Timothée Chalamet attends Searchlight Pictures’ ‘A Complete Unknown’ World Premiere on Dec 10, 2024 in Los Angeles.
Preview:
Timothée Chalamet and director James Mangold may re-team for a new movie.
They’re considering new MotoGP heist pic ‘High Side’.
It’s based on an unpublished short story that has studios ready to bid.
If there’s one thing Hollywood loves, it’s discovering a new story –– especially if it’s yet to be published –– and leaping on it as potential source material for a movie.
Per Deadline, Writer Jamie Oliveira’s new short story ‘High Side’ is generating plenty of buzz –– and also attention from a star and director.
By way of update, it is coming together quickly –– Deadline reports that Paramount has snapped up the project with Chalamet and Mangold attached and Oliveira adapting his story.
Oliveira’s story focuses on Billy, a former MotoGP racer, who is haunted by a career-ending crash and a family legacy of abandonment but is drawn back into the world of high-speed risks and extreme danger.
He’s blindsided when his estranged older brother Cole resurfaces — just after their father’s death — with a proposition: use Billy’s talents for something bigger: robbing banks. Cole assembles a mismatched crew, including a woman who becomes Billy’s lover, and they begin knocking over small-town desert banks with speed and precision.
But as the stakes rise, Lennox, an FBI agent who has a complicated history with Cole, closes in as the crew preps its biggest score: a bank job timed with a big motorcycle parade…
Chalamet, who was among the Oscar nominees for ‘A Complete Unknown’ is careful when he picks his projects.
Next up in terms of release is ‘Marty Supreme’, a table tennis comedy drama directed by Josh Safdie, which will be in theaters on December 25th.
And he’s currently back filming the third outing for what is probably his best known role –– Chalamet is at work once again playing Paul Atreides in Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune: Part Three’, which continues his sprawling space opera drawn from Frank Herbert’s work.
Even with a deal in place , this one will need some time to come to fruition. But with Chalamet and Mangold seemingly excited about it, there’s a good chance for forward movement.
Timothée Chalamet attends Searchlight Pictures’ ‘A Complete Unknown’ World Premiere on Dec 10, 2024 in Los Angeles.
(L to R) Edward Norton and Monica Barbaro star in ‘A Complete Unknown’.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of sitting down in-person with Edward Norton and Monica Barbaro to talk about their work on ‘A Complete Unknown’, playing Pete Seeger and Joan Baez respectively, learning to sing and play instruments like their characters, Seeger and Baez’s relationships with Dylan, working with Timothée Chalamet, and what audiences will learn about Dylan’s legacy.
You can read the full interviews below or click on the video player above to watch our interviews.
Moviefone: To begin with, Edward, can you talk about your approach to playing Pete Seeger and how challenging was it to learn how to play his instruments the same way he played them?
Edward Norton: The music, and fortunately this enormous body of recorded music and a lot of what Pete Seeger did, he did live, and so you get to hear his music, but you also get to hear, he talked to the crowd a lot and his vocal demeanor, his kind of odd formalism, and it was a great access point and there is an amazing amount of footage of him. That was a good place to start, there’s an abundant, recorded visual and auditory library of Pete. I think until you start trying to unpack what he’s doing musically; you don’t realize how much virtuosity he had as a banjo and a guitar player. He’s a monster of a musician, and I’ve played guitar a long time, but I realized in many ways that it was going to be very difficult on the banjo because there’s a lot of modern professional banjo players who don’t even play in the style that Pete Seeger played in. He had this special long-necked, you wouldn’t call it a baritone banjo, but it was a long neck banjo, and he played a picking style that’s very old-fashioned and not a lot of people do anymore. It was an interesting process to navigate the music with our great music supervisor, and James (Mangold) and teachers that I had. It was a challenge is the short answer. That was probably the thing I felt the most. Not anxious, but you really want to get that right. You don’t want to not do justice to what amazing musicians these people were.
Monica Barbaro attends Searchlight Pictures’ ‘A Complete Unknown’ World Premiere on Dec 10, 2024 in Los Angeles.
MF: Monica, I understand you had an opportunity to talk to Joan Baez before you began shooting. How did that help inform your performance and did it put you at ease about portraying her on screen?
Monica Barbaro: Well, I was at a place, we had already started filming, and I just kept having dreams about her. It’d be specifically dreams where we were hanging out, and we kept having a great time. I’d wake up in a good mood, and so I was like, “I think subconsciously something’s telling me that it’s going to be okay, and you should reach out.” I knew at that point that Ed had spoken to her, he knows her, and all I’ve heard is that she’s a very creatively generous person, and so I felt emboldened to reach out. I felt like, if it were Joan, she would reach out. So, I was like, “Okay, this is an exercise also in preparing for the bit of confidence that I think she has.” We just had a beautiful conversation, and she was very generous with her time, and she answered my questions, and I can safely say her memoirs and her documentaries are all very honest. There was nothing that I felt like she was withholding. So that was just wonderful to confirm that the research I had been doing was on the right path, and what she had offered up was true to her experience.
MF: Monica, can you talk about the challenges of learning and preparing for all the musical sequences and really matching the sound of your voice to hers?
MB: I think I’ve studied her so intensely that all I hear are the differences. I got to work with a lovely vocal coach and what we talked about was really trying to capture some of the more iconic qualities of her voice, the things that everyone says when they describe her voice, like she has this beautiful, tight vibrato, this sort of angelic sound, which I think comes also from singing in high keys, that I at the time couldn’t sing in. So just getting to the point of having comfortability with those qualities was the thing that I felt like would at least sell that believability early on. I didn’t play guitar either, so I had a great guitar teacher who just doubled down on teaching me her finger picking style. We just tried to formulate some version of Joan with tons of hours of training.
