Premiering on Peacock beginning August 5th is the new slasher film ‘They/Them’ from Blumhouse Productions and writer/director John Logan (‘Gladiator’).
The movie stars Kevin Bacon (‘Friday the 13th,’ ‘Footloose’) as Owen Whistler, the owner of a gay conversion camp. When a new group of LGBTQ kids unwillingly arrive at the camp, they soon discover that there is a mysterious masked killer murdering members of the camp.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Kevin Bacon and Carrie Preston about their work on ‘They/Them,’ the film’s characters, working with the young actors, the important message of the movie, and comparisons to ‘Friday the 13th.’
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interviews with Kevin Bacon, Carrie Preston, Theo Germaine, Austin Crute, Cooper Koch, Darwin Del Fabro, Monique Kim, Anna Lore, producer Scott Turner Schofield, and writer/director John Logan.
Moviefone: To begin with, Kevin is it nice to be in a movie that is both entertaining and also says something important about the world we live in?
Kevin Bacon: Yeah. I mean, that’s exactly what my first reaction was. I love horror. I’ve done horror. But now you have a movie that is in an accessible, presented and structured, by a very mainstream director who has had tremendous public appeal as a writer and director, and yet has a very interesting way in on a message about something that is actually truly horrible in society. It’s way more horrible than someone in a mask running around stabbing people.
MF: Carrie, can talk about your approach to playing this character and her devotion to her husband and his ideals?
Carrie Preston: It is an interesting woman that would want to be with someone whose family has had this camp for forever, where horrible things have been happening to young people. So, there’s got to be something going on in her that is askew to put it mildly. I always try to figure out the positive thing to play because you don’t want to play evil, right?
So, why is she doing what she’s doing? She really feels like she’s saving these young kids from a life of adversity, and she thinks that she’s going to save them. It is a very manipulative way to do it, but I think that’s what she is getting out of it. She thinks of them as her own children. They don’t have kids, so these kids are theirs.
(L to R) Darwin del Fabro as Gabriel, Austin Crute as Toby, and Cooper Koch as Stu in Peacock’s ‘They/Them.’
MF: Kevin, because of the genre and location, ‘They/Them’ has been compared to ‘Friday the 13th,’ which you were also in. Did making this movie bring back any memories for you of when you made the first ‘Friday the 13th?’
KB: You mean nightmares? Listen, ‘Friday the 13th,’ I was a kid and it was a tiny little budgeted movie. I was trying to do theater. Basically, I made a couple of bucks in order to pay my rent and in my apartment on the upper west side. So, the fact that it ended up becoming what it was, it’s not like I went into that movie going, “I want to be part of a classic horror film.”
That had nothing. It was a gig, and this is a totally different kind of experience. This is a great filmmaker that we are all working with and an amazing cast of young people, and people like Carrie with a tremendous amount of experience, and it’s very different. I didn’t flash on ‘Friday the 13th.’ But I guess it’s inevitable, right?
MF: Finally, Carrie what was your experience like working with the young actors on the film?
CP: They have so much life, and by the time I came to meet them, they had already been hanging out together. They were all staying in the same hotel. They had their own little pod, they were bonded, and it was infectious to be around that kind of energy. It made me want to be a part of it. I would stand around outside of their trailers like, “Hey guys, what’s going on?” Because I just wanted to be around them.
I find them all incredibly talented, fascinating, and cool people. They can live from a place of truth. When I was being trained as an actor we were sort of being told don’t. Don’t share the truth about yourself and it’s the complete opposite now. So, we have really grown, and we have a lot more growing to do, but it’s really exciting for me to see that.
(L to R) Kevin Bacon and Carrie Preston in Peacock’s ‘They/Them.
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If you’re Universal, and you have Steve Carell as the main voice in your big new animated family movie ‘Minions: The Rise of Gru’, how are you going to exploit that?
Well, if you also have beloved sitcom ‘The Office’ as one of your big titles on streaming service Peacock – a show that just so happened to be one of Carell’s big breaks – you look to employ a little corporate synergy. Literally, in this case.
It also helps if it’s actually fun, which this video is, recreating the ‘Office’ credits while swapping out Carell’s Michael Scott for his Gru character and putting the various main Minions in place of the ‘Office’ characters played by the likes of John Krasinski, Rainn Wilson and Jenna Fischer.
‘The Office’, of course, was adapted from the UK show created by Ricky Gervais, and brought to the US by Greg Daniels. It’s the story of the employees of Dunder Mifflin, a paper sales company where Michael Scott is the branch manager.
He’s the sort of boss who thinks he’s more fun than he really is, a good-natured sort with a terrible taste in jokes and references, who is perennially upbeat. Around him are a staff of different types – the rule-following martinet weirdo (Wilson’s Dwight Schrute), the talented but unfulfilled everyman (Krasinski’s Jim Halpert) and the sweet, thoughtful receptionist (Fischer’s Pam Beesly).
