Moviefone Editorial

Tag: damon-lindelof

  • ‘The Leftovers’: Is Nora’s Story True? Fans Debate Series Finale Mystery

    “The Leftovers” showrunner Damon Lindelof said there are only a couple of questions he will not answer after the series finale of his HBO drama, and one is how literally we should take Nora Durst’s story.

    Season 3 was all about belief, and it ended on a high note for Nora (Carrie Coon) and Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux), who reconnected decades later when Kevin tracked Nora down “on vacation in Australia,” a vacay he had taken every year in an effort to find her.

    The time jump confused the hell out of fans for much of the finale, and when Kevin showed up and pretended to barely know Nora, it looked like a “Back to the Future II” alternate timeline. But no. Kevin was pretending, to ease his way back into Nora’s life.

    But was Nora pretending, too, when she told him the story of what happened to her, after she went into the machine? We saw her do her Mad Libs obituary with brother Matt, then entered the machine that was meant to take her to the place where her family Departed. We stopped watching her as the liquid started to cover her mouth.

    What happened after that is the mystery we will have to let be.

    Did she back out and decide not to go through with it, hiding the rest of her days in Australia, even away from her brother Matt? Or did she succeed in finding her children, as she told Kevin, seeing an alternate world where the 98 percent of the Departed were living? She said she saw that her children were happy, and she herself didn’t belong in that world, so she tracked down the inventor of the machine to send her back. But we as viewers never followed her, as we followed Kevin when he went into international assassin mode. So … what to believe?

    There are major questions on either side of the story, whether she’s lying or telling the truth. Damon Lindelof refuses to say, other than to tell The Hollywood Reporter, “Well, I want to believe her. Let me just put it to you that way. I want to believe her. That’s the most honest answer I can give you.”

    He added, “I definitely feel like there are going to be people out there who watch the show who don’t believe her story, and then for a lot of people, it won’t even occur to them to disbelieve it.”

    Kevin Garvey believed it, to Nora’s surprise, saying, “Why wouldn’t I believe you? You’re here.” Nora ends the series by saying “I’m here.” Read more from Lindelof on that line and more, but here are some takeaways from fans, on the big Nora question:

    Want more stuff like this? Like us on Facebook.

  • ‘The Leftovers’ Season 3 Is Happening! HBO Orders Final Season


    UPDATE: It’s a Mir-a-cle! On December 10, HBO officially renewed “The Leftovers” for a “third and final season.” Sorry, Season 4, you have been ruled out. Here are some statements from HBO Programming President Michael Lombardo and show creator Damon Lindelof.

    Michael Lombardo: “It is with great enthusiasm that we welcome back Damon Lindelof, Tom Perrotta and the extraordinary talent behind THE LEFTOVERS for its third and final season. This show has proven to be one of the most distinctive HBO series and we are extremely proud of its unrivaled originality, which has resulted in such a passionate following by our HBO viewers. We admire and fully support Damon’s artistic vision and respect his decision to bring the show to its conclusion next season.”

    Damon Lindelof: “I have never, ever experienced the level of creative support and trust that I have received from HBO during the last two seasons of THE LEFTOVERS. Tom, myself and our incredible team of writers and producers put tremendous care into designing those seasons as novels unto themselves…with beginnings, middles and ends. As we finished our most recent season, it became clear to us that the series as a whole was following the same model…and with our beginning and middle complete, the most exciting thing for us as storytellers would be to bring THE LEFTOVERS to a definitive end. And by ‘definitive,’ we mean ‘wildly ambiguous but hopefully mega-emotional,’ as all things related to this show are destined to be. On behalf of our incredible crew and superb cast, we are all tremendously grateful that HBO is giving us an opportunity to conclude the show on our own terms…an opportunity like this one rarely comes along, and we have every intention of living up to it. One more thing. We are blessed by the unwavering support of our fans and the incredibly powerful voice of the critical community. We feel absolutely privileged to heat up one last helping of leftovers.”

    No idea when Season 3 will debut, since they haven’t filmed it yet, but congrats to all of us!

