Tag: Nightmare Alley

Posted on in News, Television News

EXCLUSIVE: Guillermo del Toro’s Longtime Cinematographer Guillermo Navarro Joins ’12 After Midnight’ Directing Team

Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water, Nightmare Alley) is behind a new horror anthology series at Netflix called Guillermo del Toro Presents 12 After Midnight (formerly 10 After Midnight), where he’ll write, produce, and even direct alongside others.

In this new genre-defining anthology series, acclaimed Academy Award-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro will present a collection of personally curated stories, that are both equally sophisticated and horrific. Creator and executive producer del Toro will bring his own visionary style as both a writer and director to certain episodes. In addition, he will handpick a team of the genre’s best writers and exciting new filmmakers to bring his selection of stories to life.

The Oscar-winning director is assembling a team of directors to work on the show and we’ve learned about a new addition to the directing team that already officially includes del Toro and Jennifer Kent (The Babadook, The Nightingale).

The Ronin can exclusively reveal that Guillermo Navarro (Godfather of Harlem, Cocaine Godmother, Narcos, Hannibal, Preacher, Luke Cage) has joined the growing group of handpicked directors working on the horror anthology series.

Navarro is mainly known as a cinematographer with a heap of credits such as Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Four Rooms, and Spy Kids. He is the longtime cinematographer of del Toro working together on Cronos, The Devil’s Backbone, Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and Pacific Rim.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlAECQzTkfY

We previously reported that director David Prior (The Empty Man) is also working on the series.

There is an expectation the more directors will be named at some point and we will update when more names are announced.

The production team includes seasoned production designer Tamara Deverell (Star Trek: Discovery), who had recently worked with del Toro on his latest feature film Nightmare Alley and his vampire series The Strain. Deverell will work alongside art director Brandt Gordon (Nightmare Alley, Crimson Peak, Total Recall, Suicide Squad, Shazam!)

Plot details on the shows are unknown but we should learn more once the streaming service releases some footage. There is an expectation that 12 After Midnight won’t be dropped on Netflix until sometime in 2022.

We know that Guillermo del Toro is busy on other projects including his next studio release Nightmare Alley this December by Searchlight Pictures and is co-directing a stop-motion animated film based on the classic fairy tale of Pinocchio for Netflix. It’ll be interesting to see if del Toro will continue his relationship with Netflix on future films and television projects.

Posted on in Television News

Guillermo del Toro’s Horror Anthology Series ’12 After Midnight’ Enlists ‘Nightmare Alley’ & ‘The Strain’ Production Designer; Jennifer Kent Also Directing

A new horror anthology from writer/producer Guillermo del Toro is coming to Netflix with the show titled Guillermo del Toro Presents 12 After Midnight (formerly 10 After Midnight), and it allows the filmmaker to honor the genre he loves. Guillermo del Toro is directing some episodes of the anthology alongside Australian director Jennifer Kent (The Nightingale, The Babadook). More directors will be announced later on. 

In this new genre-defining anthology series, acclaimed Academy Award-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro will present a collection of personally curated stories, that are both equally sophisticated and horrific. Creator and executive producer del Toro will bring his own visionary style as both a writer and director to certain episodes. In addition, he will handpick a team of the genre’s best writers and exciting new filmmakers to bring his selection of stories to life.

The Ronin can confirm that the horror series has added seasoned production designer Tamara Deverell (Star Trek: Discovery), who had recently worked with del Toro on his latest feature film Nightmare Alley and his vampire series The Strain. Deverell will work alongside art director Brandt Gordon (Nightmare Alley, Crimson Peak, Total Recall, Suicide Squad, Shazam!)

We’ve also learned that the production team will have visual effects supervisor Dennis Berardi, who has a fantastic body of work with projects such as Shazam!, Crimson Peak, Monster Hunter, Antlers, The Shape of Water, The Strain, Nightmare Alley, Vikings, and The Strain. 

Filming is already underway in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and will wrap sometime in February. 

A longtime producing partner of del Toro, J. Miles Dale, is behind the series. His credits consist of Nightmare Alley, Antlers, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, The Shape of Water, The Strain, Mama, Shadowhunters, The Thing (2011), and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. 

12 After Midnight will drop on Netflix sometime in 2022. 

Posted on in Film News

Rundown of 2021 Movies That Have Been Given New Release Dates

No Time To Die wasn’t the only studio film to get a bump to later in the year as there were a wave of release changes yesterday. The COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t seem to be letting up over the spring or possibly the summer meaning that theatrical releases are going to be further delayed.

