Directed by Mary Harron, who also wrote the screenplay with Guinevere Turner, the 2000 Bret Easton Ellis adaptationAmerican Psycho (watch it HERE) has come to be known as a cult classic, carried by the incredible performance delivered by lead actor Christian Bale – but during a new interview published by Vanity Fair, Bale’s co-stars Josh Lucas and Chloë Sevigny have admitted that they weren’t blown away by Bale on set. In fact, Lucas thought he was doing some terrible acting, while Sevigny found his process difficult to deal with.
During the interview, Lucas said he didn’t realize exactly what American Psycho was while he was working on it. “I didn’t realize what a subversive comedy it was. I didn’t realize the way that Mary was going to turn it on its head. I don’t know if you felt this way, but I actually truly remember thinking that Christian Bale was terrible. [Laughs] I remember the first scene I did with him, I watched him and he seemed so false—and I now realize that it was this just f*cking brilliant choice that he was making. That was an actor who was at such a completely different level already, and that he was capable of having these crazy layers going on in what he was doing. I thought it was bogus acting at the time, but was exactly the opposite.“
Sevigny replied, “I was trying to respect his process, which I found challenging because I’m very gregarious and silly and goofy, unbeknownst to the general public. When people take themselves so seriously, I kind of shut down, even though I take my work very seriously and I love acting and whatnot. I was really intimidated by his process and intimidated by him, and I wanted a little more generosity to make myself feel more at ease, which is my own ego. It was a really challenging dynamic for me, but I don’t think that I thought he was bad. [Laughs] I was just kind of confused, like, Why aren’t you being social? I wasn’t even that aware of what the Method thing was. I never had any formal training; I think I was just kind of ‘fake it until you make it.’ But the whole Method thing, I was like, What even is this approach? It was very intimidating.“
Lucas went on to say that while bad Method actors are terrible to work with, he has “nothing but admiration” for the approach Bale takes to playing his roles.
American Psycho has the following synopsis: Patrick Bateman is a young, handsome, Harvard educated Wall Street success, seemingly perfect with his stunning fiancé and entourage of high-powered friends. But his circle of friends doesn’t know the other Patrick Bateman, the one who lusts for more than status and material things. With a detective hot on his trail and temptation everywhere, Patrick Bateman can’t fight his terrible urges that take him on the pursuit of women, greed and the ultimate crime – murder! Based on the controversial book by Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho is a sexy thriller that sets forth a vision that is both terrifying and chilling.
Christian Bale took on the role of Patrick Bateman. Along with Lucas and Sevigny, he was joined in the cast by Reese Witherspoon, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Samantha Mathis, Matt Ross, Bill Sage, Cara Seymour, Justin Theroux, and Guinevere Turner.
What do you think of what Josh Lucas and Chloë Sevigny had to say about working with Christian Bale on American Psycho? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
We all love a good old forbidden love story, right? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has been re-conceptualised countless times over the years; from stylish adaptations by Aussie auteurs, traditional period dramas and with, of all things, gnomes. This is just a drop in the vast ocean of movies that have taken on the Bard’s classic tale, and for the third entry in the popular Underworld series, it was time for a flashback to some forbidden Lycan and vampire love. The first Underworld movie had a backstory that explained how vampires and werewolves came to be mortal enemies, thanks to a feud that began between Michael Sheen’s super sexy Lycan, Lucian, and Bill Nighy’s nosferatu vampire Viktor. You see, hairy Lucian had been secretly romancing the fanged bloodsucker’s daughter Sonja, played by Doomsday’s Rhona Mitra. And with that premise, you can probably guess where this threequel is going. The first two movies, as we discovered in our previous episodes, are fun if flawed creature features with an abundance of S&M clad characters, some questionable VFX and world-building where the sun doesn’t seem to exist anymore, mostly. They helped make stars of actors like Kate Beckinsale, and proved popular enough to spawn games, novels, comics and various other merchandise. It probably did wonders for leather pants sales, too. However, as co-creator of the series Len Wisemen stated when Underworld: Evolution was released, the vision was always to create a trilogy of movies, with part three being a prequel. So could the tantalizing prospect of a Romeo and Juliet style history lesson in all things lycan and vampire be enough to carry the weight of fan expectation, and also introduce some memorable new characters? Well, dust off that leather outfit, and let’s find out, here on WTF happened to Underworld: Rise of the Lycans!
With Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (watch it HERE) being a prequel to the first two movies, this means its main selling point for a lot of fans, i.e. Kate Beckinsale’s leather clad ‘death dealer’ is nowhere to be seen. Well, that’s not necessarily true, she does, spoiler alert, appear in a brief cameo, but it’s a risky strategy to leave your main draw for what is arguably a largely male-skewed franchise on the sidelines. Also, horror prequels haven’t always been the slam dunk the studios were hoping for in the past, with various franchises being milked for all their worth in the name of chasing a quick buck. The Exorcist: The Beginning had the writer of the original 1973 movie saying that watching it was, “the most humiliating professional experience”. Its terrible reviews and paltry box office return against its mid-range budget didn’t exactly help matters. Hannibal Rising made the most basic mistake that so many horror prequels do by attempting to make a serial killer sympathetic, while also failing to cast the lead character with an ounce of the charm that the likes of Brian Cox or Anthony Hopkins had in spades.
I could list countless prequels but I think the point has been made, sufficiently. Well, actually, just one more, 1982’s The Thing, itself a remake of course, is rightly considered to be one of the greatest horror movies ever made, so a follow-up of some kind was inevitable. However, Universal’s 2011 prequel feels like a hollow, soulless take on the original with awful VFX and an incredibly dull script. While those movies weren’t all missing their key leading character, or actor, their failures can be attributed to lazy writing and probably the studio’s desire to keep their once lucrative IP alive for as long as they could. The issue with creating a prequel to the Underworld series, and let’s remember that co-creator Len Wiseman had always envisioned a prequel for part three, is that it had to replace the likes of Beckinsale with equally enticing characters. In fact, Wiseman’s ideas were already in place a few years before Rise of the Lycans, with a shift towards focusing on those pesky, hairy Lycans, saying, “The third film is going to be a prequel. It will be the origin story and we find out things we didn’t know about Lucian; he’ll have a much bigger part in it. It will be about the creation [of the races] and what started the war. It will be a period piece. The film will also focus for the first time through the Lycans’ point of view.” On paper at least, the premise was sound.
With production going full steam ahead on the prequel, it wasn’t just Beckinsale’s Selene who would be missing. Her director, and husband at the time, Len Wiseman, was also stepping aside to focus on other projects. He was approached to direct the fourth installment of the Die Hard franchise, 2007’s Live Free or Die Hard, but it’s not clear if that was the sole reason for him vacating the Underworld hot-seat. Instead, picking up the reigns would be Patrick Tatopolous, who had designed the creature effects for the first two movies, and would also do so for the prequel. The VFX artist and production designer had only directed a short plus a couple of music videos for Coolio prior to Rise of the Lycans, so it was perhaps something of a gamble for both the studio and director. One thing going in his favour though, was that despite some ropey CGI in the first couple of movies, the creature and production design is pretty solid, and although it’s sometimes hard to make out the various vampire on werewolf on hybrid on human etc. skirmishes, due to the overly gloomy lensing and eventual color grade.
So, with some cast members leaving the production due to logistics, others would be making a welcome return, plus we also get the introduction of new blood to flesh out the narrative. Unless you’re Scott Speedman, who seems to have been forcibly ejected from the franchise, probably in super-stylish slo-mo, while wearing all black and looking very moody. Back amongst the fangs and swearwolves is, as we mentioned earlier, Michael Sheen as Lucian who was last seen as a corpse on a table, and also in flashbacks in Underworld: Evolution. He plays a major part in the proceedings here, shagging his masters favorite daughter, in a hilarious sex scene that takes place on a literal cliff edge, and subsequently being flogged for it when they’re eventually rumbled. Bill Nighy returns, of course, as vampire leader and the Nosferatu alike Viktor, crushing skulls and threatening all and sundry as only Bill Nighy can. Other franchise regulars also appear in Rise, including Shane Brolly as Kraven, Kevin Grevioux as Raze and Stephen Mackintosh as Tanis. The main edition to the franchise though, is Rhona Mitra’s Sonja, who tries her best to out-Beckinsale Kate, and does a decent job, pithy English accent and tight costumes both accounted for.