MF: Monica, can you talk about how Baez and Dylan’s relationship is depicted in the film and what it was like working on that with Timothée Chalamet?
MB: I mean, I’m such a fan of his work. I am an even bigger fan now. He’s an incredible actor, and knowing he was a part of this project was a part of what made me want to do it. Also, James Mangold, of course, and the subject matter. But I had complete trust in him. I mean, I had heard some of his recordings as we were preparing, and so I had even duetted with his voice as Bob. But when we met up and had a music rehearsal, I just was completely blown away. He’s an incredible actor, he worked so hard, and to me, he really got a lot of that Bob Dylan essence, and we could just, I think, kind of trust each other’s work, and we could show up as our characters and sort of let the scene unfold. We didn’t spend a lot of time sitting down and figuring out who we thought they were or what we thought this meant. We took our sort of siloed processes and bridged them in the moment in the scenes that you see. James was an incredible advocate for us and leader in that process, and it was just a beautiful, very present experience.
MF: Finally, Edward, can you talk about how Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan’s friendship is depicted in the film and what you hope audiences learn about both of their legacies?
EN: I think in a funny way, I never want to impose an idea. I think an audience should get to have their own relationship with it. Here’s my point. A great filmmaker will leave people with a lot to resolve for themselves and not instruct emotionally, morally or anything. I think James’ done something quite beautiful in this, in that he lets Dylan be Dylan and Pete be Pete, and they have different kinds of integrity. Joan Baez has her own. I think he gives you this portrait of the different types of integrity that a person can have, and he lets them collide with each other. Different people are going to feel very different ways about it all and then go through the prism of their own experiences and their own mentors and their own people they think they did something for. If you get that right, it transcends the fact that these people were musicians. It can be about teachers or anyone who had a mentor or anyone who had an ally who they went sideways with. I think it’s the paradox of people being able to love each other and admire each other and get into cross-purposes with each other that makes it kind of interesting. I think that there was a moment that the film depicts that a lot of people who have great talent and great passion kind of collided with each other. This thing came up and out in the Zeitgeist through Dylan, and then it changed. You know what I mean? I love the way the film sort of almost, it’s like the Beatles breaking up. Everything can’t last. Maybe if anything, it’s like, it’s just the observation of that fact that is poignant.
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What is the plot of ‘A Complete Unknown’?
Set in the influential New York music scene of the early 60s, ‘A Complete Unknown follows 19-year-old Minnesota musician Bob Dylan’s (Timothée Chalamet) meteoric rise as a folk singer to concert halls and the top of the charts – his songs and mystique becoming a worldwide sensation – culminating in his groundbreaking electric rock and roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
(L to R) Boyd Holbrook, Ed Norton, Timothée Chalamet, Monica Barbaro, and Elle Fanning attend Searchlight Pictures’ ‘A Complete Unknown’ World Premiere on Dec 10, 2024 in Los Angeles.
‘A Complete Unknown,’ which stars Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan, chronicles the music icons early days, from his initial arrival in New York to his taking the folk scene by storm with his powerful lyrics and catchy tunes.
Directed by James Mangold, who previously brought the world the likes of ‘Walk the Line’ (about fellow music sensation Johnny Cash) and ‘Ford Vs. Ferrari’ (the true life tale of the clash between the car companies around the famed Le Mans race), the new movie sees Dylan shaking up his act by going electric and siring rock as the voice of a generation –– defining one of the most transformative moments in 20th century music.
The movie has already made a strong entry into the awards race, and Searchlight Pictures held a virtual press conference with Mangold, Chalamet, Fanning, Barbaro, Holbrook and Norton.
Here are 10 things we learned at that press conference, edited for clarity and length. ‘A Complete Unknown’ will be in theaters on December 25th.
1. Mangold was Transfixed by the Real Story the Film is Based On
Director James Mangold attends Searchlight Pictures’ ‘A Complete Unknown’ World Premiere on Dec 10, 2024 in Los Angeles.
Mangold and Jay Cocks adapted the script from Elijah Wald’s book ‘Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night that Split the Sixties.’
James Mangold: It came about because there was a wonderful book by Elijah Wald that covered this period and did a really beautiful job of bracketing this moment, this convulsion that happened in Newport 65 and what led up to it. Then as Jay Cocks and I were developing the script, it occurred to me that this fable really should begin with Bob’s arrival in New York. I found it almost like a fairy tale. This idea of a young man, almost a man with no name or changing his name upon arrival with a few bucks in his pocket, carrying a guitar case and a Moleskine notebook with some scrawling in it, landing at the bedside of his hero in a VA hospital in New Jersey to sing him his song. He’s traveled all this way to sing. I mean, that this is a true story blows my mind.
With a few years between landing the role and starting work on the film, the actor had time to prepare to play Dylan.
Timothée Chalamet: It was daunting because it is Bob Dylan. At the beginning of the process, I wasn’t in the Church of Bob the way I am now, the way I’m a humble disciple now. The years I got to prepare for this role is unlike the time I’ve had for any other role. So at some point it stopped becoming work and it just became a process of osmosis and just living in the material, living in the world of the sixties. When it came time to shoot with Edward and Monica and Elle and Boyd, we were constantly throwing around little facts or tidbits or video clips or letters we were finding about these characters from the period.
