Arriving on Disney+ on March 11 with the first episode of its second season (with the remaining seven arriving weekly) is ‘Daredevil: Born Again’, which brings back lawyer Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) has he battles the powerful Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), who is ruling New York as mayor with an iron fist.
The first season of ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ was a largely successful attempt to fully incorporate Daredevil and his nemesis Wilson Fisk into the MCU with their own storyline. Though it suffered from some very apparent seams as the behind-the-scenes team attempted to rescue an unsuccessful first effort with new material, it still provided some superior entertainment.
The second season doesn’t have the same collision of creative vision, but it does have its own challenges.
Dario Scardapane takes full control of the season this year, and is clearly happy to be unleashed. The action is brutal in places, the dialogue often crackles and the storyline is much smoother.
Still, there are issues: at times the momentum lags, and not every plotline outside of the main clash between our central hero and villain works.
Directorially, with Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead leading the team, the show still looks great, with moody scenes, excellent fights and some inventive connective tissue (such as a series of videos mocking Fisk).
Cox and D’Onofrio know exactly what they’re doing at this point, and if the script doesn’t always keep up with them, they make the most of their material.
Outside of them, the likes of Deborah Ann Woll, Genneya Walton and particularly new guest star Matthew Lillard are all strong, Lillard in particular excellent as the mysterious Mr. Charles, who is by turns funny and threatening.
The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen may not have worked out all of his issues, but the second run of ‘Born Again’ certainly offers enough to please fans of the character. And with Season 3 already shooting, we know more will be on the way.
‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Season 2 receives 72 out of 100.
What’s the plot of ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Season 2?
Mayor Wilson Fisk crushes New York City underfoot as he hunts down public enemy number one, the Hell’s Kitchen vigilante known as Daredevil.
But, beneath the horned mask, Matt Murdock will try to fight back from the shadows to tear down the Kingpin’s corrupt empire and redeem his home. Resist. Rebel. Rebuild.
Directors Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland’s ‘Warfare’. Photo: A24.
After showing us what a near-future conflict in the United States could look like with 2024’s chilling ‘Civil War,’ writer-director Alex Garland has teamed up with Ray Mendoza – a former Navy SEAL and Iraq War veteran who helped stage the battle sequences in ‘Civil War’ – to reconstruct a real-life incident in which Mendoza’s platoon was trapped by enemy insurgents in a Ramadi apartment house for several hours.
The result is ‘Warfare,’ a powerfully immersive and visceral recreation, told in semi-real time, of the events of a single day in November 2006. That’s when the platoon of Navy SEALs in which Mendoza was a communications officer, embedded in an apartment building on what was supposed to be a routine surveillance mission, found themselves surrounded by Al-Qaeda insurgents and under attack. The movie strips away almost anything not related to that single chain of events, making it both succinct and displaced in time, yet still an overwhelming visual and auditory document of the brutality of war.
Story and Direction
Directors Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland on the set of ‘Warfare’. Photo: A24.
‘Warfare’ is based on the memories of Mendoza and others in his platoon about a single afternoon in which they find themselves pinned down in an apartment building in a dangerous neighborhood in Ramadi, while on what is supposed to be a low-key surveillance mission.
The first half hour of the movie starts out in almost restrained fashion, as the platoon quietly occupies the top floor of the building and tries to reassure the family they find there. A certain amount of tedium sets in as the SEALs settle into position and begin watching the area – but that tedium quickly gives way to unease and tension as they start to see a buildup of insurgents and weapons in the building opposite and realize that an attack is imminent.
When a grenade is hurled into the building, injuring lead sniper Elliot Miller (Cosmo Jarvis) and another SEAL, all hell breaks loose. An attempt to transport the injured outside to an armored vehicle ends with an IED exploding literally under their feet, killing a couple of Iraqi escorts and gravely injuring Miller (again) and another man. The platoon must retreat into the house and hope that reinforcements can come in time, all while defending their position against the encroaching insurgents.
The plot of ‘Warfare’ may be lean, as is the 95-minute running time, but what happens during that time is nothing less than an incredibly potent assault on the senses. Garland and Mendoza, aided by the extraordinary efforts of the production crew, immerse the viewer fully into the panic, terror, violence, and fog of battle. Bullets rip through walls and whine past soldiers; explosions shatter the confined space; smoke and debris cloud the vision; the air is filled with the screams of men in agonizing pain, the constant rattle of gunfire, barking voices over radios.
Director Ray Mendoza on the set of ‘Warfare’. Photo: A24.
Mendoza (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) does his best to keep Miller calm and still and safe even as chaos erupts around him and he continues to bleed out from his mutilated legs. The platoon leader, Erik (Will Poulter), goes into shock and melts down, unable to keep control of his nerves or the situation. Most terrifyingly, the men must wait for a second platoon to get to them and shore up their defenses, while sitting tight for hours until more armored vehicles can attempt another evacuation.
All of this happens in direct, no-nonsense style that plays out as a combination of high-octane action film and almost documentary-like authenticity. There are no triumphant victories, no heroic Hollywood moments, no musical score to tug at the emotions. What Garland and Mendoza simply aim to do is place the viewer right in the middle of a real-life “war is hell” nightmare, letting the pure, unspeakable intensity of the situation do all the heavy lifting – and they succeed.
Now there are two areas in which ‘Warfare’ may or may not fall down, depending on your perspective. Like other war films – particularly Ridley Scott’s ‘Black Hawk Down,’ to which this film does owe a large debt in some ways – ‘Warfare’ sacrifices character development for immediacy. We don’t really get to know the guys in the platoon, and as always seems to be the case, it’s often hard to tell who’s who in the midst of the most concentrated action. But the counterpoint to this is that ‘Warfare’ strives to be as realistic as possible, and in real life the sort of character-defining moments or arcs that occur in conventional Hollywood writing simply don’t happen. These are men (and it is all men this time) trying to do their jobs under the most harrowing circumstances possible, and we don’t have time for speeches or back stories.