Courtesy of ‘The Office’ YouTube channel.
Then there’s the supporting cast with their own quirks, including Angela Kinsey’s Angela Martin, an uptight, cat-loving accountant, Brian Baumgartner’s slobby fellow finance team member Kevin, Mindy Kaling as enthusiastic customer service representative and Creed Bratton’s Creed, a supremely strange man with a mysterious background.
While there were initial concerns about being able to replicate the success of the British series, and critics complained when the first episode largely replicated the UK version, ‘The Office’ grew into a huge success, running for nine seasons and expanding its fanbase thanks to time on Netflix and now, Peacock.
As for ‘Rise of Gru’, the latest extension of the ‘Despicable Me’ movie universe acts as a sequel to the 2015 ‘Minions’ spin-off movie and a prequel to the original ‘Despicable Me’.
Carell is back to voice the strangely-accented Gru, here portrayed in the 1970s as a child with big supervillain ambitions. But when he’s invited to interview for an open slot on his favourite villain team The Vicious Six, he’s mocked by the gang for being a kid. Yet after Gru steals the special Zodiac Stone that the Six intend to use to become more powerful, the chase is on.
It’ll end up involving an acupuncturist who teaches kung-fu, a wronged former leader of the villain gang and a chatty new Minion called Otto who is, if it’s possible, even more of a nuisance than the likes of Kevin, Stuart and Bob.
‘Minions: The Rise of Gru’ is in theaters from tomorrow.
Courtesy of ‘The Office’ YouTube channel.
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Summer camps have occasionally been the setting for horror movies, famously ‘Friday The 13th’ and, more recently, the 1970s entry of the ‘Fear Street’ trilogy. ‘They/Then’ adds an extra layer of terror, set as it is at a “gay conversion” camp where LGBTQIA+ teens are packed off to be “fixed”.
Keeping up the ‘Friday’ feeling is the presence of Kevin Bacon, who appeared (and whose character died bloodily) in that 1980 slasher franchise kick-off.
Here, though, he’s more likely to be a threat. He stars as Owen Whistler, the director of a conversion therapy camp dedicated to “curing” LGBTQ+ teenagers of their sexual and gender identities. Over the course of a week-long session at the camp, Whistler butts heads with Jordan (played by Theo Germaine), a trans and nonbinary teen who made a deal with their parents to legally emancipate themself after attending the camp.
As Jordan and their fellow campers rebel against Whistler and his staff’s cruel methods of “treatment,” a mysterious string of murders begins piling up, forcing Jordan to investigate into the camp’s secrets.
In addition to Bacon and Germaine, Carrie Preston stars as Whistler’s wife and camp therapist Cora, while Anna Chlumsky plays the camp’s new medic Molly.
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Then there’s Quei Tann as Alexandra, a transgender woman whose parents have threatened to kick her out of the house if she didn’t attend the camp. Austin Crute plays Toby, a gay camper who negotiated with his parents for a trip to New York in exchange for a week at Whistler Camp.
Monique Kim will be seen as Veronica, a bisexual camper who wants to stop fighting who she really is. Anna Lore plays Kim, a closeted lesbian camper who puts on a perfectly crafted front for her family and friends, assuming that when she fits in, she’ll finally be loved.
Finally, we have Cooper Koch as Stu, a jock with aspirations of a swim scholarship and joining his father’s fraternity – things he doesn’t feel he can achieve if he’s open about being gay, and Darwin Del Fabro playing Gabriel, a sensitive gay camper tired of the persistent name-calling and bullying he’s endured his entire life.
With the backing of the Blumhouse team, John Logan – the scriptwriter behind such movies as ‘The Aviator’ and ‘Gladiator’– makes his directorial debut with the film, working from his own script and realizing a passion project.
“‘They/Them’ has been germinating within me my whole life. I’ve loved horror movies as long as I can remember, I think because monsters represent ‘the other’ and as gay kid I felt a powerful sense of kinship with those characters who were different, outlawed, or forbidden,” says Logan. “I wanted to make a movie that celebrates queerness, with characters that I never saw when I was growing up. When people walk away from the movie, I hope they’re going to remember the incredible love that these kids have for each other and how that love needs to be protected and celebrated.”
‘They/Them’ (pronounced “They Slash Them”, which seems fitting for the genre) will arrive exclusively on streaming service Peacock on August 5th.
The film revolves around a group of notorious villains, Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Snake (Marc Maron), Tarantula (Awkwafina), Shark (Craig Robinson), and Piranha (Anthony Ramos), who pretend to reform in order to pull off the greatest heist in history.
Actor, comedian and musician Craig Robinson is best known for his roles as Darryl Philbin on ‘The Office,’ and as Nick Webber in ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’ and its sequel.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Craig Robinson about his work on ‘The Bad Guys,’ as well as his new Peacock series ‘Killing It.’
