Moviefone Editorial

Tag: a24

  • ‘Talk to Me’ Sequel in the Works

    'Talk 2 Me' logo for upcoming 'Talk to Me' sequel.
    ‘Talk 2 Me’ logo for upcoming ‘Talk to Me’ sequel.

    While it seems unlikely that Greta Gerwig or anyone from Team ‘Barbie’ will be rushing to make a sequel (though its enormous box office surely has studio backers Warners ready to drive dump trucks of money up to the door of anyone who agrees), one of the other success stories of the summer is going the follow-up route.

    A24 Films has announced that it has ordered a sequel to creepy, stylish horror thriller ‘Talk to Me’.

    The movie, which the company acquired out of Sundance, was directed by Australian sibling duo Danny and Michael Philippou, who cut their teeth in the world of YouTube. And the original concept came from, of all people, Daley Pearson, who played Daryl in Taika Waititi’s ‘Thor’ shorts and is also one of the creative minds of kids’ series ‘Bluey’.

    Now A24 has the Philippous back to direct a sequel, with Danny also set to co-write the script once again with Bill Hinzman.

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    What was the story of ‘Talk to Me’?

    Sophie Wilde in 'Talk to Me.'
    Sophie Wilde in ‘Talk to Me.’ Credit: Matthew Thorne.

    The movie stars Sophia Wilde as teenager Mia who, on the anniversary of her mother’s death, gathers for a seance with her friends. They’ve learned of a strange, spooky ceramic-encased hand which, according to videos going viral on social media, allows people to channel the dead.

    Things take a dark turn as the boundaries between worlds collapses and Mia is haunted by supernatural visions.

    ‘Talk to Me’ also stars Miranda Otto, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Otis Dhanji and Zoe Terakes, and has been praised for its clever visuals but also the grounded, human story of grief and terror at its core. Made for $4.5 million, it has so far taken more than $23 million at the domestic box office.

    Related Article: ‘Talk to Me’ Exclusive Interview

    What will the ‘Talk to Me’ sequel be about?

    Michael Philippou and Danny Philippou direct 'Talk to Me.'
    Michael Philippou and Danny Philippou direct ‘Talk to Me.’

    No plot details have yet been released, but Danny Philippou did say this about coming up with ideas:

    “While writing the first film, you can’t help but write scenes for a second film. So, there’s so many scenes. The mythology was so thick, and if A24 gave us the opportunity, we wouldn’t be able to resist. I feel like we’d jump at it.”

    And now, they have.

    What else can we expect from ‘Talk to Me’?

    Zoe Terakes in 'Talk to Me.'
    Zoe Terakes in ‘Talk to Me.’ Credit: Andre Castellucci.

    While the sequel will no doubt have to wait –– since even the spirits of the dead can’t convince studios to pay a fair wage to writers and actors, so strikes by both continue to pause both development and production (though A24, as an independent, could secure a waiver to keep working on the new movie) –– there is already a prequel in existence, which the directors made based on the cold open of the film.

    As you’ll know if you’ve seen ‘Talk to Me’, it features Cole (Ari McCarthy) and Duckett (Sunny Johnson), as Cole is desperately trying to track down his brother at a house party. It’s quickly realized that Duckett is possessed by something, and so the scene becomes disturbingly violent, as spectators either stare in horror or scatter with their camera phones in hand.

    Here’s Danny talking to The Hollywood Reporter about the prequel:

    “We actually shot an entire Duckett prequel already. It’s told entirely through the perspective of mobile phones and social media, so maybe down the line we can release that.”

    Sophie Wilde in 'Talk to Me.'
    Sophie Wilde in ‘Talk to Me.’ Credit: Matthew Thorne.
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    Other Movies Similar to ‘Talk to Me’:

    Buy Tickets: ‘Talk to Me’ Movie Showtimes

    Buy Horror Movies On Amazon

  • Hugh Grant Heads for Horror Movie ‘Heretic’

    Hugh Grant plays Forge in 'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' from Paramount Pictures and eOne.
    (L to R) Hugh Grant plays Forge in ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ from Paramount Pictures and eOne.