The other area in which ‘Warfare’ may come under criticism is that of context: it’s widely established that the Iraq War was fought under false pretenses – making it more of an illegitimate invasion than a genuine war – but the movie does not address the geopolitical environment in which these troops fight at all. And again, the response is that this may be the point: ‘Warfare’ does not set out to make political statements – it shows what’s happening on the ground to the troops who are sent to fight whether they want to be there or not. And trust us – if ‘Warfare’ proves anything, it’s that almost no one in their right mind would want to be there. Stripped of context and traditional Hollywood tropes, ‘Warfare’ gets one point across: war is hell no matter where you are and who you’re fighting for.
Cast and Performances
Directors Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland’s ‘Warfare’. Photo: A24.
With little character development in the screenplay, it’s notable that the cast of unknowns and kind-of-knowns manage to make some discernible impressions. D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (‘Reservation Dogs’) is striking as Mendoza himself, the soldier battling his own fear to keep his friend Miller alive and protect himself and his fellow platoon members. Charles Melton (‘May December’) also makes a powerful impression as Jake, the authoritative leader of the second platoon who arrives late in the game to reestablish command. That happens after Will Poulter’s Erik loses his grip, with the ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ star giving perhaps the most complicated performance in the film as a smart commanding officer who suddenly finds himself barely able to function at the worst time possible.
While the rest of the platoon does feature some familiar faces under their helmets, masks, and grime (Joseph Quinn and Noah Centineo among them), the actors stand out not for individual character moments but for their credibility as an ensemble – they certainly make you believe you’re watching a well-trained, well-organized group of soldiers who are doing their best to follow orders, protect each other, and stay alive.
Final Thoughts
Directors Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland’s ‘Warfare’. Photo: A24.
It’s difficult to say where Garland’s direction leaves off and Mendoza’s begins, but we’re guessing that the latter worked more directly with the actors based on his experience, while Garland handled the technical and practical side of the filmmaking, expanding on the expertise he’s developed on films like ‘Civil War’ and ‘Annihilation.’ Either way, it’s a seamless effort, aided immensely by the immersive cinematography of David J. Thompson, the precision editing of Fin Oates, the production design by Mark Digby, and especially the gut-churning sound design of Glenn Freemantle.
The result is a movie that defies standard Hollywood filmmaking conventions, and while some may find that jarring, well, we have no doubt that “jarring” doesn’t begin to cover the real experiences that Mendoza and his comrades went through. And even without political context or attempts at standard character journeys, ‘Warfare’ manages to bring forth the real cost of war for every human being involved with an incredible level of detail, horror, and authenticity. It’s brutal – as it should be.
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What is the plot of ‘Warfare’?
A platoon of Navy SEALS on a mission in insurgent-held territory during the Iraq War find themselves trapped in an apartment building by hostile forces and forced to wait for extraction.
Who is in the cast of ‘Warfare’?
D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai as Ray Mendoza
Will Poulter as Erik
Cosmo Jarvis as Elliot Miller
Joseph Quinn as Sam
Kit Connor as Tommy
Michael Gandolfini as Lt. McDonald
Noah Centineo as Brian
Evan Holtzman as Brock
Charles Melton as Jake
Directors Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland’s ‘Warfare’. Photo: A24.
‘Daredevil: Born Again’ receives 7.5 out of 10 stars.
Landing on Disney+ on March 4th with the first two episodes (before going weekly), ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ finds Disney and Marvel seeking to segue Charlie Cox’s titular vigilante from his slightly cheerier Marvel Cinematic Universe entrance to the darker tones of his days on Netflix.
The big questions the show needs to answer are, can that style of show truly still co-exist within the MCU without sticking out like a sore thumb and what impact did the behind-the-scenes creative overhaul have on the new series?
Related Article: Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio Talk Disney+’s ‘Daredevil: Born Again’
Does ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ do the character justice?
If the new show was looking to emulate the style, feel and success of at least the first season of the Marvel/Netflix ‘Daredevil’ (which you can find on Disney+ these days), then the answer to all three parts is, “mostly.”
With Marvel at least having established the likes of ‘Echo’ as being able to co-exist with other characters while maintaining a much darker feel, there is precedent for ‘Born Again’ to unleash itself. This is no pat, Disney-fied take on Daredevil (a couple of younger characters aside, who in some ways feel forced upon the creative team to up the youth appeal), but instead a show that wears its heart on its sleeve and isn’t afraid to keep the body count high.
Yet if the appearance of Elden Henson’s Foggy Nelson and Deborah Ann Woll’s Karen Page had you thinking this will directly replicate the original series, be warned: that’s not the case. And if you’ve been itching to see Cox truly back in the suit and the level of fight scenes that the Netflix show established, that’s also something you may have to be patient about. Don’t get us wrong; there is some intense action to be found in the episodes. They’re just primarily, because of the direction the story takes, focused on Matt Murdock rather than his costumed alter ego.
Dario Scardapane, who has experience running Netflix’s ‘The Punisher’ series which spun off Jon Bernthal’s tough-nut character was brought in to take over the show after executives got a look during the production shutdown for the actors’ strike at what had been written and shot by original showrunners Matt Corman and Chris Ord, and decided that it wasn’t working. Scardapane’s version, which retains some legal elements of the series but adds in more of a serialized feel certainly has value and weight, chronicling Matt Murdock’s decision to essentially hang up his horns following a tragedy.
While the new show does follow Murdock the lawyer more than his heroic side, there is plenty of action and drama to be found within, and a fair sprinkling of other Marvel comics characters (including a nod to other MCU shows that are fun easter eggs rather than requiring any homework to make the story work).
A scene early on between Cox’s Murdock and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk recalls the diner conversation from ‘Heat’ and there is much mileage to be gotten out of Fisk’s running to be mayor of New York, with plenty of Trumpian parallels.
