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Geek Tyrant
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Director Jon Watts Opens Up About Why He Left Marvel's THE FANTASTIC FOUR Project — GeekTyrant
Jon Watts is no stranger to big swings in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He directed all three of Tom Holland's Spider-Man films, culminating with No Way Home , a global juggernaut that brought together multiple generations of Spider-Man and nearly hit the $2 billion mark. So when Marvel tapped him to reboot Fantastic Fou , it made sense. But just months before pre-production kicked into gear, Watts quietly stepped away, and now we know why. While speaking at the Mediterrane Film Festival, Watts finally opened up about the real reason he dropped out. It wasn't because of creative differences or a scheduling conflict. It was burnout, specifically, the kind brought on by trying to make No Way Home during peak pandemic chaos. Watts explained: 'The emotional strain of having to go through all of those COVID protocols while also trying to make something creative while also trying to make sure that your cast and crew were all safe — literally, people could've died if you did things wrong — that and the postproduction process was very difficult. 'When you're doing [visual effects work], there's a whole international component to it where you're using vendors from all over the world, and the supply chain had been interrupted because of COVID. It was really hard to get effects done in a traditional way.' Making a Marvel movie is already like steering a freight train through a needle, but doing it under strict health guidelines, that's a different beast entirely. And No Way Home wasn't just another sequel, it was a multiversal event with a sprawling cast, a visual effects gauntlet, and a story that had to emotionally land across three separate franchises. So by the time Marvel came calling again, Watts had to take stock of where he was mentally and creatively. 'I am out of gas. The COVID layer on top of making a giant movie layer, I knew I didn't have what it would've taken to make that movie great. I was just out of steam, so I just needed to take some time to recover. 'Everyone at Marvel totally understood. They had been through it with me as well, so they knew how hard and draining that experience has been; in the end, very satisfying, but at some point, if you can't do it at the level that you feel like you need to for it to be great, then it's better to not do it.' The pressure to always jump to the next big thing, especially when it's something as legacy-heavy as Fantastic Four, can be overwhelming. Watts prioritized his mental and creative health over momentum, which I can respect and appreciate. Since stepping away, Watts worked on the Star Wars series Skeleton Crew . Meanwhile, Matt Shakman ( WandaVision ) took the reins on Fantastic Four: First Steps , which finally hits theaters July 25. Watts says watching the film from the outside will be a 'totally surreal experience.' He won't be returning for the next Spider-Man either as Brand New Day , due in 2026, will be directed by Shang-Chi 's Destin Daniel Cretton, but most recently, he co-wrote and produced Final Destination: Bloodlines . Sometimes the best career move is knowing when to sit one out.
CTV News
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CTV News
Proudly Canadian movies to watch
Proudly Canadian movies to watch We check out the best of Canadian films and tell you where you can watch them.
The Verge
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Hideo Kojima sees Death Stranding 2 as a cautionary tale
For once, the unflappable Hideo Kojima was overwhelmed. Even close to four decades of game-making experience didn't prepare him for his biggest tribulation so far: developing Death Stranding 2: On the Beach during the covid-19 pandemic. 'I thought I can't pull this off. [I can't] meet people or scan people, or shoot with people. I almost gave up. And also the staff were all remote, and I became sick as well. I thought it was just the end of the world,' he says through an interpreter as part of a group interview in Sydney. 'I've been creating games throughout my career, but Death Stranding 2 was the most difficult challenge.' Even his initial scouting of Australia, where Death Stranding 2 is predominantly set, had to be carried out remotely via Zoom, with Kojima painstakingly directing a local contact to document the landscape on his behalf. 