You can read our full interview with Craig Robinson below or click on the player above to watch a video of the interview.
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You can read our full interview with Craig Robinson below or click on the player above to watch a video of the interview.
Moviefone: To begin with, how did you get involved with ‘The Bad Guys’ and what was your first reaction to the screenplay?
Craig Robinson: I went to DreamWorks and they pitched the movie and they showed me what the Shark would look like and what they wanted from him. They showed me the cast, who they had so far and just what the movie was going to look like. They pitched the story and it just was incredible. That happened, then the pandemic began. So, we recorded over the pandemic.
MF: Can you talk about how you discovered the voice for Shark?
CR: You know, that’s the beauty of recording in the booth. It took maybe a few scenes and we found this joyous personality, kind of naive and gullible yet he has a mean streak character. We went back and recorded stuff with this guy’s attitude and a lot of it is from the collaboration.
We got director, Pierre Perifel, and then the producer, Damon Ross, and we were going back and forth for jokes. I would say something, and they would say, “Oh, and this”. Then it would turn into this other thing. That was the beauty of my character, because he got to be other characters. There are other voices that you didn’t hear such as my French accent, which I hope is on the DVD.
MF: I know that you recorded by yourself, what was it like for you when you finally met the other actors on the press tour?
CR: It was just a mutual, everybody loves everybody kind of moment and everybody was just like, “Hey, oh you, oh yeah.” You know, that’s what it was. You go back and forth, and then you get together and then there’s a bunch of jokes and laughter. It’s like a real quick family picnic and then everybody dispersed. That was cool. I’ve worked with Marc Maron on stage before and I’ve been on his podcast. So, I knew Marc.
MF: The movie deals with themes of friendship, forgiveness, responsibility, and family. What were some of the themes that really spoke to you and made you want to be a part of this project?
CR: Don’t judge a book by its cover was what my guy was saying. Literally too, because he would change outfits, change his personality, but don’t judge a book by its cover. Give people a chance. Give love a chance.
MF: The movie was extremely successful at the box office, were you surprised by how popular it’s become?
CR: I didn’t know what to expect. It’s nice to be associated with this movie period, no matter what it did, but then it made number one and stuff. It’s got this success. So yeah, but I didn’t know what to expect but I saw a nice blitz for it though.
MF: What can you tell our audience about your new series ‘Killing It?’
CR: ‘Killing It’ is on Peacock TV. It’s streaming. I play Craig Foster. He’s a man who will do anything to achieve the American dream, including becoming an invasive species vigilante.
MF: Finally, your character works with snakes on the series. Did you have to work with real snakes while filming?
CR: Oh yes. The American Humane Society was there every time we had the real snakes and I like snakes, so it was fun. I’m okay with snakes. I went to Australia and I played with some snakes. I was like, “Oh, these snakes are cool.” I’m not saying I require or crave snakes. I’m just saying I’m cool with snakes.
Craig Robinson as Craig in Peacock’s ‘Killing It.’ Photo: Alan Markfield/Peacock.
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Emmy Rossum in Peacock’s ‘Angelyne.’ Photo: Isabella Vosmikova/Peacock.
Before the days when you could be Insta-famous (or celebrity sex tapes kickstarted/threatened careers), there was Angelyne.
A buxom blonde who appeared on billboards across Los Angeles in seductive poses with no other information save her striking name, she was seeking fame and fortune, and quickly became a viral sensation before there was even really a term for it. But what about the story behind the sensation?
That’s what new Peacock limited series ‘Angelyne’ is setting out to answer, and the show has a first trailer online.
Emmy Rossum stars as the title character, who was born in 1950 in Poland with the slightly less marketable name Ronia Tamar Goldberg. In 1978, she joined her then-boyfriend’s punk rock band Baby Blue, which performed in clubs around Los Angeles but never became financially successful. In 1982 she released her self-titled debut album, and her first posters began appearing as a part of the album’s promotion.
After the launch of a massive billboard campaign in February 1984, she began working on her second album. ‘Driven to Fantasy’ was released in 1986. Angelyne then appeared in small parts in films such as ‘Earth Girls Are Easy’, ‘Dangerous Love’ and ‘Homer and Eddie’. Requests for magazine interviews flooded in, and she was the focus of local news attention for a while.
Her trademark style item was her pink corvette, in which she could be seen driving the streets.
In later life, Angelyne was a candidate in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election, finishing 29th in a field of 135 candidates (garnering 2,536 votes). Her slogan during the campaign was “We’ve had Gray, we’ve had Brown, now it’s time for some blond and pink.” Such was the mystery she built around her real personality that her name and family details didn’t come out until 2017.
The new limited series is a mockumentary style affair, with those either around Angelyne or influenced by her telling their side of the story, with overlapping and conflicting accounts.
