhero living next door?”
Stallone muscles in on the superhero genre… DIRECTOR Julius Avery STARRING Sylvester Stallone, Javon Walton, Martin Starr, Pilou Asbæk, Dascha Polanco “We didn’t really have superheroes,” says director Julius Avery (Overlord, Son Of A Gun) of growing up in the 1980s. “We only had action heroes. And Sly was the closest thing we had to a superhero. So to put him in a superhero movie? That feels fresh and cool and something that people will get a kick out of.” He’s not wrong. The conceit of Samaritan is a peach: a young lad learns that a superhero who went missing 20 years ago is living next door to him. Yep, it sounds like a powered-up Finding Forrester or Apt Pupil, and Avery confirms that the tone will be grounded in humanity – a film about a kid looking for a father figure, by a director who lost his own dad when he was young. “It’s got emotion and action and thrill, but it’s really intimate,” he says. “It feels like an action thriller from the ’70s and ’80s but it just happens to have superheroes in it. I think it’s much more interesting to see flawed superheroes,
in a world where there’s real consequences, real jeopardy, and people die.” We can expect, then, Stallone to be bringing the kind of gravitas he brought to Copland and Creed, and he’s apparently matched by his 14-year-old co-star Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton, the child prodigy who was Georgia State Champion in both boxing and gymnastics. “I saw his tape and said, ‘He’s the kid,’” explains Avery. “I didn’t know his backstory. I said to him, ‘Who’s your favourite actor?’ He said, ‘River Phoenix. Stand By Me is my favourite movie and I want to be just like him.’ I was like, ‘Wow.’” It all sounds great, but might we also hope for some action sequences to match that astonishing one-take plane crash in Overlord? “This is a big event movie – we see our heroes kicking ass,” he confirms. “We’re going to see Sly do things he hasn’t done in a long time, and in a really inventive way. He’s 73 years old! I’m amazed by how much he actually does. I’m telling you, most guys in their twenties wouldn’t be able to do what Sly does in this movie.” JG ETA I 4 JUNE 2021
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
ME T R O -GOL DW Y N-M AY ER P IC T UR E S , WA R NER BR O S
MUST-SEE, WHY?
The assassination of Fred Hampton, the party chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, happened offscreen during the events of Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial Of The Chicago 7. Judas And The Black Messiah tackles it head-on, casting Daniel Kaluuya as the charismatic, passionate Hampton, and his Get Out co-star LaKeith Stanfield as FBI informer William O’Neal. “When I sat down with Daniel, it just fully confirmed for me that he has that gravitas to him,” says director and co-writer Shaka King. “Fred had a lot of gravitas, and was also hilarious, which is present in his speeches. He was very intelligent, witty and young, so he had that combination, like youthful spirit and old soul. Daniel has those qualities to him.” And Stanfield? “It’s funny, LaKeith has expressed a million times wanting to play the Joker, and I’m like, ‘You’re the most complex villain possible in this because the things that he chose to do were just dastardly.’”
Produced by Ryan Coogler, who of course made his own Black Panther movie of a different kind for Marvel, Judas And The Black Messiah is set in the ’60s yet sadly relevant. “The people who were responsible for this, a lot of them are still alive,” says Coogler, who became firm friends with King when their debut movies Fruitvale Station and Newlyweeds played at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013. “These ideas are still ever-present. The constant attacks on poor people, on Black people. We’re still fighting the same beast… the same monsters… the same system.” Also still here are some of Fred Hampton’s loved ones, like his son Fred Hampton Jr., who is the president and chairman of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee and the Black Panther Party Cubs. So how does he feel about his father’s life and death being turned into a movie? “We do the proverbial… put the political pill in apple sauce,” he says of the need for Judas And The Black Messiah to entertain as well as gut-punch. “We try to look for innovative ways to be to get this legacy out… but not compromise the legacy.” JG ETA I SPRING 2021
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MAKING OF
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andaVision is not an easy show to explain – even for the people who made it. We know it picks up right where Avengers: Endgame left off, and we know it’s about Wanda Maximoff and Vision living out a life together in the suburbs, but we also know it’s styled as a classic sitcom, and that whopping big bits of the MCU occasionally crash into each episode. We also know, of course, that Vision is dead… “You have to understand, I thought I was getting fired!” laughs Paul Bettany. “I can’t remember the pitch because the moment I realised I wasn’t getting fired they were telling me this story and I kind of switched off, thinking, ‘I can keep the kids in school!’” Written as a comedy love letter to the history of television and a bold new entry into the Phase 4 timeline, WandaVision marks Marvel Studios’ first TV series as well as their bravest and most ambitious venture to date. “I think it will make everybody look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a whole new way,” says Bettany. “Marvel has always taken big swings… But we’re a really big swing. There are more VFX shots in WandaVision than we had in Endgame. That’s a big ask.”
the
It’s the twist no one saw coming – turning the MCU into a sitcom and asking Dick Van Dyke to help tell Marvel’s most TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
WANDAVISION Sharing a Zoom call with co-star Elizabeth Olsen, Bettany seems giddy with excitement to talk about the show, even if he is struggling to explain what’s actually going on (partly because he’s not allowed to, partly because it really is as odd as it sounds). Speaking to Total Film after the first cryptic trailer stirred the fanbase into a frenzy, the pair admit that the idea of moving the MCU to TV didn’t always sit quite so comfortably. “We’ve been the emotional throughlines in the films,” admits Olsen. “So there’s a little bit of nerves about how you bring that to television. But I also feel like this is the first time you really get to see Wanda in a three-dimensional way. I feel like it’s only made these characters deeper and more interesting.” Created by Jac Schaeffer (writer of Captain Marvel and Black Widow) and based on an idea that Kevin Feige had for filling the gaps between Phases 3 and 4, WandaVision puts Maximoff in a new reality drawn from classic sitcoms like I Love Lucy, Bewitched and The Dick Van Dyke Show. As the series progresses, so does the history of TV comedy, moving the story through the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s into the Modern Family and Office era. Recruiting former sitcom star and current sitcom director Matt Shakman to helm the series, Marvel put its most valuable property in the hands of the guy best known for making 47 episodes of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia… “My mind exploded!” laughs Shakman, remembering the moment he found out exactly what he’d signed up for. Knowing that a large part of the show was going to pull influences from vintage TV, and wanting to pay homage to history without slipping into parody, Shakman’s first move was to set up an interview with sitcom legend Dick Van Dyke.
WORDS PAUL BRADSHAW
ambitious story to date. The cast and crew of WandaVision tell us what to expect from Phase 4’s new chapter… JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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BEWITCHED Of course, housework’s always easier with superpowers… (above). HOUSE & HOME Matt Shakman directs Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany on set (left). outfits; Bettany over-egging a Brady Bunch-style opening montage), but the standout moment for everyone came early on when Shakman decided to film the pilot episode in front of a live studio audience. This included live linereadings, live effects, and live reactions from a bewildered crowd who watched Scarlet Witch and Vision doing comedy as a ’50s suburban married couple. “We were very lucky because the audience was a big bunch of Marvel fans,” says Olsen. “Anything we were going to do they were going to get a kick out of! Also, everything we did for every
decade was honest to that decade’s abilities, including the special effects, so it was just such a joy to have everything on a string instead of it being CGI. I think the audience got a real kick out of all the lo-fi stuff.” Told to amp up their acting, Bettany and Olsen threw themselves into the comedy as hard as possible, hamming up every line, playing to the gallery and maybe even attempting a few cheeky nods to Only Fools And Horses (“I’m not going to give them away, but there are a couple of people that I clearly robbed blind!” smiles Bettany).
DISNE Y, GE T T Y
“We had lunch at Disneyland, which is exactly where you want to have lunch with Dick Van Dyke,” he laughs. “His rule was, if it didn’t happen in real life, it couldn’t happen on The Dick Van Dyke Show. The stakes were real, so he could play with the comedy around it – and I wanted the same thing for WandaVision. It had to always feel true and grounded.” Filming on the same backlot that once housed The Partridge Family, Bewitched and I Dream Of Jeannie, Shakman needed WandaVision to feel as authentic as possible. “We used vintage lenses and lighting for each decade,” he explains. “Every costume was handcrafted, often with vintage fabrics, and the crew all wore period outfits on set. We even put the actors through a sitcom bootcamp for a couple of weeks.” “‘Bootcamp’ makes it sound a lot harder than it actually was,” says Bettany. “We basically just sat in a room and watched a load of TV…” They’re still giggling about their favourite dress-up moments (Olsen being “really preggers” in her ’70s
WANDAVISION powers and goes crazy,” says Schaeffer. “It was all about being as authentic as we could with her.” Adds Shakman, “We’re telling the story of Wanda becoming the comicbook character that most of us have heard about. One of the things that makes her such an interesting character is that she’s suffered more than anyone else. She’s lost her parents, she’s lost her brother and she’s lost Vision. This story explores grief, and how we heal.” For the show’s two stars, WandaVision was also an opportunity to develop the characters they’d been living with over six years and five films. Until now, they
‘I WAS ALWAYS PUSHED TO HAVE IT BE AS IMAGINATIVE AND AMAZING AS POSSIBLE’ JAC SCHAEFFER
HOWDIE! Kathryn Hahn plays neighbour Agnes. (top). READY SET COOK Every ’50s wife needs her recipe cards (below).
It’s almost as if they didn’t just finish fighting a multi-billion-dollar blockbuster battle to save half the population of the universe… As much as WandaVision plays like a sitcom, it’s also a triple-A action story about two Avengers dealing with the aftermath of Endgame, everything that came before, and everything that’s starting to build back up again for Phase 4. “Law & Order this is not,” laughs Shakman. “This was not six months of shooting people walking down the same hallway. Kevin was really clear from the beginning that this show would be very different but it would also be as Marvel as anything else they’d ever made – including some of the biggest set pieces they’ve ever done.”
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dging closer to the big-screen reality that we’re more familiar with as the series continues, WandaVision will eventually fit comfortably alongside the other Marvel movies once the full puzzle box has been opened. “You’re never told to rein anything in at Marvel!” says Schaeffer, who serves as showrunner and head writer. “I came from independent cinema where you had to justify having a box of donuts in the shot… On WandaVision, it’s not entirely ‘the sky’s the limit’, it all needs to be earned, but I was always pushed to have it be as imaginative and amazing as possible.” Key to understanding the show’s bigger connection to the MCU is the character of Wanda herself. The series borrows from comic storylines including The Vision (2015), Witches’ Road (Scarlet Witch Vol 2 #3, 2016) and House Of M (2005), but they’re redrawn to take her into a wholly unexpected new direction. “It was extremely important to me that we not do the lazy thing of having a superpowered lady who can’t handle her
were unable to step completely out of the shadows of the other Avengers. “Lizzie and I found our own lane in those movies,” says Bettany. “But those movies have so many characters that everybody only has a small amount of screen time to tell their story. Our story was the emotional bleeding heart of it all, and I love that, but it’s been wonderful to have time to really relax into it. This whole show is about us – and that does feel different. Every episode, the fans will be able to peel back more layers.” Exactly what’s going to be left once those layers have been peeled is anyone’s guess, especially when we’re talking about the end of a blockbuster comedy sitcom superhero series that spans decades, alters reality and weaves its main threads back into movies that haven’t even been made yet. Will we get more WandaVision? Is Scarlet Witch being teed up to take a bigger role in the MCU? Is Vision coming back? “You never know,” smiles Bettany, with a shrug. “The truth is, life is curly. You think you’re gonna get fired and then they give you a great big TV show instead.” WANDAVISION STREAMS ON DISNEY+ FROM 15 JANUARY 2021. JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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SHE MAY HAVE PLAYED MARGARET IN THE CROWN, BUT VANESSA KIRBY IS NO PRINCESS WHEN IT COMES TO GRABBING A ROLE, CAMPAIGNING FOR BETTER FEMALE REPRESENTATION ON SCREEN OR SHINING A LIGHT ON SOCIAL TABOO SUBJECT MATTER WITH LABOUR OF LOVE, PIECES OF A WOMAN. SHE TELLS TOTAL FILM ABOUT THE GRAFT THAT GOES INTO AN AWARD-WINNING PERFORMANCE AND THE WORK ETHIC SHE LEARNED FROM TOM CRUISE. WORDS JANE CROWTHER PORTRAIT KERRY HALLIHAN
’S WOMAN work K ER R Y H A L L IH A N/C A MER A P R E S S
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hen Vanessa Kirby calls Total Film, she probably doesn’t expect to begin by talking about the recent death of a beloved cat (TF’s, not hers). But Kirby – warm and calm as a therapist – is comfortable discussing grief in all its forms, having immersed herself in it for her latest role in Kornél Mundruczó’s study of the emotional fallout after a birth gone tragically wrong. Debuting at Venice Film Festival in September, Pieces Of A Woman garnered rave reviews, and Kirby grabbed the fest’s Best Actress award. As Martha, a woman at a crossroads in her life whose assumed future with a child is snatched away for one of mourning, rage, bewilderment, shame and ultimately grace, it’s a performance that’s about to be instrumental in further elevating the 32-year-old’s career – showcasing that empathic range we saw during her stint as Princess Margaret in the first two seasons of The Crown.
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SPOTLIGHT But for Kirby, the film is an essential one, not only for where it may take her but in how it might impact audiences. “I knew I had to do it,” she recalls of having a gut response to the project, which was inspired by the real-life sorrow of Mundruczó and his wife, screenwriter Kata Wéber, after they had an ‘unborn baby experience’. “Even though it’s an unconventional journey through grief, and it’s extremely difficult, it felt important,” Kirby says. “Important for mothers and families that had lost in that way, at any stage of carrying or having a child. And also for people who have suffered grief in all the ways that it manifests in life.” Kirby was so engaged with the material, and determined to play Martha, that she flew immediately from LA to Budapest after reading the script. There, she met with Mundruczó to convince him of her commitment. Impressed by her “very rich, subjective, and personal silence... and that ’60s look, like Catherine Deneuve or Claudia Cardinale”, he gave her the part, with Shia LaBeouf onboard as Martha’s partner. “That was even daunting because it was like, ‘OK, I haven’t given birth. How am I going to do the labour? How am I going to do that level of grief and understand what it would be like to carry a child to give birth, and then for that to happen?’” Kirby remembers. “So understanding all of those different areas was just a huge challenge. I didn’t know if I could pull it off, but I knew I had to try.”
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art of her process was in doing “way more than watching documentaries”. She shadowed an obstetrician and spent time on labour wards, as well as connecting with women who had lost babies – one of whom, Kelly, she tearfully thanked during her Venice acceptance speech. “I realised I needed to really try to understand emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically how it would feel to have that happen to you. And the amazing thing was that I found that most women hadn’t spoken about it at all, because people find it too hard to hear, or it’s still a taboo in our society. I think we all hoped that the film, however it turned out, might try and start a conversation. That’s all you can hope for with stuff that you make, that in some way, it changes a perspective on something.” She points to the recent criticism Chrissy Teigen received for sharing her experience and grief when she lost her baby mid-pregnancy. “I’m really glad that she shared what she felt she needed to. Everyone’s way of healing is completely different and shouldn’t be discriminated against. So I felt very impassioned by that, and very protective. I will try and reach out to her after the film comes out.” That unflinching look at the realities of life is borne out in the film’s impressive opening 25 minutes – a single, unbroken take following Kirby and LaBeouf’s characters as they work their way through a home-birth labour, from waters breaking to a terrifying rush from the house. The duo rehearsed the scene and then ran it four times in its entirety. Quite the feat? “I was just really excited by the idea of doing something that wasn’t broken up – you know, ‘action’ and ‘cut’ – and having to keep up the feeling in between scenes,” Kirby says. “It was really important to do it all in one go, to try and get it as real as possible, so that women watching it would be like, ‘Oh my God, that was like mine.’ You know, it’s messy, it’s weird, it’s uncomfortable, and it’s hard to watch. And it’s also completely magical. It’s all those things in one that we wanted to aim for.
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
REGAL START As Princess Margaret, Kirby impressed in the first two seasons of The Crown [bottom right]. UP CLOSE Her unflinching portrayal of a grieving mother in Pieces Of A Woman has already earned her awards [below].
