After ‘Rogue One’ and ‘Godzilla,’ Gareth Edwards Wants to Revolutionize How Studio Films Get Made With ‘The Creator’
20.09.2023 - 21:55
/ variety.com
Gareth Edwards directed his first movie, the 2010 indie “Monsters,” it could scarcely have been a more DIY endeavor. He had less than $500,000 to tell an intimate story about two Americans contending with giant aliens rampaging through Mexico, so his crew consisted of just his actors (Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able), a sound tech, a line producer, a translator and a driver.
Edwards operated the camera, grabbing footage guerrilla style whenever they came upon a compelling location while traveling through Central America. Then the young director created all 250 visual effects shots for the film himself, alone in his flat.
Thirteen years later, Edwards’ latest film, “The Creator,” is in so many ways the opposite of “Monsters.” The budget is $80 million. 20th Century Studios is distributing it worldwide.
(New Regency and Entertainment One co-financed.) Dozens of actors — including John David Washington, Allison Janney and Ken Watanabe — filmed across Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Japan to portray a sweeping, existential conflict between humanity and artificial intelligence, while Industrial Light & Magic marshaled thousands of extensive VFX shots. And yet, if you’d stumbled onto the set of “The Creator,” chances are it would’ve looked like another scrappy, DIY indie: just the actors, an assistant director, a boom operator, a lighting technician, and Edwards, once again manning the camera.
“There was an army of people, but they had to be completely out of sight,” Edwards says. “If you stood where the actors were and looked around, you shouldn’t see the crew at all.” “The Creator” is a gargantuan experience, packed with violence, intensity and the kind of dramatic, intricately detailed world-building that
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