It doesn’t all completely work –– a lot of Season One here ends up feeling like setup for Season Two, and there are passages that feel less essential than others. But it’s definitely good to have Daredevil back on our screens.
One of the smartest moves for the new show was hiring directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead to take over the visual look during the overhaul. While they may be better known for their weird indie movies and the stylish quirk they brought to MCU Disney+ entries ‘Moon Knight’ and ‘Loki’s second season, here they are operating more in a street-crime mode, yet with a stylish flair that sometimes brings to mind Christopher Nolan’s work on the Batman movies.
Charlie Cox knows how to play Matt Murdock/Daredevil by this point, and the script certainly gives him enough to chew on –– there are several callbacks to the character’s faith and the struggles with it, and a solid arc for him to play.
Yet D’Onofrio might have come off even better; Fisk was always one of the most compelling elements of the original series (and missed in subsequent seasons), and here he’s back to being presented as a more human threat, albeit still a morality-free monster when called upon. The actor’s exchanges with Fisk’s great love, his wife Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer, similarly returning from the Netflix era), now estranged, are great.
Likewise, both are surrounded by solid supporting casts –– Cox has the likes of Margarita Levieva as therapist Heather Glenn, with whom he strikes up a relationship that gives him extra layers, while Nikki M. James makes an impact as fellow legal eagle Kirsten McDuffie.
Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle in Marvel’s ‘The Punisher.’ Photo: Netflix.
Jon Bernthal is also back, and while Frank Castle only gets a couple of scenes (so far; expect more from him next year), the performer is typically great, Kudos also to Michael Gandolfini, who registers well as Daniel Blade an ambitious young man who joins Kingpin’s staff.
If there’s someone who gets shortchanged, it’s Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, who rarely gets to do much as Karen besides worry about Matt. Still, all signs point to more from her also next season.
This is a confident, often impressive return for a character, and certainly hews closer to his Netflix days than even the version we’ve seen in the likes of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home.’
Still, there are some signs that the need to overhaul the show has left some scars behind, and hopefully those will be more healed by the in-the-works season two.
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What is the plot of ‘Daredevil: Born Again’?
Blind lawyer Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) fights for justice while former crime boss Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) pursues his campaign as the mayor of New York City, causing their past identities to collide.
(Front Row) Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson in Netflix’s ‘Daredevil.’ Photo: Netflix.
Preview:
Marvel’s ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ is undergoing a creative change.
Elden Henson and Deborah Ann Woll, are according to reports, returning.
Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio are starring.
After seeding the previously Netflix-based characters of Matt Murdock (played by Charlie Cox, he’s the blind lawyer with super-sensory hearing skills who suits up as the vigilante known as Daredevil) and Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk, a hulking criminal overlord who is one of Daredevil’s main enemies) into the MCU via the likes of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’, ‘Hawkeye’ and ‘She-Hulk’, Marvel was riding high on the reaction to news that the two would be the focus of their own Disney+ series.
‘Daredevil: Begin Again’ was supposed to be Marvel triumphantly proving it can take a character that has been brought to TV screens elsewhere and merge them into the wider, more directly canonical comic book-based universe. Commissioned from writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman, it was set for a mammoth 18-episode shoot and cameras started rolling back in March of last year.
Yet less than half the episodes had been filmed when the writers’ strike closed down production, and when executives got a look at the footage, they were unimpressed. Ord, Corman and the directors were let go and a new creative team, including Dario Scardapane as showrunner and ‘Loki’ Season 2 directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, was hired.
And from the sounds of a new report, fans will be even happier to learn of some returning veterans in front of the camera…
Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson to reprise their roles?
Deborah Ann Woll in Netflix’s ‘Daredevil.’ Photo: Netflix.
Classic characters from the ‘Daredevil’ comic books, Foggy is Matt’s legal partner, while Karen is their legal secretary/research assistant.
They had a big fan following after their appearances on the main show and (especially in Woll’s case) popping up in other ‘Defenders’ shows on the streaming service. People were disappointed when they weren’t included in the original plans for ‘Born Again’, but it would appear that Marvel has listened to its audience.
We’ll also see another Netflix character/actor, as Jon Bernthal is reprising the role of Frank Castle –– better known as tough guy vigilante The Punisher –– from his own series and his ‘Daredevil’ crossovers.
When will ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ be on screens?
Given the various delays and changes, we don’t expect the show to premiere before 2025.
(Left) Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse in ‘Back to Black.’ Photo: Studiocanal & Monumental Pictures. (Right) Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley in ‘Bob Marley: One Love.’ Photo: Paramount Pictures.
Preview:
Images from ‘Back to Black’ and ‘Bob Marley: One Love’ have arrived online.
The musical biopics chronicle two musical icons.
Both films will be out in 2024.
There has been a definite rise in the number of musical biopics in the last few years, spurred, most likely, by the Oscar-winning success of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. We’ve seen films about singing stars such as Elton John, Whitney Houston and “Weird Al” Yankovic brought to life on screen (that last one, admittedly more of a spoof version of the genre).
You can add two more to the list via upcoming movies –– Britain’s Amy Winehouse and Reggae icon Bob Marley. Winehouse’s story will be told in ‘Back to Black’ while Marley gets the cinematic treatment in ‘Bob Marley: One Love’.
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What’s the story of ‘Back to Black’?
Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse in ‘Back to Black.’ Photo: Studiocanal & Monumental Pictures.
Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson (who has form with musical folk via John Lennon film ‘Nowhere Boy’, the movie stars Marisa Abela as Winehouse, who was widely considered one of the greatest artists in recent history, selling more than 30 million records worldwide, and today generating more than 80 million streams per month.
Her acclaimed 2006 album “Back to Black”, propelled her to global stardom, going on to win a (at the time) record breaking 5 Grammy Awards, including Record Of The Year and Song of The Year for hit single “Rehab”. She got her start on the North London jazz circuit and rose to become a musical superstar. She tragically died of alcohol poisoning at the age of 27.