“Shia and I did lots of work together, and spent a lot of time building that relationship, which meant that when we came to do the film, and we went to really horrible places together – and at the end of every day, we could have a laugh, and work on the script for the next day, and try to leave it on the set.” Likening the experience to her theatre work (“Sometimes it’s seven hours on stage a day, doing that level of trauma”), Kirby relished the discipline the film required of her. But then she admits she feels similarly about doing something as disparate as Hobbs & Shaw (where she stole the film as Jason Statham’s kickass sister) or the Mission: Impossible series. “I really like the challenge of those movies,” she enthuses, recalling the steep learning curve she experienced on blockbuster action movie Hobbs & Shaw, having previously worked primarily on drama. “I’d never been on a set like it before, and had that kind of demand on me, physically – and just being on that scale of a movie. I learned loads about the required work ethic.” She would know about actioner work ethics having played alongside both Johnson and Tom Cruise. “When you’re working with someone like Tom, who just works so hard, and is the first person on set, and puts the most amount of himself into something – you do that, too, you know? And then you can just take that discipline and work ethic into something that requires a lot mentally. You just apply the same amount of commitment.” Vocal about bettering female representation on screen, Kirby personally ensured that her Hobbs & Shaw character was a strong role model that little girls could look up to, “because actually, that’s our job, no matter what the genre,
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VANESSA KIRBY
ACTION CHOPS Kirby slotted effortlessly into actioners Hobbs & Shaw [above] and Mission: Impossible – Fallout [left]. THE YEAR TO COME She will star in The World To Come in 2021 [below].
and no matter what the area. As a woman on screen now, we definitely have a responsibility because there’s lots of representation that you haven’t seen yet of women.” She’s currently reprising her no-nonsense role as Alanna Mitsopolis, AKA White Widow, on Mission: Impossible 7 and 8, and promises more wonderment from the franchise. “It’s going to be even more daring, and go even further. Because, as we all know from Tom, you never know what to expect, and he’s always surprising you and confounding expectations,” she teases. “He does stuff that’s even more unbelievable. He’s always got to push beyond the last one. It’s even terrifying all of us, to be honest.” Is she going into orbit, as rumours suggest of Cruise’s next endeavour, filming on SpaceX? She laughs, “I saw that! I’m going to ask him if I can come.”
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irby’s shooting for the stars in a different way with her new production company. “The main intention is to find untold stories, put them on screen, and represent different facets of being a woman. Where’s the female Taxi Driver? Where’s the female Revenant?” she asks. She also has another buzzy film out next year in The World To Come. Also debuting at Venice, it sees Kirby playing a 19th-century woman who falls in love with one of her neighbours (Katherine Waterston) on the American East Coast frontier. “Someone said, ‘It’s such a female Brokeback Mountain.’ Yeah, but that was filmed in the early 2000s. This is the point – it’s so overdue! Why wouldn’t there be a love story between two women during this time?”
BL EE CK ER S T R EE T/ V ENICE F IL M F E S T I VA L , NE T F L I X , PA R A MOUN T, UNI V ER S A L
‘ IT’S MESSY, IT’S WEIRD, IT’S UNCOMFORTABLE, AND IT’S HARD TO WATCH. AND IT’S ALSO COMPLETELY MAGICAL’
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Then there’s Italian Studies, a “very experimental, beautiful” film from Adam Leon, co-produced by Kirby and starring “these beautiful teenagers from New York that we haven’t seen onscreen before, who are non-binary and cross-gender. I got to play with them for a summer.” But for now, she’s doing what the rest of us are during this lockdown year – watching The Crown. “It’s so fun to share Princess Margaret with someone as incredible as Helena Bonham Carter and then Lesley Manville [who will take on the role in Season 5].” TF reminds her that the last time we talked, she wanted to have a martini with Bonham Carter, so did she? “We did! We had a few!” She laughs. “And now I think Lesley wants us to all meet up, which is going to be so fun. Three Margarets!” Kirby’s also planning on putting current Princess Diana, Emma Corrin, in touch with her good friend, Elizabeth Debicki, who will play the older Diana. “I’m really excited for those two,” she says. “I’m going to hook that up. I’m The Crown’s new matchmaker!” PIECES OF A WOMAN IS ON NETFLIX NOW. THE WORLD TO COME WILL BE RELEASED 5 MARCH. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 7 AND ITALIAN STUDIES WILL BE RELEASED LATER THIS YEAR. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 8 RELEASES NEXT YEAR.
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Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan dug deep to portray real-life treasure hunters uncovering Sutton Hoo in The Dig. They tell Total Film how the right hat, emotional connection and being buried alive made a period drama a personal matter... WORDS JANE CROWTHER
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atching a 5th-century Anglo-Saxon ship emerge from the Suffolk earth in Netflix’s new awards contender instills a sense of wonder – and the same is true of the actors recreating the moment in 1939 when self-taught archeologist Basil Brown excavated Sutton Hoo from under a mound that landowner, Edith Pretty, believed held historical secrets. Adapting John Preston’s 2007 factual novel, The Dig’s director, Simon Stone, was keen that effects should be practical and so production designer Maria Djurkovic built a to-scale replica (100ft if you’re asking) of the vessel in a field in Godalming, Surrey for Ralph Fiennes (Brown) and Carey Mulligan (Pretty) to ‘discover’. Working in reverse, Stone and his cast filmed scenes of the boat completely revealed first and gradually filled it in throughout the shoot. “We took weeks and weeks to design the ship and then in a few days it was gone, but it’ll always be there in the film,” says Djurkovic. The ship wasn’t the only real situation that aided the cast, as Fiennes and Mulligan told us in a preChristmas zoom chat taking in authentic archeological discoveries, race-against-time rescues, deep research and a mutual admiration of each other’s work that mirrored their characters’ relationship. While Fiennes had been connected to the project from the beginning, Mulligan joined just before shooting – replacing Nicole Kidman when scheduling conflicts forced her to leave. But the connection the two actors forged is what’s at the heart of this tale of two disparate people with a shared vision. It must be quite strange to be thinking about this film when it seems like you made it in another era entirely before COVID happened... TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
RURAL LIFE Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan in character in a rustic workman’s shed. WORK WEAR The attention to detail with the period costume is outstanding. Carey Mulligan For me, it was the last thing I did. I haven’t acted since then. I do feel like there’s elements of this film that really resonate more because of this year, in a way, which we could never, obviously, have foreseen. What was your knowledge of Sutton Hoo before you got this script? Carey Mulligan It’s one of those things you do at school, isn’t it? But that was it. I didn’t know anything about Edith. I knew nothing about Basil. So to get to learn about that world was really lovely. Ralph Fiennes I knew Sutton Hoo just as being one of the great archaeological finds in the UK. I think I’d seen the famous picture of the reconstructed helmet in lots and lots of history books. But I knew nothing. And then I read the script three or four years ago. I was so moved by it – that essentially across the wretched, awful, ghastly class divide, you have upper middle-class Mrs Pretty, and you have the rural, working-class Basil Brown. Those social divisions become irrelevant because
they’re two particular human beings – and they come together. Her belief in him, and his intelligence, and his loyalty to her, and his respect for her – it’s not based on class; it’s based on respect. Carey Mulligan But I think it’s a really surprising connection for either of them – and it’s not romantic, it’s just two people coming together at a certain point in their life, and quite late in life, finding a friend. It’s about two people getting to that place where they can sit in silence with each other. Ralph Fiennes And then once the film was going ahead, and I knew I was playing Basil, I did a lot of research. I went to the British Museum… they have Basil’s notebooks from that time, which you have to handle with great care, but you see his handwriting and little drawings. There are lots and lots and lots of photographs of the dig, of all the people involved. There’s a fantastic archive there. So doing that suddenly made it – it really became high-definition for me. What is each of your processes when you’re preparing to play a real person? SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS
THE DIG Carey Mulligan With Edith, there’s not a huge amount. There’s just, really, the book that you can buy at Sutton Hoo. That gives you a real insight into her life, and what her life was like before this, and what then happened. And that was really valuable. The key, I think, and what resonated with me, was this idea of legacy, and leaving something behind. I think she thinks about that a lot, and that was something that was so moving to me. I remember after having my kids – we live in the country, and we planted some oak trees when we moved into the place that we live. We were walking past them one day and I said, “We’re going to have these huge oak trees! It’s going to be so great!” And my husband said, “Well, yeah. We won’t live to see them fully grown, but the
‘Those social divisions become irrelevant because they’re two particular human beings – and they come together. Her belief in him, and his intelligence, and his loyalty to her’ Ralph Fiennes WOOD LARKS Lily James, who plays the real-life archaeologist Peggy Piggott, foraging in the woods. SKY AT NIGHT Ralph Fiennes exudes a quiet rustic charm as the driven digger Basil Brown.
kids will.” He said it so flippantly, and I just burst into tears [laughs], because I couldn’t handle the thought process behind it. It was just too much for me. I think there’s a lot of that going on in Edith, of: ‘What world am I leaving my child behind in?’ Ralph Fiennes [Slipping into a faultless Suffolk accent] Well, this accent is very particular. I had to do a lot of work on that with Charlie Haylock, who is a Suffolk dialect coach. So that was important, of course. And I felt I wanted to be as close to what Basil wore, from what I could see from pictures of him at Sutton Hoo – and Alice Babidge, the costume designer, was very happy to replicate as much as we could. He bicycled everywhere. So I did my own little bicycle tour to at least the sort of distances he rode. It’s thought that he cycled between where he lived and the Sutton Hoo at the end of every week. That would probably have taken him the best part of half a day on an old-fashioned bicycle. But I loved learning about his life. He left a local primary school when he was about 12. He taught himself archaeology, he didn’t have any formal academic JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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IN CONVERSATION archaeological training at all. He’s an extraordinary figure. I feel a bit like how Carey describes being moved by Mrs Pretty. I think I felt a similar feeling about being moved to try to get inside Basil, or a version of Basil that I could attempt to make real. Carey Mulligan We also went on a little research trip to Sutton Hoo and we lay on the mounds, didn’t we, Ralph? Ralph Fiennes We did!
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There’s a scene where Basil is buried in a landfall, and Mrs Pretty has to dig him out with her bare hands. That looks horrible to film. Was it? Carey Mulligan [laughs] Yeah, it was horrible! You know, Ralph can talk about the experience of actually being underneath it all, but from the perspective of the person who was trying to get him out, it was terrifying! I kept saying to [director] Simon [Stone], ‘I don’t like it, I don’t like the responsibility!’ Because it really was Ralph in every take, and he really was buried under the dirt. And his mouth was covered, and his nose was covered. We were all – me and the rest of the actors were all really concerned about getting him out, which was all part of Simon’s brilliant kind of method, of putting you in a situation that your character is in. Ralph Fiennes I think there was enough air around my mouth for me to breathe for a few seconds before the earth was covering my face. I had maybe 15 to 30 seconds. It wasn’t that I was being crushed by earth. But I got really cold, because I was surrounded by this damp, cold earth and clay. That’s what I remember, just feeling really cold. I was more anxious they would not know where my face was, and would thrust their arm into the earth, and sort of punch me [laughs]. Carey Mulligan It really felt when we were doing it, life or death! I’ve still got scars on my knuckles from getting bloody knuckles and scratches… we just had to dig and dig. It was remarkably difficult to do it! Simon just rolled for ages until we were so exhausted that it matched exactly how exhausted you would be in real life, so nothing about it felt fake. All the actors were not just thinking, ‘We’ve got to get Basil out!’, they were thinking,‘We’ve got to get Ralph Fiennes out! Cos this could be really bad!’ How else did the director put you in that mental space? TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
DIG THIS The mound that harbours all the hidden treasures almost becomes a character in itself.
Carey Mulligan It was a lot for the ensemble, who are all playing the archaeologists. Production really would bury things, and have them be discovered. So being a person who’s observing it, I would be reacting in real time to them finding stuff. And they had actually found something because Simon had buried it. There was a freedom to everything, and space and time. Part of that was the way that our brilliant DP, Mike Eley, was shooting – moving with us, so nothing felt very set. Would you agree, Ralph? Ralph Fiennes I would, absolutely. Simon had a very instinctive, intuitive way of working. Everything felt very immediate. He wanted everything to have a spontaneity, and, anywhere he could, he’d guide us or nurture us to not be, as it were, “prepared”. So our way of playing had a spontaneity. He kept on saying, ‘I don’t want it to ever sound like it’s been written. It’s speech. It’s happening in the moment.’ Which, of course, is a sort of obvious thing to say, but it’s funny how you can forget – it’s very helpful to have that reminder. Didn’t you actually find a real artefact while filming excavations, Ralph? Ralph Fiennes [laughs] I found a piece of pottery, and the onsite archaeologist who we had every day
identified it as being medieval. It was the last thing I expected. What was it like to see that recreated ship in real life? Not being CGI must help with performance? Ralph Fiennes: Whenever you can be away from built sets and in a real place, it always feels better. The only slight frustration was because of logistics we couldn’t shoot in the summer. When you look at the photographs, they’re all in short sleeves. We were shooting into mid-November! But it was incredibly moving to see the ship because Maria absolutely replicated it. Even people from the Sutton Hoo site came down for a set visit, and they were clearly quite moved to see this thing which they can only ever see in photographs. It was extraordinary. This is a period piece, but how does the subject matter resonate with you in the here and now? Ralph Fiennes The danger of period is that it can all be beautifully realised, and beautifully done, and somehow doesn’t connect. Or you can look at it like a beautiful picture. I think it’s just about keeping the sort of human, animal essence of people alive. I love the way something historical can make you reflect on something today. SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS
THE DIG
RAINED OFF A muddied Mulligan and James peer out into the dank November gloom. HOLE WORLD Ralph Fiennes really got stuck into his role as a much loved citizen archeologist.
We’ve been turned upside-down by coronavirus and the way we think and the way we behave. In 1939 England was about to declare war as they were finishing finding the last treasures from the Sutton Hoo. So I always got from the film that it’s about what’s under the earth that is part of us. We reflect on what’s gone before. I feel very deeply that our connection to the past is a very present thing. The past is with us all the time. I love the T.S. Eliot line: “Time present and time past. Are both perhaps present in time future?” I love the sense that perhaps when you dig up something like the Sutton Hoo, suddenly time collapses. Carey Mulligan The best elements of what has been inarguably a pretty shit year is the activity and community, and the way people have bounded together, the support for things that matter, and the recognition of everyday heroes – all of which feels very reminiscent of how people behaved in wartime. And the lack of control that we’ve all had this year is how I imagine it must have felt going into that period of time, just
[laughs]. It seems we both anticipated a creatively fulfilling time should we work together. And when we did work together, it was creatively and mutually something where I think we both got a lot out of working with, and off of, each other. Carey Mulligan I just loved getting to see his process. Ralph was so completely immersed in Basil’s world, and the accent, and the research, and the knowledge about him and his life. Ralph Fiennes No matter how much research one can do, it’s the truth of the moment. What I feel you have, Carey, is a wonderful, wonderful instinct for the truth for a sentence, for a moment. And I loved being on the receiving end of your truth monitor in everything that you do. Any actor is only ever really as good as what they’re given, you know? Did you take anything from this film as your own little piece of treasure? Carey Mulligan Edith wears this amazing dressing gown. I always imagined that she picked it up on her travels in her younger days, because
‘It really felt when we were doing it, life or death! I’ve still got scars on my knuckles from getting bloody knuckles and scratches… we just had to dig and dig’ Carey Mulligan having no idea of what was coming, but trying to manage it as best as you could. This is the first time you’ve worked together. Have you had near-misses in the past? Carey, have you come close to being in a Harry Potter film? Carey Mulligan [laughs] No, I never got anywhere near Harry Potter. Have we had near-misses, Ralph? Ralph Fiennes Not really. I mean, I’ve wanted to work with you for a long time, so I was thrilled when you came to this late in the day, when, at very short notice, you said that you wanted to do it. That was such a fantastic moment when you responded so spontaneously to the script. Carey Mulligan I just wanted to work with you. They said, ‘Do you want to go and be in a film with Ralph Fiennes?’ I was like, “Well, yeah!” I really loved the script, and I was excited to work with Simon, but when you get to make a film where you get to have multiple scenes with Ralph Fiennes… Ralph Fiennes I felt the same. So there’s a mutual love-in going on here
she was so well-travelled, and it was kind of exotic. And Alice [Babidge, costume designer] said I could just keep it. So I’ve got that. I don’t think I’d ever wear it, but it’s just an amazing, beautiful thing to have and remember her by. Ralph Fiennes I was allowed to take the cloth cap. There were two hats I wear in the film. One is an old, battered trilby, which, actually, it got very wet, so it shrunk. So it’s more of a souvenir. It doesn’t really fit my head very well now. But then I’ve got a cloth cap which was made for me, for Basil, and I’ve been wearing it lots. And as a present I was given a spade by Gabrielle Tana, the producer, which had ‘BASIL’ engraved on the wood on the handle. In lockdown, I had time to dig my own mini allotment outside this cottage I rent in Suffolk. So I used the ‘BASIL’ spade. Carey Mulligan: Awww, that’s so lovely! THE DIG OPENS IN CINEMAS ON 15 JANUARY AND IS ON NETFLIX FROM 29 JANUARY. JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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From Bond girl to Gone Girl, Rosamund Pike likes to confound expectations with diverse roles championing strong women. But as she heads into black comedy with festival favourite I Care A Lot, she tells Total Film that she likes a challenge...
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
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INTERVIEW
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t’s apt, given her most recent cinematic outing playing Marie Curie in Radioactive, that when Rosamund Pike pops up on screen from her home in Prague where she’s currently filming Amazon TV series The Wheel Of Time, she’s conducting science experiments. While Curie studied radium with personal and historical repercussions, Pike is determining whether raisins float/dance in still/fizzy drinks for her children’s homework. “In still water, they sink; but if you put them into Sprite, they dance. A bit like me, really,” she laughs. Dressed in a white, high-neck sweater and wearing no makeup, Pike is disarmingly honest in conversation, approaching an interview with the same openness and vulnerability that she uses in her roles – carefully picking through her feelings to find an answer, questioning herself and TF, unafraid of pauses to find the right words. Even allowing emotion to make her cry when she evokes the particularly bruising headspace of one of her characters. That willingness to explore has led to an illustriously varied career for the
CURIE ROAD Pike starred as scientific pioneer Marie Curie in Radioactive.