'Looking at it from a camera and to be there is totally different, so that's disappointing.' For Kojima, those experiences led to a different approach for the sequel. His own sense of isolation that arose from having to develop Death Stranding 2 with a remote team saw him reconsidering its tale — yet it's also this isolation that led to Kojima realizing the perils of digital connectivity. Kojima's curiosity around Australia was eventually sated. As part of a promotional world tour for Death Stranding 2, he has made his way to Australia to chat about the game with film director and his personal hero, George Miller, at the Sydney Film Festival. So drawn is Kojima to the local sights that the noted cinephile says he hasn't caught any movies at the festival. Instead, he spent the day at the zoo. Kojima's legacy as a game designer is anything but typical, from his earliest days as the creative force behind the much-acclaimed Metal Gear series to his less-than-amicable departure from Konami. And like Metal Gear's anti-war narrative, tumultuous world events have shaped the Death Stranding series, the first game being conceptualized in the midst of a politically charged climate back in 2016. He points to key events such as Brexit and the first Donald Trump administration, with thoughts of creating a game that focused on bringing people together. '[Back then] there was no theme in games about connections,' he explains. And a few months after Death Stranding was launched, the outbreak of covid soon upended everyday life, including Kojima's. The isolation he felt almost mirrored the sense of solitude that's so prevalent in the first Death Stranding. But at the same time, he seemed wary about the digital overload that came with having to stay online — to connect with one another — during the pandemic. 'I've been creating games throughout my career, but Death Stranding 2 was the most difficult challenge.' 'We had internet when we had this pandemic. It wasn't like during the Spanish flu,' he says. 'We could order things online, we could work online, we could connect via Zoom, or you could go to concerts; they do live concerts on the internet. So the society kind of changed to being very digital.' This digital dependence struck him as 'not always very healthy,' which is compounded by the prevalence of surveillance technology, such as facial recognition, during the pandemic. The sum of these experiences inspired him to rewrite Death Stranding 2 as a cautionary tale. The contrast between the two titles' messages lies in their logos. Kojima remarks that there's a marked difference between the original Death Stranding's logo and the sequel's. Unlike in the original, the tendrils — or the 'strands,' as he refers to these lines — are no longer emerging from the title, but are instead holding the name up in the sequel's logo. 'You see the strands coming to the logo. It's almost like [The] Godfather,' he says, referring to the seminal 1972 crime film. Seated at the front of a small conference room in the PlayStation office in Sydney, the 61-year-old Kojima appears more reticent since the previous Death Stranding world tour — perhaps a sign of weariness and prudence in the pandemic's aftermath. When I attended the Singapore leg of the tour in 2020, Kojima shook hands with journalists and conducted individual interviews, while fans who attended the event were invited to take pictures with him. 'It was an indirect connection to the game,' he said in an interview. The promotional event was, in a way, an extension of Death Stranding's themes of connectivity. But for the second world tour, at least in Sydney, journalists were invited to a group interview, and there was no fan interaction beyond his appearance at the Sydney Film Festival when he waved to eager fans who were hoping to catch a glimpse of the game designer before the event. I was informed by the PlayStation PR team that Kojima didn't want to risk getting ill again for the rest of the Death Stranding 2 world tour. This feels understandable; Sydney is, after all, only the second stop, and perhaps his bout of illness during the pandemic was alarming enough that he prefers putting some physical distance between himself and the public. Nonetheless, he is still in good spirits during the group interview, at one point even exclaiming that he is probably talking too much. 'This is another reason why I'm doing this world tour. I couldn't go out, travel, and meet people the past five years, so I thought it's about time.' Yet, at the heart of Kojima's introspection is still a desire to connect with people, particularly his fans. Part of the reason he's working on Physint is due to their desire to see another action-espionage game in the vein of Metal Gear. Death Stranding 2, meanwhile, has a greater focus on combat than the first, a feature that Kojima also partly attributed to Metal Gear's popularity. With more players familiar with Death Stranding's idiosyncrasies as a 'delivery game,' he's ready to make the sequel a tad more approachable. In a way, it's his way of bringing more people together through the Death Stranding series, which he refers to as 'a game of connections.' 'I think we're a little stronger,' Kojima says of the world after pandemic lockdowns. 'If you could use that experience [of connecting with one another] from the game, I want you to maybe use that experience in real life. Not just in your Death Stranding world, but after you go outside, you feel something in your real world every day, and I want you to link what you felt playing the game as well.'