Here is a rundown of those releases changes that took place over the week.

  • Godzilla vs. Kong – March 26th, 2021 (moved up)
  • Nobody – April 2nd, 2021
  • BIOS – August 13th, 2021
  • The Many Saints of Newark – September 24th, 2021
  • No Time To Die – October 8th, 2021
  • Last Night In Soho – October 22nd, 2021
  • Antlers – October 29th, 2021
  • Ghostbusters: Afterlife – November 11th, 2021
  • Nightmare Alley – December 3rd, 2021
  • Morbius – January 21st, 2022
  • Uncharted – February 11th, 2022
  • Ambulance – February 18th, 2022

We’re likely to get more release date changes in the coming weeks as summer movies alongside other spring films might be getting pushed later in the year or to 2022. I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if we saw new dates for films such big films as Black Widow, Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Spider-Man 3, F9, The King’s Man, Top Gun: Maverick, Jungle Cruise and others.

I know people are going to assume that studios will simply throw these projects on streaming services, however, considering the large budgets involved they will be more interested in turning a profit than offloading the films from their slates, they are still businesses that need to generate revenue. Until we get those official announcements it seems a little premature to speculate which projects will end up on streaming as plenty of these releases escaped that fate in 2020 and might continue that in 2021.

I personally believe the best way to go is with reasonable prices for multiple digital renting and buying options along with great access to those choices. Having access to these films suck behind a paywall then given high price of $30 like with what Disney did with Mulan meant that Disney+ subscribers still had to pay a premium price alongside their monthly subscription. At the very least, they should have given a discount to subs asking for $10-20.

We’ll certainly update when further changes are announced.

Posted on in Film News

Bradley Cooper Reportedly In Talks To Join Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1970s High School Drama

Paul Thomas Anderson is finally moving forward with his follow up to Oscar-winning drama Phantom Thread and The Hollywood Reporter has word that Bradley Cooper is in talks to take a unknown role in the untitled drama that has landed at MGM Studios. 

Cooper is expected to resume filming on Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley this fall in Toronto, so I wouldn’t hold my breath about their tidbit about it starting to begin shooting this fall in Los Angeles. That is unless Cooper’s role is extremely small.

The 1970s project will be set in the San Fernando Valley, the setting of Paul’s previous films Boogie Nights and Magnolia. It will focus on a child actor going to high school in the Valley. 

I’m sure we’ll be hearing more casting additions in the following weeks. 

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Film News

Guillermo del Toro Still Wants To Make ‘At The Mountains of Madness’ and A ‘Frankenstein’ Trilogy

While speaking with Collider to help promote the upcoming horror film Antlers, producer Guillermo del Toro revealed that he is still extremely keen on making feature films based on the H.P. Lovecraft story At The Mountains of Madness and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. 

Teasing he’d like to make a trilogy about the latter.

DEL TORO: “I’ve always imagined it as a two to three-part story, because in order to encompass the book you have to change points of view and it’s a complex exercise.”

Both projects had been in various development stages in the past before Guillmero was ultimately pulled away from those films to focus on other stuff. Seemingly, when he was developing At The Mountains of Madness it got the furthest along as Tom Cruise and his Hellboy actor Ron Perlman had been attached for roles until the budgetary issues with Universal Pictures put the horror project on ice for the foreseeable future. 

The director was hellbent that Mountains needed to be R-rated and was likely another issue between himself at the studio. 

Universal had been tinkering with trying to resurrect their Universal Monsters with a Bride of Frankenstein reboot starring Oscar-winners Angelina Jolie and Javier Bardem. The studio had been reportedly courting new directors which included Sam Raimi before he took over duties from Scott Derrickson on Marvel’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness. 

Here is del Toro speaking about Bride of Frankenstein back in 2012 at the Academy screening series A Monstrous Centennial: Universal’s Legacy of Horror at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. 

Guillermo is expected to resume filming on his period thriller Nightmare Alley this fall in Toronto and had been previously attached to direct a remake of the sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage for a pre-Disney owned 20th Century Studios. 

SOURCE: COLLIDER

Posted on in Film News

Check Out Concept Art From James Cameron’s Unmade ‘Fantastic Voyage’ Remake – Did They Want To Cast Hugh Jackman?

The Ronin has uncovered a bunch of previously unseen concept artwork from the unmade Fantastic Voyage that was in development by Lightstorm Entertainment and 20th Century Fox. The project was a futuristic remake of the 1966 film based on the novel by science-fiction author Isaac Asimov (Foundation).

