Moviefone Editorial

Tag: free-fire

  • Bob Odenkirk to Star in Action Movie ‘Normal’

    Bob Odenkirk in 'Nobody.'
    Bob Odenkirk in ‘Nobody.’ Photo: Universal Pictures.

    Preview:

    • Bob Odenkirk’s back action for ‘Normal’.
    • ‘Meg 2: The Trench’ director Ben Wheatley will make the movie.
    • ‘Nobody’ veteran Derek Kolstad wrote the script.

    Though we’re more used to seeing Bob Odenkirk use his quick wits than his fists as Jimmy McGill in ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Better Call Saul’, he proved he was more than up to the task of getting into clashes with 2021 action movie ‘Nobody’.

    That film, directed by Ilya Naishuller and written by ‘John Wick’ veteran Derek Kolstad, saw Odenkirk as a an underestimated and overlooked dad and husband, who when his house is robbed, reveals his past as a government agent and all-round badass who takes on some dangerous Russian thugs.

    Though they’ve talked about a sequel to that movie, Odenkirk and Kolstad have now reunited instead for a new action concept called ‘Normal’, which has British filmmaker Ben Wheatley attached to direct.

    Related Article: Vince Gilligan Leaving the ‘Breaking Bad’ Universe Behind For New Show

    What’s the story of ‘Normal’?

    Bob Odenkirk in 'Nobody.'
    Bob Odenkirk in ‘Nobody.’ Photo: Universal Pictures.

    The new movie follows Ulysses (Odenkirk), who is thrust into the temporary role of the sheriff for the small sleepy town Normal after the previous officer’s untimely death.

    When the town’s bank is robbed by an out-of-town couple, Ulysses arrives on the scene to find that the town is hiding much more sinister deep-seated secrets under its surface and everyone –– from the bartender to the priest –– is in on it.

    And now Ulysses, who’s up until now focused only on running away from the demons of his past, must uncover the full extent of this criminal conspiracy.

    Marc Provissiero, who worked with Odenkirk and Kolstad on ‘Nobody’, is aboard to produce ‘Normal’ alongside them.

    WME Independent is representing the movie, and the distribution rights will be on sale at this month’s European Film Market, which kicks off next week. We doubt it’ll be long before someone snaps this up –– might Universal, which saw ‘Nobody’ earn nearly $60 million from a $16 million budget, take a chance?

    What has Ben Wheatley worked on before?

    2016's 'Free Fire.'
    2016’s ‘Free Fire.’ Photo: StudioCanal.

    US audiences might know Wheatley best from his most recent movie, the Jason Statham-starring giant shark sequel ‘Meg 2: The Trench’, but he’s been something of a genre-hopper.

    He got his start in low-budget, high-bloodshed horror movies in the UK, including ‘Down Terrace’ and ‘Kill List’ and has made his way through different styles of films such as social satire ‘High Rise’ and a new adaptation of the Daphne Du Maurier novel ‘Rebecca’, famously previously brought to screens by Alfred Hitchcock.

    He proved he can make action movies interesting via 2016’s ‘Free Fire’, which pitched two rival criminal gangs against each other in a shoot-out and a game of survival.

    When will ‘Normal’ be in theaters?

    Since it has yet to start shooting or find a distributor, there is no scheduled release date for ‘Normal’ just yet.

    Bob Odenkirk in 'Nobody.'
    Bob Odenkirk in ‘Nobody.’ Photo: Universal Pictures.

    Other Movies Similar to ‘Normal’:

    Buy Bob Odenkirk Movies On Amazon

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  • Here’s Why ‘Fate of the Furious’ Can Only Be Stopped by ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ at the Box Office

    The “Fast and Furious” franchise may be starting to run out of gas after eight installments, but it still had a few laps left in it this weekend. Even after losing 60 percent of its business from last week’s debut, and even with five new wide releases opening, “Fate of the Furious” still motored to an easy victory this weekend, with an estimated $38.7 million.

    If anything, “Fate” won again, not because it was so beloved, but because the battle was so bitter among the also-rans and the non-threat of new releases. Here’s why none of them could pull ahead of the pack for a clear win, or even a serious challenge to “Fate.”