3. Monica Barbaro Also Threw Herself into Preparing to Play Joan Baez
As with Chalamet, the ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ actor had a lot of work to get ready to be Baez.
Monica Barbaro: When Jim cast me in the film, I had five months to learn to sing and play guitar, and that did not feel like a long time. So, I was very anxious. Yet during the strike, we weren’t allowed to work with our coaches necessarily, but it was this cool time to take the training and process the work and be a little bit more solo with it, stretch and try things on my own. I think that was around the time when I started working on singing and playing at the same time, which was just a whole other level of musical proficiency that I just did not have and did not understand. Sometimes it’s like patting your head and rubbing your stomach.
4. Edward Norton Was a Big Fan of Dylan, Seeger and co. Before Taking on the Film
Norton’s familiarity with the main players was a big plus in his own preparation.
Edward Norton: I’ve marinated in the Church of Bob for my whole adult life. If you’re someone who came up in New York City in the theatre with even a passing interest in human affairs, Pete Seeger was a paragon. He was a folk singer who cleaned up the Hudson River. You knew about Pete Seeger. My first job as a waiter was right next to a restaurant that was in Pete Seeger’s house, and I used to go there all the time. I’ve played guitar for many years, and I know this music. So there’s the preparation that wasn’t… I didn’t walk into it happily naive to the ethos of it or the essence of it. Banjo was a new animal for me. They say dying is easy, comedy is hard. Well, I think guitar is easy and banjo is hard. So that was fun. That was a lot of fun.
5. Elle Fanning Had to Get Creative Given Her More Fictionalized Role
Elle Fanning attends Searchlight Pictures’ ‘A Complete Unknown’ World Premiere on Dec 10, 2024 in Los Angeles.
With Sylvie based on a real-life figure, but with more flexibility, Fanning had different challenges.
Elle Fanning: You can do the facts and the searching, but really your bible is the script, and working with your actors and talking to Jim and carving out a story and a cinematic experience that people are going to care about. I felt like I cared so much for her on the page, and her emotion just jumped out at me. So I wanted to do justice of honoring know Suze and Bob’s relationship, but also making sure that that emotional weight was there in the part that I had.
6. Boyd Holbrook Was Intimidated Playing Johnny Cash For a Big Reason
Boyd Holbrook attends Searchlight Pictures’ ‘A Complete Unknown’ World Premiere on Dec 10, 2024 in Los Angeles.
Holdbrook had good reason to be nervous, since Mangold had already shepherded Joaquin Phoenix to an Oscar nomination playing Cash in ‘Walk the Line.’
Boyd Holbrook: Yeah, it was kind of daunting in the beginning when Jim asked me to do it. But following Joaquin’s great performance, it was daunting in a way, but then as I understood what the part was about and its functionality in Bob’s life, it was a really exciting challenge. I didn’t play and sing at the same time. I think I lied to you, Jim. I think I told you I did! But there’s this extraordinary pressure that bottlenecks you down into the day of shooting where you have to figure this out. So for me it was really exciting to do it in a fresh way, and to see what this other version of Johnny Cash was, and a mentor to Bob. Maybe not a mentor, but a comrade.
7. Mangold Hopes Audiences Seek Out Big Screens to See the Movie
Though so many movies go to streaming these days and something such as ‘A Complete Unknown’ might not be on the scale, of, say ‘Gladiator II,’ the director feels it deserves to be seen on a big screen.
Mangold: I want all our movies to be seen on the big screen. That’s why we make them. I’ve been very lucky so far, particularly movies like this where it’s getting harder and harder to get them made and going out theatrically. But it is a singular experience, and I think that this movie has a kind of scale to it that really asks for that kind of experience. The enveloping sound of these concerts, whether intimate or gigantic, is just our sound team did awesome work on this movie, and it’s an anamorphic film, so it’s wide screen and just looks amazing on the big screen.
8. Part of Chalamet’s Road to Dylan Included Visiting the Musician’s Old Haunts
The actor didn’t just dig into Dylan’s musical side –– he also made pilgrimages to where he was born in Minnesota.
Chalamet: They were hugely informative. I don’t think they were informative in an academic sense. I wasn’t trying to excavate the exact places he walked or understand what homework was assigned on a specific day. I really just wanted to put myself in the environment, the weather, the roads, the iron ore of it all that gives him that grit in his voice, that to this day makes it so surprising and impressive that he wrote songs like “North Country Blues,” or “Rocks and Gravel” and stuff that was beyond a 19– or 20–year–old at the time. Again, it was a process of osmosis. It wasn’t anything prescriptive.
9. Chalamet Sung Most of the Songs Live in the Film
Though Mangold and his team had crafted the usual pre-recorded soundtrack for Dylan and co., Chalamet had his director’s confidence to perform on set.
Mangold: We laid down what’ll be a soundtrack album full of music in the studio. But then we started shooting and the first scene we did, you guys have seen the movie, the first scene with singing in it that we did was the one in which he sings a song for to Woody Guthrie in the hospital. Timmy came to me and said, “I just want to do it.” There was this whole moment on set where people behind the scenes are, “Well, the shots will never cut. He’ll be singing a different tempo from one shot to the next and we can’t get a good recording here.” I have my hats off to Timmy because he was the one who was like, “I just want to do it.” And he did. All I did was run interference for him in the sense of going, “Whatever happens, we can fix it later.” We didn’t have to fix a thing.