The movie will focus on Amy’s extraordinary genius, creativity and honesty that infused everything she did. A journey that took her from the craziness and color of 90’s Camden High Street to global adoration.
Marisa Abela stars as Amy Winehouse in director Sam Taylor-Johnson’s ‘Back To Black.’
Here’s what the director said when the movie was first announced:
“My connection to Amy began when I left college and was hanging out in the creatively diverse London borough of Camden. I got a job at the legendary KOKO club, and I can still breathe every market stall, vintage shop, and street,” she says in a statement. “A few years later Amy wrote her searingly honest songs whilst living in Camden. Like with me, it became part of her DNA. I first saw her perform at a talent show at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho and it was immediately obvious she wasn’t just ‘talent’… She was genius. As a filmmaker you can’t really ask for more. I feel excited and humbled to have this opportunity to realise Amy’s beautifully unique and tragic story to cinema accompanied by the most important part of her legacy – her music. I am fully aware of the responsibility, with my writing collaborator––Matt Greenhalgh––I will create a movie that we will all love and cherish forever. Just like we do Amy.”
When will ‘Back to Black’ be in theaters?
‘Back to Black’ has yet to confirm a domestic release date, but it starts rolling out in the UK and other international locations on April 12th, 2024.
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What’s the story of ‘Bob Marley: One Love’?
Kinglsey Ben-Adir as “Bob Marley” in ‘Bob Marley: One Love’ from Paramount Pictures.
Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, who most recently made ‘King Richard’, ‘Bob Marley: One Love’ celebrates the life and music of an icon who inspired generations through his message of love and unity.
We’ll discover Bob’s powerful story of overcoming adversity and the journey behind his revolutionary music.
Who appears in ‘Bob Marley: One Love’?
‘Bob Marley: One Love’ is scheduled to be released in theaters on January, 12th 2024.
“I’ve always loved Bob, his music was playing in my household growing up was thinking, how serendipitous. Somehow it felt like it was written for me; Bob Marley lived at 42 Oakley Street in London and 42 is my favourite number. There were all these weird signs calling me to this film. And I think what Bob sang for, his message of unity and peace and love are the things I believe in as a human being. I’m sure they’ve been trying to make a Marley move for years and it’s never happened and somehow it’s falling on my doorstep. I just thought, ‘yeah it’s a gigantic risk because Bob is so beloved and an icon, a fascinating character and he has a cult following so you don’t mess with Bob, you can’t get him wrong.’”
A trailer for ‘Bob Marley: One Love’ is now online.
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When will ‘Bob Marley: One Love’ land in theaters?
The Marley movie will be on screens on February 14th.
Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley in ‘Bob Marley: One Love.’ Photo: Paramount Pictures.
Other Movies Similar to ‘Back to Black’ and ‘Bob Marley: One Love’:
What is the plot of ‘Landscape with Invisible Hand’?
In a near-future in which an alien species known as the Vuvv has taken over Earth, an aspiring teenage artist (Asante Blackk) and his girlfriend (Kylie Rogers) hatch a scheme to make money by broadcasting their dating life to the fascinated aliens in wake of the Vuvv’s labor-saving technology. But the two teens slowly come to hate each other and can’t break up without bankrupting their families.
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Who is in the cast of ‘Landscape with Invisible Hand’?
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with director Cory Finley about his work on ‘Landscape with Invisible Hand,’ adapting Anderson’s book, the themes he wanted to explore, commenting on social media and reality TV, the design of the aliens, and working with Asante Blackk and Tiffany Haddish.
You can read the full interview below or watch our interview by clicking on the video player above.
Moviefone: To begin with, can talk about adapting M. T. Anderson’s book and developing the screenplay?
Cory Finley: First, I’ll just talk about what I loved about the book, which is so many things. I’m a very restless filmmaker and I always like to do something very different from the project I spent the last two to three years of my life on. I came to this project right after finishing ‘Bad Education,’ which is a movie I’m super proud of, but is a very studiously subtle, realistic character, dark comedy drama. I really wanted to just go all out with something with a very strong genre element. I loved about this book that it had this kind of unabashed silliness and goofiness, but also this very real seriousness of purpose. It was this allegorical science fiction fable all about capitalism, colonialism, big weighty ideas, but handled in a very comedic and absurdist style. It’s kind of a tone I’d been wanting to play with for a long time, and so I jumped at the opportunity to adapt it.
MF: What were some of the themes that you wanted to explore with this movie?
CF: A lot of themes. I love just this idea that it was an alien invasion, but it wasn’t a scary, powerful military alien invasion like we’re used to seeing. I love this idea of a free market alien invasion or a purely economic alien invasion, where the aliens just made things better and more efficiently than humans could, and took de facto political power that way. I thought that was really interesting and strange, and that was the first thing that drew me to it. Then, I think the book also opens up these interesting subtle conversations about colonialism and cultural appropriation in a sense, and other kind of think piece ideas, but again, explored in a very interesting sideways subtle way.
MF: Can you talk about the way society and the world changes after the alien invasion?
CF: I mean, I think that it’s very much a human level story of an alien invasion. We want to pay off all the sci-fi expectations of showing you some wild environments and strange creatures, and all of that is very important to me. But really, I think what’s most interesting about the book to me was that it had this very almost kitchen sink element to it. A lot of it takes place just in this house. A lot of it is about paying the bills, and the aliens are there in the background and ultimately very much in the foreground, and they bring these odd little narrative twists to these very human scale problems. But again, I’m just always going to be a filmmaker that’s most interested in the comedy of manners aspect, and the human level aspects. That was what was really rich about this very out there premise to me.
MF: Can you talk about the film’s commentary on social media and reality TV?