    1. The Crowded Field
    Five new wide releases is really too many for the multiplex to handle, especially with three holdover blockbusters (“Fate,” “The Boss Baby,” and “Beauty and the Beast“) already sucking up much of the oxygen. It’s no wonder that these new movies all but cannibalized each other, or that none of them was able to open higher than fourth place. That was Disney’s “Born in China,” which sold an estimated $5.1 million in tickets and averaged $3,413 per screen.

    That’s a just-okay average, but it’s way better than its four new rivals, none of which managed even a $2,000 per-screen average. Which means that most of the new films spent the weekend playing to largely empty theaters.

    2. Wide Releases, Disappointing Movies
    “Unforgettable” was widely expected to be the top new movie, since it was opening on the most screens. Even so, its theater count was just 2,417. They couldn’t really have booked many more. The top three movies had more than 11,000 screens already taken. Add “Going in Style” and “Smurfs: The Lost Village,” and you’ll see that the top five holdovers were hogging an average of 3,423 screens each.

    The five new releases were able to book only half that many, averaging 1,768 screens each. Even if “Unforgettable” had enjoyed as high a per-screen average as “Fate” ($8,936), it still couldn’t have grossed more than $21.6 million.

    3. Female Audiences Stayed Away From Theaters
    “Unforgettable” was also supposed to serve as counter-programming to “Fate,” the idea being that the female-driven thriller would attract women put off by all the testosterone of the action sequel. Unfortunately, nearly everyone else had the same idea.

    Historical epic/wartime romance “The Promise” was also best suited for female viewers, and so was found-footage sci-fi/horror film “Phoenix Forgotten.” Even “Free Fire,” a crime caper marked by wall-to-wall macho gunplay, had as its biggest star the feisty Brie Larson. Of course, it’s possible that, rather than let any of these movies compete for their ticket dollars, female viewers just went to see “Beauty and the Beast” again.

    4. Rotten Tomatoes Scores
    To the extent that these movies, particularly “Unforgettable” and “The Promise,” were depending on older viewers, they needed to earn strong reviews. Judging by their aggregate scores on Rotten Tomatoes, they did not. But the dismal 25 percent fresh rating for “Unforgettable” and the weak 45 percent score for “Promise” don’t really tell the whole story.

    Remember, RT is a measure of consensus opinion, not of what critics thought of a particular movie’s strengths and weaknesses. It counts all reviews as either positive or negative; it has no way of accounting for nuance or middling reviews. This polarization effect really hurt “Unforgettable” and “Promise.”

    For “Unforgettable,” positive and negative reviews were divided largely along gender lines. Male critics dismissed it, while female critics appreciated its camp value and the willingness of its female writer and female director to explore the issue of domestic violence against women. But since male critics far outnumber female critics, the consensus score measured by RT was overwhelmingly negative.

    For “The Promise,” the first mainstream, big-budget Hollywood movie to address the Armenian genocide of 1915, critics were divided between those who felt its well-meaning take on history made up for its listlessness as a drama, and those who did not. The appreciation of the film as a flawed-but-noble work is the sort of half-hearted endorsement that RT scores are not built to acknowledge.

    5. Audiences Didn’t Want Whatever “Free Fire” Was Selling
    Male critics seemed to have missed the satirical intent of “Unforgettable.” Critics also seemed to miss the satire of “Free Fire,” with some panning the film for its over-the-top, non-stop gun violence. Of course, that’s the whole point of the movie, as it was with the similarly satirical “Shoot ‘Em Up” 10 years ago. No wonder both movies were tough sells.

    6. The Trolling Problem
    32321©joseharo.RAFEven 102 years after the systematic massacre of the Armenians, the Turkish government and many Turkish nationalists still won’t acknowledge the genocide as a historical fact. Indeed, there’s evidence that such denial was behind the apparent trolling attack on the IMDb scores for “The Promise” that began within moments of the film’s premiere screening last fall at the Toronto Film Festival. The movie received tens of thousands of downvotes from people outside of Canada who clearly could not have seen the movie yet.