10. Fanning was Blown Away Hearing Chalamet Play for the First Time
Elle Fanning wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to Chalamet playing Dylan, but he really nailed the role.
Fanning: The first day on set for me was when he’s singing, “A Hard Rain’s Going to Fall.” I am an audience member in that scene. I don’t have any lines or anything, but I remember I had such an anticipation, like butterflies. You could feel like this bubbling anticipation. The audience knew what they were about to see, but I didn’t know what to expect. Obviously I know he’s a brilliant actor, and I was, ‘Of course he’s going to knock it out of the park.’ He gave us a full concert.
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What is the plot of ‘A Complete Unknown’?
Set in the influential New York music scene of the early 60s, ‘A Complete Unknown follows 19-year-old Minnesota musician Bob Dylan’s (Timothée Chalamet) meteoric rise as a folk singer to concert halls and the top of the charts – his songs and mystique becoming a worldwide sensation – culminating in his groundbreaking electric rock and roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
Opening in theaters on December 25th is the new biopic ‘A Complete Unknown’, which chronicles the early life and career of legendary musician Bob Dylan.
Director James Mangold delivers a brilliant and vibrant biopic about legendary musician Bob Dylan that completely captures his complex mystic and iconic music. Mangold wisely focuses on the early part of Dylan’s career, beginning with his arrival in New York, his rise in the folk music scene, and culminating with his controversial choice to “go electric” at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
Timothée Chalamet gives a career-defining performance as Dylan and is completely hypnotic in the role. The actor completely embodies the character with the awkward cool and determination of Dylan and is remarkable in the musical sequences, so much so that at times you forget you are not actually watching Dylan. Chalamet’s performance is supported by excellent turns from both Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, and Ed Norton as folk musician Pete Seeger.
The movie begins in 1963 by introducing us to an awkward young song writer, who has just arrived in New York City and has already adopted the persona of Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet). Dylan’s first move is to visit his hero, Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy), who is dying in a local hospital. Dylan performs a song he has written for Woody and impresses folk legend Pete Seeger (Ed Norton).
Seeger soon introduces Dylan on the popular New York folk music scene, and while trying to get his first album produced, meets artist Sylvie Russo (Susan Rotolo in real life) played by Elle Fanning, and young musician Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro). Dylan soon begins having relationships with both women, while his musical career takes off.
Confused by his new success and being labeled “the voice of his generation” by the media, Dylan seeks support from fellow musician Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook). Dylan continues to struggle with his success and pushes to create new music that doesn’t fit into the mold of what Seeger and others want for him. It all culminates with the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan is the headliner and famously causes a riot by using an electric guitar.
Based on author Elijah Wald’s ‘Dylan Goes Electric’, the script by Mangold and Jay Cocks is excellent and the choice to focus on the first three years of Dylan’s career rather than a life-spanning biopic was a smart one. Mangold, of course, is no stranger to rock n’ roll biopics having made the Johnny Cash film ‘Walk the Line,’ but in my opinion this is a far superior movie and putting ‘Logan’ aside, may be the best work of Mangold’s impressive career.
Focusing on this specific period allows the director to really examine how Robert Zimmerman became Bob Dylan, and his impact on music and society. 1960s New York comes alive in a vibrant way, and the images shown reflect what we’ve seen of Dylan in that time. Mangold is also able to spotlight the folk music movement of the early 60s, Dylan’s role in that, and how controversial it was in that community when Dylan “betrayed” them and went electric.
Obviously, if you are Dylan fan you will love the music as it is mostly his, with a few traditional songs and music from Pete Seeger and Johnny Cash thrown in. All the big Dylan hits of that time are included such as ‘Masters of War’, ‘Blowing in the Wind’, ‘Maggie’s Farm’, and of course, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’. The musical performances are fantastic, and the actors, who sang themselves, remarkably sound like the people they are portraying, especially Chalamet and Barbaro.
Full disclosure: I’m a self-proclaimed Bob Dylan expert. I’ve personally been studying his music as a fan for the last 30 years and have seen him live in concert easily over 20 times. So, I was ready to be quite critical of the movie, but to be honest, I fell so in love with the characters, the performances, the music and Mangold’s direction, that I really left the theater with very little to complain about.
However, if I had to be critical, at 2 hours and 21 minutes, the movie is a little long. It didn’t bother me much, but I think you could have a much tighter film if you cut 10 minutes or so from the run time. The easiest way to do this would be to cut one or two of the musical numbers. Look, I love ‘Masters of War’, but do we need to see Dylan perform it twice in the same movie?
Also, I understand having Norton perform one of Pete Seeger’s songs at the beginning of the movie to establish who that character is, but also watching him perform at the Newport Festival towards the finale seemed unnecessary. My guess would be that Mangold got a little too precious with the musical performances and didn’t want to “cut any of his babies”, and I totally get that, and in the long run doesn’t really hurt the movie much.
My other small critique would be that the film completely skips Dylan’s seminal 1965 tour of England, which is where he was first introduced to electric guitars. The movie makes mention of the trip before and after it happens, but never took the time to explore it and I have a theory as to why Mangold made that choice.
D.A. Pennebaker’s groundbreaking 1967 documentary ‘Don’t Look Back’ chronicles in real time Dylan’s tour of England, and my guess would be that Mangold did not want to retread that territory. If that is the case, then that was a smart choice, as one of my issues with director Michael Mann’s boxing biopic ‘Ali’ was that the third act was a shot for shot remake of the Oscar-winning documentary ‘When We Were Kings’.