    ORIGINAL POST:

    Faith alone will not save “The Leftovers,” but binge-watching might.

    Season 2 of the HBO show just ended last night and it’s hard to tell whether Season 3 will happen or not. The “Game of Thrones” level fan base, but the fans who do watch the show love it — even when they’re frustrated by it — and want this thoughtful, challenging, perplexing, and profound story to continue. But the problem is that, even though many of us thought Season 2 was superior to Season 1, a lot of people stopped watching — way more than 2 percent of the viewer population just disappeared. If more viewers don’t catch up through DVR or On Demand, and the current fans don’t speak up and request a Season 3, then the whole production will depart.

    Damon Lindelof has been making the media rounds after the Season 2 finale, and everyone is asking about Season 3. Here are portions of his Q&As:

    TVLINE | When do you think there will be a decision on a Season 3 renewal?
    Damon Lindelof: I don’t have a timetable… HBO loves the show. My hope is that the finale is well received, and that there is a good feeling about the season that extends into the first couple weeks of December. And then we can ride that wave into a pickup. I will say this: If you are a fan of The Leftovers, let should let your voice be heard.

    TVLINE | I imagine you probably have some ideas in your head about what a potential third season looks like. Throw me a scoop?
    Damon Lindelof: The one thing that I would say to you is that Scott Glenn is a starting pitcher that we have used as a relieving pitcher. I would really like to see some more of Kevin Senior. And not just in the present, but in the past.

    HITFIX: So let’s talk about the future. Where do things stand, as far as you know, and what has to happen for a season 3 to exist?
    Damon Lindelof: I don’t know what the answer to the last part is. I can guess at what those things are, but no one has told me what the rules are. I know that HBO is really happy with the creative of the show; they’ve been immensely supportive of what we wanted to do, and they’ve been highly collaborative and pleased with the results. That said, all of us have to take a pragmatic look at the numbers. HBO is not Netflix or Amazon. The numbers of the show are known, and the truth of the matter is that the ratings are down from season 1. If the show was always an underperformer, the little engine that could, and the trajectory was flat, or up or down a little bit, we wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in now. The reality is, everybody felt that the show was ascending a bit, creatively and ratings-wise, towards the end of the season, and in the interim between the two seasons, we lost a lot of the audience coming into this year. That’s the situation that we’re in. The critical buzz, the critical response, and the fan response, has been much more positive this year than it was last year. And that matters; that’s important. But I think what would be great is if there were some kind of bump in the finale ratings. We actually saw an uptick in the ratings for episode 9, which I was surprised by, considering we were up against “The Walking Dead” mid-season finale and an incredible football game that I was watching and rooting for the Broncos. It would be great if that trajectory continued. It would probably be bad if we lost viewership from episode 9 to the finale. Any case that can be made for a show that is picking up momentum would be huge. But the reality is, I’m talking to HBO. We’re going to sit down before the holidays and get a sense of where everybody’s head is at. I certainly want to make more episodes of “The Leftovers.” That’s kind of how things sit.

    The Hollywood Reporter: If HBO orders a third season, how would you try to and draw in more viewers somehow? Or is one of the perks of being on premium cable that you don’t have to worry about ratings (season two averaged 0.67 million weekly viewers)?
    Damon Lindelof: Anybody who says to you that they don’t want more viewers is a much more confident individual than I am. I do subscribe to the idea that the more people watching the show, the better the show is. The more critical acclaim, the better the show is. I’m just not the person who’s like, “Hey, if I like it then f— all of y’all.” Television in particular is a medium that is designed to go out to the masses, and I would like a lot of people [to watch my show.] That said, I also understand that the subject matter is really asking for a big investment from the audience. One of the things that we can all acknowledge is that there’s so much great television out there. People who will evangelize the show, they’ll be like, “Oh my god, you’ve got to watch The Leftovers. I cried like a baby last night.” The person they’re saying that to might think, “I’m not entirely sure I want to cry like a baby?” The show does ask for an intense emotional investment, and I have to acknowledge that. And I want to keep writing that show. To HBO’s and Warner Bros.’s credit, no one is asking me how can we make the show more accessible to people. I don’t know how you would even do that. I guess one way would be, like, to cast Matthew McConaughey in the show. “McConaughey joins Leftovers season three!” But then there’s the people who love The Leftovers and have been watching it for two seasons who would probably go, “I don’t know, man. I love Matthew McConaughey, but I don’t know. That feels exploitative. It feels like a ratings grab.” So, I wouldn’t know how to begin to make the show more accessible. If you have any ideas, I’m open to good ones. I’m whorish that way.”