If you’ve seen our previous WTF episodes on the Underworld series you’ll know that I like the series, to a certain degree. They’re by no means the benchmark all fantasy movies should aspire to but there’s enough blood-shed and action to keep this gore-hound relatively satisfied. However, with the promise of the Lycan and vampire backstory being further developed, plus the return of some key characters could this Selene-light installment satiate my on screen blood-lust? Well, not entirely, no, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate it for what it ultimately is; a half decent, enjoyable monster movie.
The plot kicks off back when the Lycans are slaves to the vampires and are forced to wear embarrassing collars to stop them from turning into their werewolf form, but are still expected to protect and serve them. Michael Sheen’s hairy Lucian is held in higher regard than the rest by chief vamp Viktor, because he doesn’t know he’s shagging his favorite daughter at this point, so Lucian enjoys more than just the flesh of his master’s offspring than the rest of his kind. This forbidden love is soon exposed and as the years go by Lucian plots to break himself and his fellow swearwolves free from the shackles of his blood-sucking oppressors, with the help of Sonja. All of this leads to a conclusion involving a final battle, naturally, that doesn’t go anywhere other than unfolding the narrative to a new beginning.
In terms of the cast, both the excellent and always reliable Michael Sheen and Bill Nighy do their best with a threadbear script. The former seemingly enjoying his relationship and slow-mo soppy as fuck sex scene with Rhona Mitra, while the latter chews up every aspect of the mega gloomy scenery as best he can. Nighy’s vast and wonderfully varied CV means he can play this kind of part blindfolded, but he doesn’t just pick a nice little paycheck here and turns in a committed and fun performance. Rhona Mitra does a good enough job of out-Beckinsale-ing Kate, but perhaps because of the script, or the way her character is written, comes across a touch wooden at times. She’s a very assured actor so perhaps this is down to her first time director not having the experience to coax a more engaging performance out of her. Still, she shares some decent chemistry with Sheen’s Lucian who himself roars out some rousing speeches, which, if you’ve seen his other work, you’ll already know that these are his trademark.
What works in the movie’s favor is its Dark Ages period setting, with the fantasy elements at the core of the story much better suited to this environment. However, what lets it down is pedestrian direction, some incredibly shoddy CGI, plus an overly dark color grade which means you can barely tell which hairy beasty is fighting who most of the time. Also, despite Sheen’s gravitas, his speeches are cheesy as fuck, and the tired cliches of the love affair at the centre of the story all too familiar; secret rendezvous, being rumbled by your dad biting your neck, sex on a cliff-top with dodgy music and little flesh on display. You know, the usual stuff…
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans opened in 2,942 US theaters on January 23rd, 2009 and grossed an estimated $8 million dollars over its opening weekend. Despite opening at number one at the US box office, it was overtaken over the three day weekend by the ‘hilarious’ Paul Blart: Mall Cop. It really wasn’t a stellar weekend at the cinema, unless you find the likes of Hotel for Dogs the pinnacle of cinema excellence. At least the superb Slumdog Milloinare was still clinging on to a very respectable box office haul nationwide and overseas.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Rise was met with a less than favorable reception from critics, with both claws and fangs out in equal measure. Empire Magazine were not impressed, saying, “it’s unlikely you’ll be able to follow the tosh this passes off as a plot. In former effects man Patrick Tatopoulos’ vision, these Dark Ages were really dark – so dark, in fact, you can barely see the monster action or register why Sheen and Nighy felt the need to sign up.” The movie only holds an approval rating of 30% based on 77 reviews, with an average rating of 4.40/10, over at Rotten Tomatoes, while Entertainment Weekly amusingly described the film as, “basically Were-Spartacus, though that makes the humorless, scare-free result sound much more fun than it is”. To be fair though, the movie is better than what those particular naysayers have said and at least Variety saw some merit in the hairy shenanigans, saying that director Patrick Tatopoulos, “offers a satisfyingly exciting monster rally that often plays like a period swashbuckler” and that the film is “notably less frenetic (and appreciably more coherent) than its predecessors”.