    It’s not clear to what extent such trolling — and such artificially low scores at audience-polling sites like IMDb — discourage opening-weekend moviegoers. (Or encourage them, as in the case of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” which received a suspiciously large number of high scores early on from apparent DC Comics partisans.) But with a number of movies having been affected over the past year or so — most notoriously, “Ghostbusters” — Hollywood is acknowledging that there’s a problem here, one that could be having an impact at the box office.

    7. Lack of Star Power
    None of these movies had much. Katherine Heigl is certainly not the box office draw she was at the height of her rom-com successes of a few years ago. “Free Fire’s” Larson is still unproven, even after the very modest success this spring of “Kong: Skull Island,” whose true draw was the big gorilla.

    As for “The Promise,” Christian Bale isn’t a box office draw when he’s not driving the Batmobile. His co-star Oscar Isaac may be the Internet’s boyfriend, but the dashing “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” flier has never opened a movie on his own. “Phoenix” had a cast of unknowns. And apparently, nobody in any of these movies had the box office appeal of the adorable pandas in “Born in China.”

    8. Timing
    Was late April the right time to release any of these movies? It worked for “Born in China,” in part because this weekend was Earth Day, and in part because Disney has been releasing nature documentaries on Earth Day weekend for nearly a decade, priming a ready audience to expect them at this time of year.

    On the other hand, “The Promise” might have done better in the fall, when an awards-season campaign for Isaac or Bale could have boosted the film’s profile. But its makers chose this weekend because it marks the anniversary of the beginning of the genocide.

    9. Everyone’s Saving Their Money for Baby Groot
    The other reason not to release a film at the end of April is that moviegoers are holding onto their money until the summer movie season starts with the May 5th release of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.” No wonder this weekend saw total box office receipts fall 36 percent from a week ago. In fact, it was the second least lucrative weekend of 2017 so far. (Look for next weekend, the last weekend in April, to be similarly bleak.)

    Even with “Fate” and other hit movies still playing, even with five new wide releases, there was not a compelling draw at the multiplex this weekend. Forget fast cars, baby pandas, and Katherine Heigl finally letting her psycho flag fly; we’re all holding out for the talking raccoon and the ass-kicking sapling.

  • ‘Free Fire’ Director Ben Wheatley on the Film’s Unexpected Inspiration

    If you’ve seen any of British filmmaker Doctor Who” at the start of Peter Capaldi‘s run.)

    His latest film (opening this week) is “Free Fire,” and acts as his take on the 1970s American crime thriller. The film is set in a single location (a ramshackle warehouse in Boston), and features a host of colorful underworld types (played by, amongst others, Armie Hammer, Sharlto Copley, Cillian Murphy, and Brie Larson) as they fight, shoot, and curse at each other. It’s great fun, in the grungiest way possible, starting out as stately and mannered before descending into hellish depravity. Like all other of Wheatley’s films, it’s got a nasty subversive streak, too. This movie doesn’t glamorize shootouts or gunplay; Wheatley makes sure you feel every bullet.

    So it was a real thrill to get to talk to Wheatley about “Free Fire,” its unlikely inspiration, and his next film — a monster mash called “Freakshift” (starring Hammer and Alicia Vikander) that I last spoke to him about way back in 2012.

    The last time I talked to you was back in 2012. You didn’t mention this project but you always have a long list of things you’re going to get to. When did you start thinking about “Free Fire”?

    I think “Free Fire” was written after “Sightseers,” if I remember. But it had been bubbling around for a long time. And there had been another script that was about close-quarter combat stuff that I’d done which was more of a psychedelic thing. And I think the psychedelic stuff ended up being “Field in England” and there are elements of “Free Fire” in “Field of England” as well, to a degree. But it originally came from reading a transcript of a shootout in Miami that the FBI had done. It was realizing that it was possible for highly trained people to have a close-quarter battle for quite some time and miss quite a lot. And that if you read this transcript it’s incredible how messy and chaotic the whole thing is, and how sharply in contrast that is to how Hollywood movies treat this kind of situation. So I thought there’d be a story in there. That was the road to it.You’ve talked about how it was inspired by movies from the ’70s and you even have Martin Scorsese on as an executive producer. Can you talk about what movies you were inspired by and how Scorsese became attached?