‘Angelyne’ seeks to peek behind the billboards, but don’t go thinking that this is a documentary-level truthful dig into what happened with her. In an official statement, showrunner Allison Miller made it clear that the series isn’t supposed to be the “real” story of the 80s superstar. Rather, the idea of the show is to examine a person’s determination to follow their dreams, no matter what the cost. The show will also showcase celebrity in decades past and how the news and stories moved at a different pace back then.
The series, created and run by ‘Milk’ Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black, adapts Jon Krakauer’s novel, which itself was the result of an investigation into a reclusive, regressive, and restrictive Mormon community where a dreadful killing had occurred.
Garfield here plays Detective Pyre a Mormon law enforcer whose faith is tested as he investigates a brutal murder that seems to be connected to an esteemed Utah family’s spiral into LDS fundamentalism and their distrust in the government.
Pyre is committed to his Church and family but begins to question some of the Church’s teachings through his contact with a suspected murderer and the family of Brenda (Daisy Edgar-Jones), who was brutally slain.
It’s far from Garfield’s first encounter with religious extremism – in Martin Scorsese’s ‘Silence’, he plays Father Rodrigues, a priest who goes looking for his mentor in 17th century Japan after the man goes missing. He’s also recently been seen as disgraced evangelist Jim Bakker in ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’, alongside Jessica Chastain.
Kate McKinnon attends the 89th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on February 26, 2017 in Hollywood, California. Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images.
On a completely different televisual front, we have ‘Joe Vs. Carol’, which offers a new perspective on the outrageous true story chronicled in Netflix’s pandemic-era sensation ‘Tiger King’.
The documentary series chronicled the deeply interconnected community of big cat conservationists and collectors in America, and the private zoos and animal sanctuaries they have set up for the care and public display of these animals.
Its focus was primarily Joe “Exotic” Schreibvogel, an extravagant big cat collector, gun fan and ardent self-promoter who was in a feud with animal rights crusader Carol Baskin.
Now, spun not so much from the Netflix series as from the podcast 2019 Wondery podcast ‘Joe Exotic: Tiger King;’ (which pre-dated the Netflix show) is ‘Joe Vs. Carol’, which stars John Cameron Mitchell as Exotic and Kate McKinnon as Baskin.
Here, the eye is more on Baskin, a big cat enthusiast, who learns that fellow exotic animal lover Joe “Exotic” Schreibvogel is breeding and using his big cats for profit. She sets out to shut down his venture, inciting a quickly escalating rivalry. But Carole has a checkered past of her own and when the claws come out, Joe will stop at nothing to expose what he sees as her hypocrisy.
(L to R) Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson in ‘Marry Me’
‘Marry Me’ is looking to capture some love this coming Friday as Valentine’s weekend kicks off, pairing Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson as a seemingly mismatched couple who meet under unusual circumstances.
The movie, directed by Kat Coiro, opens as Kat Valdez (Lopez) is half of the sexiest celebrity power couple on Earth with hot new music supernova Bastian (Colombian singer Maluma). As Kat and Bastian’s inescapable hit single, ‘Marry Me’ climbs the charts, they are about to be wed before a global audience of their fans.
Divorced high-school math teacher Charlie Gilbert (Wilson) has been dragged to the concert by his daughter Lou. When Kat learns, seconds before the ceremony, that Bastian has cheated on her with her assistant, her life turns left as she has a meltdown on stage, questioning love, truth, and loyalty. As her gossamer world falls away, she locks eyes with a stranger, a face in the crowd: Charlie, awkwardly holding a sign reading “Marry Me”. In a moment of inspired insanity, Kat chooses to marry Charlie. What begins as an impulsive reaction evolves into an unexpected romance…
Lopez needs little introduction, given that she’s a musical superstar and actress who has appeared in movies including ‘Out Of Sight, ‘Hustlers’ and ‘Monster-in-Law’.
Wilson, meanwhile, has long established his comedic and dramatic credentials, working regularly alongside old friend Wes Anderson as both writer and actor, and has a lengthy resume including ‘Wedding Crashers’, ‘The Royal Tennenbaums’, all three ‘Meet the Parents’ movies and as the voice of Lightning McQueen in Pixar’s ‘Cars’ movies.
Lopez first crossed paths with her ‘Marry Me’ co-star Wilson in 1997 creature feature ‘Anaconda.’ ‘Marry Me’ promises to be a very different experience.
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The two popular actors recently spoke at a virtual press conference about the new film, here is what they had to say.
Jennifer, you play musical superstar, Kat Valdez in ‘Marry Me.’ Who is she in your eyes? How does her life change from the moment she decides to follow the impulse to marry a stranger?