The Underworld series was never going to go down well with critics but the fact that it had already spawned three movies says that its key demographic were still talking with their wallets enough for the series to continue. And, continue further it, indeed, did, as we may just be taking a look at what delights followed Rise of the Lycans. More importantly though, I’d love to hear about what YOUR opinion is, as that is what matters to us most here at JoBlo; so let us know your thoughts of Underworld: Rise of the Lycans in the comments section. Does it soften the blow of not featuring Beckinsale’s leather clad Selene (well, apart from a small cameo of course) or was making it a prequel a bad idea? I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on this one, you wonderful gore-hounds. Thanks for watching!
A couple of the previous episodes of WTF Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
Lionsgate will be bringing a new version of The Crow to theatres on August 23rd – and while we had previously been referring to this project as a remake, Lionsgate recently let it be known that this is not to be called a remake, but rather a new adaptation of the source material, the comic book series created by James O’Barr. This is a project that spent fifteen years making its way through development hell, and one of the screenwriters attached along the way was Cliff Dorfman, the writer of Warrior. Dorfman recently took to social media to reveal that he has seen the new adaptation of The Crow… and he thought it was horrible.
Dorfman has since removed his post from X, but the memory lingers online. Geek Tyrant reports that Dorfman wrote, “If hypothetically, one happened to see a screening of @TheCrow_Movie #thecrow which @Lionsgate is releasing in August, one might say, it’s horrible, it’s unwatchable, don’t waste your money, or can’t believe it’s so much worse than the original. It is. And don’t.“
Dorfman worked on The Crow several years ago, back when F. Javier Gutierrez was attached to direct, so his opinion could be influenced by the fact that the vision he and Gutierrez had for the project never made it to the screen. We’ll see how many other viewers share his opinion when the movie is released in August.
Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman) directed the version of The Crow that did make it into production, working from a screenplay by Oscar nominee Zach Baylin (King Richard). The film is produced by Victor Hadida, Molly Hassell, John Jencks, and Edward R. Pressman. Dan Farah serves as executive producer. Here’s the synopsis: Soulmates Eric (Bill Skarsgard) and Shelly (FKA twigs) are brutally murdered when the demons of her dark past catch up with them. Given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, Eric sets out to seek merciless revenge on their killers, traversing the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right.
As the synopsis mentions, Bill Skarsgard plays the lead character and is joined in the cast of The Crow by singer FKA twigs, who takes on the role of Shelly, the love of Eric’s life. Danny Huston (Yellowstone) plays the lead villain. David Bowles (Brothers), Isabella Wei (1899), Laura Birn (A Walk Among the Tombstones), Sami Bouajila (The Bouncer), and Jordan Bolger (Peaky Blinders) are also in the cast.
Are you looking forward to The Crow? What do you think of the comments posted by formerly attached screenwriter Cliff Dorfman? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
There are many examples of sequels that proceed without the original film’s star. Gladiator II will obviously not be able to feature Maximus Decimus Meridius after his arc ended in the first film. However, that will not stop attention being paid to Russell Crowe for the upcoming sequel despite the fact that he has no involvement. Last year, Crowe joked that he should be reimbursed for all the Gladiator II questions he’s fielded, “They should be f*cking paying me for the amount of questions I get asked about the f*cking film that I am not even in,” adding, “in that world, I’m dead, six feet under. And that’s that.” However, he also thinks the movie is bound to be extraordinary. “If Ridley has decided to do a second part … he will have really strong reasons…I couldn’t think of that movie being less than absolutely spectacular.” He even admitted to a “twinge of jealousy” over the film as it reminds him of his younger days.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Crowe addressed the film again in an interview with Kyle Meredith. This time, the Aussie actor talks about the unease he feels that the sequel is being made at all. Crowe explains,
I’m slightly uncomfortable with the fact they’re making another one — because, of course, I’m dead and I have no say in what gets done. But a couple of the things I’ve heard I’m like, ‘No, no, no, that’s not in the moral journey of that particular character’. But I can’t say anything, it’s not my place, I’m six foot under. So we’ll see what that is like.”
The original film from 2000 earned Crowe an Academy Award win for Best Actor, as well as the film itself nabbing a Best Picture Oscar. The long-awaited sequel stars Paul Mescal (Normal People), playing the adult Lucius. One report let us know, “Before he died, Maximus rescued Lucius and his mother from the clutches of the young man’s uncle, Commodus. The event left an impression on Lucius, who aspires to be as formidable as Maximus as he braves a harsh world.” Denzel Washington also co-stars as a supplier of weapons for the Romans.