41-year-old Brit who studied English at Oxford’s Wadham College before landing her first big-screen gig as a Bond girl, Miranda Frost, in Die Another Day. Eager for experimentation, Pike grabbed at prestige costume drama with Pride & Prejudice as well as bombastic action with Doom, tried on dumb (but sweet) blonde in An Education, precision cool with Gone Girl, and comedy with The World’s End. She’s essayed real people in period dramas (A United Kingdom, A Private War, Radioactive), played with daftness in Johnny English 2 and been the dame in Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher. Her role as a vulpine legal guardian who preys on OAPS in upcoming black comedy I Care A Lot is gloriously ruthless, as scalpel-sharp as her perfect bob… But much as she likes to try on new guises and see where they take her, Pike attacks her work with a Curie-like lab discipline. She prepped for Radioactive by taking chemistry lessons four times a week, and stayed in character as Marie Colvin, convincing real war survivors thatshe was a journalist for A Private War. She even took a dissection class to ready herself to play sci-fi doc Sam Grimm in Doom (more of which later). And she talks about how that intense experience of acting, of taking each role as seriously as the next, affects her forevermore on a molecular level – the shells of her characters sitting on top of one another inside her, like a Russian doll. If that makes her sound serious, she’s also not, she stresses, and is keen to keep fighting being pigeonholed as an actor, having been referred to as
an ‘English Rose’ and offered roles that replicate Perfect Amy. “Since Gone Girl, I’ve been asked to do things that are quite extreme, whether it’s an extreme emotion and women brought to the brink of something, or the femme fatale thing,” she muses. “But I think I have a facility with being very real and ordinary, too.” Here’s Pike at her most real, but not so ordinary... Looking at your career you’ve got an amazing CV... And some bad bits, too. Let’s be honest. [Laughs] I mean, you know, you can be complimentary, but you can also admit that you’ve made some mistakes – generally before you realise that there was risk involved. I think when I was younger, I was naive in thinking that I could do things that just seemed fun or amused me or seemed absurd. I didn’t realise that they had an impact and everything adds up to a whole. I was doing Pride & Prejudice and I got a call while I was in a bonnet in a cornfield, to say that they wanted me to be in Doom, which seemed so ridiculous and funny to me. And I should never have done that film. But I didn’t know that then. I didn’t know that you had to be clever… I feel like I’m very lucky to escape unscathed from some experiences. But to go from Pride & Prejudice to a film with The Rock seemed kind of mad and exciting. What was Dwayne Johnson like to work with, then? Dwayne was right at the beginning of everything – knowing where he was going, but I guess none of us knew where he was going. When my film A Private War came out, I didn’t do any social media, but [director] Matthew Heineman said, “Oh my God, The Rock has just tweeted about our movie. He’s written, ‘My good bud, Rosamund Pike – check out this movie!’” And I was like, “My God, that’s so nice, 15 years on or something.” He’s a very good guy. So something nice did come out of Doom after all… Yes, exactly. And also, you know, you have to do things wrong sometimes to know how to do things right, too. I feel that young actors now are so much better than I was. I didn’t know then how to ask for what I needed to do a good performance. Now I know what it takes, and I will ask for the dialect coach that I really sync with, and takes it to another level, or work with a movement coach. And with Marie
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NOT-SO-INNOCENT SMILE Pike stars as Marla alongside Eiza González and Dianne Wiest in I Care A Lot.
Curie, I asked to make sure there was a scientist on hand who can walk you through the exact process of crystallisation. You know how to ask for the things that will elevate it. To go back to the beginning and Die Another Day – what was that experience like as a first film role? Barbara [Broccoli] was very protective. I had hours and hours of fencing training and the fencing scene was one scene. I had much less experience of the swordfight I had at the end with Halle [Berry]. So I probably would now have understood the kind-of geometry of the movie, and known that that end fight was more important, so I would have spent more time working on that swordfight. I would be freer now if I were to do that role again. I’ve grown to totally be at ease in front of the camera now. But that takes years. On a film like Bond they’ve got the money, and you’ll often wait 40 minutes for
lighting or something. So it’s very hard to keep a flow going. And now I can handle that, because I know what to do. But I think sometimes it’s much easier for someone to start on a smaller film, where you’re flying by the seat of your pants a bit more, and there’s no time to get out of the zone, and have to get back in it. If you start with a movie like Pride & Prejudice – Joe Wright was brilliant at just keeping the world alive, you know? You couldn’t possibly not be one of the Bennet sisters at all times, because it felt real, and it was our house. If Keira [Knightley, playing Elizabeth Bennet] and I were not shooting, we’d be upstairs in our bedroom, hanging out, like sisters. That’s a very precious atmosphere. I think any time a film can have a location that is one location, it does give it a special energy. Like we did on [A United Kingdom], where we filmed in Ruth [Williams] and Seretse [Khama]’s real house in Botswana.
I WOULD BE FREER NOW IF I WERE TO DO THAT [BOND] ROLE AGAIN
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Is it important to find a director who can create a world for you like Joe Wright did on Pride & Prejudice? Is that something you look for on a project? It’s quite rare to find that particular thing. Matthew Heineman on A Private War – we had a very, very close collaboration, and we had to go on this long journalistic adventure together, because when we started making that film, there was a lot of hostility towards any film being made about [war correspondent] Marie [Colvin] by her close friends and family. They feared a sort of Hollywoodisation. He and I realised we faced a brick wall, and, little by little, we had to break it down and get access. Because you can’t do a film like that if you’re greeted only with hostility, because you need their allyship. You need people to be on your side. Matt was a total ally of a different type from Joe [Wright]. Less about, you know, conjuring something. We didn’t have to conjure it, because we were shooting in Jordan, and he made it real by employing all these real displaced persons – refugees from the countries that we were aiming to depict. So that was a different type of immersive experience. So yeah, if you do have
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a director who can support you in that, it’s by far the way I prefer to work. It sounds like you might be interested in directing yourself. Is that something that is a natural progression for you? I am interested, actually. But I also deeply admire directors like Edgar Wright, like Joe, like J Blakeson, who are real cinephiles who have immersed themselves in cinema since they were very small, and they live and breathe it, and know the language they’re speaking inside out. I don’t claim to be able to do that. I haven’t got that knowledge. And David Fincher, of course [laughs] – not to forget the master.
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What was the experience like of working with Fincher on Gone Girl? That’s the experience that changed everything. It gave me, probably, more screen time, more time in front of the camera, than I’d had on all my previous projects put together. We shot for 105 days, and I was on most of them. And David spends money on time. That’s what he spends the budget on. He has a pretty small crew. He doesn’t really have any chaff. It’s all about time in front of the camera. And he’s always there, making sure you’re never lost. He’s so in control of the tone of his films. He knows exactly how he’s got the audience in his hand at any time. So he makes sure the actor never loses their way in delivering that tone he needs. He knows exactly how that scene will fit into the final whole. There are little things I took away, like the way a character always knows where they’re going. You come into a room, and you know where you’re going, even if you make the decision in an instance. There’s not ever really a sort of moment where you’re “acting” in your life. So I’ve carried on doing that ever since, where you know something so well that your brain can think about other things related to the character – just having a sort of myriad of thoughts alive at any one time. But I never thought I got it at the time. I always felt that I was reaching for a bar that he was setting that was always too high. At the time, I’d come home, and sometimes I’d cry, and I’d think, “I’m never going to be as good as he needs me to be. There’s so much in this role.” There was one day when he wanted Amy to go
through 12 shades of something. And I did it. And he said, “Well, you did it, but it took you six seconds. I need you to do it in two.” And I just thought, “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.” I was nearly in tears. Because I had to admit that something was beyond me, and I couldn’t do it. And then just as I sort of admitted failure, this thing in my stomach went, and I said, “Hang on.” I went back, and I did it. But it was only through admitting defeat, or admitting your fallibility. It sounds like therapy via acting... It is a bit like therapy, yeah. And it started like that when I was doing the audition, and I was Skyping with him from this gym that I’d joined in Glasgow, because I didn’t have any cellphone reception in the cottage I was living in. We were Skyping and playing around with that scene where Amy is in front of the FBI, talking about how she was spread-eagled and shaved and raped. I was in the full throttle of that scene, and there was this very timid knock on the door of this room I was in. This very nice lady said [adopts perfect Glaswegian accent], “I’m terribly sorry, but we’re closing now.” And Fincher, over Skype, heard her voice, and said, “Your therapy session is over.”
I ALWAYS FELT THAT I WAS REACHING FOR A BAR THAT WAS TOO HIGH
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Hostiles is another film that asked you to dig deep emotionally – and ended up being a beautiful film... Thanks for saying that – it didn’t quite get the release it should have. It’s a film I’m so proud to have been in. It’s a really beautiful film, and I think it’s some of Christian [Bale’s] best, deepest work. It’s elegiac, and it’s meaningful, and it somehow deals with race and fear of otherness in a very real way. Rosalie was an incredible woman to play. It was really traumatising, because I had to dive very deeply into what it would mean to lose a child, and lose multiple people – I’m going to cry. [Tearing up] You have to dive into that pain, and it’s not a pain you’ve experienced. So, therefore, it matters even more to convey the truth of it. Because to pretend something as huge as that, that has happened to people, to get it wrong would be such an insult, somehow, to sort of not fully imagine it. You have to drum up the truth of that experience, and hold it, to the point your body barely believes it really has happened to you. You have to imagine it to the intensity that you can’t
FIVE STAR TURNS DIE ANOTHER DAY 2002
Cast as glacial fencing champion Miranda Frost, Pike brought class to an otherwise tepid Bond. The then-21 year old refused to strip for her 007 audition (“Actually, sod that”) and held her own among a seasoned cast.
PRIDE & PREJUDICE 2005
Luminescent as Jane, the most beautiful Bennet sister usually sidelined by Lizzie, Pike ensured her role was not just a pretty face. Warm and wise as Jane, she essayed the same charm in An Education four years later.
GONE GIRL 2014
Beating off numerous high-profile actors to land the part of perfect Amy in Fincher’s thriller, Pike garnered numerous award nominations, including a deserved Best Actress Oscar nod, for her calculating chameleon turn.
HOSTILES 2017
Pike’s grieving frontierswoman stood out in Scott Cooper’s soulful, male-heavy western. When she insists she digs her own children’s graves as the men watch is the heartbreaking core of a film about loss and reconciliation.
A PRIVATE WAR 2018
Playing real-life war reporter Marie Colvin, Pike lived the role on-set, constantly in character so director Matthew Heineman could always shoot her. “I think all tears on film are real tears,” she said of her firebrand performance. JC
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ROSAMUND PIKE eat, and your body feels hollowed out. And it’s quite risky, I’ve realised, in retrospect, because somewhere in your cellular level, those experiences are sort of encoded.
ROSAMUND PIKE IN NUMBERS
The scene where she buries her children is heartbreaking... It’s harrowing, that scene. We did it pretty much in sequence. And, you know, it’s funny, because I was in a lot of pain during that film. My back went in a way that it’s never gone, and I’m sure it’s connected, you see. I don’t think my back would have gone if I hadn’t been filling my body by choice with all the sort of stress that I was putting it under through the imagining of grief. Sometimes it still tweaks me, and I think, “There’s Rosalie.”
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Siblings – Pike is an only child
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So you carry all your roles with you? A bit like a Russian doll. It’s not all characters. [Gone Girl’s] Amy not so much as that. It’s the ones where you have a very, very human, lived experienced: Marie Curie, Rosalie, A Private War. You know, Amy Dunne is different. It’s so “other” from you. It’s the same with I Care A Lot, which is so liberating because I have nothing in common with that woman at all, so it was fun to play.
Do you think that Amy, the character, paved the way for you to be able to play Marla? That audiences want to be able to see that type of unapologetic woman onscreen? I think they do, yeah. Marla is probably more scrappy than Amy. But it certainly is fun. I mean, my God, is it fun to see… The interesting thing is that Marie Curie is kind of like that, and yet she’s a heroine who we have deemed as one of the great women of the 20th century, so people are much less easy in seeing her be difficult.
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Appearance in a Massive Attack video (‘Voodoo In My Blood’)
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Marla in I Care A Lot is a piece of work, but she’s also a feminist. She’s fighting her way through a man’s world. It seems like a lot of women you play are like that. Is that an active choice? I think they do come to me. I like women who confound people’s expectations, or women that people might underestimate, and then I can debunk that idea. Even a character like Jane Bennet, who people think is so sweet, I just think she’s quite smart, and she’s found that there’s a more peaceful way to go through life if you think the best of people, rather than the worst, like her sister. And Amy has become a sort of meme now… since that film, girls have almost had the freedom not to be the cool girl that people have unwittingly played.
Pike’s height
Worldwide box office for Gone Girl
18 The age Pike played Juliet in the National Youth Theatre’s Romeo & Juliet
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We can’t have her be awkward or difficult or demanding. She’s Marie Curie! But sure, if she wasn’t any of those things, she never would have been Marie Curie, you know? She wouldn’t have got there. So that was interesting, that a fictional person is much easier to push the envelope with, I think.
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Radioactive isn’t a conventional biopic, it contextualises Curie in terms of the effects of her work – that her discovery of radium ultimately would lead to Hiroshima and atomic bombs. Was that important to you? Yeah, because I find that the biopic [format] is generally not great for film, because it’s not drama. You go to something scripted like I Care A Lot, which J has written as a movie, and it has the structure of drama. It’s dramatic. It’s got plot. Most lives don’t have a plot like that. This has bold, structural rule-breaking things. I kept seeing the film in my mind as a biography more of radioactivity than of Marie Curie. And I felt easier with it like that, for thinking about it like that. I liked [Curie’s] irreverence and her rudeness and her abruptness. And I find women like that charming, actually. But not everyone does, and I don’t ask them to, you know? This French journalist said to me, “I don’t understand.” He said, “Why, after all her success, was she still such a bitch?” And I said, “That just says so much more about you than about Marie Curie, so I don’t know what to say.” Speaking of women who have to be unapologetic about what they want, is that something that you’ve had do as you’ve gone on in your career? Especially when pay parity is an issue in Hollywood? I’m not someone who’s motivated by money. Hmmm. [pauses] You know, I’ve always thought: if I can make a living doing what I love, I don’t need more. But in recent months, I have fought for female colleagues to be well-paid on jobs. Like on The Wheel Of Time, I fought for another actress to be paid what she was worth, rather than be undercut. Was Ben Affleck paid more than me on Gone Girl? I’m sure he was. Somebody said something on A Private War: “Don’t worry, I don’t think [Pike’s costar] Jamie Dornan will be paid more than you.” And I remember thinking, “Oh, well, I wouldn’t have imagined he would be, because my role is larger.” But clearly, that would be the norm. Good on Jamie for being willing to support me when lots of
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ROSAMUND PIKE men of his standing wouldn’t do that, because that’s always been the thing. You know, it’s easy to get guys to support Christian Bale, but it’s not so easy to get guys to support a lead female. Which is frustrating... Yeah. I heard recently about an actress who reached out to another actress who was in a very high-profile film with her. And one actress reached out to the ostensibly more famous actress, and said, “Would you agree to tell me what you’re being paid?” And this actress said, “Thank God you’ve asked me and I’m so happy to tell you, and you’ve got to fight to be paid just the same.” So that’s interesting. People obviously do want to support each other. Let’s talk about equal pay on film. You did Made In Dagenham and An Education around the same time. They were very different characters in similar time periods – was that fun? Very much so. Helen in An Education was a very special character. I had a great empathy for her. She knows she’s trading on being arm candy. She knows it’s not going to last. There’s something like a butterfly about that that’s very poignant. She’s so different from the women that I’ve been playing, and that I’ve been speaking of now – but I would play a character like Helen again.
DUNNE DEAL Pike wowed the world with her magnetic performance in Gone Girl.
we filmed it in two weeks. You know, a great, long scene in a film – we had to do one of those every day, a wonderful, long dialogue scene. I’d been wanting to do something with Nick Hornby since An Education and his writing is so good. You can’t get it wrong. The hardest thing for me was not to laugh. Was that true of The World’s End as well? It’s funny because [director] Edgar [Wright] sent a message in this group chat to us all the other night… [costars] Paddy [Considine], Eddie [Marsan], Simon [Pegg], Nick [Frost], Martin [Freeman] and me. It made me feel really nostalgic. So I watched the first 40 minutes of the film, because I hadn’t seen it since… and it’s so good! I was quite surprised by myself in it. I felt like I was seeing
I MEAN, WHO SITS AND WATCHES THEIR OWN FILMS?