Jennifer Lopez: In my eyes, Kat Valdez is a very kind of self-assured, recording artist veteran in the industry who has built herself and her life into something that she’s proud of, but it also, in a way, because of her personal life has become a bit unsatisfying. I think for her there’s a beautiful journey here. Once the character that Owen plays, Charlie, comes into her life, it really changes it forever. Changes her perspective, changes her ideas of being caught.
Sometimes you feel you are kind of caught like, “Okay, I’m trapped in this fame. I’m trapped in this life. This is all I can do. I really don’t get to have a life like everybody else or love like everybody else.” I think what Owen’s character teaches her is that she can and that it is possible and that there is hope for her. She could have a real love and a real home, which she’s never had.
How much of Kat is in you and how much of you is in Kat, Jennifer?
JL: I think there’s a lot of us in each other. This wasn’t a role where I had to research what it was like to be a famous recording artist who does branding and who has all of that. I understand what all of that is already. I think the difficult part was the meta part, which was the idea of showing what it’s really like inside my bedroom. When something goes wrong and you suffer a heartbreak like this in front of the whole world, and the media goes to town on you to kind of unearth the story and understand it and poke fun at it.
In some of those moments, even with scenes with me and Owen, where he’s asking, “Don’t, you want to just give up on the whole love thing?” It was just that philosophy that she has. I understand it’s like, “No, if there’s a one in a billion chance, no matter what the numbers are, you’re a math teacher, that’s worth it,” because I think what she has craving is that love and that home. So, there was a lot of moments there where I was able to bring a truth to the character in the emotional life that was authentic and real.
Owen, How do you see the character of Charlie?
Owen Wilson: Charlie’s sort of ordinary, I guess that would be sort of a man of the people. Then Bastian is this singing sensation and engaged to Kat Valdez. Through circumstance somehow, I wind up there at the concert. The next thing you know I’m on stage getting married. It’s such a leap of faith that when you read it, you are kind of, “Oh, I wonder how that’s going to work?” Yet, in the movie, sort of everything that leads up to it, I think you kind of go along with it. I felt it was kind of believable.
Music of course is a key element of the movie, Jennifer. Can you talk about the experience of making an album and a movie at the same time?
JL: That was a first for me, which was such a pleasure. It’s like my two worlds coming together, but making the album, it was great because they really allowed me to input into where and when and what these musical moments would be for this character. They really looked to me to be like, okay, how would this be? How could we make this feel real? Picking the music for the arc of the characters says, nobody understood the character more than I did. Nobody understood what it was to be a musical art artist and be this person within this movie.
Owen, how was your experience with Jennifer this time around?
OW: For me, it was very relaxing. It was nice because Jen assumed so many responsibilities, I didn’t have to worry about anything. She and Elaine (producer Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas) had to bear the brunt of the stress of everything. A lot of times when you work on a movie, you kind of hear it in your head or you have casting ideas. With this, everybody was just spot on. I wasn’t worried about anything. I felt that it was working while we were doing it.
(L to R) Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson in ‘Marry Me’
You were mentioning before how Charlie’s this normal guy, and the movie really plays into the idea that opposites attract. Do you believe that in real life?
OW: Well, to an extent. I think opposites attract in a sense from different backgrounds and seemingly very different. But I think in terms of your spirit, I think there must be some sort of overlap either in humor, or the way you look at the world, or what you’re curious about, or sense of adventure. So, in those ways I think sometimes it helps to have a little bit of overlap for that attraction to work.
Jennifer, you’ve starred in some memorable romantic comedies. Is this a homecoming of sorts for you and do you have a special place in your heart for that genre?
JL: Yes, I do. I think that’s why I’ve done so many throughout my career. It’s because I, as a moviegoer, love romantic comedies. Those are some of my favorite movies of all time, whether it’s ‘When Harry met Sally’ or ‘Prelude to a Kiss’ or any of these types of movies, the Meg Ryan era, and the Julia Roberts era, all those movies is what I grew up on. I love them so much.
So, it is kind of a homecoming for me because I haven’t done one in a few years and now I have two coming out. I have this one, ‘Marry Me’ and then ‘Shotgun Wedding’ will be out at some point, which I did with Josh Duhamel. So, I’m excited to be able to do a couple.
Is there a certain element in a romantic comedy script that makes you want to say yes to it, Jennifer?
JL: I think it’s hard to reinvent it every time. How do you make it different than the last one? Because we kind of always know that two people are going to wind up together and that’s going to be the end. So, it’s about how interesting the journey is and the interaction between the two characters and how interesting that is. If that’s written well, that’s what makes me want to do it.
Jennifer, Marry Me has some unforgettable songs. Do you have a favorite one?
JL: It’s hard. I mean, off the top of my head, I love ‘Nobody’s Watching Us.’ I love it so much because I really relate to it. ‘On My Way’, for me is such a life song. It’s one of those perfect sentiments in a song. Yes, it fit well in the movie, but I just thought it was a song that everybody could relate to because we all feel like the mistakes we make are so tragic in our lives.