    Lindelof also promised, “if we get to do more, I’m going to try not to f— it up.” (Tip: Don’t cast McConaughey. That would indeed be a ratings gimmick.)

    So what say you — should there be a “Leftovers” Season 3 or not? Now is not the time to silently chain-smoke, you must speak now or forever ditch your pad of paper. We say yes to a third round, and hope they use it to really tackle and potentially answer the major questions of what happened to the departed, and why. DON’T let the mystery be!

    Want more stuff like this? Like us on Facebook.

    %Slideshow-346071%

  • What Happened to Disney’s ‘Tomorrowland’ at the Box Office?

    george clooney in tomorrowlandWe’re at a weird place in Hollywood history, one where an original idea, executed by some of the industry’s most successful writers and directors, and starring an A-list leading man, is considered an almost foolish risk — especially in a summer season marked by blockbuster sequels that are considered safe by comparison. So it is with “Tomorrowland,” Disney’s big question mark of a Memorial Day weekend movie.

    It was actually easier to predict how the reboot of a 33-year-old horror franchise (“Poltergeist“) would open this weekend, or the sequel to a franchise whose last installment came out 30 years ago (“Mad Max: Fury Road“) would open last weekend, than to guess how “Tomorrowland” would do. Indeed, predictions for “Fury Road” and “Poltergeist” (which opened this weekend with an estimated $23.0 million) were almost exactly on target. “Tomorrowland,” however, opened on the low end of expectations, with an estimated $32.2 million through Sunday and a likely $40.7 million for the four-day holiday.

    But maybe, instead of being surprised that pundits overestimated “Tomorrowland’s” prospects, we should be surprised that the film did as well as it did. With its mysterious, futuristic sci-fi premise, “Tomorrowland” faced a number of marketing challenges, and it’s not clear that Disney handled them all successfully. Indeed, the studio may have dropped the ball a couple of times. In hindsight, though, the film’s rollout offers several lessons. Among them:

    Secrecy is not always a good idea. You could think of this as a lemons-into-lemonade marketing approach. The premise of “Tomorrowland” is hard to explain in a sentence or a 30-second ad because of the story’s complex mythology, so hiding it behind intrigue could have been a smart move. More likely, it’s because secrecy has been standard operating procedure for co-screenwriter Damon Lindelof, from his days running TV’s “Lost” to “Prometheus” and “Star Trek Into Darkness” (even though those films were extensions of well-known movie franchises). Either way, viewers may have been drawn in to see what all the mystery was about. But it also may have put off viewers who weren’t sufficiently intrigued and would rather spend their hard-earned ticket dollars on a known premise, or those who saw the title and dismissed the film as yet another Disney movie based on a Disneyland attraction.

    George Clooney is not a box office draw. Yes, he’s the king of Hollywood, but he doesn’t sell tickets in proportion to people’s fascination with him as a celebrity gossip figure. His biggest hits were 14 and 15 years ago (“Ocean’s Eleven” and “The Perfect Storm”). If you don’t count his supporting role in Sandra Bullock’s “Gravity,” he hasn’t had a movie open above $30 million since “Ocean’s Thirteen” eight years ago. (That’s also his last movie, other than “Gravity,” to gross more than $100 million in North America.) Then again, that makes the $32.2 million premiere of “Tomorrowland” all the more impressive — especially since Clooney is all but absent from the film for the first hour. Plus, as a charismatic actor, he seems to appeal equally to men and women, which is borne out by Disney exit-polling that shows an almost even split between male and female ticketbuyers for “Tomorrowland.”