They are also joined by Fred Hechinger (The White Lotus) as Emperor Geta (replacing Barry Keoghan in the role, as he had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts), Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things) as Emperor Caracalla, and – in roles that weren’t specified when their involvement was announced – Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us), Lior Raz (The Crowded Room), Peter Mensah (Spartacus), and Matt Lucas (Wonka). Connie Nielsen will also be returning as Lucious’ mother Lucilla.
Last week, we saw a gory, violent clip from the action thriller Kill – an appropriate piece of marketing, since Kill is being described as “India’s goriest and most intensely violent film.” Lionsgate is set to give the film a theatrical release in the United States on July 4th, and with that date right around the corner, a full trailer has now arrived online. You can check it out in the embed above.
The film will be reaching theatres in India the day after it opens in the U.S.
Directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, who also wrote the screenplay with Ayesha Syed, Kill centers on a passenger on a train to New Delhi. The train soon becomes a combat battleground as a pair of commandos face an army of invading bandits. What was supposed to be a leisurely trek turns into a claustrophobic bloodbath, with death and destruction filling every car along a fast-moving train.
Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s previous directing credits include the drama Saluun, the crime comedy Long Live Brij Mohan, the romantic drama Hurdang, and the thriller Apurva.
If you want to know more about the plot, the folks at Collider have us covered: Killfollows Amrit (Lakshya) and Tulika (Tanya Maniktala), whose relationship is jeopardized after Tulika’s family finds out about it. As they take her away for an arranged marriage, commando Amrit and his friend are far from willing to let fate dictate their story. The troop embarks on a “rescue” mission that becomes a gory adventure and blurs the line between their duty and emotions, elaborating the theme of “how far a man can go for love.”
Raghav Juyal, Abhishek Chauhan, Ashish Vidyarthi, Adrija Sinha, Harsh Chhaya, Parth Tiwari, and more are in the cast with Lakshya and Tanya Maniktala.
What did you think of the trailer for Kill? Will you be watching this movie on the big screen next month? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
I’m always open to checking out a cool, new action movie, especially one that promises gory, excessively violent action sequences, so I’ll be taking a look at Kill at some point.
Like Michael Jordan with basketball and Wayne Gretzky with hockey, Tony Hawk will always be the face of professional skateboarding. But if you encounter him in public, you might find he looks a bit different…that is, older. But ready for this? He did get older, it’s just not something strangers can get used to.
For a while, Tony Hawk would post on social media his encounters with strangers, normally with them saying something along the lines of, “Hey, you look a lot like Tony Hawk.” This, of course, makes sense considering, you know, he is Tony Hawk. But that he now looks like the 56-year-old he is is a jarring experience for people who approach him. “I think it’s more that people know either my name or my face, but a lot of times they see me now, and they think, ‘Well, I don’t think of him as being older.’…They think I’m just stuck in this time capsule of my twenties and thirties, because that’s where my video game character is. So they get surprised by saying he couldn’t be older or have gray hair, and they go, ‘Well yeah. You look like him.’” Wonder if David Spade has the same issue…
It’s sort of funny to think that people would expect him to not have aged in the 25 years since the Pro Skater franchise launched, but, as he says, “It’s all true. If you followed me around for a day, you’ll see that it does happen, and it’s usually in a funny sort of awkward interaction.”
Tony Hawk has had one of the greatest careers of any athlete. But unlike pretty much all of his contemporaries, he turned pro as a teenager, kickflipping his run at just 14. From there, he was a marked phenom on the half pipe and helped bring skateboarding into the living room like no other singular athlete, sticking the 900 at the X Games and serving as the face of the aforementioned video games. He was even considered to lead an early Space Jam sequel! On his success and what he could do with it, Hawk once said, “As far as endorsements and commercialization, I was the first one to dare to go there. I didn’t care about the backlash of it. I had been in skating for so long that I was never trying to covet it. I always thought there should be a bigger audience for it and appreciated it.”
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 were remastered in 2020, bringing fresh life to the series and adding an online component that let you upload custom parks for others to try their own 900 in.
Did you play Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater when you were younger? What are your memories of the games?