She’s comedic and you’ve explored comedy with The World’s End and your series with Chris O’Dowd, State Of The Union. Do you subscribe to the adage that comedy is harder than drama? The only time anything is hard is when the writing’s not good enough. When you’re really struggling, “Oh, God, trying to make this sound good is hard.” State Of The Union is different muscles because
somebody I didn’t really know. I didn’t watch the whole film, though! Can you watch your own performances? I could this time. But I mean, who sits and watches their own films? You don’t. You see them quite painfully at the premiere, usually seeing all the holes, or things you don’t like. And then you hold on to the experience of making it. So it was only because I was feeling nostalgic – oh, and that’s one [film] where we all got paid the same. So what are you looking for next? More comedy, for sure. I Care A Lot sort of bridges that. But I’d like to do something else like State Of The Union that feels very real and modern. I would like to do something that’s funny and makes some use of who I am, rather than always trying to disappear totally… RADIOACTIVE IS OUT NOW ON PRIME VIDEO AND DVD/BD. I CARE A LOT IS IN CINEMAS FROM 19 FEBRUARY.
FR ANCOIS BER THIER , 20 TH CEN T URY S T UDIOS
ROSAMUND PIKE FAN CLUB “She’s an orchid. She’s not part of the lawn. She’s over in her own place.” David Fincher
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“I needed an actor with huge intelligence, and when I met her, not only was she intelligent, but also she was a great actress.” Marjane Satrapi
“It’s indescribable how ethereally beautiful she was [in Pride & Prejudice].” Donald Sutherland
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“What, you mean you don’t (un)dress like that for work?”
drum rush
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ound design is perhaps an under-celebrated tool in the filmmaker’s arsenal. After all, it can be a vital component in building a world, establishing a character’s headspace or simply conjuring up atmosphere, but it’s rarely in the spotlight. Sound Of Metal proves just how vital and transformative it can be. The feature directorial debut from Darius Marder (an established docmaker), Sound Of Metal is sure to be up for every sound-design award going, but it deserves more than just that. Marder also wrote the screenplay, which emerged from the remnants of a never-realised fact/fiction blend by Marder’s regular collaborator Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond The Pines). It’s about a drummer, Ruben Stone (Riz Ahmed), whose life is upended when he suddenly develops drastic hearing loss. Ruben’s on the road with bandmate and partner Lou (Ready Player One’s Olivia Cooke) when the condition takes such a severe turn that he has no choice but to seek medical help. He winds up checking in to a home for deaf addicts that’s run by Joe (Paul Raci), a former veteran who
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
helps his charges get to grips with their new way of living. On a visceral level, the immersive sound design adds to an uncannily engaging film experience. Entirely captioned, Sound Of Metal frequently makes you feel Ruben’s disorientation and isolation. And while it’s tackling a serious subject, and shining a rare cinematic light on the deaf community, it never patronises or lectures its
SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED… THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY 2007 SOM’s Mathieu Amalric stars in another drama that sensitively shares its lead’s condition with the audience. THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES 2012 Marder co-wrote Derek Cianfrance’s generational epic. MOGUL MOWGLI 2020 Ahmed recently played another touring musician facing up to a life-changing condition.
subject or audience, and there’s something remarkably intimate about the way Ruben’s relationships develop as he begins to grasp sign language. It’s as much a film about addiction and acceptance as it is about a condition. Ahmed is electric in one of the roles of his career so far. With bleach-blond hair and a lithe torso scrawled in tattoos, he inhabits the role like a second skin. It’s an affecting performance that resonates acutely in the feels, without resorting to grandstanding or softening any of the character’s coarser edges. Cooke is also terrific in a smaller role, but it’s Raci who’s the MVP of the supporting players. In real life, Raci was a child of deaf adults (and is also in an ASL metal band). Here he’s on authoritative and empathetic form, and avoids on-screen mentors clichés with seeming ease. Infusing a vérité tone with poetry, Marder is a talent to watch. As Sound Of Metal builds to its somewhat surprising third act, the cumulative effect is powerful and profound. And despite its tight focus and subtle character work, it absolutely rewards being seen on the big screen, where that experiential sound design can deliver its fullest effect. A small film that hits big, Sound Of Metal is a gem you’ll want to bang the drum for. Matt Maytum
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harles Dickens’ perennial favourite gets a fun, funky update for the new decade, with Oliver (Raff Law, son of Jude) reimagined as a Parkourloving urchin who gets tied up with a gang of thieves run by Michael Caine’s Fagin. Setting the action around hipster East London, Martin Owen (Killers Anonymous, Let’s Be Evil) directs with real verve, as the group set about targeting David Walliams’ slimy art dealer. It’s a shame that Lena Headey’s Sikes isn’t given more to do; the gender swap works better for Rita Ora, who makes for an artful Dodge. James Mottram
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hough Martin Luther King Jr. is primarily remembered now as a hero and non-violent protestor, the FBI viewed him as a dangerous “Black messiah” and revolutionary. Sam Pollard’s excellent documentary examines what FBI Director James Comey refers to as “the darkest part of the bureau’s history”, when King was relentlessly surveilled and persecuted. It’s a fascinating look at the treatment of one of history’s greatest men (who is an electrifying on-screen presence), made more urgent by the story’s sadly prevailing relevance to the present day. Leila Latif
hristopher Nolan throws the espionage-actioner for a (Möbius) loop in TF’s film of 2020, as John David Washington’s superspy saves the world in reverse. The flagship extra is an hour-long Making Of that shows the time-inverting plot inciting as much debate in the crew as it did with audiences, and some of the BTS footage is jaw-dropping in scale (the plane crash) and invention (old-school techniques like forced perspective and ‘bigatures’). Sure to encourage intense scrutiny in the repeat viewings Tenet is destined for. Matt Maytum 101
labour day
A GRIEF ENCOUNTER YOU WON’T FORGET…
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startlingly intense movie about a long-ignored subject, this up-closeand-personal tale of birth bereavement grabs you tightly from the off. Kornél Mundruczó’s camera sticks like sweat to jittery young Boston couple Martha (Vanessa Kirby) and Sean (Shia LaBeouf) as her home labour speeds up. In an unbroken, 25-minute sequence, the film plants you firmly in the action as the nerve-racking birth becomes a quiet tragedy. Mundruczó, working in English for the first time, makes a compelling European-arthouse-meets-Cassavetes portrait out of the shattered months that follow, showing how loss rips a family open. The film’s full-on performances are undoubtedly its main attraction, LaBeouf’s tender but troubled blue-collar husband blundering into booze and bad behaviour with Honey Boy-honed realism. Elsewhere, POAW’s intensity can be a tad clumsy. Its stage-play origins pop up in awkward, passionate
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speechifying, like Ellen Burstyn’s controlling (and oddly elderly) mother-in-law hymning her own survival as a Holocaust baby, or Martha’s sudden outpouring in the court case that follows in the wake of earlier events. Yet Vanessa Kirby’s outstanding performance, darting from numb misery to hot recklessness, never loses its hold on you. Her engrossing, sometimes uncomfortable, grief gives a remarkable resonance to the film’s compassionate exploration of an unseen side of motherhood. Kate Stables
Vanessa Kirby mesmerises as a bereaved mother.
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back in time
NO MORE WAITING FOR GADOT…
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atty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman sequel is set, wouldn’t you know, in 1984, the year of George Orwell’s cautionary dystopian novel and the decade when greed was considered good. You might say that 1984 – be it Orwell’s or Reagan’s – isn’t so very different from today: Big Brother surveillance, rampant selfishness, a gaping chasm between the rich and the poor…
What a relief, then, that this exuberant blockbuster opens on the island of Themyscira, with a young Diana being told that “no true hero is born of lies”. She is taught this lesson not on a blackboard, you understand. That’s no way to open an event movie. Rather, she’s taking part in a thrilling contest, the camera swooping and gliding as she scales vast obstacles, dives off a cliff, swims in the turquoise ocean, gallops on horseback across a white beach and fires arrows at targets. “This world is not ready for all you will do,” says her aunt-slash-trainer Antiope (Robin Wright). But we sure as
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hell are; cut to 1984 (nearly 70 years on from the events of the first movie) and another rousing set-piece set in a mall, the antithesis of Themyscira’s towering mountains, lush pastures and shimmering seas. Diana (Gal Gadot), it transpires, now works for the Smithsonian Museum in Washington. Another employee is socially awkward, downtrodden Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig, excellent), a talented geologist charged with dating a hoard of artefacts that have just come in – including a stone that she initially judges as fake, but soon discovers is
SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED... SUPERMAN 1978 The vibe of Donner’s supreme supermovie echoes in WW84. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK 1981 A sought-after artefact, desert locales, a great chase sequence… WONDER WOMAN 2017 Diana discovers her destiny… to give us DC movies that can rival Marvel.
of a worth that you cannot put a price on (not least as a MacGuffin).
BAD MAX Max Lord (Pedro Pascal, equally excellent) certainly sees its value, though. This slickster might seem like an embodiment of the American Dream – he heads up oil company Black Gold, and his infomercial is forever playing on TV – but he’s broke and about to be reported to the FTC for his Ponzi scheme. Now if only he could get his hands on that peculiar stone… Wonder Woman 1984 is pretty much the blockbuster we need right now. Like DC’s 2019 billion-dollar hit Joker, it plugs into all of the loneliness and disappointment and fear and rage that so many have harboured these last few years, but gives the heavyweight concept a positive spin to deliver a message of love and hope and connection across all borders. To say how, exactly, would be to give too much away, but there’s a purity to Jenkins’ picture that might have felt naïve five years ago, but now feels not only most welcome, but necessary.
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Wiig’s Cheetah and Pascal’s Max Lord make themselves comfortable.
‘THIS IS PRETTY MUCH THE BLOCKBUSTER WE NEED RIGHT NOW’ The purity extends to the filmmaking. Cutting-edge FX aside, this is a blockbuster that might have been made in the decade it’s set in, taking its time to establish story and characters after the one-two punch of those opening action sequences. The palette is warm and the cutting is clean, and the set-pieces, when they do arrive, prove you don’t need post-Michael Bay migraine-inducing edits to whip up huge excitement.
ROPE SPRINGS ETERNAL
WHIP IT GOOD We’re guessing they’re not prepping for a game of Double Dutch…
Fans of the first Wonder Woman will be delighted to know Gadot once more slides and kicks to (a variation of) her electric cello theme, while her Lasso of Truth gets multiple workouts, all of them giddily inventive. And while scraps featuring Wonder Woman’s arch nemesis The Cheetah let CGI fakery creep in, a chase sequence featuring a humble taxi taking on an armed convoy in the Middle East is sensational. Might it be a tip of the fedora to the truck chase in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, just as that one referenced the jaw-plummeting horse-andcarriage stunts in John Ford’s
Stagecoach? One piece of exhilarating choreography would suggest yes. Also pleasing are the fish-out-ofwater moments. It’s no spoiler to say that Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) returns from the first movie (just how, you’ll have to see for yourself), and there’s much fun to be had from the WW1 aviator fixing his sky-blue peepers on aerobics sessions, bum bags and modern art. Viewers’ eyes will likewise widen at a couple of scenes of pure, well, wonderment – something Spielberg excelled at in the ’70s and ’80s, but neglected by most blockbusters since. Consider all of this and then add in Gadot at such ease in the role, and Jenkins dealing with the everyday harassment of women (male oglers at parties, greetings of “Hey babe” and “Sexy”) with such a loaded lightness of touch, and you have an event movie that really is just that. Wonder Woman 1984 effortlessly lassos the truth of the here and now, even as people in shell suits walk past gigantic music stores. It’s time to flip the record, it’s saying – time for sacrifice and kindness. Now that’s music to the ears. Jamie Graham
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Mackie shines bright in the inventive Synchronic.
a new dope
JUST SAY ‘WHOA’ TO A SCI-FI MIND-BENDER…
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o-fi alchemists Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are responsible for some of the most remarkable sci-fi of the past decade, from Resolution (2012) and Spring (2014) to The Endless (2017), writing, directing, shooting, editing and acting as required. Even with Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan on board here, their approach remains the same, letting the extraordinary invade the everyday with unsettling results. Mackie and Dornan play New Orleans paramedics who keep getting called to the scenes of bizarre overdoses. The culprit is a new designer drug called Synchronic, which has incredible – if alarming – transportive powers, although to reveal more would be unfair. Synchronic never lacks for ambition, commanding your attention throughout. The characters’ messy interpersonal dramas intersect with the intriguing central conceit, which in turn attempts to reckon with the many outrages of Black history. This leads,
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rustrated by the endless fascination with serial killers and sex in documentaries, filmmaker Marc Isaacs decides to shoot one day’s events in his house, involving his cleaner, a couple of contractors fixing a fence, his Muslim next-door neighbour and a homeless Slovakian man whom Isaacs has befriended. Gradually, a sense that not everything is as it seems creeps in, as Isaacs starts to play with the viewer’s expectations. The concept is fascinating, but the execution stumbles a little before a suitably understated final twist. Erlingur Einarsson
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at times, to a disjointed viewing experience that doesn’t quite transcend its many impressive parts. Nonetheless, the actors are on fine form, while the FX offer some beautiful moments of reality-bleed. The camerawork is impressive, too, particularly a drone shot that spins to show the city upside down, then the stars far above. We’re left with the alluring/alarming sense that, if we look hard enough at the surfaces of things, what’s underneath might be magical, or terrifying, or both. Recommended. Matt Glasby
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ntimacy, the internet… Well-worn themes receive intermittently engaging character-based attention in US alt-rocker-turned-director Ben Hozie’s rough, rude third feature. Uncut Gems’ Julia Fox plays dominatrix cam girl Scarlet, whose S&M way with ciggies sparks an obsession in gauche NY screen junkie Jack (Peter Vack). Is Jack’s fixation creepy, or more complex? While Vack’s boyishness almost (only almost) endears, it’s Fox’s fully fleshed-out performance that impresses most, helping turn a familiar enquiry into online addiction into something messily human. Kevin Harley
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ose Matafeo pivots effortlessly from stand-up to starring duties in a spirited and decidedly Kiwi take on the pregnancy-com. Matafeo’s arborist Zoe finds out she’s pregnant as she prepares for a tree-climbing contest (those exist, amazingly), much to her agony. While the structure is familiar and the broad humour is hit and miss – aside from an always-on Matthew Lewis as devoted nerve-bag boyfriend Tim – the individual moving parts are refreshing. Zoe’s apprehension toward impending parenthood tenderly highlights the reality of many women, and Matafeo and Lewis share an easy, endearing chemistry. Erlingur Einarsson
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acial-recognition software poses serious harm to people of colour, and Coded Bias aims to recognise the change-making women who are dissecting the algorithms to protect our safety. This excellent investigative doc explores the racial bias in lawenforcement tech by studying the groundbreaking work of MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini and British privacy activist Silkie Carlo. The harrowing scene of a tearful Black teenager being mistakenly profiled by four cops in London will surely galvanise audiences to join the fight against dystopian surveillance methods. Musanna Ahmed
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edicated to frontline medical workers around the world, this powerful documentary plunges us into the hospital wards of Wuhan, a Chinese city of some 11 million people, during the first few months of 2020 when the Covid-19 virus began its deadly global spread. Directed by Chinese-American filmmaker Hao Wu, in collaboration with two Chinese reporters on the ground, 76 Days homes in on the human impact of the pandemic. Practically anonymous beneath their layers of protective clothing, the devoted staff display an admirable collective resolve and touching compassion towards their patients. Tom Dawson
Jewish prisoner (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) masquerading as Persian must invent an entire language to teach an S.S. officer (Lars Eidinger) who wants to learn Farsi in this intriguing Holocaust drama from director Vadim Perelman (House Of Sand And Fog). Supposedly inspired by real events, but actually adapted from a short story, the film’s plot certainly strains credibility and leans into overt sentimentality at times. However, these issues are papered over somewhat by the superb central performances and a powerful thematic pay-off. Anton van Beek 105
prehistory lesson HOW TO EVOLVE A FRANCHISE…
THE CROODS 2
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euniting us with the prehistoric family from 2013’s The Croods, this animated adventure is a fine example of a sequel improving on the original. It zips along from the off, swiftly reintroducing us to caveman Grug (voiced by Nicolas Cage), wife Ugga (Catherine Keener), teenage kids Thunk (Clark Duke) and Eep (Emma Stone), their grandma (Cloris Leachman) and Eep’s boyfriend Guy (Ryan Reynolds). The plot pivots on the Croods meeting the more ‘evolved’ Bettermans, Phil and Hope (Peter Dinklage, Leslie Mann) and their daughter Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran). This family doesn’t live like Neanderthals – they have things like ‘privacy’ and showers. Unsurprisingly, Grug gets the hump with these show-offs. The real curveball comes in the third act, with the arrival of an army of banana-seeking simians. From here, The Croods 2: A New Age gets as weird as the crazy-eyed monkey that keeps popping up, the script nodding to
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everything from King Kong to ’80s kids’ fave ThunderCats. Amid all this, Cage goes (nearly) full Cage, his delivery suitably and superbly cartoonish – though Dinklage all-but tops him as the uber-smug Phil. Well-versed in animation (the Kung Fu Panda films, Trolls), first-time director Joel Crawford keeps it vibrant and fast-paced, with just the right amount of retro-strangeness. With gags like Thunk staring out of a window at the landscape like a primitive TV, The Croods 2 smartly treads the line between adult and child experiences. Delightful. James Mottram
Almost everyone was very excited by the billboard for the new RockStation 5.