    Hugh Grant, a man not normally known for starring in horror movies –– please, no jokes about ‘Nine Months’ or ‘Mickey Blue Eyes’ –– is taking a rare dip into scary territory for a new film.

    He’s boarding ‘Heretic’ which has a script from, and will be directed by, ‘A Quiet Place’ duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods for arthouse movie specialists A24.

    Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant backstage during the live ABC telecast of the 95th Oscars® at the Dolby® Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 12, 2023.
    (L to R) Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant backstage during the live ABC telecast of the 95th Oscars® at the Dolby® Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 12, 2023.

    What’s the story of ‘Heretic’?

    With the details and deals still all coming together, ‘Heretic’ is still mostly a mystery at this point. Still, Deadline has heard that it is rumored to center on two young women of faith who are lured into a cat-and-mouse game in the home of an eccentric man.

    Grant, unless he’s really taking a chance this time, is most likely playing the eccentric. We can well imagine him switching from charming to creepy.

    It’s the latest project from Beck and Woods, who last co-wrote and co-directed sci-fi movie ‘65’, which saw Adam Driver as an astronaut from another planet crash-landing on Earth during the time of the dinosaurs.

    A24 might appear an unlikely landing spot for their new outing, but the company has never shied away from genre, and saw ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ take off to box office and Oscar success.

    When he’s not busy being snarky and obscure on red carpets, Grant has been enjoying something of a renaissance in his career of late, thanks partly to a vanity-free and sometimes showstopping turn as preening performer Phoenix Buchanan in 2017’s ‘Paddington 2’ and his switch to a more villainous side with the likes of Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Gentlemen’ and ‘Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre’. He also tapped into a darker aspect in HBO miniseries ‘The Undoing’ playing the cheating husband of Nicole Kidman.

    Hugh Grant in StudioCanal's 'Paddington 2.'
    Hugh Grant in StudioCanal’s ‘Paddington 2.’

    Related Article: Movie Review: ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’

    More recently, he was smooth-talking conman Forge Fitzwilliam in ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’, chewing the scenery and proving to be one of the highlights of a movie not short of them.

    The fun career choices are continuing as later this year, he’ll be seen as, of all things, an Oompa-Loompa, opposite Timothée Chalamet in Warner Bros.’ origin story prequel film ‘Wonka’. That movie, due out on December 15th, was directed by ‘Paddington’s Paul King.

    In keeping with the quirkiness, another movie awaiting release (this time via Netflix) is Jerry Seinfeld’s ‘Unfrosted’ the story of rival cereal companies vying to create what became the Pop-Tart.

    Grant will also be back on HBO with ‘The Regime’, a drama with satirical underpinnings starring Kate Winslet that follows the unravelling of an authoritarian regime. That one is set to arrive next year but doesn’t have a specific date yet.

    Like ‘The Regime’, it’s too early for ‘Heretic’, but we can’t imagine it much before late 2024 at the earliest, particularly with the writers’ strike still in full swing.

    Regé-Jean Page, Sophia Lillis, Michelle Rodriguez, Chris Pine and Hugh Grant from Paramount's 'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' at San Diego Comic-Con 2022.
    (L to R) Regé-Jean Page, Sophia Lillis, Michelle Rodriguez, Chris Pine and Hugh Grant from Paramount’s ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ at San Diego Comic-Con 2022.

    Other Movies Starring Hugh Grant:

    Buy Hugh Grant Movies On Amazon

     

  • Jessie Buckley’s Haunted in the New Trailer for ‘Men’

    Jessie Buckley in 'Men.'
    Jessie Buckley in A24’s ‘Men.’

    Don’t you hate it when you take yourself off to a seemingly quiet, picturesque place to stay in the countryside to recover from a personal tragedy, only to walk straight into yet more horror? Us too.

    But that’s exactly what poor Jesse Buckley (or her character Harper, at least) must deal with in the trippy, freaky new trailer for Alex Garland’s new thriller ‘Men’.