    “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” was a big one for me, just the coldness and the stripped structure and the harshness of it. But another film that was influential, which wasn’t a ’70s film, was “Evil Dead 2” (photo above). It became more apparent as we were making it, but that level of swinging the camera around and the slapstick elements of it. We were making it and thinking, This is more [Sam] Raimi than it is the cooler end of ’70s stuff. Because it was much more flying cameras and steadicams and techno-cranes and all of those things that weren’t likely to appear in a ’70s film because they weren’t invented. And Scorsese I met through my agent and I knew that he’d liked “Kill List” because he’d done interviews and mentioned it. I thought, Well, I’ll use that as my in to see if I can get a meeting. Being such a film fan it’s really the pinnacle of fandom to get to chat with Scorsese. So I went and met with him and we spent a couple of hours chatting and it went on from there.

    With this movie, you move away from the slicker elements of action filmmaking but still have to keep things in mind, like geography and spatial relationships. Was it hard to juggle the more technical stuff with what you were trying to do with the characters?

    Yes. There’s a lot of planning that has to go into it. It’s mainly practical effects. There’s hardly any CG in the whole film. And that’s just dangerous and difficult and time-consuming. You make a lot of decisions early on in terms of the setting of the explosives into walls and pillars and all of that stuff. It was all very deliberate in the way that it was made.

    Brie Larson told me there was still a degree of improvisation you allowed with the actors. Was that important for you?

    The thing is, when they’re talking, which is the first third of the film, that stuff is easy to handle. Because they’re all on their feet and there’s no pyrotechnics and stuff. So that could be a lot looser. It’s not improvisation; it’s more paraphrasing than it was just letting people make stuff up. It was more you do a take based on the script and you do a take that you can put back into your own words. “No” is not something I say to actors. I want to see what they’ve got, whatever they’ve got, and if we’ve got the time to shoot it, we’ll do it. Shutting people down and telling them their ideas are no good is not the recipe for happy performances. You want to have an environment where people are ready and willing to risk stuff.Did you have all of these characters’ back-stories worked out, and what all of their relationships were before they end up at the warehouse?

    Yeah, totally. But how relevant that is to the film? Not particularly. It’s interesting. When I listen to the performers tell me the back-story they’ve made up for their characters, I just say, “Yeah, OK, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But it doesn’t matter. It’s more about interpersonal relationships of characters in the moment. In a lot of ways, it’s about reduction of character not about the expansion of it. It’s the fact that you go from being a person with a future who is thinking about their holiday and has their mortgage to pay and is thinking about the girl they want to go out with in one minute and then in the next minute they’re crawling around on the ground going, “Am I going to live through the next 30 seconds?” That is not a position where you start remembering things that happened in the past or becoming introspective. You are just reduced to surviving. That’s the thing that made me interested in the project. It’s kind of what happens in a way situation or even in the current news cycle, where in one minute there’s a fact that in the next second means something completely different, and no one can remember how we got here.

    One movie we did talk about back in 2012 is “Freakshift.” Are you excited about getting Armie involved and finally shooting?

    Yeah, man. It’s amazing. I’m kind of glad I didn’t make it back then, because I’ve got so much more experience now and I think it would be an overwhelmingly complicated movie to make straight after “Kill List.” But it’s great that it’s finally getting there.

    “Free Fire” opens Friday.

  • ‘Free Fire’s’ Brie Larson on ’70s-Set Action Movies, Playing the Lone Female, and Making Her Own Movie

    Ben Wheatley‘s ambitious all-killer, no-filler thriller “Free Fire,” is set in a Boston warehouse in 1970s where an arms deal goes disastrously wrong. Among the cast of very colorful characters are IRA operative Chris (Cillian Murphy), smooth-talking go-between Ord (Armie Hammer), and an off-the-rails South African gunrunner Vernon (Sharlto Copley). The calm in the midst of the storm of testosterone and gunfire is Brie Larson‘s Justine, an intermediary who tries desperately to keep the situation from spiraling out of control. (Spoiler alert: It still spirals out of control.)

    Larson, a recent Oscar-winner and current “Kong: Skull Island” star, channels her considerable charm into a character whose motivations remain murky and whose dialogue is minimal at best. If there’s a beating heart at the center of the bloody mayhem, it’s her.