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
blurred vision
A DOC WITH A LOT OF BOTTLE…
BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS TBC FILM
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dive bar in Las Vegas named The Roaring 20s is shutting down, and documakers Bill and Turner Ross are there to chronicle the closing-night party. Various barflies turn up between 11am and 4am the next morning, and the booze flows as the jukebox plays and a series of mini dramas unfold amid the babble of sozzled conversations.
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The line between fact and fiction is as blurry as the patrons’ vision…
Only here’s the thing: Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets was shot in a still-open bar in the Ross brothers’ home city of New Orleans, and ‘failed actor’ Michael, though surrounded by people plucked from local watering holes, is an accomplished stage actor. Fake news? Well, the action is unscripted and the drinking is real, with the movie shot over two 18-hour days. This boundary-blurring exercise will no doubt spark conversations as to the nature and responsibility of filmmaking
SING ME A SONG PG
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n Thomas Balmès’ doc Happiness (2013), Bhutan-based eight-year-old Peyangki wanted to become a monk. Then the internet arrived, and chatrooms replaced chanting. Catching up with the now-teenage Peyangki, Balmès measures the tensions between ‘progress’ and tradition with a mix of watchful conviction and over-composed contrivance. The pacing is sure, the framing exquisite; and the wry insights into online dating ring true. But when doom-laden music accompanies footage of kids playing videogames, Balmès sacrifices nuanced investigation for a cruder didacticism. Kevin Harley
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
espite the sci-fi prologue, Velvet Goldmine this is not. Bold on paper, but boring in practice, Gabriel Range’s biopic tracks Johnny Flynn’s anxiety-wracked David Bowie (plus Marc Maron’s publicist Ron) on a fraught 1971 US promo tour, pre-Ziggy Stardust. Though Flynn gamely conveys the almost-star(man)’s crises, numerous metaphors for performance offer only crude pointers to Ziggy’s evolution. Sadly, Ziggy’s eventual emergence helps none: come the finale, a lack of access to Bowie’s songs proves almost as anti-climactic as the bad wigs. Kevin Harley
– is it a documentary or a Cassavetesstyle unvarnished drama taken to the nth degree? But most important of all is that its authenticity feels 100 per cent proof. Exhilarating and elegiac by turns, it’s set in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election and focuses on the alienated and disenfranchised… and yet glows with a whiskey-warm optimism. Trust us, when the shit-faced patrons all join in for a ragged rendition of Roy Orbison’s ‘Crying’, our tears will be real. Jamie Graham
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reviously the VFX supervisor on 2009’s excellent Moon, Gavin Rothery refines that film’s striking aesthetic for his directorial debut. It’s apt, really, given the story of robotics expert George (Theo James), striving to upgrade the technology that houses the digitised consciousness of his late wife (Stacy Martin). While Rothery’s latest model isn’t quite as sturdy as its illustrious prototype (nor Ex Machina, another obvious cinematic touchstone), it’s nevertheless a sleek, smart sci-fi thriller: immaculately shot and designed, and it offers some timely thoughts on the ethics of consent. Simon Kinnear
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ARE WE LOST FOREVER 18
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xpanding on his 2018 short No More We, writer/director David Färdmar tracks the fallout from a relationship split, as Adrian (Björn Elgerd) and Hampus (Jonathan Andersson) try – with varying degrees of success – to move on. From a scene of frenzied post-breakup sex to a darkly amusing debate over who gets the bed, Färdmar perceptively captures the messy complexities of a separation. Yet his film’s focus on the self-pitying Adrian makes it a sometimes frustrating and one-sided affair. Chris Schilling
ocumentary director Ryan White (2016’s Serena) expertly recounts the infamous assassination of Kim Jong-nam, estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, in the middle of a bustling airport in Malaysia in 2017. Not entirely unlike another Dogwoof doc, 2012’s discombobulating The Imposter, this quasi-thriller-style unwrapping of an extraordinary case takes a turn for the mind-boggling when the women who perpetrated the crime reveal their side of the story. Even then, the entire account remains reassuringly grounded and captivating (even if the courtroom drama drags a tad). Erlingur Einarsson
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arco Pontecorvo’s faith-based drama centres on an apparent miracle in the eponymous village, where three children claim to all have had a divine vision of the Virgin Mary. While the locals are skeptical, the encounter attracts visitors seeking respite from WW1 tragedy in religion. The film is handsomely shot but the narrative is predictable and ponderously paced; meanwhile, a framing device in which Harvey Keitel’s professor asks elderly nun Sônia Braga to recount the incident merely gives the two veteran actors the easiest paycheque of their careers. Chris Schilling
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obert Rodriguez’s Sharkboy And Lavagirl semi-sequel leaves out Taylor Lautner, drafting in a whole new generation of super-kids – a few more than the alien-invasion plot knows what to do with. Still, there are yuks to be had as adorable moppets beat 10 bells out of burly goons while the supermums and dads (including Pedro Pascal) take a backseat. It’s no Spy Kids, but remains an affable-enough mix of teamwork lessons and Marvel/DC digs. Rodriguez makes a modest FX budget go far – though confining much of the second half to one location cramps the sense of adventure. Matthew Leyland
hen Robin Williams tragically took his own life in 2014, the rumour mill attributed his actions to financial worries and depression. However, as this brief but impactful documentary details, he had actually been suffering from a form of dementia that was incrementally robbing him of his mental faculties – a cruel affliction for a comic renowned for his razorsharp wit and dazzling flights of fancy. With help from Williams’ friends, neighbours and widow Susan Schneider, director Tylor Norwood both celebrates his life and contextualises his death. Neil Smith
MAYOR TBC FILMS OUT NOW CINEMAS
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irected and shot by US filmmaker David Osit, this perceptive fly-on-the-wall documentary observes the countless challenges facing Palestinian political leader Musa Hadid, the Christian mayor of the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Ramallah. Everyday problems of local government have to be addressed by this tireless official alongside dramatic geopolitical events, such as President Trump’s recognition of nearby Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. A calm, dignified municipal leader, Hadid makes a compelling focus for a film that gives western audiences fresh insight into Palestine. Tom Dawson
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“And once the nail polish has dried, we can go and get drinks.”
ghost written
UPDATE STRUGGLES TO STIR NEW LIFE…
BLITHE SPIRIT
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n 2020, Ben Wheatley’s Rebecca served a Downton-ised twist on a ’40s classic about a man more fixated on his late wife than his living one. After a delayed release, Downton director Edward Hall’s Noël Coward update is saddled with similar flaws. Lacking the spritz of David Lean’s 1945 film treatment, Hall’s well-dressed but wobbly romp struggles for footing between its source material’s defining frivolity and its own fresh twists.
At least the cast are on form. Fellow Downton alum Dan Stevens maxes the hapless smarm as Charles Condomine, a creatively and sexually blocked writer more interested in his late wife/muse, Elvira (a nicely spiky Leslie Mann), than his second wife, Ruth (standout Isla Fisher). Either way, Elvira cannot be avoided when her mischievously disruptive presence is roused during a séance conducted by Judi Dench’s faux-spiritualist Madame Arcati. Hit-miss comic larks ensue, wedded to hit-miss plot variations. Fisher has
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he continuation of the film series that began with 2019’s After (and before that with One Direction-inspired fan fiction) sees bookworm Tessa (Josephine Langford) experience more romantic travails with tattooed bad boy Hardin (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) while holding down an internship at a chi-chi publishing company. More sex and swearing offer fleeting distractions from the wooden acting, aimless narrative and dubious reveals that will no doubt occupy the two sequels yet to come from this inexplicably popular franchise. Neil Smith
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eorge Clooney directs and stars in this sci-fi meditation on loss, loneliness and legacy, about an Arcticbased scientist trying to warn the crew of an inbound spacecraft that Earth is not habitable. An exploration of inner rather than outer space, it boldly goes about its business with the sincerest of intentions. But in seeking the profound it loses a sense of purpose, the pace dragging as it shuffles between Clooney’s Augustine and the astronauts. Few genres can map the human heart like sci-fi, but you might find yourself craving some stellar spectacle, too. Jamie Graham
SUPERINTELLIGENCE PG FILM OUT NOW CINEMAS
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elissa McCarthy’s recent run of middling comedies with her director husband Ben Falcone (see Tammy, The Boss, Life Of The Party) continues with this inoffensive farce about global armageddon. That doom is what awaits humanity if McCarthy’s Carol – designated the single most average person on Earth – cannot persuade a sentient and all-powerful A.I. that the world is worth saving, something it insists she can only do by rekindling her romance with old flame Bobby Cannavale. The stars’ endearing chemistry helps offset James Corden’s grating vocal turn as the titular omnipresence. Neil Smith
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fun with Ruth’s druggy episode; some would-be zingers fly wide, however, and Arcati’s backstory seems crowbarred in to appease Dench stans. Meanwhile, screenwriter Piers Ashworth’s potentially fertile narrative innovations – echoing Glenn Close hit The Wife - are neither sufficiently developed nor properly integrated into the original’s pitch. The result is a film that shares Charles’ issues: even if it has more fun with its fleeting pleasures, it rarely seems fully committed to its purpose. Kevin Harley
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SHORT SHARP SHOCKS 18
THE TWO JAKES 15
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1990 OUT NOW BD EXTRAS Poster, Art cards
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1949-1980 OUT NOW BD EXTRAS Interviews, Galleries, Scripts, Booklet
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he BFI’s Flipside imprint turns its attention to shorts with this double-disc release. The collection of nine films spans four decades and runs from spoken-word recitals to twisty thrillers, but most fail to make any real impression. The two exceptions are a masterful reading of The Tell-Tale Heart (1953) and the chillingly atmospheric The Lake (1978). Thankfully, the bonus goodies – including reliable raconteur David McGillivray reminiscing about his career as a critic and screenwriter – are more entertaining. Anton van Beek
INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION 18 TBC FILM
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lio Petri’s striking study of power, politics and police corruption made the Italian director’s name, and won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Petri’s dish is served cold and Kafka-esque, following psychopathic inspector Gian Maria Volontè (mesmerising) as he sets out to prove he can literally get away with murder. An absurdist takedown of authoritarianism, the film is as disturbing as it is darkly funny. Criterion’s extras cover Ennio Morricone’s score (“a music of the grotesque”), Mussolini parallels and where to spot Petri’s cameo. Matthew Leyland
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orget it, Jake…” Oh, if only we could. But just like private eye Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson), we’re still haunted by the events of Chinatown, Roman Polanski’s 1974 neo-noir masterpiece. So, despite arriving 16 years later, this uneven Nicholsonhelmed sequel never had a chance of escaping its predecessor’s shadow, even if its infidelity-and-murder mystery hadn’t ended up so listless and muddled. That said, the film still merits more attention than this barebones disc provides, not least for its tortuous production history. Anton van Beek 109
cold standard
WHY THE COENS’ BRILLIANCE HASN’T MELTED
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ulp Fiction might get the plaudits as the 1990s’ most influential movie, but the Coen brothers’ Fargo (re-released for its 25th anniversary) enjoys an equal, if subtler, impact. Ethan and Joel have put their inimitable stamp on nearly every genre going, but Fargo is the exception – it’s arguably the one time that the brothers invented a new one. It’s not merely that Noah Hawley’s ongoing TV spin-off finds endless space in Fargo’s fictional universe, nor that Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (2014) was inspired by an urban legend about the film. Fargo’s legacy is woven right through the texture of the Coens’ ‘(not-) true crime’ fable, a footprint you can follow to Breaking Bad, the brothers’ own No Country For Old Men and any other story where the hubris of an everyday Joe escalates into blood-soaked tragedy. The original remains a meticulously plotted, richly detailed noir, as nervy car dealer William H. Macy hires goons to
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kidnap his own wife. Into this chaos steps Oscar-winner Frances McDormand as pregnant cop Marge Gunderson, a figure whose undimmed optimism is dented, but not defeated, by the depths people stoop to. Crucially, despite the sing-song accents and “funny-lookin’” characters, this crackpot scheme is played largely without the Coens’ customary irony. Instead, they dig deep to conjure deepfake plausibility with formal control and rueful empathy. Then, it was a revelation. Now, it’s up there with the greatest American films. Simon Kinnear
McDormand’s Marge is still one of the greatest characters in any Coen film.
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
HOUSE OF BAMBOO PG
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amuel Fuller’s films “grab you by the lapels and yell in your face”, says critic David Cairns. This Tokyo-set thriller lives up to the brutal hype (the bathtub execution, and its aftermath, is a jaw-dropper). But there’s tenderness too, in the bond that blooms between widow Shirley Yamaguchi and ex-con Robert Stack, who’s out to infiltrate a racket led by a suavely sadistic Robert Ryan. Look out for Star Trek’s DeForest Kelley – and you can hardly miss the outsized, Hitchcockian spectacle of the climax, set in a rooftop amusement park. Matthew Leyland
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aiju specialist Honda here tackles less stompy monsters – though The H-Man, like Godzilla (1954), is another atomic-age allegory. It’s also part gangster film, except none of the tough-guy stuff can compete with the bubbly, Blob-y chills elicited by six irradiated sailors (the title should really be H-Men). Battle In Outer Space is even more of an FX parade; even if Blu-ray exposes the strings holding up the alien mothership, the funky model work and throbbing light shows jazzily offset the curious sense of emotional detachment pervading Earth’s last stand. Matthew Leyland
don’t know how anyone could look at this movie and think it’s not supposed to be funny,” claims director Steven E. de Souza on a commendably stacked re-release of his critically panned videogame adap. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that there’s a clear line between knowing parody and inept stupidity. Unfortunately, it’s one Street Fighter repeatedly crosses with its messy script, uneven performances (only Raul Julia’s pantomime villainy hits the right note) and lifeless action scenes. Anton van Beek
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A FLOP THAT WORMED ITS WAY TO CULTDOM.
TREMORS 15 FILM
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“We’re going to need a bigger gun, Fred.”
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
But like any good movie monster, the film’s Graboids couldn’t be dispatched quite so easily. While this smart, funny and enthusiastic throwback to ’50s creature features didn’t capture the imagination of cinemagoers, it was a different story on video. There, the film found a level of popularity that has led to a TV series and six DTV sequels (the latest of which, Tremors: Shrieker Island, surfaced in November). Now, three decades after it bombed at the BO, Tremors re-emerges as a bona fide Blu-ray blockbuster. Not content
with a stunning new 4K restoration, this double-disc limited edition also serves up a wealth of extras including commentaries, interviews and documentaries packed with amusing behind-the-scenes anecdotes (“Somebody said, ‘This is not going to be a movie about giant dicks chasing people through the desert,’” recalls monster maker Alec Gillis about one particular challenge they faced). Plus three short films, most notably Tremors’ co-writer S.S. Wilson’s clever killer-celluloid flick Recorded Live. Anton van Beek
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A R R O W, EUR EK A , 88 F IL MS
hen my agent said, ‘Giant worms underground,’ I was like, ‘Oh my God, my career is in the toilet,’” says Kevin Bacon of his casting in Tremors. A film about a Nevada town besieged by subterranean monsters doesn’t exactly scream box-office smash. And so it proved, with the 1990 horror-comedy dying a quick death on its cinema release.
MAKING OF
higher learning
THE LESSON PLAN FOR NETFLIX’S YA FANTASY FATE: THE WINX SAGA… THINGS GET FIERY FAST
Fate: The Winx Saga is a six-part YA reimagining of an Italian animated series about Alfea, a magical boarding school in the ‘Otherworld’. The students are split between fairies, whose elemental powers are closely tied to their emotions, and the Specialists, whose fighting skills are essential in defending the kingdom from monsters and magical foes. Among the new intake of fairies is Bloom (Abigail Cowen), a 16-year-old born and raised in the human world, and whose failure to fully understand and control her fiery powers leads to tragedy. “Bloom grew up in the human world and never felt like she fitted in,” explains showrunner Brian Young. “In this school she finds a place where she belongs.”
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IT GOES TO SCARY PLACES “I saw a lot of myself in Bloom,” says Cowen of her first lead role. “I was very insecure at that age – every teen feels out of place and struggles to find themselves. We’ve all experienced emotions that can feel destructive or scary. It was nice to step back into that with what I know now.” Young adds, “The grand irony is that what scares you about yourself, what makes you different or feel ashamed, are the things that make you special. Ultimately, it’s a story about friendship.”
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IT’S MORE GROUNDED THAN GRYFFINDOR Early on, Bloom and water-fairy roomie Aisha (Precious Mustapha) consider their allegiances in the world of Harry Potter (Slytherin and Gryffindor, respectively). “The teen-drama genre has been done before,” admits Young. “We’ve tried to ground it, combining the pure fantasy world of magic and monsters with contemporary experience, where people are on social media all the time and dealing with familiar teenage shit. You don’t get a lot of high fantasy with cellphones!”