Mangold has really assembled a wonderful ensemble cast but obviously the movie hinges on Timothée Chalamet’s performance. The young actor who has been excellent in films like ‘Call Me by Your Name’, ‘Wonka’ and the ‘Dune’ series gives his best work to date as Dylan. I would imagine this was a daunting character for Chalamet to play and he completely nails it from beginning to end.
The actor perfectly embodies Dylan, his awkward coolness, and his legendary mystic. His musical performances are astounding and the best compliment I can give him is to say that there were times I forgot I was watching an actor and thought I was really watching Dylan. It is easily one of the best male performances of this year and I would be shocked if he doesn’t at least get nominated for an Oscar, and depending on who else is in the competition, I would imagine he’ll be the frontrunner.
Also deserving of an Oscar nomination is Monica Barbaro who is incredible as Joan Baez. Not only does the actress look like Baez, but she also sounds exactly like her when she is singing and has excellent chemistry with Chalamet. Their love story, for me, was the heart of the movie. Elle Fanning, who plays Dylan’s other love interest Sylvie, has a bit of a thankless role, as I did feel her character was given short shrift by the script. Regardless, the actress is a ray of sunshine in all her scenes and has wonderful chemistry with Chalamet too.
Ed Norton could also end up earning an Oscar nomination for his work, as the actor gives a quiet yet strong performance as Dylan’s mentor and eventual rival, Pete Seeger. It’s also worth mentioning Boyd Holbrook’s fun performance as Johnny Cash, but with two short scenes, it is basically a glorified cameo. Finally, Scoot McNairy has the difficult job of playing an afflicted Woody Guthrie, and while his performance didn’t quite work for me, the actor made the most of the situation.
In the end, ‘A Complete Unknown’ is probably the best version of a Bob Dylan movie we could ever ask for. And it’s important to remember that Bob Dylan isn’t even a real person … he’s a mysterious character that a young Robert Zimmerman created in New York in the early 60s. Given that, director James Mangold has created a biopic that both honors the legend of Bob Dylan, while examining the real man behind the persona, without ruining the mystic that the artist has spent so many decades cultivating.
I expect the film will receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, and possibly a nomination for Best Director as well. In a year that saw disappointing biopics of both Bob Marley (‘Bob Marley: One Love‘) and Amy Winehouse (‘Back to Black‘), I can safely say that ‘A Complete Unknown’ is the best biopic about a popular musician we’ve seen in recent years and features a transcending and career-defining performance from Timothée Chalamet.
‘A Complete Unknown’ receives 9 out of 10 stars.
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What is the plot of ‘A Complete Unknown’?
Set in the influential New York music scene of the early 60s, ‘A Complete Unknown follows 19-year-old Minnesota musician Bob Dylan’s (Timothée Chalamet) meteoric rise as a folk singer to concert halls and the top of the charts – his songs and mystique becoming a worldwide sensation – culminating in his groundbreaking electric rock and roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
(Left) The cast of ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’. Photo: Lucasfilm. (Right) ‘Invasion’ series creator Simon Kinberg.
Preview:
Simon Kinberg is reportedly developing a ‘Star Wars’ movie trilogy.
He’d write the movies and produce them with Kathleen Kennedy.
This trilogy is apparently about new characters.
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before.
A respected name in filmmaking (and particularly in this case, genre producing) has been hired by Lucasfilm to come up with new ‘Star Wars’ movies. Yes, it’s a story we’ve heard multiple times in the past –– more on that below –– with little to show for it so far.
Still, shoving cynicism aside for a moment, we’re certainly intrigued to learn via Deadline that Simon Kinberg is reportedly making a deal with Disney and Lucasfilm to develop, write and produce a new trilogy set in that galaxy far, far away.
And it’s not like Kinberg –– who has worked on a variety of projects in the past, including 20th Century Fox’s ‘X-Men’ movies, the ‘Deadpool’ films and a host of others more as a writer/producer –– doesn’t also already boast ‘Star Wars’ bona fides.
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He co-created animated series ‘Star Wars Rebels’ with Dave Filoni and Carrie Beck, with the show running for four seasons from 2014-2018, and certainly influencing the direction of the current live-action ‘Star Wars’ shows.
And talking of the companies, we must still take all of this with enough salt to sate a Sarlacc, since neither Disney nor Lucasfilm is officially commenting just yet. Deadline mentions that Kinberg’s deal has closed, but these things usually have to wait for more solid confirmation, often at an event such as Star Wars Celebration, a Comic-Con or Disney’s D23.
What would the Simon Kinberg ‘Star Wars’ movies focus on?
1977’s ‘Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.’ Credit: Lucasfilm.
That question is, for now at least, largely a mystery.
While Deadline initially heard that it would continue the “Skywalker Saga” (AKA Episodes I through IX, which kicked off back in 1977 with the original ‘Star Wars’ before spawning the prequel and then sequel trilogies), that has since been shot down like a TIE Fighter by the Falcon, with focus now apparently on a new story with different characters (but with the door open for familiar faces to potentially appear).
A bigger issue is whether this actually comes to fruition. After all, as recently as this May, Kinberg was reported as being involved with driving the ‘Star Trek’ movie franchise for Paramount, who we’re sure aren’t looking to repeat the situation with J.J. Abrams, who oversaw the first two movies of the studio’s rebooted ‘Trek’ movie universe before jumping ship to ‘Star Wars.’