    Tougher-than-expected competition. Not only did “Tomorrowland” have to compete against “Poltergeist,” but it also had some very strong recent releases to contend with. Both”Pitch Perfect 2″ and “Mad Max: Fury Road” opened very well last weekend, with “PP2″ far outstripping expectations. Both held up strongly this weekend, too, with”PP2” close on “Tomorrowland”‘s heels (it earned an estimated $30.3 million) and “Fury Road” taking in an estimated $23.9 million. Along with “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” which crossed the $400 million threshold in domestic sales in just its fourth weekend of release, that’s a lot of well-known and well-liked properties for an enigma like “Tomorrowland” to go up against.

    Memorial Day openings are not a license to print money. Sure, last year, “X-Men: Days of Future Past” enjoyed a $110.6 million opening, but that was a well-reviewed sequel to a well-established franchise, not to mention a film whose casting brought together fan favorites from the older and newer installments. On the other hand, last Memorial Day also saw the dismal debut of “Blended,” the third romantic-comedy collaboration from Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. It premiered with just $17.7 million, about a third of what their “50 First Dates” had opened with a decade earlier. Then again, reviews for that movie were terrible, and even critic-ignoring Sandler fans smelled a stinker. The moral of the story: Not even a four-day summer-kickoff holiday weekend can save a poorly made movie.

    The “select” Thursday preview. Thursday-night openings have become a standard way for Hollywood to boost the weekend premiere tallies, offer an early gauge of viewer interest, and generate additional word-of-mouth from those moviegoers enthusiastic enough to want to be the first to see the film. The “Tomorrowland” Thursday screenings, however, were unusual in that, instead of taking place in all or most of the movie’s 3,972 venues, Disney held them in just 701 theaters. The studio referred to this as a “special limited engagement,” with the theaters supposedly limited to those palatial movie screens on which director Brad Bird’s spectacle could enjoy the best possible screening conditions. (This sort of selectivity reminded me of the scene in “This Is Spinal Tap,” where the band’s manager is asked whether the fact that the group is playing smaller venues on its current tour means the musicians are less popular, and he spins, “No, it just means their appeal is becoming more selective.”)

    Yes, there could be some fanboy-servicing involved in just screening the movie in theaters where its visuals will look best (again, to get the movie’s biggest potential fans a chance to generate the best possible word-of-mouth). And there could also be some obfuscation on Disney’s part; the theater count was so small that box-office observers couldn’t fairly compare it’s Thursday-night take of $725,000 to the Thursday debuts of blockbusters that opened on four or five times as many screens. Then again, “Tomorrowland” could have earned an extra $2 or $3 million if it had played on all screens available to it on Thursday night. Did the studio not want to spend the money to launch a full Thursday premiere, or was it just worried that the numbers wouldn’t be that impressive? It didn’t help word-of-mouth much. The movie earned a B grade at Cinemascore, which indicates a less-than-enthusiastic set of recommendations from early viewers.

    “Tomorrowland” has been in the making for at least five years. That would seem to be plenty of time for a studio that’s as good at marketing as Disney is to come up with a foolproof strategy. But these days, nothing is foolproof there unless it has the names Marvel or Pixar or “Star Wars” attached. Anything beyond that comfort zone, apparently, is a steep challenge.
    %Slideshow-289520%

  • Damon Lindelof Reveals How ‘Tomorrowland’ Is a Lot Like Hogwarts

    Damon Lindelof at New York Comic-ConLOST” and the “Star Trek” reboot, Lindelof’s latest venture teams him with director Brad Bird (who can’t write Pixar’s “The Incredibles 2″ fast enough) in their long awaited sci-fi adventure “Tomorrowland.”

    “Tomorrowland” functions as one of those movies that doesn’t quite fit into any one genre. There is of course sci-fi, but mixed in are adventure, action, drama, comedy, fantasy — it’s as if Lindelof and Bird threw a little bit of everything into a bowl, mixed it together, poured out the contents, baked it for two years and are now ready to serve it to audiences this weekend.