DOWNTON CONNECTION Fate was shot in Ireland with a predominantly British cast, notably Downton Abbey’s Rob James-Collier as the tutor of the Specialists, and Eve Best as the school’s stern headmistress. “The show is a weird beast,” laughs Young. “Italian IP, American
SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED… BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER 1997-2003 Remains the template for teenage angst mixed with supernatural thrills. THE HARRY POTTER SAGA 2001-2011 When it comes to magical boarding schools, this is still the one to beat. CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA 2018-2020 Abigail Cowen got her first taste of onscreen magic and growing pains in this YA comic-book adap.
showrunner, British cast, Irish shoot… but bringing an American into a world of British actors gives you a shorthand for the fish-out-of-water story. With a show like this, it would be easy to devolve into silliness. It’s like Patrick Stewart in Star Trek, where a classically trained actor in a genre world grounds it immediately. All the ridiculousness melts away because you feel the reality in their voice and presence.”
FREAKED-OUT FANS Both Cowen, who played orphaned Weird Sister Dorcas for three seasons of Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina, and Young, staff writer and exec on The Vampire Diaries, have encountered hardcore fanbases. “I told a friend about getting the role of Bloom and she freaked out!” laughs Cowen. “Those fans are so involved and supportive and loyal – I hope I live up to her expectations…” Adds Young, “It’s a double-edged sword, you get real-time feedback about whether the show is landing, which influences the storytelling, even if you think it doesn’t. It’s a tricky balance: how much to engage with it without allowing it to dictate the show. Anybody who says they’re not at least monitoring it is a liar!” Gabriel Tate FATE: THE WINX SAGA IS AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX ON 22 JANUARY
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RUSSELL T. DAVIES HEADS BACK TO THE ’80S – AND THE AIDS CRISIS…
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umber 159 Routemaster bus is parked outside Savile Row tailors Culver & Hound, where a billboard advertises ‘Dortman Electronics’ (“Bring The Magic Home With Cinema Stereo Sound”) nearby. We are unmistakably in early ’80s London, albeit reimagined in Manchester for the purposes of a new five-part drama. Russell T. Davies, saviour of Doctor Who and now creator of It’s A Sin, laughs that “to find 1980s London in London, we’d have had to shoot in one little corner of Soho…”
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The show – named after Pet Shop Boys’ operatically defiant 1987 charttopper – focuses on four teenagers living through the decade in the shadow of Aids. Ritchie (Olly Alexander) yearns to escape the dull conservatism of the Isle of Wight; Roscoe (Omari Douglas) seeks sanctuary in London after being outed by his evangelical Nigerian parents; sensible, sheltered Colin (Callum Scott Howells) is from the Welsh valleys; and Jill (Lydia West) is their supportive and apparently unshockable confidante. The quartet end up in the Pink Palace, a London bedsit where they find community, safety and themselves. Seeking sanctuary from the cold in the wood-panelled boardroom of the gentlemen’s outfitters (in real life the scarcely less posh Manchester Tennis And Racquet Club), are the shop’s newest employee and one of its oldest, as respectively played by Howells and Neil Patrick Harris, who is as surprised to find himself playing a plummy Brit as the rest of us. “I was taken aback!” he says, Howells laughing alongside him. “I could be Colin’s adversary, but I become his mentor, showing him different ways of existing. This slice of
life is trying to show all the iterations of how gay men lived in the world, so it needs to include an older, potentially wiser person.”
STRANGE DAYS Davies was 18 in 1981; each of the young leads reflects a part of himself at a time when shame, fear and ignorance offered a lethally effective environment for the virus to spread. “It was brand new, and our means of finding out about it all were so limited,” he remembers. “I don’t think I’d ever seen that sheer disbelief portrayed before, the impossibility of there being a virus apparently targeted at gay men, just 12 years after the laws had changed and we’d finally got equality.” Yet while It’s A Sin is inevitably about death, it also rejoices in life. “I wanted to capture the strangeness, the madness and wild hilarity of it as well as the desperation,” says Davies. “Life doesn’t stop when terrible things happen.” “I did wonder if the vibe on set would be more serious,” nods Harris. “But it’s such a joyous celebration of family and individuals coming together at a time when they weren’t aware of repercussions. None of it is played
SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED… QUEER AS FOLK 1999-2000 Davies exploded into the public eye with the story of three men exploring Manchester’s gay scene. SKINS: ‘PURE’ 2013 Olly Alexander’s first major role came in a two-parter in which his character stalked Hannah Murray’s Cassie. PRIDE 2014 The unlikely true story of the 1985 alliance between striking miners and gay-rights activists was a deserved box-office smash.
It’s A Sin chronicles the turbulent world in which creator Russell T. Davies came of age.
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
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ON LOCATION
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with foreboding.” The veteran-andnewcomer pairing of Harris and Howells is replicated across the show: Roscoe has a fling with Stephen Fry’s patrician Tory MP Arthur Garrison, while Ritchie’s parents, the Tozers, are played by Keeley Hawes and Shaun Dooley. “Those older actors flocked to the project,” says Davies. “If I’d sent a murder mystery to Neil then I probably wouldn’t have got past his agent’s PA, but you knew he’d commit to this subject matter. Every one of them rattled off a list of friends [who have passed away] and the conversations on set were extraordinary. Not a day would pass without remembering someone, reviving their memory.” For Hawes, it was a no-brainer. “It’s so rare to read something that knocks you sideways. It’s amazing that you can live with someone and not know them at all, but the Tozers eventually have to face up to a new reality. Many people thought you could catch it holding hands and so on. It was utterly
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OLLY UP Olly Alexander’s Ritchie fights the power in It’s A Sin. SEE CHANGE Keeley Hawes plays Ritchie’s initially closed-minded mum.
‘IT’S SO RARE TO READ SOMETHING THAT KNOCKS YOU SIDEWAYS’ KEELEY HAWES
terrifying, but we all knew someone like the Tozers with those opinions.”
FOLK LORE Alexander, who started as an actor before global pop stardom with Years & Years beckoned, has long been a vocal advocate for LGBTQ+ issues. “I didn’t have any plans to get back into acting, but I jumped at the chance as soon as I heard Russell was making a new TV show. Queer As Folk was such a powerful series for me and he’s a hero of mine. Broadcasters are still wary of a show where the tagline could be, ‘It’s a drama about Aids.’ It’s important to say this show is groundbreaking in that way, but it’s also a story about human
beings growing up and falling in love.” While it may prove a reminder for some, for others it will be an education as the full horror of that decade fades into history. “I’m excited for my generation to watch it,” enthuses Howells. “I wasn’t massively educated on this period, so we’ll see how lucky we are and how much progress has been made since then, but also what still needs to happen.” In short, reckons Davies, it is a drama whose time has finally come. “So many people died of Aids in the ’80s and their parents said it was cancer. It’s still said to this day. Those false memories can become fixed and untruths pass into history, so it feels like time to say: this is what really happened.” Gabriel Tate IT’S A SIN AIRS ON CHANNEL 4 THIS MONTH.
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Ricky Whittle’s Shadow finds himself in frigid new surroundings in Season 3.
MAKING OF
shadow lands
RICKY WHITTLE REVEALS THE MAGIC OF AMERICAN GODS S3… THERE’S A LOT COEN ON
A WHOLE NEW WORLD
The third season of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods finds demigod Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) hiding out in the snowy town of Lakeside. It’s Whittle’s favourite part of Gaiman’s book. “It’s when the story really does flip and take a turn into a murder mystery,” says the star. “Everyone loves a mystery, that small-town Fargo feel, which is very much what the show is this season.” Shooting took place in Port Perry, Canada, where Whittle and co had to contend with minus-20-degree weather. “It was awful to film in!” recalls Whittle. “I’ve never felt cold like that. When your eyelashes start freezing… and I’m having to redo takes because my mouth won’t work!”
With Shadow safely (or maybe not...) ensconced in Lakeside, S3 introduces plenty of newbies. Among them is Lela Loren as Marguerite Olsen, a reporter for the Lakeside News. “It is a very different season for Shadow, and Marguerite is a very big part of that,” says Whittle. Other newcomers include Dominique Jackson (as Ms. World, a new incarnation of Mr. World); rocker Marilyn Manson (as death-metal singer Johan Wengren) and Smallville’s Eric Johnson (as Lakeside’s police chief Chad Mulligan). Whittle was, to put it mildly, starstruck by the latter. “The first time I met him, I didn’t even say ‘Hello’; I said, ‘I loved you in Smallville!’”
THE STATES WE’RE IN With the Old Gods – led by Ian McShane’s cunning Mr. Wednesday (or Norse legend Odin if you prefer) – continuing to face off with the New Gods of technology, the battleground is once again America. “The struggles of the gods and the people in Season 3 of American Gods are the struggles of America,” says Gaiman. “[We wanted] to explore what ‘America’ means to its people and to talk about immigrants – about the very different people who came to this remarkable land and brought their gods with them.”
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
RAISING VOICES With new showrunner Charles ‘Chic’ Eglee (The Shield, Dexter) in charge, diversity has become increasingly the focus. “He facilitated the change that
SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED… AMERICAN GODS S1-S2 2017-19 S3 is the perfect excuse for a rewatch of the first 16 episodes of Gaiman’s god-like fantasy. GOOD OMENS 2019 More gods and monsters in Gaiman’s apocalyptic tale starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant. WATCHMEN 2019 Alan Moore’s ’80s graphic novel gets a timely sequel with a strong focus on racial violence.
we needed off camera, as well as on camera,” says Whittle, who was invited to sit in on the writers’ room. “American Gods is very well known for its diversity and representation. But that writing room had everyone – LGBTQ+, formerly incarcerated, biracial, Black, white, male, female,” he says. “It was incredible. And [there were] only 10 per cent white cisgendered straight males, because he wanted everyone to have a voice and he wanted every voice to be represented and authentic.”
FINALE HURRAH This latest season “culminates in, for me, the best finale of all three seasons,” says Whittle. “When I read the script, oh my God, I lost my mind. I was so excited. I mean, it leads on to an epic Season 4. I got chills. I texted Chic and everyone who was writing the script… I just literally typed, ‘Wow! Just finished the finale!’” Whittle describes the ending as a “massive culmination of the build-up” of the relationship between Mr. Wednesday and Shadow, as he wrestles with his demi-divine destiny. “Shadow knows that Wednesday is sly. He knows that Wednesday lies about everything and he won’t forgive Wednesday…” James Mottram AMERICAN GODS S3 IS AVAILABLE ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO FROM 29 JANUARY.
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A M A Z ON
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MAKING OF
keeping it rail
SPOILER ALERT!
HOW SNOWPIERCER S2 BECAME A GAME OF ZONES…
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WA R NER BR OS / NE T F L I X
he fast, frenetic and frosty first season of Snowpiercer reached a dramatic destination with the surprise appearance of Sean Bean as the titular train’s enigmatic creator, Mr. Wilford. Here, Bean and co-star Daveed Diggs discuss Covid-secure shooting, snowy memories and sci-fi controversies…
What can we expect from Season 2? DAVEED DIGGS [ANDRE LAYTON]: There’s a lot going on; it’s a really big season. There are new characters to meet and new train cars to explore, as well as a lot of action and some super-unexpected alliances. It’s going to be wild. SEAN BEAN [MR. WILFORD]: Things are beefed up quite a bit in Season 2. The story is meaty, fleshed-out and hardhitting – and a lot of it’s because of the introduction of my character.
zoned areas that were strictly enforced. Everyone took it very seriously.
What drew you to the show, Sean? SB: I feel like I’m good at playing ego geniuses like this! I really enjoy it, too. Wilford is very British, very posh, very educated and very charming. He’s a bit like Hugh Grant, but nastier. It’s been a lot of fun for me.
What’s the most fun thing about doing sci-fi? SB: I really love the way sci-fi takes you to different places. I’m not necessarily interested in going to fancy new worlds, but I’m really attracted to apocalyptic stories. I love the way sci-fi stories can be out-of-this-world and make-believe, but there are lots of elements of truth to them. They often involve really thought-provoking and controversial subjects and themes. I like that. DD: I agree. I love it, too.
Did you finish filming pre-Covid? DD: We were mid-filming when the pandemic hit. Production was closed down and we were all sent home. When we came back, it was very different. It felt very safe, which was great. We were tested regularly and separated in logical ways. There were all these different
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Did it feel apocalyptic to be shooting mid-pandemic? SB: It was interesting because you’d focus on what you’re doing in a scene, but at the same time also thinking about safety and rules. I guess it was quite awkward and would slow down the day – but I tried not to let it overshadow my performance. It was different, for sure.
SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED… WESTWORLD 2016 – PRESENT Another starry, dystopian sci-fi show with bigscreen heritage. TRAIN TO BUSAN 2016 There’s no stopping this train-based zombie movie from South Korea. SNOWPIERCER S1 2020 The show that followed the 2013 movie that followed the graphic novel (Le Transperceneige).
Daveed Diggs alongside co-star Jennifer Connelly in Snowpiercer.
Although it’s funny how you can tune into the news right now and it feels like you’re watching sci-fi, but it’s actually real... The world is frozen in Snowpiercer. How are you with low temperatures? DD: I do not do well in the cold. I never experienced snow until I went to college. I remember the first time I saw it. A good friend of mine came running to my room and woke me up. We made snow angels and it was totally beautiful for seven and a half minutes, but then I asked, “When is this going to stop?!” It didn’t stop for four months. That was the last time I really enjoyed snow. What has been your standout train experience? SB: For me, it’s probably working on Snowpiercer. Wilford’s carriage is very comfortable and luxuriously furnished. DD: The best sleep I ever got in my life was on board a train in Russia. Me and my band [Clipping] were playing in Moscow. We finished the gig, partied until 5am and then got on a train to St. Petersburg. I have never had a more restful nine hours in my life. It was wonderful. Adam Tanswell SNOWPIERCER S2 STREAMS THIS MONTH ON NETFLIX.
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MITCHELL/WEBB FINALLY HIT THE PUB AGAIN IN BACK S2…
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fter Peep Show’s El Dude brothers departed in 2015, David Mitchell and Robert Webb reunited for another tragi-sitcom about ‘brothers’ (of sorts) at loggerheads. In the first series of Back (2017), perma-griping Stephen (Mitchell) finds his life eroded by devious former foster brother Andrew (Webb), following an encounter at Stephen’s father’s funeral. As Back returns for a delayed – due to schedules, Covid and Webb’s heart operation - S2 under writer Simon Blackwell, Stephen emerges from mental healthcare to find old problems, parenthood issues and pub-based crises re-emerging in his relationship with Andrew… Why did Series 2 take so long? David Mitchell: I’ve always seen the show as like a historical drama set in a different time. We had to wait for something fundamental to change our era so it would seem like it was from a bygone time. So it is set in the weird preCovid age, where people used to walk up to each other for no reason like maniacs. Robert Webb: And there was constant hand-shaking and kissing… What’s the dynamic of your relationship this time? RW: The good thing about sitcoms if you do them right, and Simon generally does, is that once you’ve got characters that work you don’t muck about with it. Andrew stays Andrew but the situation’s changed. He’s in charge of [local pub] the Barleycorn and he successfully pushed Stephen all the way out. Now he’s bored and looking for someone else to pick on.
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
DM: They’re caught in the same unpleasant embrace and I think that’s the key to a good sitcom. It’s that the people are stuck together in some way, and that way is not harmonious. Is it fun to do the scenes where you loathe each other? DM: Doing a scene of loathing is great fun because it so seldom happens in real life. Certainly in my life, I just
SEE THIS IF YOU LIKED… MAMMA MIA! THE MOVIE 2008 Back S2’s paternity questions invoke an obvious comparison. No duff singing, mind. SHERLOCK 2010-2017 The BBC adap’s scene-stealer Louise Brealey nails some deliciously daffy zingers as Cass. THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD 2019 As co-writer, Blackwell helped revitalise Dickens for Armando Iannucci’s delightful riff.
Robert and David giving us that Webb and Mitchell look…
relentlessly say what people want to hear. I’m that kind of arsehole. So getting to have scenes of straightforward animosity – goodness knows it’s probably doing me all sorts of good. It should be on the NHS. RW: I played a murderer in a Marple once, which was fun except if you’re the murderer in Marple you only get to do evil acting once it’s been discovered you’re the murderer… With this, I get to be the murderer for two whole series! What’s the key to your enduring on-screen chemistry? RW: One of the nice bits, because it’s so rare, is when you see Andrew and Stephen on the same team… There’s a moment where Cass [Stephen’s sister, played by Louise Brealey] is showing them her new student flat and another person comes in. She’s showing off and she makes a joke about drugs, which she has to spell out because it’s such a shit joke. And there’s a two-shot of me and David both being embarrassed in slightly different ways, which is the most Mitchell and Webb thing I’ve seen in 10 years. Though I say it myself, it’s terrific. Kevin Harley BACK SERIES 2 STARTS ON CHANNEL 4 THIS MONTH.