This is so hopeful because it says that every single mistake that I made was leading me down a yellow brick road to exactly where I needed to be and where I wanted to be, and I do believe in that in life. So, I would have to say, if I had to pick a favorite child, which I would never do, it would be, ‘On My Way.’
Owen, Kat obviously takes a big leap of faith when she marries Charlie. What’s the biggest leap of faith you’ve taken?
OW: I think, for me, I did not study acting. I was an English major, but I always loved movies and I liked writing. So, when my friend and I started writing a movie together, believing that I could act in it, I don’t know that I did necessarily. It was more my friend’s belief that I could do it. Because growing up in Dallas, if you had said, ‘Oh, I want to be in movies,’ I think people would’ve almost laughed at you like, “Yeah, who doesn’t want to be in movies?” But I think that believing that I could maybe have a career doing something creative, that’s not the life that most people lead. So that was a leap of faith.
‘Marry Me’ debuts in theaters and streaming on Peacock February 11, 2022.
Ryan Kiera Armstrong in “Firestarter’ courtesy of Universal Pictures
There have been so many adaptations of horror master Stephen King’s work at this point that it was inevitable we’d start to see re-adaptations, as happened with the likes of ‘Pet Sematary’ and ‘It’. Today it’s the turn of Blumhouse’s new take on ‘Firestarter’ to make its psychic presence felt with a first trailer and poster.
‘Firestarter’, which King published in 1980, is the story of a girl whose parents participated in clandestine government agency experiments which have granted them certain psychic abilities and given their daughter extraordinary pyrokinetic powers.
From the sounds of the official synopsis, the new movie will follow a similar path to the 1984 version, though it’ll be interesting to see how it deals with them themes of isolation, puberty, and mental health.
Here’s the story: “For more than a decade, parents Andy (Zac Efron) and Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) have been on the run, desperate to hide their daughter Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) from a shadowy federal agency that wants to harness her unprecedented gift for creating fire into a weapon of mass destruction.
Andy has taught Charlie how to defuse her power, which is triggered by anger or pain. But as Charlie turns 11, the fire becomes harder and harder to control. After an incident reveals the family’s location, a mysterious operative (Michael Greyeyes) is deployed to hunt down the family and seize Charlie once and for all. Charlie has other plans…
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‘Firestarter’s cast also includes Gloria Reuben (who appears to behind the shadowy agency looking to control Charlie’s fiery abilities), Kurtwood Smith and John Beasley.
In keeping with the remake aspect, the new movie’s poster is certainly looking to invoke the 1984 version’s flame-filled theme.
We’ll have to wait and see whether this movie ends up launching a ‘Firestarter’ franchise – the original was followed by one TV-movie sequel, which followed a grown Charlie played by Marguerite Moreau. And this year alone, we have at least one other King adaptation headed to theaters: ‘Salem’s Lot’, with ‘Mr. Harrigan’s Phone’ and the ‘Pet Sematary’ remake sequel filming, plus various others in development.
Produced by Blumhouse, the team behind ‘The Invisible Man’ (and many other recent chillers), the new ‘Firestarter’ will be looking to make sparks in theaters and on Peacock from May 13. Yes, that’s Friday the 13th for anyone keeping track; but don’t tell Jason Voorhees – he’ll just get jealous!
(L to R) Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson in ‘Marry Me’
Based on the graphic novel of the same name by Bobby Crosby, ‘Marry Me’ sees star and producer Jennifer Lopez back in her element. Featuring nearly a dozen original songs – mostly performed in their entirety – Lopez stars as lovestruck superstar Kat Valdez.
Set to marry her fiance Bastian (Maluma) in front of 40M people on live television, her world comes crashing down when a video surfaces of him cheating on her. Caught up in the moment, she proposes to a stranger in the crowd holding a marry me sign. Is her whirlwind marriage to hapless math teacher Charlie (Owen Wilson) just a publicity stunt, or did she accidentally find something real?
Director Kat Coiro is no stranger to the romantic comedy genre. Born to bohemian parents in a third floor Manhattan walk-up, Coiro spent much of her childhood living a nomadic existence around the globe. She studied theater and Russian literature at Carnegie Mellon University, and briefly enrolled in the American Film Institute’s MFA program before dropping out to film her first feature ‘L!fe Happens’.
Co-written by Coiro and star Krysten Ritter, the rom-com was partially inspired by their own friendship, as well as Coiro’s experience as a first time mother. She quickly directed two more romances: ‘And While We Were Here’ and ‘A Case of You’ before pivoting to television. Her TV credits include the pilots for comedies’Girls5Eva’ and ‘Florida Girls,’ and the upcoming Disney+ show ‘She Hulk’.
After nearly a decade working solely in television, ‘Marry Me’ is not only a delightful return to the romantic comedy genre for the director, but also a showcase for Coiro’s vivid visual flare and skill at capturing the essence of entertainers at their most spectacular.