CF: I think those are definitely themes. I am an unabashed Bravo fan. My girlfriend particularly is a huge ‘Real Housewives,’ and ‘Below Deck’ fan. I do enjoy those. I didn’t take on this project specifically to satirize reality TV, or to talk about TikTok and influencer culture. That’s something that I have very little firsthand experience with. But I think it’s inevitably something that the movie takes on with this idea that in this kind of crippled economy where human labor is redundant, humans have only their humanness to sell to the Vuvv. That’s what was so interesting to me. This idea of alien tourism being the only remaining industry. Certainly, the way that takes place where humans are letting aliens watch them falling in love and these other exotic, strange human emotions, that’s inevitably going to speak to people that are on either side of the reality TV, TikTok world. I’m happy that’s an element of the movie.
MF: Can you talk about designing the look of the aliens and the sound that they make when they communicate, and also the choice to use them sparingly?
CF: I wanted the audience to see the world that this invasion had wrought and get used to that before you actually saw the aliens themselves. It adds a little bit of a comic punchline when you then see that the aliens do indeed look and talk like they do. But the design process itself was the biggest unknown for me. I’d never done anything like that. My first movie had zero visual effects shots. My second movie had five visual effects shots, and this had over a hundred, which is still, for this type of movie is still small in comparison to other movies. We were still judicious in our use of visual effects and still tried to be practical wherever we could. But one of my really key collaborators was this guy Erik De Boer, who I brought on and met with after I saw ‘Okja,’ Bong Joon-ho‘s movie. Erik had worked closely with Bong Joon-ho to craft that super pig. What I thought was so amazing about that movie was it was one of the first times I’d seen a fully visual effects creature that, A, I was really able to suspend my disbelief and believe it was in the environment with these characters, and B, he’s so good at these human-creature interactions and building an emotional reaction to the character. We wanted a very different emotion with this creature than with that adorable giant pig, but Erik was such a key collaborator. We iterated endlessly, and we settled on this kind of deliberately annoying strategy where the aliens would talk essentially with their hands. In the book, it says with a gritty fin, and would do this weird, kind of unpleasant postmodern dance and these annoying pencil sharpener sounds, then a human voice would translate. We wanted the way it communicated to evoke the emotions that these strange little bureaucratic conquerors would evoke.
MF: In the movie, the aliens watch old American TV shows. Can you talk about choosing the clips from the shows that you wanted? Was there anything the you couldn’t use because of copyrights?
CF: We got all the shows we wanted, which is great, including a movie clip from ‘Rebel Without a Cause,’ which was pretty cool for me. There’s this idea in the book that I wanted to hold onto that is very subtly handled in the movie, but that the aliens started watching humans in the ’50s, and that because that’s when they first encountered humans, they assume that’s the human golden age. There’s lots of interesting writing about how AI, for instance, can take on human ills as it trains itself on human data. You can get a sexist or racist AI because it absorbs those ambient factors in the air. There was something subversive and interesting to me about these aliens not being inherently patriarchal jerks, but absorbing it from the human culture that they believe was this human golden age. Obviously, too many real humans believe that the ’50s was the golden age as well.
MF: The character of Adam is an artist, and we see his art throughout the movie. Can you talk about choosing the art pieces for the film?
CF: That was one of the real joys of the movie, finding a collaborator. It was clear to me early on that the artwork was going to be such a character in the movie, that I didn’t want to just throw something together as a prop. I really wanted to bring on a working artist with their own point of view and style, but also someone who could be collaborative, which I think is a pretty rare pair of skills. I was introduced to this amazing artist named William Downs, who’s based in Atlanta, where we shot, who does these incredible kind of hallucinatory, surreal, mostly black and white drawings. When I saw his work, it really spoke to the feeling of the movie, and we convinced him to work in color for the first time in a while. That was his version of a character accent or something. Moving out of his own style, but keeping certain elements that gave it its core.
MF: Finally, what was it like working with Asante Blackk and Tiffany Haddish?
CF: They were just awesome. Tiffany was so funny, even funnier when the camera stopped rolling than when it was, if possible. She was just cracking up the whole crew, and brought such a great energy to set. Asante is also extremely funny, and sort of an underrated comedian. But I just knew when I saw ‘When They See Us,’ Ava DuVernay‘s limited series, he was so fantastic in that and powerful and just hit all the emotions for me. I knew he was someone I wanted to work with.
When Marvel Studios yanked the rights to bring Daredevil stories to screens and Netflix unceremoniously cancelled their ‘Defenders’ series, which included the Man Without Fear, Charlie Cox, the Man with the red suit, might have feared that he’d taken down his last baddie.
Yet Marvel boss Kevin Feige had other ideas, bringing the British actor back for a cameo in ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ and a memorable, funny, and charming recurring guest spot on ‘She-Hulk’, in which his Matt Murdock (the lawyer alter ego of Daredevil) meets and, er swaps legal briefs with Tatiana Maslany’s Jennifer Walters.
All that, though, was simply to re-introduce the character ready for a full show of his own, in which he’ll once again have to deal with the nefarious, powerful Kingpin, played by Vincent D’Onofrio (who got his own MCU introduction via ‘Hawkeye’ last year).
Now, with ‘Daredevil: Born Again’, to be overseen by ‘Covert Affairs’ veterans Matt Corman and Chris Ord, Murdock will be back, albeit slightly different as befits a Disney+ series.
“This has to be a reincarnation, it has to be different, otherwise why are we doing it?” Cox tells NME in a new interview. “My opinion is this character works best when he’s geared towards a slightly more mature audience. My instinct is that on Disney+ it will be dark, but it probably won’t be as gory.”
Marvel Studios’ ‘Daredevil: Born Again.’
And for anyone keeping their fingers crossed for a full-on continuation of the bloodier Netflix series? “I would say to those people, we’ve done that,” he says. “Let’s take the things that really worked, but can we broaden? Can we appeal to a slightly younger audience without losing what we’ve learned about what works?”