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CH A NNEL 4
local boys
CLASSIC SOUNDTRACK
fresh spin
TF scores the latest soundtracks…
Mank Period-perfect pastiche, brimming personality: two extremes converge with vitality and atmosphere in Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross’ latest David Fincher team-up. Bernard Herrmann-ish orchestral gusto and big-band bustle may seem outside the duo’s wheelhouse, but precedents exist – see Watchmen. If the interior moodscapes play to familiar strengths, that doesn’t undercut the score’s dazzling ambition and intuitive fluency. Oscar nom?
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the godfather NINO ROTA | GEFFEN
NE T F L I X /NUL L C OR P OR AT ION, S A CR ED BONE S R E C OR DS
Lost Themes III: Alive After Death John Carpenter’s musical purple patch continues with another mood-synth payload, recorded with son Cody and godson Daniel Davies. Wracked guitars, mournful pianos and church-y synths evoke everything from The Fog to Christine. ‘Weeping Ghost’ surges with end-of-days portent, ‘The Dead Walk’ with ceremonial dread: even if you know what’s coming, Carpenter’s soulful synthwave supremacy still throbs with life.
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lthough Francis Ford Coppola initially passed on directing 1972’s The Godfather, he put his stamp on it when he did sign up. He famously battled Paramount on multiple fronts to assert his control, from casting to score. Studio exec Robert Evans wanted classy ‘Moon River’ composer Henry Mancini. As Coppola pushed for Italy’s Nino Rota, famed for his work with Fellini, a stalemate ensued. It was only when Coppola screened his Mario Puzo adaptation to a small, appreciative audience with Rota’s music included that Evans buckled. Maybe he knew an offer not to be refused when he heard it. A model of cohesion forged amid conflict, Rota’s score is vital to The Godfather’s shape and identity. Responding to Coppola’s request for a score steeped in nostalgia for southern Italy and Sicily, Rota’s compositions comment on and express The Godfather’s themes, narrative and character with operatic dignity, feeling and nuance. Yet despite the plot’s scale, Rota knew the value of keeping the focus lean. Presented in subtly varied forms for
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thematic force and finesse, the three main cues fit The Godfather’s tones with the elegance of a crisp-cut suit. The main waltz emerges on melancholy trumpet to start, before Rota steers it between tragic foreboding and sorrowful nostalgia via instruments reflecting Sicilian traditions: accordion and mandolin. With Francis’ father Carmine Coppola’s ‘Connie’s Wedding’ in between, ‘I Have But One Heart’ and the jazzy ‘The Pickup’ offer plot-specific divergences before the second main theme. The trumpet’s mournful return leads into Michael Corleone’s ominous cue on ‘The Halls Of Fear’, hinting at his pending rise and moral fall.
“Yeah, that accordion player has been following me around too, Dad.”
After the waltz recording of ‘Sicilian Pastorale’, the score’s final main cue is a belter. Later covered by Andy Williams and (in concert) Guns N’ Roses’ Slash, the sumptuously melodic ‘Love Theme’ adds heart to heighten the sense of looming tragedy. But love doesn’t last on screen. Michael’s ascension takes over between the funereal ‘The New Godfather’ and ‘The Godfather Finale’, where Rota’s magisterial assemblage of all his themes asserts the score’s grimly fatalist flavour. Unfortunately, an Oscar was not forthcoming this time around. Rota’s minor redevelopment of themes from his earlier scores sparked his disqualification, though this was not deemed a problem for 1974’s The Godfather Part II, for which he did win the Oscar. Some claim Part II is a richer score. But it owes respect to its stately predecessor, and to Coppola’s force of conviction. Kevin Harley
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
GHOSTBUSTERS TRAP INCENSE BURNER OUT NOW
Sing it with us: we ain’t ’fraid of no smoke! Well, at least not the smoke that comes out of this ingenious gizmo, a screenaccurate replica of the ’busters ghost trap. Why give yourself the grief of chasing down some malicious ecto-sprite? You can get the same (visual) effect simply by placing a lit incense cone inside the box, then enjoying the fragrant fumes as they smoothly waft from the trap doors. Also new from Numskull, two additions to the rubber-ducky Tubbz range: Peter Venkman Slimed and the marshmallow-scented Stay Puft. Have a nose at numskull.com.
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BACK TO THE FUTURE: BACK IN TIME BOARD GAME OUT NOW
To-do list: collect items to fix DeLorean; send Biff and his goons packing; make sure Lorraine and George become an item; peg it down Main Street before the clock strikes 10.04pm. Funko’s board game is rooted in the plot of the 1985 film, though this time Jennifer Parker and Einstein the dog (two of the four playable characters) get a bigger slice of the action. Contents include clock dice tower, McFly family photo sections and a ‘love meter’. Ooh la la, to quote Part II. Gotta get to funkoeurope.com.
FUNKO VINYL SODA Quench your figure-collecting habit with Funko’s line that thinks outside of the box and inside of the can. In a cunning ruse, each Vinyl Soda contains no actual soda, so don’t tip one down your neck, or you’ll end up swallowing 11cm of sculpted plastic. There’s a shelf/fridge-load to choose from; our current faves are Batgirl, The Joker (Batman ’89 version), with his big hat and crossword trousers, and Pennywise (2017 version). If you’re lucky, you might get one of the metallic ‘chase’ Joker variants… Get (t)in at funkoeurope.com.
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
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NUMSK UL L , DISNE Y, F UNK O , BF I
COLLECTIBLES OUT NOW
EXTRAS
FILM DIRECTOR TRUMPS CARD GAMES OUT NOW
Looking for an “auteur-native” to regular card games? Then these trumps are the tops. They cover the directorial spectrum, from Campion to Cameron, Spike Lee to Spike Jonze, Meyer to Svankmajer. Categories range from ‘Emotional Drama’ to ‘Arty Weirdness’. Three volumes available, 30 filmmakers in each; play a standalone game or combine decks into one mega-battle. Also on the trumps front: The Curious Objects Of Twin Peaks, starring such items of Lynch lore as Knotted Cherry Stem, Log Lady’s Log and Fish In The Percolator. Shuffle over to shop.bfi.org.uk and gazooshop.com.
SOUL MERCHANDISE VARIOUS OUT NOW
If Pixar’s latest left you in bits, please look away now; the adorability of the merch may finish you off for good. The lovely, fuzzy character stylings of the movie have been adapted into bean bags in the shape of Joe Gardner, Mr. Mittens and, if your cockles can take it, Soul 22. There’s also a pin set, a cat mug that looks like it was moulded from rainbows, a snazzy Half Note Jazz Club tote bag and a talking Joe doll (“I got the gig!”). Ride the web-scalator to shopdisney.co.uk.
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RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE OUT TBC | PC, PS5, XBOX SERIES
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THE BIGGEST GAMES ON THE HORIZON…
ollowing the thick slice of Southern Gothic that was 2017’s Resident Evil 7, Capcom unexpectedly swerves into folk-horror territory. Poor Ethan Winters is back for this new nightmare alongside the returning Chris Redfield – who may well have turned to the dark side. The name and European setting – not to mention the presence of a friendly merchant – suggest a throwback to the brilliant fourth entry, with witches and shrieking werewolves threatening to make this 2021’s most terrifying thrill ride.
HALO INFINITE OUT TBC | PC, XBOX ONE/SERIES
M HITMAN 3 OUT 20 JANUARY | PC, PS4/5, STADIA, SWITCH, XBOX ONE/SERIES
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icking off the year with a bang (or a silenced bullet, if you prefer), the concluding chapter of IO Interactive’s assassination trilogy takes Agent 47 on another set of globe-trotting missions – albeit this time with a stronger cinematic influence. In Dubai, for example, you’ll get to do your best Ethan Hunt impression as you scale the Burj Khalifa to crash a lavish party, while you’ll also visit Dartmoor to play a killer role in a Knives Out-inspired murder mystery.
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
icrosoft’s flagship franchise was supposed to kickstart a new hardware generation for Xbox, before being postponed after its debut footage left fans distinctly underwhelmed. With director Chris Lee also departing, Microsoft has brought back veteran writer Joseph Staten to bolster the game’s single-player campaign, which takes place in a sprawling open world rather than the selfcontained environments of previous entries. Concerning stuff, though it’s good the publisher realises grand-scale space operas aren’t built in a day.
FAR CRY 6 OUT TBC | LUNA, PC, PS4/5, STADIA, XBOX ONE/SERIES
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erhaps keen to avoid the political controversies that dogged the Montana-set Far Cry 5, Ubisoft has taken its sandbox shooter abroad. The setting this time is Yara, a fictional Caribbean island ruled by ruthless dictator Antón Castillo (played with understated menace by Giancarlo Esposito). Cast as a member of a local guerrilla group hoping to liberate it from his violent grip, you’ll be able to hire a range of ‘amigos’ for your mission, including an adorable Dachshund puppy named Chorizo.
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GAMES PSYCHONAUTS 2
GHOSTWIRE: TOKYO
OUT TBC | PC, PS4, XBOX ONE/SERIES
OUT TBC | PC, PS5
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ouble Fine gets inside our heads once more with a platforming sequel 15 years in the making. Following on from VR spin-off Rhombus Of Ruin, the story again centres on prodigious psychic Raz, as he enters the colourful brainspaces of an oddball cast. These imaginative worlds are the real draw, from a dental body-horror nightmare to a Yellow Submarine-inspired trip into ’70s psychedelia as you reunite a prog-rock band for one last gig – accompanied by Jack Black’s enigmatic ally.
GOTHAM KNIGHTS
bullient creative director Ikumi Nakamura may no longer be at the helm, but under the eye of veteran producer Shinji Mikami, this visually striking supernatural adventure could become one of the year’s best surprises. It’s no ordinary J-horror, but a spectacular ghost-busting action game: as you investigate the disappearance of the Japanese capital’s population, you’ll harness unearthly powers to deal with an army of spectral enemies, from headless schoolgirls to demonic salarymen and Sadako-like spirits.
OUT TBC | PC, PS4/5, XBOX ONE/SERIES
M
arvel’s Avengers was hardly the roaring success many predicted, but Warner Bros remains bullish about its own superhero RPG, which begins by boldly killing off DC’s biggest name. With Batman dead and the city’s cops mired in corruption, it’s up to Nightwing, Batgirl, Robin and Red Hood to halt the rise of a new criminal society. You can take them down alone, but its combo-heavy combat encourages you to team up with a friend to form a deadly crime-fighting duo.
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HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST OUT TBC | PS4/5
O IN T ER A C T I V E , C A P C OM, X BO X G A ME S T UDIO S , UBIS OF T, BE T HE SD A S OF T WA R E , WA R NER BR O S , S ON Y
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MONSTER HUNTER RISE OUT 26 MARCH | SWITCH
LEGO STAR WARS: THE SKYWALKER SAGA OUT SPRING | PC, PS4/5, SWITCH, XBOX ONE/SERIES
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intendo’s plans for 2021 remain a mystery; regardless, this should be the biggest family hit of the spring. Indeed, Covid-related delays may have done it a favour, creating a bit of distance from the divisive The Rise Of Skywalker. Either way, this affectionate tribute to all nine films promises a few breaks from Lego formula, alongside cheeky twists on the series’ most iconic moments: Chewie interpreting “punch it” as a command to thump Threepio being one of many comic highlights.
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fter scoring the biggest global hit of its 40-year history with Monster Hunter: World, Capcom finally brings its beast-slaying series to the Switch – and Rise has every chance of supplanting its predecessor. Befitting a portable format, Rise’s protagonist is more mobile, equipped with an insectoid grapple to scale cliffs and hurdle incoming attacks. A wolf-like mount allows for faster tracking while providing extra combat support, with the monsters ranging from a ferocious fanged wyvern to a gluttonous giant toad.
orizon Zero Dawn was one of the most successful new properties of the outgoing console generation, so big things are expected from Guerrilla Games’ sequel, which sends robot hunter Aloy across Utah and Nevada. From underground ruins to tropical seas, the environments will be more diverse – maximising the studio’s bleeding-edge tech. It should be the perfect showcase for Sony’s new kit, though Guerrilla is considerately catering to late adopters by developing a PS4 version, too. Chris Schilling
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
four more
BOOKS
From hairy to Mary…
THE ART OF WOLFWALKERS An extensive prowl through Cartoon Saloon’s lupine yarn, chewing over not just the visuals, but casting, music and history of shapeshifting to boot.
THE ART OF SOUL
MY NEIGHBOUR HAYAO Lush companion to a series of San Fran exhibs showcasing artists’ homages to director Miyazaki; someone simply has to adapt the Speed poster with Sandra Bullock behind the wheel of a Catbus…
PRACTICALLY PERFECT Comic Katy Brand offers ‘Life Lessons From Mary Poppins’, guiding us through its social/political/ self-help subtexts. A mix of insightful and indulgent.
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
STAR WARS BOOKS VARIOUS | ABRAMS | DEL REY | TASCHEN
I
’ve always found myself bumping up against the celluloid ceiling,” says George Lucas in The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005 (★★★★★). “The technology that says, ‘You can’t go here, you can’t go there, you can’t do that.’” Paul Duncan’s oral history of Episodes I-III dwells substantially on Lucas’ embrace of digital cinema, how it enabled him to step into a larger world without having to go full Cecil B. DeMille with the set construction (though Liam Neeson’s 6’4” stature did necessitate building higher than planned).
No pixels, no prequels. It’s a thread that carries over into Phil Szostak’s The Art Of Star Wars: The Mandalorian (★★★★★): “The barrier of entry for Star Wars TV for many years was simply the scope,” says VFX supervisor Richard Bluff, bigging up the setextending 70-foot video walls that conjure myriad galactic vistas faster than “traditional movie techniques”. Let the past die? Not entirely. We learn that Lucas would only accept a digi-Yoda if it evoked the hand-crafted, hand-controlled ’80s original, and that Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau envisioned The Child as “look[ing] like
a Dark Crystal/Henson-style puppet”. Stop-motion even gets a shout-out, as design supervisor and Lucasfilm veteran Doug Chiang discusses hanging on to “that old-school charm” (in relation to the beastly Blurrg, but still). There’s plenty of that in these two books which would, let’s be honest, be crap on Kindle. In true Taschen style, Archives is a monster, weighing it at a lap-busting 6.24kg; all the better, though, to show off Chiang’s beautiful concept art and a bevy of rare stills, including evidence that Lucas can photobomb with the best of ’em. Star Wars’ grandmaster is a prominent voice
throughout, expounding on philosophy, politics and, in a section that has already grabbed news headlines, his rejected plans for the sequel trilogy. Some might wish for a little more commentary from the actors (though Hayden Christensen’s thoughts on playing Vader feel timely). But the focus here, and in Szostak’s tome, is more about the names below the title – an approach that chimes with both Rebecca Harrison’s BFI Classic on Episode V (reviewed in TF306) and with The Empire Strikes Back: From A Certain Point Of View (★★★★), a multi-authored anthology of 40 between-the-scenes stories. Yes, the franchise is on a mission to fill in every last narrative gap; and no, some of the tales narrated by shaggy alien wildlife don’t quite work. But there are some neat retcons – elucidating the Rogue One/Rogue Squadron connection, for example and opportunities for characters like Toryn Farr (one of only two females with a speaking role in the film) to gain a larger voice. Together, these new books form a tribute to unsung heroes and collaboration; after all, it takes a village to raise a Child. Matthew Leyland
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P IC T UR E CR EDI T S: TA S CHEN, A BR A MS , CHR ONICL E , DEL R E Y, HQ V, © & ™ 2 0 2 0 L UC A SF IL M LT D.
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The text is sparse – especially the character sections – but the visuals sing, capturing the movie’s moods via pencil, digital, clay and even wire sculpture.
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BUFF CINEMA CELEBRATED AND DEBATED. BOOSTING YOUR MOVIE GENIUS TO SUPERHERO LEVELS…
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this issue
XANDER SLANDER? WINNING TREE-OHS TAPPED OUT
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UPSTAGING INDY STRAIGHT SHOT BOWIE’S GREATEST HITS
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ELEPHANT ALLEYS CHRISTMAS, CHRONICLED PREHISTORY LESSON
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
FILM BUFF
INVESTIGATION
IS IT BOLLOCKS?
Film Buff investigates the facts behind outlandish movie plots.
ALTERNATIVE BOX OFFICE THE BIGGEST MOVIES… STARRING DAVID BOWIE
THIS MONTH ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES
Q A
In Costner’s Hood romp, Robin saves a hanging child by slicing through the rope with a well-aimed arrow. A credible bullseye moment or wide of the mark? JOHN STANLEY, EDITOR OF BOW INTERNATIONAL
ON LOCATION
I say yes [it’s credible], if the rope was under tension and the arrow had a sharp blade on the end, which is common on modern hunting arrows and some historical arrows used for warfare. The VFX shot of it suggests a pointed metal blade, although it would have to be razor-sharp. Hitting a strong rope with a normal pointed arrow, it would probably just stick in there. I’ve hit the ropes on target bales shooting at long distance and they just go in and stay, like you’d walked up and stabbed it with an arrow. The distance he shoots from doesn’t look like it’s more than about 25m, which is certainly doable with a longbow, if very difficult. Elite Olympic archers can hit a spot the size of a CD at 70m pretty consistently. Good archers with modern bows using sights can hit a spot the width of a hefty rope all day long at 18m, so I suppose Kevin Costner with a longbow could just about pull it off, too. I wouldn’t bet on him doing it first time, though. Does licking the arrow before shooting help? No. Assuming the arrow is perfectly balanced, you’re unevenly adding weight, and changing the properties of one of the three vanes, which are usually identical. You can make up arrows with the vanes all at a slight angle to help the arrow to spin, but over a short distance it might turn once or twice, but not like a rifle bullet. Archers don’t lick their arrows. I’m guessing Costner or the director thought it would look like a badass move.