And the future of ‘Star Wars’ on the big screen has seemed a little shaky of late, with famous genre names announced (or rumored) as working on new ‘Wars’ projects, only for nothing to come to screen.
Which brings us to…
Who else has been reported as involved with new ‘Star Wars’ movies?
(L to R) Director James Mangold, Dave Filoni, and director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy at Star Wars Celebration 2023.
The list for this is fairly long, with little to show for it thus far.
Right now, we have current co-overlord of the ‘Star Wars’ TV universe, Jon Favreau, in post-production on a ‘Mandalorian and Grogu’ movie, which is scheduled to be on screens in May 2026.
Still in development are projects from Favreau’s main collaborator, Dave Filoni (who, like his colleague, would likely draw from their TV universe), James Mangold (who has been working on a film chronicling the birth of the Jedi order) and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, who is aboard to direct a movie featuring Daisy Ridley’s Rey as she continues her own quest.
(L to R) Director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Daisy Ridley at Star Wars Celebration 2023.
That latter movie has been having some issues getting its script together, with ‘Peaky Blinders’ Steven Knight the latest writer to depart.
Then we have Taika Waititi, who keeps talking about how he wants to move forward with his idea, while Donald Glover continues work on a story about Lando Calrissian, which was being touted as a Disney+ series but currently appears to be a movie.
As for those who have been reported as developing ‘Star Wars’ output that has yet to see much forward movement? They include ‘The Last Jedi’s Rian Johnson (who was apparently going to make a trilogy but is currently busy with his big Netflix deal for the Benoit Blanc mystery movies and crime series ‘Poker Face,’ Patty Jenkins (whose ‘Rogue Squadron’ movie flits between active development and being grounded in a hangar) and ‘Game of Thrones’ duo David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who likewise were going to produce a new trilogy but are instead adapting beloved sci-fi novel ‘The Three Body Problem.’
What can we actually expect coming up from ‘Star Wars’?
‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’ will be premiering on Disney+ in 2023.
Besides Favreau’s ‘Mando’ movie, the next confirmed ‘Star Wars’ releases will be on the small screen, with ‘Skeleton Crew’ a ‘Goonies’–inspired adventure launching on Disney+ on December 3rd, and Season 2 of ‘Andor,’ due next year.
We also know that Filoni is at work on a second season of ‘Ahsoka,’ though that has yet to land a date.
(L to R) Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley in ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.’ Photo: Lucasfilm.
‘Andor’s Beau Willimon has joined ‘Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi’.
James Mangold is co-writing and directing the movie.
A group of other ‘Star Wars’ and Disney movies just landed release dates.
Given the critical success of the first season of ‘Star Wars: Andor’ in 2022, it’s perhaps not shocking that a key component of that show’s creative team would be snapped up to work elsewhere in Lucasfilm’s universe.
And now, The Hollywood Reporter brings word that Beau Willimon –– previously most famous for creating Netflix’s ‘House of Cards’ and who was on Tony Gilroy’s writing team for ‘Andor’ –– is aboard to co-write what is still known as ‘Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi’ with director James Mangold.
(L to R) Director James Mangold, and Dave Filoni at Star Wars Celebration 2023.
‘Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi’ looks to dig into a time a long, long, looong time ago in that galaxy far, far away.
Announced in April last year at Star Wars celebration, the film has been wrapped in secrecy since then.
Here’s what Mangold said at the time:
“When I first started talking to Kathy Kennedy about doing one of these pictures, what occurred to me was thinking about what kind of genre of movie within ‘Star Wars’ I wanted to do. And I thought about a biblical epic, like a ‘Ten Commandments’, about the dawning of the Force. Where did the Force come from, when did we discover it, when did we learn how to use it?”
It’s certainly one we’re excited to see.
What is happening with ‘Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi’?
(L to R) Director James Mangold, Dave Filoni, and director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy at Star Wars Celebration 2023.
But with Willimon aboard to co-write, the new ‘Star Wars’ effort should now pick up some momentum.
When will ‘Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi’ be in theaters?
The movie has yet to confirm a release date, though given Mangold’s schedule, we can’t imagine it’ll be before 2027. And Lucasfilm/Disney have been busy filling release dates recently…
What release date information has been released for upcoming Disney films?
While ‘Dawn of the Jedi’ is not yet at a point that it can aim for a release date, Disney has confirmed some the release news for various projects.
Fellow ‘Star Wars’ big screen effort ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ has now May 22nd, 2026, date, with Disney and Lucasfilm figuring that the armored warrior and his little green pal can win the Memorial Day weekend that year.
In Pixar news, ‘Toy Story 5’ will see Woody, Buzz and the gang back for a new entry on June 19th, 2026.
And the live-action version of ‘Moana’ is on the move, shifting later in the year partly because of the release of ‘Moana 2’ (which is out November 27th this year), and the new movie will now land on July 10th, 2026.
‘Tron: Ares’, meanwhile, is set for October 10th, 2025.
Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan in director James Mangold’s ‘A Complete Unknown.’ Photo: James Mangold’s Twitter Account.
Preview:
The first official image of Timothée Chalamet in ‘A Complete Unknown’ has landed.
Director James Mangold posted the picture in response to a flood of paparazzi set images.
This new movie will chronicle a key early part of Bob Dylan’s career.
Thanks to the recent one-two punch of ‘Wonka’ and ‘Dune: Part Two’, Timothée Chalamet’s celeb-obsession-ometer is naturally high right now. So with him out and about in New York shooting the new film ‘A Complete Unknown’, there has been a paparazzi feeding frenzy for images of the young star playing a scruffy 1960s-era Bob Dylan.