More surprising to the actor is the sheer number of episodes that will comprise the new series. Unlike the other Disney+ Marvel offerings, which have largely been around 8-9, ‘Born Again’ will be a whopping 18-episode first run.
“I’m fascinated to discover why they’ve chosen to do 18,” he says. “I’m imagining there’s going to be an element to it that is like the old-school procedural show. Not necessarily case-of-the-week, but something where we go deep into Matt Murdock the lawyer and get to see what his life is like. If that’s done right and he really gets his hands dirty with that world… I think there’s something quite interesting about that, to spend a lot of time in a superhero’s day-to-day life and you really earn the moments when he suits up.”
Cox claims he’s yet to see scripts or outlines, which sounds more like an actor choosing to be diplomatically evasive and avoid potential spoiler questions. But he did talk about the schedule, which sounds like he’ll be a tad busy next year… “They said to me, ‘We’re going to be shooting in 2023’,” says Cox. “I said, ‘Great, when?’ They said, ‘All 2023’. I start shooting in February and finish in December.”
In addition to Cox and D’Onofrio, ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ will feature Margarita Levieva, Michael Gandolfini and Sandrine Holt. No release date has been given for the show, but given that filming schedule, we can’t imagine it’ll hit screens much before the middle of 2024.
In related MCU Disney+ news, ‘WandaVision’ spin-off ‘Agatha: Coven of Chaos’ added a legend of the stage.
Three-time Tony winner Patti LuPone is the latest recruit for the show, which will focus on Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness.
The troublemaking witch, who caused so many problems for Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff. That is, until Wanda (drawing on more of her Scarlet Witch power) condemned Agatha to live as Agnes, the nosy neighbor character that she’d created to infiltrate the fantasy world Wanda had built for herself over Westview, New Jersey to hide from the grief of losing Vision (Paul Bettany).
While ‘WandaVision’ was built around sitcoms that represent Wanda’s happy place, we don’t yet know what sort of show ‘Coven of Chaos’ will be, other than it presumably sees Agatha regaining her personality somehow.
We have learned about some of the people who will be populating the new series, as Aubrey Plaza, Joe Locke, Ali Ahn, Sasheer Zamata and Maria Dizzia are all new recruits for the series. Emma Caulfield Ford, meanwhile, will return as her ‘WandaVision’ character Dottie Jones––though given that that was the fantasy persona created by Wanda, we may well see her more as her actual town resident Sarah Proctor.
This being Marvel, there has of course been no official statement confirming any of the casting or specifying who the cast beyond Hahn play, though Plaza is reportedly taking a villainous role. It’ll be fun to see Hahn and Plaza interact whatever the latter ends up doing, since while Hahn sometimes appeared on ‘Parks and Recreation’ (where Plaza was one of the leads), they rarely shared scenes.
The same goes for LuPone, though Deadline has heard that she’ll be playing a witch. Sounds like it could a fantastic role for her.
‘Coven of Chaos’ comes from Jac Shaeffer, who created and served as head writer on ‘WandaVision’ and returns for this. That’s not the only series she’s guiding. At a much more embryonic stage is ‘Vision Quest’, which would see the return of Bettany’s synthetic being following the events of the show.
As for LuPone, she’s a musical mainstay who has won two Olivier Awards and two Grammy Awards for her accomplished theater career. She will next be seen in ‘Beau Is Afraid’, an upcoming surrealist comedy horror film written, directed, and produced by Ari Aster and starring Joaquin Phoenix.
Marvel Studios’ ‘Agatha: Coven of Chaos.’
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At this point, it’s looking that ‘Ballerina, the Ana de Armas-starring ‘John Wick’ spin-off, will feature a wealth of people from the main franchise, at least to help it initially.
The latest recruit for the movie, according to Variety, is Lance Reddick, who has appeared in all three ‘Wick’ movies, and will once again play Charon, concierge at the assassin-catering Continental Hotel.
“Charon is an indispensable part of the world of ‘Wick,’ ” producer Erica Lee said in a statement. “It’s great to know that Lance will continue to make his mark on this franchise.”
He’s just the latest piece of crossover casting for the movie, since Keanu Reeves (aka John Wick himself) is reportedly going to show up, though that has yet to be officially confirmed.
Keanu Reeves as John Wick in ‘John Wick: Chapter 4.’
More solid is word that Ian McShane will be Continental manager in the movie, while Anjelica Huston is aboard as The Director, who is the head of the Ruska Roma crime organization.
‘Ballerina’ will follow the Ballerina character glimpsed briefly (and there played by Unity Phelan) in ‘Parabellum’ and tracks a young assassin who seeks revenge against the people who killed her family. Which does feel apt for something set in John Wick’s world.
‘Ballerina’ has yet to chalk up a release date, though ‘John Wick: Chapter 4’ is headed our way on March 24th next year.
(L to R) Michael Gandolfini and Alessandro Nivola in ‘The Many Saints of Newark.’
Elsewhere, we have a double dose of Marvel/Disney+ casting news.
Michael Gandolfini, who so far is best known for playing the younger Tony Soprano (the role his father James made famous on TV in ‘The Sopranos’) in ‘Sopranos’ movie prequel ‘The Many Saints of Newark’, is joining ‘Daredevil: Born Again’.
The much-anticipated Disney+ series will see Charlie Cox’s blind lawyer-turned-vigilante fully make the transition from his Netflix years (assuming it is exactly the same character, the jury remains out on that) to the MCU after popping up in ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ and his even more memorable recent run on episodes of ‘She-Hulk’.
‘Daredevil: Born Again’ promises to re-ignite the clash between Daredevil and Kingpin, AKA Wilson Fisk, brought to hulking life by Vincent D’Onofrio on the Netflix show and now in ‘Hawkeye’.
Written and executive produced by ‘Covert Affairs creators’ Matt Corman and Chris Ord, the new series’ story is a mystery for now, though we do know it’ll span 18 episodes in its first season.