    The story sees Buckley’s Harper still in shock following the apparent – emphasis on that last bit, since the new promo makes it clear there could well be more to it – of her husband, played by ‘I May Destroy You’ and ‘Gangs of London’ actor Paapa Essiedu, who flung himself from the balcony of their London apartment.

    Trying to recuperate from that tragedy as she processes her grief, Harper retreats alone to the beautiful English countryside, hoping to have found a place to heal.

    But someone or something from the surrounding woods appears to be stalking her. What begins as simmering dread becomes a fully formed nightmare, inhabited by her darkest memories and fears.

    The biggest issue she must confront, aside from that scary stalker, is seemingly multiple versions of the same man, albeit appearing in different forms. They’re all played by recent Bond movies veteran Rory Kinnear. He pops up as the man who rents a house to Harper, the local priest (who tries to convince her she was responsible for her husband’s death), a grumpy local barman and, most disturbingly, a boy who wears an unsettling mask, but honestly looks worse when he takes that off.

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    Garland, who also wrote the script, looks to be exploring ideas of perception, guilt, grief, and unease here, pushing the atmosphere to the forefront (at least in this trailer).

    After some time spent bringing TV drama ‘Devs’ to life, it’s exciting to see Garland back working on the big screen, and hopefully digging into smart, compulsive thriller territory once more following the likes of ‘Annihilation’ and ‘Ex Machina’. As with the former, ‘Men’ appears to promise no easy answers, but bags of tone and a typically great cast.

    Buckley has been putting in excellent turns for years, in movies such as ‘The Lost Daughter’ (for which she’s nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category), ‘Judy’ and ‘Wild Rose’.

    Kinnear, meanwhile, is a reliable character sort who has been seen on screens big and small beyond his Bond work: he’s a pompous ship’s Admiral in HBO Max’s pirate comedy ‘Our Flag Means Death’ right now and was in the channel’s superb UK drama ‘Years and Years’.

    The new trailer is stylish and shocking, building on the feeling of the teaser, and it’s certainly one we’re looking forward to in what should be another good year for thoughtful horror. We can look forward to Jordan Peele’s return with ‘Nope’ and the more viscerally vengeful likes of Robert Eggers’ ‘The Northman’ this year too.

    ‘Men’ will be creeping into theaters from May 20th.

    'Men' Poster
    A24’s ‘Men’ is written directed by Alex Garland.
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  • ‘Climax’ Director Gaspar Noé Had No Idea They Were Making More ‘Avatar’ Movies

    ‘Climax’ Director Gaspar Noé Had No Idea They Were Making More ‘Avatar’ Movies

    A24

    Right now there’s a movie in theaters that features a strong female character, some absolutely killer soundtrack cuts, is set in 1995 and will blow your mind. No, I’m not talking about “Captain Marvel.” I’m talking about “Climax.”

    From our friends at A24, “Climax” made a splash at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, where the heightened tale of a troupe of dancers (led by the mesmerizing Sofia Boutella) is preparing for a tour of the United States. At a party they dance the night away … until the effects from a batch of sangria dosed with LSD takes hold. From there, it’s absolute mayhem, and honestly, the less you know about the actual storyline, the better. It unfolds in beautiful and terrifying ways and you will be riveted.

    We were lucky enough to talk to the film’s brilliant writer-director, Gaspar Noé, the provocateur behind similarly mind-shattering epics as “Enter the Void,” “Love” and “Irreversible,” about when the movie was going to be a documentary, how the dancers came up with their own dialogue, and what his relationship with Thomas Bangalter aka the silver robot from Daft Punk, is all about. Oh, and we break the news to him that there will be several more “Avatar” sequels on the way. (He’s a big fan of the first film.)

    Moviefone: So I had read that that this project was initially going to be at a documentary. I was wondering if you could talk about how you decided to make it a narrative.