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
New York Indian Film Festival Highlights Include Shyam Benegal and James Ivory Tributes: What to See
The 25th anniversary edition of the New York Indian Film Festival — one of the nation's leading showcases of independent Indian cinema — unspools at New York's Angelika through Sunday, June 22. Officially opening Friday, June 20 with Raam Reddy's 2024 Berlinale selection 'The Fable,' the festival includes Anurag Kashyap's intense Hindi-language thriller 'Kennedy' as the Centerpiece on June 21. Kashyap will also host a master class on the challenges facing Bollywood and the future of independent cinema in India. More from IndieWire Apple TV+ Signs First-Look Film Deal with North Road's Chernin Entertainment 'You Kind of Have to Fight for More Room': Melissa Barrera Says Diverse Casting Has Net Effect on Productions There's also a tribute to late, great Indian filmmaker Shyam Benegal, with a 4K restoration of his 1976 landmark 'Manthan,' about India's White Revolution and revived by the Film Heritage Foundation. As part of a program of films honoring master storytellers, the New York Indian Film Festival will also screen Dev Benegal's 2024 short for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'An Arrested Moment.' The film explores Oscar-winning director James Ivory's fascination with Indian art and culture. Ivory established Merchant-Ivory with his creative and personal partner Ismail Merchant, the Indian film producer who died in 2005. Early indie films made out of India from the director/producer pair include 'The Householder,' 'Shakespeare Wallah,' and 'Bombay Talkie' before they transitioned famously to adapting classic, canonical English-language novels. 'An Arrested Moment' plays June 22 with Taira Malaney's documentary 'Turtle Walker,' which explores the population of enigmatic sea turtles living along the coasts of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. This year's New York Indian Film Festival actually kicked off on Thursday, June 19 with the North American premiere of 'Tanvi the Great,' which marks Anupam Kher's first directing effort in two decades; the political and personal epic, about a young woman confronting her father's military legacy, premiered at the Cannes Market earlier this year. Kher has worked as a lauded actor on Indian productions since the early 1980s, best known for his onscreen performances and acting school (he previously directed 2002's 'Om Jai Jagadish'). Robert De Niro surprised Kher with an appearance at the Angelika screening. Kaushal Oza's directorial debut, the coming-of-age film 'Little Thomas,' closes the festival, and it follows an only child in 1990s Goa trying to help his parents give him a baby brother. Other highlights include Aditya Kriplani's fiction-and-reality-blurring fame critique 'I'm Not an Actor' with 'Sacred Games' star Nawazuddin Siddiqui; an LGBTQ double feature for Pride Month' with the gay romance 'Riptide' followed by the short 'IYKYK'; Nikhil Mahajan's climate change tale 'The Tiger,' about the struggle between human and tigers in a remote village; and much more. See the full schedule and buy tickets via New York Indian Film Festival's official website here. Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
Forbes
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
NYAFF 2025 Lineup Features More Than A Dozen Korean Films
Lee Min-ho stars in 'Omniscient Reader: The Prophet,' which airs at NYAFF on July 26. The New York Asian Film Festival and Film at Lincoln Center has published the full list of films that make up its 24th edition. NYAFF 2025 will run from July 11 to 27 across four New York City venues and champions the idea of Cinema as Disruption. 'This completes our most ambitious program ever,' says Samuel Jamier, NYAFF Executive Director. 'Eight breakthrough filmmakers competing for Uncaged, plus sidebars that reimagine what Asian cinema can be. This full-circle moment reminds us why NYAFF exists: to support bold artists before the world fully recognizes them—and to celebrate how far they've come.' This year's festival opens with one of its Korean selections, the world premiere of Informant, a Korean action-comedy that sets the tone for the lineup. Director Kim Seok will attend the premiere alongside actor Heo Sung-tae, known for his multiple appearances in films and dramas, including his memorable role in Squid Game. The Uncaged Award for Best Feature Film Competition celebrates visionary filmmakers who challenge cinematic conventions. This year's Uncaged Award nominees include one Korean film, Time To Be Strong by Namkoong Sun, which won the Jeonju Grand Prize in 2024. The festival will also include North Korean Cool, an action-focused sidebar on how North Korean characters have become slick operatives, tragic heroes, and sharp-edged mirrors of South Korean fears, fantasies, and politics. 'The Informant," starring Her Sung-tae will open the festival, The Korean films airing at the festival include several premieres as well as special screenings of some noteworthy older films that exemplify this year's theme of Cinema as Disruption. The selection includes Commitment, directed by Park Hong-soo (2013), Forbidden Fairytales, directed by Lee Jong-seok (2024), Fragment, directed by Kim Sung-yoon (2024), The Front Line, directed by Jang Hoon (2011), A Girl With Closed Eyes, directed by Chun Sun-young (2024), Hear Me: Our Summer, directed by Jo Seon-ho (2024), Hidden Face, directed by Kim Dae-woo ( 2024), Horoomon, directed by Lee Il-ha (2025) Informant (Opening Night Film) directed by Kim Seok (2024), Method Acting, directed by Lee Ki-hyuk (2024), The Old Woman With The Knife, directed by Min Kyu-dong (2024), Omniscient Reader: The Prophet, directed by Kim Byong-woo (2025), The Secret House, directed by Park Sang-min (2025), Somebody, directed by Lee Jung-chan, Kim Yeo-jung (2024), The Suspect, directed by Won Shin-yun (2013), Swing Kids, directed by Kang Hyeong-cheol (2018) and Time To Be Strong, directed by Namkoong Sun (2024). NYAFF 2025 also features a selection of cinematic shorts by South Korean directors. The New York Asian Film Foundation Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the exhibition and appreciation of Asian film culture in all its forms, with year-round festivals and programs, and a view to building bridges between Asia and America.