As for who Gandolfini is playing, Deadline has heard from sources that it could be an ambitious sort called Liam from Staten Island––though that, of course, could be misinformation to throw scoopers off the trail. And who knows if that’s also cover for another comic book character. We’ll know more when the series arrives in 2024.
The show, which saw Tom Hiddleston’s adopted Asgardian and trickster god fall afoul of a mysterious organization known as the Time Variance Agency after affecting the timeline by absconding with the Tesseract during ‘Avengers: Endgame’, ended in a cliffhanger, with Loki in a different timeline.
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are the main directors for the second season of the show, which has finished shooting and should be on screens next year.
Marvel Studios’ ‘Loki’ Season 2.
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Michael Gandolfini and Alessandro Nivola in ‘The Many Saints of Newark’
Michael Gandolfini talks about how he joined the movie, and Vera Farmiga and Jon Bernthal talk about whether they’d watched the TV series.
Moviefone: You guys play members of the Soprano family. I’m going to start with you, Michael, you are playing a young Tony Soprano was a role made iconic by your father. When they asked you to do this role, what went through your mind?
Michael Gandolfini: Well, it wasn’t like a phone call of like, you have the role, do you want it, yes or no? Which was very helpful. It was like a slow burn, they want you to audition. And at first I was really hesitant, but I thought I’m not really in a position to not audition and go up in front of Douglas Aibel who is a great casting director and get used to it. So-
Vera Farmiga: You had to work for it! You guys are earnest!
Gandolfini: Yeah, that was my first audition. And then I had a second, and then I had a third. So it was like three months of convincing myself. Okay, I have a point of view, I have an idea of how I can do this differently and like sort of… By the end, I’d fallen in love with this Tony and had a real kind of excitement to play him.
MF: Oh my God. If that had been me, I feel like by the end of it, I would’ve been like, what if I didn’t get the role after going by?
Gandolfini: I had nightmares of like, David sitting behind. I had an actual… I remember having nightmares of like talking to David and being like, what are you going to tell? What are we…? Actually, this is crazy, but I had a dream, I remember it was David looking at me, and I was in the audition. I was doing it. And I looked down, and my hands are my dad’s hands.
Farmiga: Oh, wow.
Gandolfini: And I woke up, and I was like, that’s such a Soprano dream. Like it’s just such a yeah. Yeah.
MF: Is it true, Michael, that you hadn’t seen ‘The Sopranos’ prior to getting the role, you then binged it, right?
Gandolfini: That’s true.
MF: So then, Vera and John, had you seen ‘The Sopranos’ before?
Farmiga: I had not.
Jon Bernthal: I had.
MF: You had?
Bernthal: I very much have.
MF: So then, Vera, did you do a binge as well?
Farmiga: I did, but after accepting the role. Because my decision was based on who my compadres were going to be, and the strength of the words on the written page as a whole, as a film, what the film was about, toxic masculinity, depression, American Dream, blah, blah, blah, blah. I knew that it was a good standalone film. I didn’t know how it tied into the original and I didn’t… and so yeah, after I grounded, and I knew what I was in for, I was petrified. Yes.
MF: And real quick, John, can you tell me a little bit about the character that you play for those who don’t know?
Bernthal: Sure. I play Johnny Boy, Tony’s dad, Livia’s husband. He’s a character that very much lives in flashbacks and I think in lore in the show. It’s somebody the people talk about a lot and this sort of larger than life character. So I think he kind of pops up in the movie here and there. And I think this sort of job for me and what I tried to hook into was a guy who has this huge reputation and has this huge sort of life and this energy about him. But deep inside I think that there’s something very different going on than I think what, sort of, comes across. And that was an interesting challenge for me. Yeah.
Alessandro Nivola, Leslie Odom Jr., and Michela de Rossi talk about playing characters in the Moltisanti family.
Moviefone: I want each of you to tell me about the characters you play, for those of you who don’t know, but we’ll kick it off with Leslie.
Leslie Odom Jr: I play Harold McBrayer and I work for the family. And fans of the show, you’ll know what I mean.
MF: Very big. It’s like a secret.
Michela de Rossi: I am Michela de Rossi and I play Giuseppina Bruno, which is the negative one.
Alessandro Nivola: She’s my stepmother, and then my mistress.
MF: That’s not weird at all.
Nivola: No, no nothing Oedipal going on, I promise. I am Alessandro Nivola and I play Dickie Moltisanti, who was the father of Christopher Moltisanti in the show, famously played by Michael Imperioli, brilliantly. He was a mentor figure to Tony Soprano when Tony was a kid growing up who didn’t really have his parents very present. And this was the guy who took a real interest in him, for better and for worse.
MF: The Sopranos was one of the greatest TV series of all time. So many fans. And I was interested to learn that Michael Gandolfini, James’ son, had never seen ‘The Sopranos,’ even though James was his dad. Had you guys watched ‘The Sopranos’ prior to?
Nivola: None of us.
MF: Really? So then did, did you guys do binges like he did?
Odom: Yeah, I did. I did over the pandemic, like so many people. I watched it from top to bottom and you know, I get it.
de Rossi: I watched it, the whole thing, when I got the role before shooting.
Nivola: Yeah. I guess I watched the first season of it in the two weeks that I was asked to prepare these five auditions scenes to tape and send in. So I’ve seen all three season in that time. And then when I was offered the job, I watched the rest.
MF: I have moments when I watched the movie where I just felt chills because there are those little Easter eggs that pay homage to the original series. But what was it like for you guys being on set with James Gandolfini’s actual son?
Odom: I mean, it was for all these people, David included, Al included, it was more than just a TV show. You know, it’s years of their life. It changed their lives. Michael tells stories about being a little kid and taking naps in Tony and Carmella’s bed. So anyway, there’s a spiritual thing happening there too. I just felt like we just all wanted to support him and just make sure he was all right and felt loved.