To head off more, filmmaker James Mangold, who is directing the new movie, has released his own image of Chalamet, plus one of the clapper board from the movie, via social media.
(Left) Bob Dylan in director D. A. Pennebaker’s documentary ‘Don’t Look Back.’ Photo: Leacock-Pennebaker, Inc.
Co-written by Mangold and Jay Cocks, ‘A Complete Unknown’ is set in the influential New York music scene of the early ’60s.
It follows 19-year-old Minnesota musician Bob Dylan’s meteoric rise as a folk singer to concert halls and the top of the charts — his songs and mystique becoming a worldwide sensation — culminating in his groundbreaking electric rock and roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
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Who else is in ‘A Complete Unknown’?
Edward Norton as Miles in ‘Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.’ Photo: Courtesy Netflix.
In the new movie, Edward Norton plays fellow folk musician Pete Seeger (a role that initially went to Benedict Cumberbatch before scheduling issues forced him to drop out), Elle Fanning is appearing as a character based on university student and artist Sylvie Russo, who was an early big love of Dylan’s, while Monica Barbaro is Joan Baez.
One person not in the movie? Chalamet’s ‘Dune’ co-star Austin Butler, who famously got his own big break playing another huge music icon in ‘Elvis’.
Here’s how Chalamet joked to Butler about him appearing, as reported by NME:
“I wish you were in it! There’s an Elvis character in the Johnny Cash biopic ‘Walk the Line’. It’s really brief, it’s very brief, but I was kind of wishing we could create a musical cinematic universe.”
While the actor doesn’t have any roles officially lined up after the Dylan pic, he’ll likely return for ‘Dune: Messiah’ as and when director Denis Villeneuve is ready to make the next chapter in the successful sci-fi saga.
But Warners, pleased with the box office hauls of both ‘Wonka’ and ‘Dune: Part Two’, has now signed a deal with the star, which will see the studio collaborating with him on movies he’ll lead and produce, much as it recently did with ‘Barbie’s Margot Robbie and her LuckyChap company.
A scene from in ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.’ Photo: Lucasfilm.
Preview:
Patty Jenkins has offered an update on the status of ‘Star Wars: Rogue Squadron’.
The ‘Wonder Woman’ director says that her movie is back in development.
‘Rogue Squadron’ was announced in 2020 but has been in limbo ever since.
One of the more exciting ‘Star Wars’ related projects announced a long time ago has seemed to be far, far away in terms of development and release date. ‘Rogue Squadron’ was touted as the next big, non-‘Wonder Woman’ movie from director Patty Jenkins, who at the time was riding high on the success of the Gal Gadot-starring superhero film and had the eagerly-anticipated follow-up, ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ on the way.
What a difference four years makes. Since then, we’ve seen ‘1984’ land to mixed critical response and with its box office hit by the pandemic and the simultaneous release on what was then called HBO Max. ‘Rogue Squadron’ has been seemingly stuck in development limbo with re-writes, and Disney unceremoniously yanked the movie from its release schedule in 2022. Add to that the fact that diminishing returns from the big screen ‘Star Wars’ movies led to the company switching focus to the more successful TV.
Meanwhile, part of the ‘Rogue Squadron’ delay was Jenkins pivoting to a third ‘Wonder Woman’ movie with Gadot expressing excitement to return, a desire that has since been scuppered by a change in regime at DC Studios, the Warner Bros. comic book arm handed to James Gunn and Peter Safran to oversee.
But it appears there is some potentially promising news on the ‘Star Wars’ front…
What has Patty Jenkins said about ‘Star Wars: Rogue Squadron’?
‘Wonder Woman’ director Patty Jenkins at Comic Con International in San Diego, California.
“When I left ‘Star Wars’ to do ‘Wonder Woman 3’, and I started working on that, we talked about, ‘Well, maybe I’ll come back to ‘Star Wars’ after ‘Wonder Woman 3’,’ so we started a deal for that to happen. When ‘Wonder Woman 3’ then went away, Lucasfilm and I were like ‘Oh, we’ve got to finish this deal.’ We finished the deal right as the strike was beginning, so I now owe a draft of ‘Star Wars’.”
She also commented on the potential for the new movie, given that the development schedule for ‘Star Wars’ movies has begun to ramp up again:
“They have a hard job in front of them of, ‘What’s the first movie they’re going to do? They have other directors who have been working, but I am now back on doing ‘Rogue Squadron’. We’ll see what happens. We need to get it to where we’re both super happy with it.”
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What’s happening with the other ‘Star Wars’ movies?
(L to R) Dave Filoni, Daisy Ridley and director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy at Star Wars Celebration 2023.
The leader in terms of forward movement right now is ‘The Mandalorian & Grogu’, which Jon Favreau is gearing up to direct based on the sprawling TV universe he’s created alongside Dave Filoni.
Then there is a new story for Daisy Ridley’s sequel trilogy character Rey –– rumored to be titled ‘New Jedi Order’ –– directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, which is inching towards pre-production.
Before you go setting your S-foils to ticket buying position, cool your thrusters: the movie is still at the development stage. The next likely release from the ‘Star Wars’ galaxy is ‘The Mandalorian & Grogu’, which looks to be targeting a 2026 slot alongside ‘New Jedi Order’.
‘The Mandalorian & Grogu’ is official at Disney and Lucasfilm.