    During our conversation with Lindelof, we talk about how this movie came to fruition, where the pins came from, dealing with time travel (again), how they got George Clooney to do a summer movie (his last true summer movie was eight years ago in “Ocean’s Thirteen”), and which scene absolutely needs to be seen in IMAX theaters.

    Moviefone: Since there are so many genres this movie can fit in, how did you pitch this to Disney?

    Damon Lindelof: Interestingly enough, as opposed to me saying, “I want a meeting with you guys, I have a pitch for you,” it developed much more organically. I was having lunch with Sean Bailey who is the president of production at Disney and he asked me, “What do you think a Disney movie is? Because obviously we have Marvel,” and this was before they bought Lucasfilm. I said, “Listen, I’ll be honest with you, when I first heard there was going to be a “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie, I thought it was the dumbest idea I’d ever heard and then I saw the trailer and it works because the ride feels familiar and you can do whatever story you want. There are no characters on that ride, just as long as there’s a dog with keys in its teeth at some point, I feel like you’ve kind of earned the title.

    So, that’s when you started looking inside the park for ideas?

    Right, so I would be looking inside the parks for great ideas and I said, “If there was a movie called ‘Tomorrowland,’ I don’t know what it’s about, but I’d go and see that.” He said, “What would it be?” and I said, “For me, the jumping off point would be a ‘Close Encounters’ approach, which is, somebody sees something they weren’t supposed to see and they come to feel this means something and need to know more about it and go in pursuit of it.” Obviously, “Close Encounters” is a one-of-a-kind, iconic film, but there’s no bad guy. The U.S. government is sort of a pseudo-bad guy, but with our movie, you probably need there to be a bad guy. I said to him “‘Tomorrowland’ is Hogwarts, and the magicians don’t want you to find it, but in this case, instead of magicians, you’ve got geniuses.”

    Interesting. So what happened after that? When did the now ubiquitous pins come in to play?

    The next time I met with them, I think I had the idea of the pins, and I was pitching a much more international approach, like there would be five main characters who lived all over the world and each one of them came in contact with one of the pins and it was about them coming together.

    You mentioned “Pirates of the Caribbean,” and that’s obviously a huge franchise now that is driven by action and comedy. When you started putting the pieces together for “Tomorrowland,” did it automatically become a sci-fi movie, given your background?

    I think the title “Tomorrowland” seems to conjure a sci-fi premise, but I kind of went out of my way to make this an adventure movie that used science fiction language. I said, “If this movie is going to work, probably fifteen percent of it is going to take place in Tomorrowland. I think again, following that “Close Encounters” approach, we’re going to show you a lot less aliens. I wanted the majority of the movie to take place in the world that we know with evidence and hints of Tomorrowland and then ultimately end up there. You’re always looking for ways to make the sci-fi accessible.

    Did you ever consider going 3D with this movie, or was it always 2D?

    We always wanted the movie to be in 2D. Brad kind of felt that if we were going to do it in 3D, we would need to shoot it in 3D because he didn’t want to do the conversion, and if we’re shooting it in 3D, we’re probably going to be distracted from making it the best it can be, so we made the decision early on to keep it 2D.

    Let’s switch to the actors. Britt Robertson really nails the role of Casey, and I know that a few other actresses were considered for that role before her. What was it about Britt that made her the perfect actress for the part?

    I think there are many aspects to it when you’re casting for a part like this, where you have to essentially have to carry the movie for an hour by yourself before George Clooney even steps onto the screen and then it becomes about chemistry. I think for Britt, she had to be able to sell wonder and optimism in the face of pessimism. Once we had Raffey [Cassidy], who we cast before Britt, it was about flying Raffey over from the UK and putting them in a room together. We had narrowed it down to a couple of actresses for Casey, and Britt just crushed it with her. They just had great chemistry together. Then it just became undeniable.

    Considering George doesn’t do summer movies, why do you think he was interested in the role of Frank?