VERDICT NOT BOLLOCKS
(LICKING ASIDE)
Want us to investigate if a movie scenario is bollocks? Ask us at [email protected]
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
REEL SPOTS BEHIND THE CAMERA
1980
2020
WHAT? In The Elephant Man, David Lynch’s classic B&W biopic of John Merrick, Anthony Hopkins’ doctor wanders through the back streets of Victorian London to evocative effect. WHERE? Shad Thames, London. GO? The grim stomping ground of Fagin in Dickins’ Oliver Twist is now redeveloped as chic flats, but still maintains those atmospheric gantries and cobbled street. Thanks to Georgia Ford. Snapped yourself at a film location? Send us the details at [email protected]
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01 THE PRESTIGE 2006������������������������������������������������������$110M 02 ARTHUR AND THE INVISIBLES 2006������������������$109M 03 ZOOLANDER 2001�������������������������������������������������������������$61M 04 LABYRINTH 1986����������������������������������������������������������������� $14M 05 BANDSLAM 2009����������������������������������������������������������������$12M 06 THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST 1988����������$8.9M 07 INTO THE NIGHT 1985�����������������������������������������������������$7.6M 08 THE HUNGER 1983���������������������������������������������������������������$6M 09 YELLOWBEARD 1983������������������������������������������������������$4.3M 10 TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME 1992�����������$4.2M
BOOSTING YOUR MOVIE GENIUS TO GOD-LIKE PROPORTIONS
10 OF THE BEST
TREES
Arborous aces.
01
THE WIZARD OF OZ A walk through the woods is no picnic for Kansas girl Dorothy as she makes her way to the Emerald City. Peckish for a snack, she plucks an apple only to be slapped by the angry tree. “How would you like someone to pick something off you?” it admonishes. Has a point.
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
03
The cutest sapling of them all. Mono-phrase Groot is a flora colossus from Planet X and has the nifty ability to regenerate. Which comes in particularly handy when he gets blown to smithereens and grows back even cuter. Awwww.
WA R NER BR O S , DISNE Y, EN T ER TA INMEN T ONE , 2 0 T H CEN T UR Y S T UDIO S , OP T IMUM, EN T ER TA INMEN T IN F IL M
05
AVATAR The Tree of Souls on Pandora is a psychedelic portal to the Na’vi spirit world and their deity, Eywa. A glowing, sorta weeping willow, this twinkling, luminescent growth can heal wounds and provide communication with dead ancestors. A beaut.
HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS
07
The Whomping Willow in the grounds of Hogwarts is a bit of a grump, especially if students crash a car into it. Can be immobilised by pressing a knot at its base, but you have to get through the, erm, whomping.
09
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SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON (1960) The ultimate treehouse with running water, a tortoise-shell sink, and bamboo dining set. Then there’s the honeymoon suite high in the boughs… still not enough for Mrs. Robinson, who complains about the curtains her hubby’s made.
02
A MONSTER CALLS The Liam Neeson-voiced anthropomorphic yew is a monster in stature but all heart in teaching a boy struggling to deal with the imminent loss of his terminally ill mother how to grieve and live. No, you’ve got something in your eye...
06
FANTASTIC MR. FOX The titular canny canid dreams of the perfect home for his wife and kids. So he upgrades from his humble digs at #1 Brambleon-the-Shrub to a majestic oak tree on a hill. Spacious, refined, views to die for… literally, when fox-killing farmers come calling. What the cuss!
10
POLTERGEIST Jesus. The stuff of every kid’s nightmare as the terrifying topiary outside of the bedroom window smashes wet, gnarled branches through the glass to snatch a boy out of bed and down its wooden gullet. Seriously, no (bedside) table manners.
04
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PAN’S LABYRINTH Given three tasks by a magical faun, a lonely girl in 1940s Spain walks deep into the wood to find an old, divided tree and crawls deep into its muddy underbelly to confront a giant, fantastical toad. Loaded with symbolism and gorgeous with it.
08
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS The oldest living thing to walk under the sun on Middle-earth is Treebeard, an Ent and shepherd of the Fangorn forest. His great wooden clodhoppers are perfect for squishing Hobbit-bothering Uruk-hai… JC
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
FILM BUFF
BACKGROUND ARTISTRY Celebrating the extras and bit parters stealing scenes
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK 1981 WHO Bazaar-lurking crew member
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HINDSIGHT CORNER! Stars eat their words…
TRISTRAM SHAPEERO ZOOM MOVIE AUDITION
NOVEMBER 2020 “These poor people live in these tiny apartments… like, I’m looking at his, you know, background and he’s got his TV and his, you know…” NOVEMBER 2020 “I was using the word ‘poor’ in the sense of deserving sympathy, as opposed to any economic judgment. My words were being spoken from a genuine place of appreciation for what the actors were having to endure, stuck in confined spaces, finding it within themselves to give a role-winning performance under these conditions.”
PLAIN TALKING
Learn the movie lingo
THIS MONTH HOT MIC
A mic that is on – so perhaps try not to bitch about the director between takes. Ears are listening...
FLOP CULTURE
FIGHT CLUB
I am Jack’s tapped-out box-office takings. How did David Fincher’s “theatre of mass destruction” not fill seats at cinemas? Why it was a good idea (on paper) “I see all this potential…” Between an on-his-mettle director, two awards-class leads (Ed Norton, Helena Bonham Carter), another lead (Brad Pitt) with abs sicker than Lego Batman’s, and a premillennial payload of provocations, David Fincher’s riff on Chuck Palahniuk’s punk-literary novel seemed lit to explode. What went wrong? Fight Club was planned to be indielevel, but Fincher instead secured an attention-grabbing blockbuster budget. Which might have been fine, had marketing known how to sell it. Producer Art Linson recalls horrified Fox execs “flopping around like acid-crazed carps” with confusion at screenings. As Norton said, it “was a tough one to distil”; even he chafed with Fincher over tone. But the decision to run ads during wrestling matches misjudged Fincher’s hard-swing satirical clout. Redeeming feature D(r)ubbed by one critic as a “film without a single redeeming quality”, Fight Club has it all.
TOTAL FILM | JANUARY 2021
Pitt’s swagger, Bonham Carter’s mood and Norton’s smirking rage burn bright, while Fincher’s pitch-black vision still thrills on multiple insolent fronts: as sedition, satire, stylised assault on cinematic certainty. Anti-Clubbers couldn’t even begin to keep up. What happened next? Some critics moaned so relentlessly, you’d think Fincher had farted in their meringue. Opening-night returns disappointed; Fox head Bill Mechanic may have lost his job over it. Later, a fantastically packaged disc release (shit we did need) banked Club’s cult love. A dull video game followed, but the covert echoes in – say – Mr. Robot showed a sharper understanding of Fincher’s self-aware strategies. Should it be remade? At once alarmingly prescient, very much of its pre-millennial moment and frequently misunderstood by manosphere morons, Fincher’s tonal high-wire act would be tough, perhaps impossible to match. Let’s… not do this again sometime. KH
NUMBERS BUDGET (EST.)
$63M US BOX OFFICE
$37M OSCAR NOMINATIONS
1
TF STAR RATING
★★★★★ ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE
79
%
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2 0 T H CEN T UR Y S T UDIO S , UNI V ER S A L
SPECIAL SKILLS Indy and his monkey are grieving the apparent loss of Marion, sucking up whiskey in the bazaar and, y’know, really feeling it. Shame that crew member in jeans and t-shirt has to break the spell with a jaunty swagger over Dr. Jones’ right shoulder. Tsk.
BOOSTING YOUR MOVIE GENIUS TO GOD-LIKE PROPORTIONS We can all agree the real monster is whoever designed Xander’s shirt.
IS IT JUST ME…
OR IS XANDER THE TRUE VILLAIN OF BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER?
X
asks Leila Latif
T W EN T IE T H CEN T UR Y S T UDIO S , UNI V ER S A L
ander Harris was the hilarious everyman of TV’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), a relatable, awkward teen who could unveil model good looks with the lightest of makeovers. From day one, he was a fan favourite on a show that started as a series of demonic allegories for adolescence and evolved into a rich and complex story about humanity, mortality and power. Xander became the emotional centre of the ‘Scooby Gang’, a role that was made explicit in Season 4, in which the Scoobies defeat the human-demon hybrid Adam by casting a spell to combine Buffy’s strength with Giles’ knowledge, Willow’s magic and Xander’s heart. On top of that, the show’s writers frequently gifted the
character with some of the show’s best quips and monologues. But am I alone in this, or is Xander actually the worst? He’s petty, jealous and irresponsible; he slut-shames the women in his life and treats them like garbage. As his friends become more powerful, Xander stagnates and is resentful of their success. In the final season he reflects, “They’ll never know how tough it is… To be the one who isn’t chosen. To live so near to the spotlight and never step in it.” Except – as I screamed at my television – aside from Buffy, none of them were “chosen”. Willow, Giles, Angel, Anya, Cordelia, Spike and even sad-sack Riley all worked to be the best version of themselves, while Xander never really tried. Even when a spell turns him into a soldier, he doesn’t bother to hang on
OFFICE-OMETER
THE TF STAFF VERDICT IS IN!
IT’S JUST YOU
IT’S NOT JUST YOU
to all the military knowledge he’s instantly acquired for long. Worst of all is his treatment of his love interest, the wonderful Anya. Xander constantly puts her down for being too blunt, too ambitious, too sexual. And after enduring all his whining and self-pity, she’s left at the altar! The show inexplicably suggests that having a modicum of sadness in your family is justification for a man to humiliate his fiancé on her wedding day, leaving her bloodied in her gown to face the guests alone. If there were any justice in the world, the series finale would have seen all the women in his life realising what a deadweight Xander was and leaving him to perish in the Hellmouth… or is just me? Share your reaction at www.gamesradar. com/totalfilm or on Facebook and Twitter.
LAST TIME IS JAWS OVERRATED? DAMIEN KIRKBY Definitely just you – Jaws is one of the greatest films I have ever seen. The perfect way of executing a horror film, even if the film doesn’t technically belong to that genre.
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IAN HARRIS I know this is to get a reaction. Because there is a wealth of depth to this marvel. The dichotomy of the leads in the second half is incredible. It’s a great exploration of what
masculinity should and should not be on screen. So yeah, it’s just you. RICARDO SILVA Jaws is a very good movie, yes, but it’s overrated. Spielberg
made a much better movie before (Duel) and many after. DARREN FITZPATRICK It is most certainly just you! Seen Jaws about 20 times, and it’s still great every time.
JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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BOOSTING YOUR MOVIE GENIUS TO GOD-LIKE PROPORTIONS
1. US comedy Encino Man was retitled as what in the UK? 2. True or false? Year One was the final movie directed by Harold Ramis. 3. Which prehistorical sports ’toon features the vocal talents of Eddie Redmayne, Kayvan Novak and Tom Hiddleston? 4. Who’s the leader of the Dinobots in Transformers: Age Of Extinction? 5. What role connects Rick Moranis with Stephen Baldwin?
MEDIUM 1. Which animated short is commonly credited as being the first to feature a dinosaur? 2. What’s missing from this sequence? The Meltdown; Dawn Of The Dinosaurs;
THE TF BRAIN PREHISTORIC MOVIES
Is your film knowledge mammoth? Or Crood? __ __; Collision Course 3. Who provides the voice of Captain Caveman in the recent Scoob!? 4. What’s the name of Raquel Welch’s character in One Million Years B.C.? 5. Which actor connects The Lost World: Jurassic Park with 10,000 BC?
HARD 1. Ron Perlman made his big-screen debut in which 1981 cavepeople yarn? 2. What’s the full title of Terrence Malick’s 2016 doc about Earth’s early days? 3. What type of dino is the protagonist of Dinosaur (2000)? 4. Which future married couple – one a former Bond woman, the other a music star – met while filming 1981’s Caveman? 5. The Mysterious Island, The Big Freeze and Journey Of The Brave are all entries in which franchise?
ANSWERS EASY 1. California Man 2. True 3. Early Man 4. Grimlock 5. Barney Rubble (in Flintstones) MEDIUM 1. Gertie The Dinosaur 2. Continental Drift (Ice Age sequels) 3. Tracy Morgan 4. Loana 5. Camilla Belle HARD 1. Quest For Fire 2. Voyage Of Time: Life’s Journey 3. An Iguanodon 4. Barbara Bach and Ringo Starr 5. The Land Before Time
EASY
DOUBLE TAKE
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
DISNE Y, UNI V ER S A L , PA R A MOUN T
SEE THE NEXT PAGE FOR THE ANSWERS…
There are 10 to find…
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JANUARY 2021 | TOTAL FILM
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60 Second Screenplay
SPOILER ALERT!
TF SAVES YOU THE COST OF A MOVIE EVERY MONTH. THIS ISSUE: THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES 2…
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canes, generic building-block toys and other copyright-free items. MRS. GOLDIE CLAUS And I am also here to make good on my previous cameo. I mostly just bake cookies.
JULIAN DENNISON Well, this is charming family fun. I vow to destroy it with a tonally jarring mean streak and needlessly complicated plotting.
DARBY CAMP You could try some exposition too?
EXT: BEACH, CANCUN DARBY CAMP complains to her brother JUDAH LEWIS about staying at a luxury beach resort. Also her mum KIMBERLY WILLIAMS-PAISLEY is now dating TYRESE GIBSON. JUDAH LEWIS Hey, I just want to have a nice time. Wow, this is quite an inexplicable role-reversal of our characters, isn’t it?
DARBY CAMP This would never have happened in Miracle On 34th Street.
TYRESE GIBSON starts singing. KIMBERLY WILLIAMS-PAISLEY We’ve been sent free tourist vouchers, so I’m going to leave you on your own! I’m sure it’ll be fine. EXT: THE NORTH POLE Evil elf JULIAN sends DARBY through a portal to the North Pole along with TYRESE GIBSON’s timid son JAHZIR BRUNO. They are immediately found by SANTA KURT.
SANTA KURT Welcome! This is where my elves make candy
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DARBY CAMP Well, everything seems perfectly simple. JULIAN smashes the Christmas Star, leaves Dasher for dead and uses a potion to turn the elves evil.
DARBY CAMP It just doesn’t feel like Christmas unless I’m performing an actual miracle with Santa. Ugh, this can’t get any worse.
DARBY CAMP This would never have happened in Home Alone.
MRS. GOLDIE CLAUS OK, so Santa gets all his power from a magic Christmas Star. Oh, and there’s an elf who was once exiled and swore vengeance. Just FYI.
INT: SNOWED-IN AIRPORT, BOSTON SANTA KURT and DARBY get a new star, but JULIAN steals it and sends them back to 1990 using a particularly wasted time-travel gadget. SANTA KURT We can use this again to get back to our own time, so this whole scene is pointless. Still, I might as well do a big musical number because people liked that last time. He does and solves the weather with a sax solo. Meanwhile DARBY meets her dad as a young boy. DARBY’S DAD Christmas isn’t about where you are, but who you’re with.
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DARBY CAMP My mum chose to go visit some ruins rather than spend time with me, but sure. Good advice. EXT: SANTA’S VILLAGE SANTA KURT and DARBY return and retrieve the star. Meanwhile, JAHZIR overcomes his fears by violently beating up the elves before curing them. DARBY CAMP Hooray, we saved Christmas! MRS. GOLDIE CLAUS Yes, we did! All three of us. Including me somehow. SANTA KURT and JULIAN argue again until MRS. GOLDIE CLAUS throws an exploding cookie at them. Then they make up. JULIAN DENNISON Look, I’m a happy elf again! What a colossal waste of time this has all been. EXT: BEACH, CANCUN SANTA KURT drops DARBY and JAHZIR back where they meet JUDAH, who can’t wait to hear what happened in his own sequel. KIMBERLY WILLIAMS-PAISLEY Hey, we’re back to spend what’s left of Christmas with you! DARBY CAMP I missed you. I’m a better person now and nothing can ruin this magical Christmas moment. TYRESE GIBSON starts singing. DARBY CAMP This would never have happened in Die Hard… FIN NEXT ISSUE: THE MIDNIGHT SKY
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
ANSWERS DID YOU FIND THEM ALL?
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NE T F L I X
FADE IN: EXT: THE SOUTH POLE Stroppy human elf JULIAN DENNISON watches Netflix Original movie The Christmas Chronicles.
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