Nivola: Or have him support us and tell us that we were okay. Because he surely was an authority, even though he wouldn’t claim he was.
MF: And actually, Alessandro, would you mind describing the relationship between your character and the young Tony Soprano?
Nivola: Yeah, Dickie hasn’t had a child of his own and he as the movie begins, he’s in his forties, and in Italian American culture, having a child is like a sign of manhood. And so he was really, I think, upset about that. And he latched on to Tony as a kind of surrogate son, as a surrogate father. And I think he really loves him and believes in him in a way that no one else in the world of the movie does. And yet he’s a totally hopeless role model for him and keeps flailing around every time he tries to give him discipline or send him on some path other than outside the life of crime. And one of the tragedies of the film is the fact that he wants to do that and can’t figure out how.
Director Alan Taylor talks about returning to the world of ‘The Sopranos.’
Moviefone: In 2007, you won the Emmy for Outstanding Director for Drama for ‘The Sopranos.’ Here we are 14 years later, you’ve now directed the prequel film. Where did the journey for this movie start for you?
Alan Taylor: Wow. Okay, boy, you’ve got your dates and facts down. I sort of feel I grew up on Sopranos. I was not that long out of film school when I first entered that show in the first season. And then over the course of it, I learned a lot from the actors and from David Chase’s writing. So it sort of felt like home to me in a way. So when David called and said he had a script, it felt very good. Partly because in my career had gone various places, and I’d done a couple of big movies where I didn’t really feel I was home and getting a chance to go back to this world felt very right. Felt like a return to a landscape I knew and a voice that I knew. And so it was a chance to sort of take my movie life and my TV life and bring them together.
MF: Right. So when you first read that screenplay, how did you envision ‘The Many Saints of Newark’?
Taylor: Well, as soon as you read it, you hear that same voice, different characters. Dicky never appears in the show, but he is the main guy in our movie, but it’s the same voice. And that’s the main thing. It’s the same ideas, the same questions that never get quite answered. The same themes that are driving it. The same sense of humor, the same relationship to violence. So to me, it was like, yes, we’re back in the world. And then there was work going on in the script. It kept evolving during the period where we were casting and building it. David was adding things that I think really helped shape it until very late in the game. But from the first read it was, oh yes, I remember this voice.
MF: For major ‘Sopranos’ fans. What do you think that they will love most about this film?
Taylor: I think there’s little things that I guess people refer to as Easter eggs that will play for them, moments that will probably get a laugh and stuff like that. But there’s a big emotional connection to the show. If you know the relationship between… Our movie is very much about fathers and sons and if you know the relationship between our main character, Dickie’s son, Christopher, and his relationship to Tony, there’s a really rich resonance in this movie because here we see that character being born, and I was the director who finished him in the show. So there’s a real echo between the movie and what it’s setting up and how darkly it goes for these characters later on.
MF: I will say the main last shot gave me chills.
Taylor: Good.
MF: And I felt, okay, now I need to now start the whole series from this point.
Taylor: Yeah. I’m pretty curious to people who watch the series and now watch the movie, how they will respond to things. Also, people who are seeing the movie first and then seeing the series for the first time. It’d be interesting to see how those two… I do think they speak to each other, but it’s a very different experience depending on what order you get them in, probably.
MF: Of course. I have to ask you about working with Michael Gandolfini, who is of course the son of James Gandolfini, who originally played Tony Soprano. What was it like having him on set?
Taylor: Delightful. First of all, he’s like this sweet, sensitive, thoughtful, generous, warm guy. So that helps. But I think we all knew that we were asking a tremendous amount of him to go into this dark world his father had sort of defined. And having lost his father to go back there. We had a dinner right before we started shooting where Michael stood up and said, I want to thank everybody here for giving me a chance to say hello to my dad again and goodbye again. And there wasn’t a dry eye in the house, but I think from that moment on, everyone sort of gathered around him, the cast, but also the crew. And he was sort of the beating heart of the movie. He’s not the main character, but he was sort of, it felt like a family thing.
Michael Gandolfini, who’s playing young Tony Soprano in the upcoming HBO movie “The Many Saints of Newark,” admits he never watched his late father James Gandolfini‘s show until he landed the part.
“The funny thing is, before the audition, I had never watched a minute of ‘The Sopranos,’ he tells Esquire. “I was just a kid when he was making it.” (He was born in 1999, the year “The Sopranos” debuted.)
“The hardest part of this whole process was watching the show for the first time,” he says. “It was an intense process. Because, as an actor, I had to watch this guy who created the role, to look for mannerisms, voice, all those things I would have to echo. But then I’d also be seeing my father. I think what made it so hard was I had to do it alone. I was just sitting alone in my dark apartment, watching my dad all the time. I started having crazy dreams. I had one where I auditioned for David and I looked down at my hands, and they were my dad’s hands.”
Michael didn’t start acting until after his father’s death in 2013. He says his father always discouraged him from acting and encouraged him to play sports. “He said, ‘Don’t be an actor; be a director. They have the power.’ ”
“[Acting] actually started my grieving process with my dad,” he tells Esquire. He landed the first role he tried out for: Joey Dwyer on HBO’s “The Deuce.” “When I got the role,” Michael says, “my manager joked, ‘You should quit acting now—you’re one-for-one.’ ”
When he got the call from “Sopranos” creator David Chase about starring in the prequel movie, he says taking on the iconic part was a “difficult decision.”
Of course, he sees a lot of own relationship with his father in “The Sopranos:” “There’s a scene where Meadow comes home late at night, and he’s sitting with a drink, and he’s like, ‘You know I love you, right?’ That hit hard.”
He adds, “The other one that crushed me was when he yells at A. J., and he gets a pizza to apologize, and he sits by his son’s bed and says, ‘I couldn’t ask for a better son.’ I just knew he was talking to me in that scene.”