Jon Favreau is in the director’s chair.
The movie has yet to announce a release date.
For the past few years, ‘Star Wars’ has lived on the small screen much more than cinemas thanks to the success of ‘The Mandalorian’. But while there has been talk of a film set in the same universe from Dave Filoni, Disney and Lucasfilm have now announced that its Jon Favreau who is heading up the shows’ transition from TV to theater.
The big announcement of the movie offered up no details on what the plot will be, but you have to figure it’ll continue the story of the characters’ journey from the show –– including Mando’s ongoing struggle with his cultural legacy and Grogu’s increasing Force powers.
Plus there are plenty of dangling plot threads just waiting to be expanded or tied up in a big screen outing.
We don’t yet know who else is behind the movie, but surely Filoni –– Favreau’s creative partner in all things ‘Star Wars’ –– has had a hand in the script.
What has been said about the new movie?
Jon Favreau attends the panel for “The Mandalorian” series at Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, California on May 28, 2022. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney).
Here’s Favreau’s statement on the new movie:
“I have loved telling stories set in the rich world that George Lucas created. The prospect of bringing the Mandalorian and his apprentice Grogu to the big screen is extremely exciting.”
What else is in development for big screen ‘Star Wars’?
(L to R) Dave Filoni, Daisy Ridley and director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy at Star Wars Celebration 2023.
While it appears the Mando movie is flying into first position, we do know that Dave Filoni is still putting the pieces together for his own film, while one that continues the story of Rey (Daisy Ridley) is on the way from director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and writer Steven Knight, due in 2027.
And then there’s James Mangold’s film, which explores the origins of the Jedi and early force users and is awaiting a release date.
We’d guess that while Filoni (who was recently promoted to Chief Creative Officer at Lucasfilm) is still going full speed ahead on his movie, he’s also been busy figuring out a second season of ‘Ahsoka’, which may well lead to his big screen outing.
When will ‘The Mandalorian & Grogu’ be in theaters?
Lucasfilm has yet to confirm a release date, but a 2024 shoot points to a potential return for ‘Star Wars’ Christmas premieres in 2025.
The cast and crew of ‘The Mandalorian’ season 3 at Star Wars Celebration 2023.
(Left) Director Guillermo del Toro for ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.’ (Right) Jabba the Hutt in ‘Return of the Jedi.’ Photo: Lucasfilm.
Guillermo del Toro is one of those filmmakers with a list of exciting yet unmade projects that could fill a To Do list for seven directors.
There are his famous examples –– a third ‘Hellboy’ movie, Lovecraft adaptation ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ –– but those are just the tip of his probable project iceberg.
And while he’s talked up a potential ‘Star Wars’ project before (a galaxy where there are plenty of movies either in development or hovering in limbo at any one time), we now have confirmation from writer (and ‘Foundation’ showrunner) David S. Goyer that the idea of a del Toro ‘Star Wars’ movie came closer than anyone has imagined.
David S. Goyer talks his unmade Guillermo del Toro ‘Star Wars’ script.
‘Foundation’ season 2 showrunner and executive producer David S. Goyer.
Goyer stopped by the Happy Sad Confused podcast to discuss the latest season of ‘Foundation’ and more, and dropped word about the ‘Star Wars’ script he wrote with del Toro looking to direct.
Here’s what Goyer had to say:
“I wrote an unproduced ‘Star Wars’ movie that Guillermo del Toro was going to direct. It was about four years ago. It’s a cool script.”
Goyer did not go into details about what the movie might have been, but del Toro took to social media to confirm his story and to heavily hint that it would have featured Jabba the Hutt.
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Guillermo del Toro poses backstage with the Oscar® for Animated Feature Film during the live ABC telecast of the 95th Oscars® at Dolby® Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 12, 2023.
That makes sense, since back in 2015, del Toro told Yahoo Movies that his ideal ‘Star Wars’ project would focus on the earlier days of the bulbous, sluglike gangster.
Here’s del Toro on the topic:
“This is not real; this is me as a fat geek just geeking out and talking about it. I would do the sort of ‘Godfather’ saga that Jabba the Hutt had to go through to gain control. One, because it’s the character that looks the most like me, and I like him. I love the idea of a Hutt type of mafia, a very complex coup. I just love the character.”
In other interviews, del Toro has confirmed that he pitched Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy on ideas for ‘Star Wars’ movies, but obviously his busy schedule or their plans didn’t let it come to pass. At least, not yet…
Goyer wasn’t done dropping hints about ‘Star Wars’ projects he worked on… And it sounds like the other is much closer to reality.
This is what Goyer said:
“I also wrote an unproduced… I have a ‘scriptment’ for an origins of the Jedi movie, also for ‘Star Wars,’ that I wrote, that took place 25,000 years before the first ‘Star Wars’ film.”
(L to R) Director James Mangold, and Dave Filoni at Star Wars Celebration 2023.
Mangold later told Empire this about the planned movie:
“It takes place 25,000 years before Episode IV, and it’s about the discovery of the Force. I told Kathy [Kennedy] I wanted to make a kind of Bible movie, a kind of ‘Ten Commandments’ of ‘Star Wars’ –– kind of a Cecil B. DeMille film about the arrival of the Force, and that’s what I’ve been pecking away at between press events. That’s the idea.”
With luck, this one should make it to screens, but we may still have a wait ahead of us…
(Center) Jabba the Hutt in ‘Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.’ Photo: Lucasfilm.