    So it was a huge thrill to jump on the phone and talk to Larson about what it was like being in “Free Fire,” her upcoming directorial project, and whether or not she came up with a back-story for her character. At the end of the conversation, I tried to slip in a question about her role in “Captain Marvel” (which just secured its directors) and it didn’t go well. She gave me what can only be described as a Nelson-esque “ha ha” and said, “Oh, sorry, I’ve got to give the phone back.” And then we were done. Sigh.

    Moviefone: This movie has so much action that it doesn’t leave much time for us to get to know your character. Did you work out a back-story with Ben Wheatley or talk to the other actors about it?

    Brie Larson: I did talk with Ben about it a little bit. But he’s interesting in that, when he casts you, he completely trusts you to just create it and bring it and do it. It’s kind of scary because the training wheels are off but in another way it’s exciting because he gets to run with whatever idea you have. I always come up with some sort of back-story, especially because Justine doesn’t speak that much. She’s more observing and listening and trying to blend in, so you need to know where she’s coming from. A lot of the film we would do improvised takes and that would make it trickier. Because you have to know who your character is to be able to improve off what the dialogue is that is already existing.

    That’s interesting, that you were able to improve given how tight, structurally, it seems.

    The whole structure of the film — and I’m pretty sure most of the dialogue that’s in the film — was scripted. He just does a thing that’s one take scripted, one take improvised. It’s fun because it loosens up the dialogue on the page and makes you feel free and that things are a little bit messy. I think Ben’s secret agenda is to make every actor feel totally confused and uncomfortable, especially during a movie like this. Because he wanted to show the reality of fumbling and not knowing what is going to happen next. You can’t do that unless you put your actors in a little bit of a hot seat of not knowing what was going to happen.

    I know that Wheatley was inspired by the American crime movies of the ’70s. Was that appeal what got you involved or was it more working with him?

    It takes a couple different perfect elements to get me to sign onto something, because it’s such a long journey making a movie. Part of it is I have to want to explore the character, I have to be interested in who she is and discovering her. But the other part is the movie itself and in particular when the movie is over what are you left with and what are you thinking about? What is it making you question? And I think that the idea of cinema as this place that has idolized and glorified action and violence and guns and ego. There’s a really big history, we’ve made that something that’s cool. I like the fact that this is the coolest uncool movie or the most uncool cool movie that you’ll ever see. There’s something about the ’70s that’s deeply iconic and interesting but at the same time we’re not that savvy. We’re bumbling and scrambling on the floor and making mistakes constantly and the blood and the violence isn’t glorified is what interested me in the film.You’ve spent a lot of time in the ’70s between this and “Kong: Skull Island.”

    Yeah!

    How did your character change throughout the filming of “Free Fire”?

    I think what I discovered is that, in order for Justine to get her agenda across, it just requires very little on her part. I liked that I got to play such a subtle character in a film where every other character is just very aggressive, they’re super caricatures. I really liked how she was understated. The main thing with Justine was part of what she needs to do is keep everyone calm and that her main objective is to blend in and that it’s actually impossible for a women to do that when it’s eight men with huge egos. You kind of become the center in a way that she’s still trying to understand.

    Well, was that part of the appeal, being the only women in this cast of men?

    I mean, it’s certainly flattering for a director to say, “You can express all of the female complexity in one person.” But it’s definitely not an appeal.

    Really?

    Yeah, that’s not why I did it.

    Well, I think it would be not a challenge but maybe a draw to be the feminine center in a movie where it’s a bunch of guys with guns.

    [Laughs] I guess! But if you go through my IMDb I think you’ll be shocked to find that in almost every movie I’ve done I’m the only woman. I think this movie just really feels that way because it’s so put on the character, and there’s not a ton of setting. But that’s part of the history of cinema, right? A bunch of dudes trying to get the one girl. So I love Ben and I know why. It’s the same thing with “Kong” — it’s a certain period of time, there’s a certain point of view and there’s meaning behind the fact that there’s one woman. So I don’t mean to say that it’s not good. But I also don’t want to say that this conversation ends there. I would love to be in ensemble female movies and would love to work with more females. My story is not over.

    Right now, you’re in “Kong” at the same time as “Free Fire,” and looking at what you have coming up there are really big movies and really small movies. What is the appeal of oscillating between those worlds?