Jennifer Lopez at 2015 American Music Awards. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
Moviefone: What do you look for in the films that you direct in general, and how did you get involved with ‘Marry Me’ in particular?
Kat Coiro: It’s funny because I never really subscribed to a specific genre. I just look for a mix of humor and heart and humanity. I had actually moved into the television space. I’d kind of said I’m not going to do features for a while. But when I read this script, it just really spoke to me in terms of its humanity. Even though it’s this larger than life story about a celebrity, there is something so elementally vulnerable and human and interesting in the heart of the story.
That’s really what drew me to it. Also having Jennifer Lopez play this role that feels like she was born to play. It’s the combination of all of her talents: acting and singing and fashion. She brought so much to it. She was attached when I read the script, so that was really an exciting element, obviously.
MF: I read that she listened to a hundred songs to narrow down the ones featured in the film.
KC: More than that! We listened to probably 400 songs. Our partners at Universal, and then Jennifer’s music team, they inundated us with songs that had been banked songs that were originally written for the film. There were a lot of different songs entitled ‘Marry Me’ that we went through. That was a huge process. It was me and Jennifer and Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, who’s the producing partner, and then also Mike Knobloch, and Rachel Levy over at Universal and Benny Medina.
We would all get these files, and say here are the top ten from that batch. One of the great parts of the process is that we would all hear the same song and go, this is the one! It was so important that the songs not just be good in and of themselves, but that they tie into the emotional arc of the story. Because while it is a rom com, and it is about a relationship, it’s also about the growth and the progression of an artist.
She starts in this very big, larger than life, spectacle, pop world with songs like “Church’. Slowly as the film goes on, she breaks down to a very simple unproduced version of herself with ‘On My Way’, which ends up being the song that kind of puts her on the map in a new way.
MF: How did you select which songs to present as a spectacle, via social media, in a recording studio, etc?
KC: That ties into the selection of the songs. Where she is at the top of the film, she is this big, famous pop star who’s marrying another big famous pop star, and they’re known for this very flashy kind of radio hit, which is ‘Marry Me’, and then when her world explodes, she has to build back up. It was about finding each song in the sequence that went along with that emotional journey.
One of the most exciting moments for me was during my first time meeting Jennifer. She started singing a song that’s not actually in the movie, but a song called ‘Unlove You’ that had originally been scripted in the film. She was singing along to a Bluetooth and the Bluetooth dropped out and she kept singing and I was four feet away from her. I’ve always known how talented she is and what a good singer she is, but seeing it like that, an acapella Jennifer Lopez in a room singing. It brought tears to my eyes. I got chills. I thought oh my god, if we can bring even a tiny bit of that into the film I think we will have succeeded.
So I always knew that we were working towards this moment where she sits and sings unaccompanied, and she sings for real in the room and we don’t mess with it. It was all moving towards that point of just stripped down and raw Jennifer Lopez.
MF: Earlier you mentioned fashion. Her character has a lot of looks, from the stage spectacle to the wedding dress to her casual walking around New York City style. How did you develop them?
KC: One of the most important things to me was that these concerts feel 100% real. So, to that end, from a lighting standpoint, from a set design standpoint, from a costume standpoint, we actually brought in her concert team for those sequences.
So when she performs ‘Church,’ that was a collaboration between me and the costume designer, Caroline Duncan, but also Rob Zangardi, who does all her costumes for her shows. It was a real collaboration. When you have Jennifer Lopez and her music team, part of your job is to get out of the way and let them do their thing. Where I would weigh in is when it affected the story emotionally.
When you look at ‘Church,’ that is when she’s at the height of this very spectacle driven kind of flashy persona. It was really important to capture the authenticity of the concerts. In terms of her fashion throughout, she obviously has such a great sense of what looks good on her, so it was conversations about where she is in the story. How do these costumes reflect the emotional trajectory? Then let her and her team do their thing.
(L to R) Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson in ‘Marry Me’
MF: There’s a stark difference visually between her world and Charlie (Owen Wilson)’s world. Can you talk about that?
KC: One of the motifs that we played with throughout is that she lives in a world that is up high, it’s in the clouds. It’s in the sparkly city lights. You look at her apartment, it’s on the 40th floor. She’s on a private jet. Even when she goes to the press conference, her car is parked on the rooftop. That was something that was scripted in an underground garage, and my cinematographer Florian Ballhaus, and I were like no, we always want her to be up high.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have Charlie who lives in a ground floor apartment. His classroom is on the ground floor of his Brooklyn school. We were constantly playing with this high-low dynamic. She’s always on a stage and he’s down below. That was a huge part of the visual language of the film, with him always looking up at her and she’s looking down at him.