    Noé: Well, I sort of make an excuse. I love the country and if you tell the producers that you want to shoot a narrative movie, they would ask for a script that I didn’t have. So I said, “Well I want to do a documentary.” And one of the main reasons I wanted to do the film was I was hypnotized by these dancers. I said, “Yeah I would love to film them, with their body language and kinetic skills.”

    So at a point I had to make a decision either to make a documentary about this type of dancing or should I mix this kind of dancing with this idea for a movie that I had before. So I went to see my producers with my idea. They said, “If you make it very cheap in 15 days and we can pay for it.” And one month later we had all the dancers and crew on location and were finding additional financing. I would say this kind of production couldn’t happen anywhere else but France.

    So all of the dialogue between the dancers — did they improvise all of that?

    No. When I was putting two characters together, the boy and the girl who play brother and sister are not brother and sister in real life, so I said, “Can you pretend to be jealous?” And they were improvising around the characters I was presenting. When the guy says, “I want to f*ck them all,” I was telling to them the situation and the characters and they would use their own words. I would film them for 20 minutes and in the editing process I would just keep one minute. For example you have the two guys talking in a very dirty way and I knew they were very funny when they were talking about sex. So I said, “Can you talk very sleazy?” Again, I filmed them for 20 minutes and they were just having fun pretending to be drunk. And I could have never invented that dialogue. They’re not themselves, they’re pretending to be someone else but using their own language.

    Well I wanted to ask about the beginning of the movie and the videotapes on either side of the frame.

    Actually, when we were almost finishing shooting the movie, my line producer was driving me home in his car and he said, “What a pity we don’t see more of the dancers talking.” We were three days away from the end of the shoot and I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “I love how they talk, they’re so funny and so charismatic.” So the next day I decided I would set up the camera in one of the rooms at the location and the actors, one after the other, when they were free, I would bring them into the room and interview them with my assistant director. So I was playing the voice of the DJ and she was playing the part of Sofia Boutella, the choreographer looking for dancers for her show in the movie. They were improvising their answers, remembering that they were playing a character from the 90s. And I kept the best answers of all of them.

    And because the video we used had the aspect ratio of the 90s, 1:33, I had to put that inside of the CinemaScope frame, I had a black bands on either side. I thought, Oh I should put the tape in the middle of the frame and have my favorite books from the 80s and 90s, my collection of VHS around it. And you see some of the movies that inspired me. There are some VHS that I have put in there but I didn’t have them — “Shivers” by David Cronenberg, his first feature film, I could have also put “The Towering Inferno,” a movie I watched 30 times in a row as a kid.

    I wanted to ask about your relationship with Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk.

    In the case of “Climax,” I asked him if he had some tracks from the 90s he didn’t use. Because initially I only wanted to use tracks from before 1995 because the movie takes place in 1995, and he gave me a track that we called “Sangria” but he never used. I think he created it in 1994. And, yeah, he helps me out in editing and thanks to him we got “Rollin’ and Scratchin’” by Daft Punk from the record label. Basically he’s a genius. He’s a musician but he’s also a filmmaker, he’s directed movies too. And he’s a friend. It’s personal.

    Lightstorm/Fox

    Before “Love” came out you talked about “Avatar” and your love of that 3D experience. Are you still in love with 3D? And are you excited about the new “Avatar” movies?

    There’s going to be a new “Avatar” now?

    Yeah, there’s going to be four of them!

    Huh. I like the movie but what I meant about “Avatar” was I was just discovering how good the 3D could be nowadays. And when “Gravity” came out, it was like, Wow. 3Ds movies from the 50s, 60s, 70s would give you a headache. I remember watching VR movies with the helmet and getting a headache so I’d wait a few more years before I try to do VR. The image isn’t enough to be taken seriously.

    Is that something you’d want to do, a VR project?

    Yeah maybe. But it’s a very lonely experience. I like showing movies in a big theater to many people at a time. I have this complex. I’ve never been to a church in my whole life and never seen a priest give lessons. But I can understand how a priest feels when he’s facing 300 people.

    “Climax” is out now and expanding (again) this week. Do not miss it.