    It’s switching genres; it’s using different muscles. It’s kind of like doing a bigger movie and then doing a smaller movie is sometimes I want to stay in a five-star hotel and other times I want to sleep in a tent under the stars. They both feed me in a different way, and I need different things at different times. I get a lot out of constantly staying on my toes and I don’t really enjoy being too comfortable. There’s something very calming about being on a bigger movie because you’re very protected. The movie is never struggling. You’re never worried about, if we don’t make this day we’re not going to get these scenes. But there’s something that, since I’ve grown up doing independent films, that experience is very much a part of me. And I love being a part of that smaller knit group that’s working together to get that ball to the line. I don’t know. I just like all of it a lot. I don’t want to get too far in any one direction.

    Are you done with the movie you’ve directed?

    I’m editing right now.

    How was that experience?

    It was really great. I loved every second of it. I hope it’s good and people like it and I get to do it again.

    You’ve worked with so many amazing directors. Have you called on any of them when you had questions making your own film?

    I’ve wanted to direct movies since I wanted to act in movies, so I’ve always been a little sponge and observing the different directors that I’ve worked with and asked a lot of questions and I think that part of being a really good actor in its own way is being a little bit of a director. Because, sometimes, what changes the course of a scene is you and not the other actor you’re playing off of. So learning how to position yourself to move scenes in a different direction and bring different colors out of actors was the first step in recognizing how directing is very subtle and interesting and like alchemy. So I feel like I’ve been leading up to my whole life. It’s just not something I’ve been very boastful about talking about. I’ve been very much involved in wanting to do this and the editor of “Room” emailed me and said, “I always knew you’d direct I just didn’t know you’d do it now.” It just felt like it was right. It felt like if I didn’t do it now then I’d never do it, I’d get too scared. I can do it while I’m still flexible.

    And it’s been everything you wanted it to be?

    Yeah, I feel like I’m a better actor after doing it, I have a better understanding of the team aspect of making movies. I’ve always loved how everyone is a specialist in their field, and we all come together to create this piece of art. But after being on both sides of it I feel even stronger about creating a positive team effort aspect of this really is. I’m excited to purely act in something.

    “Free Fire” is in theaters this Friday.

  • Brie Larson Gets Down and Dirty in the Dirt in Free Fire

    Brie Larson in Free Fire
    Brie Larson in Free Fire

    A long way from her glamorous strolls down red carpets, the kinetic comedy shoot-em-up “Free Fire” required Oscar-winning actress Brie Larson to cover herself in grit and grime.

    “We shot pretty much in order; at first we were clean,” she tells Made in Hollywood reporter Patrick Stinson. “And then as time went on we got dirtier and dirtier. Then by the end of it, part of getting ready for the day was showing up in that warehouse and all of us would roll around in the dirt to get dirty again.”

    As the only woman among a group of men who clearly need guns to boost their fragile egos, Larson plays a woman named Justine in this hybrid film that infuses slapstick comedy into a brutal bloody gunfight in claustrophobic quarters.

    The Best Actress winner for “Room,” another movie that takes place in a cramped space, Larson savored the challenge of the genre-bending “Free Fire.”

    “Something that I’m so interested in exploring in film right now is: How could we talk about harder concepts things that are difficult and points of contention in our culture, but do it in a way that’s funny, in a way that makes us laugh in a room together and kind of think about things in a new way,” she says. “I think that making people cry is very effective. But I think making people laugh can sometimes be more effective.”

    And the film offers Larson another strong character in the enigmatic Justine. “She’s sort of mysterious, which is the thing that I love about her,” Larson says. “When the film starts you’re like: Why is she here? Everybody else, it kind of makes sense. And you don’t really understand why she’s there.”

    But as the film goes on her purpose becomes clear. “One interesting thing about her is that she’s trying to not be part of it,” says Larson. “She’s trying to kind of blend in, but it’s impossible to blend in when you’re the only woman with eight other dudes. They become hyper-aware that you’re there. Within that, when all of these egos are bouncing around and get inflamed, she’s trying to keep everything calm, which is kind of impossible because she’s one calm voice in a sea of not-so-calm voices.”

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