    I think George totally embodies everything that the movie is about, and he’s had great range in that he’s both directed and performed intense dramatic roles but also comedic roles, and you kind of need someone who can do both of those things. More importantly, George as a guy, both in the movies he chooses to make as an actor and George Clooney the individual, is very idealistic. He identifies wrongs in society and says, “I’m not going to look at Darfur and say, ‘Boy what a mess.’ I’m going to look at Darfur and I’m going to get satellites to beam images of the tragedy and then goes to meet with world leaders to try and work on a resolution.” So if we’re going to George and ask him to be in a summer movie, which he doesn’t do, there needs to be some kind of merit to it.

    So he jumped at the substance more than the sizzle?

    We’re trying to capture the idealism of the movie, which some might perceive as a little corny, like, “Oh, there’s a message to it,” he just totally jumped on it on that level. Look, we all love superhero movies and sequels and I’m going to go pay to see every single one of those movies this summer, but if you’re going to do something original, albeit based on an existing Disney property, it should have some value and I think that’s what he wanted to do.

    Movie fans in particular like to nit-pick time travel. I noticed you sort of side-stepped the whole Doc Brown, “Back to the Future” thing about not interacting with your future self and so on. How did that develop to keep the future and the past and the present all separate?

    After season five of “LOST” and the “Star Trek” reboot, I was like, “I’m never doing time travel again, ever, ever, ever.” Whether you do paradox or non-paradox, you just can’t win. So with “Tomorrowland,” it was like, what if it wasn’t time travel but it was a machine they built that showed them and told them this is your definite future, but then the whole movie becomes about, well… is it? I was always catalyzed by this Arabian fable called “Appointment in Samarra,” which is all about cheating death and, in many ways, is a time travel story. Basically, if you were told about the moment you were going to die and you knew about it in advance, could you avoid it? I always thought that would be a really cool story to tell in the context of a science fiction premise where you built a machine that did that.

    Finally, there are some really big scenes in this movie that stand out. Which scene do you think movie fans absolutely must see on the big screen, particularly in IMAX?

    I think Casey’s extended pin sequence. She rides her bike out and touches the pin and takes this four minute ride through Tomorrowland that Brad designed as one contiguous shot without any cuts. I feel like that, in itself, is sort of worth the price of admission because we’re putting this on an IMAX screen, we’re not using IMAX cameras to shoot it, so we should probably justify it. As a fanboy and a moviegoer, I’d probably say, “Ok, I’m glad I saw it.”

    “Tomorrowland” opens nationwide Friday, May 22nd.
    %Slideshow-265006%

  • Yes, That’s Space Mountain in the New Poster for ‘Tomorrowland’

    tomorrowland posterIt’s no secret that around here, we’re very excited about “Tomorrowland,” Brad Bird‘s new action adventure outing starring George Clooney and loosely based around the land of the same name that can be explored in Disney parks worldwide. What the literal connection between the movie and the “land” remained vague; mostly the connection is spiritual. This is, after all, about that utopian promise that Walt Disney and similar futurists envisioned for the human race. But this new poster, released ahead of a brand new trailer (set to debut on Monday), makes that connection more concrete.

    If you look at the poster and look directly to the left of the small, overall-wearing character on the left (initially we thought that this was Raffey Cassidy’s young robot character Athena, but it appears to be a child version of Clooney’s Frank Welker, played by Thomas Robinson) amidst the glittering skyline is a distinct and memorable building… Yes, that’s Space Mountain.

    Space Mountain, of course, is one of the most iconic attractions at the Disney theme parks. It originally opened in 1975 at Florida’s Magic Kingdom and in 1977 at California’s Disneyland. (It has subsequently opened at Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland; Shanghai Disneyland is set to include a Space Mountain-ish attraction themed to the world of “Tron.”) It’s a dark, high-speed coaster that sends you hurdling through the cosmos. Of course. I last rode the ride at the end of January in Florida. And it was just as magical as the first time I rode it as a young tot.

    Now how does the ride fit into “Tomorrowland?” That remains to be seen…

    “Tomorrowland” opens on May 22nd.tomorrowland poster%Slideshow-265006%