Fantastic Voyage (1966)

FANTASTIC VOYAGE – The brilliant scientist Jan Benes (Jean Del Val) develops a way to shrink humans, and other objects, for brief periods of time. Benes, who is working in communist Russia, is transported by the CIA to America, but is attacked en route. In order to save the scientist, who has developed a blood clot in his brain, a team of Americans in a nuclear submarine is shrunk and injected into Benes’ body. They have a finite period of time to fix the clot and get out before the miniaturization wears off.

Directors such as James Cameron (Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Avatar), Roland Emmerich (Stargate, Universal Soldier, Independence Day), Paul Greengrass (Bourne Identity), and Shawn Levy (Free Guy, Real Steel, Stranger Things) had once been in the mix at different points of development. Cameron and Jon Landau would end up producing the film via Lightstorm Entertainment.

In 2010, screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis (Avatar, Alita: Battle Angel, Ghost In The Shell, Altered Carbon) was hired to do rewrites after director Roland Emmerich trashed the previous script in interviews.

In 2016, it was announced that Guillermo del Toro would be attached to direct with a script from Terminator: Dark Fate screenwriters David S. Goyer (Batman Begins, Blade, Blade II, Green Lantern Corps) and Justin Rhodes (RoboCop Returns, Green Lantern Corps) before he pivoted to passion projects like The Shape of Water and his current film Nightmare Alley.

There had been plans on shooting Guillermo’s version in Toronto, Ontario, Canada when had been assembling his production team development/pre-production stages.

While speaking with Screen Rant in the fall of 2017, del Toro suggested he was still keen on the project before moving on to Nightmare Alley.

DEL TORO: “That was on the calendar already. I announced the year in September, and if everything goes well and it happens, it would happen next September. We’d start prepping again. We had already delayed it. It is a very difficult movie, technically, and I needed to figure out a bunch of stuff. We’ve been doing R&D and we’ve been building stuff. I never know whether they’re going to happen or not. I’ve learned that, in 25 years. But, we’re still working on it.”

It remains to be seen if he’ll return to Fantastic Voyage in the future.

A batch of artwork from Shawn Levy’s incarnation (before Guillermo got involved) posted by production designer Tom Meyer (Real Steel, Spectral, BIOS) in a concept reel we spotted for the project features a bunch of concept artwork for the futuristic setting, animations, and storyboard animatics. Some plot details are also revealed in the video.

“Scaling” is the process of nano-sizing bio-technology hardware mechanisms. All illness has been eradicated through a vaccine of networked nano-implants. Hacking of the implant network is now our body’s primary threat.

Killing a pilot by hacking his implants with a “smart virus”, terrorists crash a jet into Washington D.C.’s icy Potomac.

One piece of artwork suggests that X-Men franchise actor Hugh Jackman was indeed wanted for a lead role as his likeness was used for one of the characters. It wouldn’t have been surprising given Shawn having worked with Hugh on Real Steel.

Deadline first connected him to the project back in 2011 and this artwork would support that reporting.

Here are the rest of images we captured from Tom’s concept reel.

Scaling Operating Room
Patient “0”
New Langley, N.S.A. – Implant Tracking Center
Is that William Fichtner on the right?
Main Ship Called Proteus During Scaling Ignition

Below is the reel posted by the film’s production designer Tom Meyer.

After Disney/21st Century Fox merger a handful of high-profile and expensive film projects were killed including Wes Ball’s Mouse Guard. There is a good chance that Disney might have squashed Fantastic Voyage as well.

Posted on in Film News

Guillermo del Toro Has Only Shot 45% of ‘Nightmare Alley’ and Expects To Resume Filming In The Fall

In an interview with Indie Wire, Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) has revealed that they are hoping to resume production on his current film Nightmare Alley this fall in Toronto and that they’ve only completed 45% of the shoot. 

DEL TORO: “We were roughly 45 percent in. We were literally in the middle of a great scene. We went to lunch and talked to the studio and when we came back we said, ‘Everybody leave your tools and leave now.'”

The film’s cast includes Cate Blanchett, Bradley Cooper, Toni Collette, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, Willem Dafoe, Holt McCallany, David Strathairn, and Richard Jenkins. 

Recently, Pinewood Toronto Studios chairman Paul Bronfman was hopeful to begin shooting after Labour Day, September 7th. This could mean that is around when they plan to get cameras rolling on Nightmare Alley. 

The Searchlight film likely won’t be ready to be released until late 2021. 

SOURCE: INDIE WIRE