Then we flip it at the very end of the film. She comes into the theater and he’s up on the stage for the first time. When she holds up the sign, she’s down below. It’s really about them having influenced each other’s worlds, and changed each other.
MF: One moment that really struck me because it’s one of my favorite poets, is when we meet Kat she reads from Keats for possible wedding vows, and then later Charlie also loves Keats. Was that always in the script?
KC: Every film I have made has a sliver of classical poetry because it’s something that I love to sneak in. Especially in popular films, I just like to bring in a little of that poetry and romanticism. Keats was a Romantic poet, so to bring that in was important to me. It wasn’t originally scripted that way. But it was also a way of setting up the difference between Kat Valdez and Bastian (Maluma).
For her this is a really romantic venture. She is pouring her whole heart and soul into it. But for him, he’s very young. He’s very famous. It seems like a great press opportunity. It’s not that he doesn’t love her, and that he’s callous, but they are coming at it from different times in their life and from different points of view. I think poetry is a very simple and straightforward way of showing that difference between where they are in their lives.
MF: Both Kat and Charlie have been divorced before. Marriage and remarriage is a classic trope in screwball romantic comedies. Are there any romantic comedies that inspired you while making this film?
KC: Oh, definitely. You can see throughout the film that instead of shying away from the tropes and the cliches we lean into them. There’s a reason that Michelle Buteau opens and closes the jewelry box when Jennifer reaches for it.
KC: There’s a reason he’s holding up a sign or she’s running through the airport. It’s funny, I keep getting asked, is the rom com dead? I always say the rom com is the most sustaining genre that exists in cinema. When you look back at Charlie Chaplin. Those are rom coms. When you look at the musicals of the 30s and 40s, and 50s. Those are rom coms.
When you look at the 80s and 90s, and 2000s. It is a very enduring genre. We wanted to really play into that and say, yes, we’re coming from a tradition of rom com and we embrace it, and we love it. Some of my favorites are ‘When Harry Met Sally. . .’ and ‘Notting Hill’. I think there’s a lot of comparisons between ‘Notting Hill’ and this movie, and I love that and I welcome that.
MF: Why do you think romantic comedies are so enduring?
KC: I think they’re hopeful. I think that they make people happy. I’m always a little shocked by the way that they’re spoken of like they’re lesser than. Because the truth is they are geared towards women, but I think men also love them. In my experience, it’s a very universal genre. Then you add the music that we have in this film, and it becomes not just a rom com, but also kind of a concert experience. I’m really hoping that’s part of what brings people to the theaters. The combination of the glamour, the style, and the genre. It’s about love and it is about hope. It’s as simple as that.
With ‘Marry Me’ you also get to watch songs performed in their entirety, which is something that was also really important to me. A lot of music movies show a snippet, 15 seconds, you just get the sense of the song. I went into it saying no, we have to play out the entire song every single time that we can, because it’s such a fundamental part of who Kat Valdez is, and wanting to draw the audience in that way and really show full performances is something that I think sets this movie apart.
MF: What do you hope people take away when they’re done watching this film?
KC: One of the things that always struck me about the film is that we live in a society that is very fixated on being famous, and on getting lots of followers. I would say that there is an obsession with it that is probably a little bit unhealthy. There’s something about this film where we’re peeling back the curtain, and we’re saying you do pay a price for living in the spotlight the way that Kat Valdez does. It was very important to me that we ended the film on the simplest scene of them sitting on a couch in sweatpants, watching TV with their family.
Originally in the script, it had ended on another big wedding. I really wanted to strip us away from big romantic gestures. Because the truth is life, in its simplicity, is something that we should and can be striving for. It doesn’t all have to be striving to be in the spotlight. So I hope that people walk away and feel like they had a little bit of an escape, but also that they can be happy with a simpler life.
‘Marry Me’ debuts in theaters and streaming on Peacock February 11, 2022.
In January, we’ll be treated to Jessica Chastain, Lupita Nyong’o, Penélope Cruz, & Diane Kruger as a group of international secret agents that team up to protect the world in the highly-anticipated action thriller ‘The 355.’ The film is directed by Simon Kinberg (X-Men: Dark Phoenix) and co-written by Kinberg and Theresa Rebeck (Trouble, Harriet the Spy).
Here’s the official synopsis for the film:
When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, wild card CIA agent Mason “Mace” Brown (Jessica Chastain) will need to join forces with rival badass German agent Marie (Diane Kruger), former MI6 ally and cutting-edge computer specialist Khadijah (Lupita Nyong’o), and skilled Colombian psychologist Graciela (Penélope Cruz) on a lethal, breakneck mission to retrieve it, while also staying one-step ahead of a mysterious woman, Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan), who is tracking their every move. As the action rockets around the globe from the cafes of Paris to the markets of Morocco to the wealth and glamour of Shanghai, the quartet of women will forge a tenuous loyalty that could protect the world—or get them killed.