Disney has been riding that magic carpet of live-action remakes for quite some time now, truly kicking off the trend with Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. From there, we’ve had so-called “updates” of Cinderella, The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast, Dumbo, and on and on – none of which really capture the magic of the original animated films. And we highly doubt a real-life Forky wouldn’t be nightmare fuel…
Pete Doctor has been with Pixar since the earliest features, developing the story for and working on the animation of Toy Story. He has since gone on to direct four features for the studio, three of which won the Best Animated Feature Oscar – and that’s just the realm he’d like to stay in, saying live-action remakes just don’t work for what they do. “So much of what we create only works because of the rules of the [animated] world. So if you have a human walk into a house that floats, your mind goes, ‘Wait a second. Hold on. Houses are super heavy. How are balloons lifting the house?’ But if you have a cartoon guy and he stands there in the house, you go, ‘Okay, I’ll buy it.’ The worlds that we’ve built just don’t translate very easily.”
As for the live-action remake trend as a whole, Doctor added, “This might bite me in the butt for saying it, but it sort of bothers me. I like making movies that are original and unique to themselves. To remake it, it’s not very interesting to me personally.” The studio actually toyed with the idea of what real-life versions of their characters would look like with the Disney+ series Pixar IRL. While the episodes were never meant to be live-action remakes of any sort, they did offer some light, amusing interactions between their characters and actual people.
There is definitely a place for live-action remakes, but it has to be the right source. After all, there’s a reason that when we published an article just last year on animated movies that could benefit from that treatment, not a single Pixar movie made the list.
Do you think any Pixar movies could make for good live-action remakes? What would you pick? Let us know!
As an avid fan of 2022’s Citizen Sleeper and its subsequent DLCs, I consider myself an expert on the narrative-heavy RPG. So when I booted up my first playthrough of the Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector preview build provided by developer Jump Over The Age, I was sure I would make all the right choices. I was wrong.
As an avid fan of 2022’s Citizen Sleeper and its subsequent DLCs, I consider myself an expert on the narrative-heavy RPG. So when I booted up my first playthrough of the Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector preview build provided by developer Jump Over The Age, I was sure I would make all the right choices. I was wrong.
The Paddington films are some of the most acclaimed family films with high audience ratings and nearly 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with 97% for the first film and an astounding 99% for Paddington 2. The third film, Paddington in Peru, has secured a release date for November 8, 2024, in the UK and will fly on over to the United States on Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, January 17, 2025. StudioCanal and Sony have just released the new official trailer for the film. In the intro, the beloved bear is preparing for his travels in a photo booth in order to take a picture for his passport. Unfortunately, the instructions are a little too confusing for him.
The synopsis for Paddington in Peru reads, “In the Dougal Wilson directed picture, Paddington heads to Peru to visit his beloved Aunt Lucy, who now resides at the Home for Retired Bears. With the Brown Family in tow, a thrilling adventure ensues when a mystery plunges them into an unexpected journey through the Amazon rainforest and to the mountain peaks of Peru.”
Paddington in Peru stars an ensemble that includes Hugh Bonneville, Antonio Banderas, Olivia Colman, Julie Walters, Madeleine Harris, Samuel Joslin, Jim Broadbent and Carla Tous with both Ben Whishaw and Imelda Staunton returning as the respective voices of Paddington and Aunt Lucy. However, Sally Hawkins would not be able to return for this entry, and Emily Mortimer steps in as Mary Brown.
The film is a StudioCanal and Heyday Films production, but Sony has picked up the charming bear for distribution in the US and Canada.
Paul King, the director of the first two films, would opt to do Wonka over this installment, with Dougal Wilson taking over directing duties this time around. King explained why he chose to do the chocolate maker’s origins instead, “It was really difficult, because I’d spent eight years with the bear and I felt such incredible love for him,” King said. “He’s an animated character, and the design and the love that went into every single follicle was labor intensive and done with such heart. So it’s kind of like sending your kid off to school and going, ‘I hope you’ll be okay!’ But I also know it was the right thing to do.“
Paul King added that “because there’s so much Paddington source material, you could make 50 Paddington movies. I’d be a hundred years old and still doing Paddington.” If there was only enough source material to make two or three films, King said that things might have been different, but he was “really pleased” with were they left Paddington after the second movie and that it was “time to let go and give somebody else a shot.“
