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When it rains, it pours. The very first official images from Fantastic Four hit today, and now we have even more new details from the so-far mysterious superhero movie.

Director Josh Trank has confirmed that Philip Glass is scoring the film with Marco Beltrami. In addition, he cites David Cronenberg as an influence on the look and feel of the film. More about the Fantastic Four Philip Glass score and David Cronenberg inspiration after the jump. 

Speaking to Collider, Trank revealed how Glass and Beltrami got involved with Fantastic Four:

I got his manager’s number and gave them a call! Philip Glass is one of my heroes. Whenever I’m writing or drawing I always put on Philip Glass. This is my first time making a movie with a score and I thought, “why not give it a shot?” So I asked the studio, “what about Philip Glass? Would you guys be okay with me giving him a call?” And they were totally cool. He’s a really significant celebrity in the music world. I got his number from his manager, I sent him Chronicle and had a call with him. It was one of the coolest calls I’ve ever had in my life because he’s fucking Philip Glass and he had just watched my movie. The first words out of his mouth were, “I just saw your movie and it’s very philosophical.” We were talking about the philosophy of Chronicle and it gave me goosebumps. We invited him out to set and he came to set for like three days and had a great time. He was blown away by the scale of the film. I’ve been working with him for almost a year now and he’s so inspiring. He’s such a humble, amazing guy.

Glass is a three-time Best Original Score Oscar nominee, for Kundun, The Hours, and Notes on a Scandal. His other high-profile credits include the Qatsi trilogy and, most recently, the Best Foreign Film Oscar nominee Leviathan. A big-budget superhero pic like Fantastic Four is definitely outside his usual wheelhouse.

Beltrami has much more experience on that front, having worked on The Wolverine, Blade II, Hellboy, and Jonah Hex. Outside of comic book adaptations, he’s also scored Snowpiercer, The Hurt Locker, 3:10 to Yuma, I, Robot, and the last two Die Hards.

Trank additionally told Collider how Cronenberg influenced Fantastic Four:

Maybe the biggest influence for me in terms of an overall view and communicating tool to the various department was Scanners or The Fly. In terms of the feeling of what these powers are. Because the drama speaks for itself in terms of the script or the story but the look of the movie and the feel of the movie has to be more evocative.

In other words, he wanted Fantastic Four to have a real-world feel. He further explains:

I would say that the science fiction of it is a big thing that sets it apart from most of the other superhero genre films. I’m a huge David Cronenberg fan, and I always viewed Fantastic Four and the kind of weirdness that happens to these characters and how they’re transformed to really fall in line more with a Cronenberg-ian science fiction tale of something horrible happening to your body and [it] transforming out of control. And the potential for a hard sci-fi take on that material makes me really excited.

Of course, pretty much every superhero movie director promises ahead of time that his film will be different. But to Trank’s credit, Cronenberg isn’t a typical superhero movie influence, and Glass isn’t a typical superhero movie composer. Plus, Trank actually has delivered one very unique superhero film before — the excellent Chronicle, which got him the Fantastic Four gig in the first place.

Fantastic Four opens August 7. Michael B. Jordan, Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, and Toby Kebbell star. The first teaser will hit with Kingsman: The Secret Service next month.

The post ‘Fantastic Four’: Philip Glass Writing Score, Josh Trank Cites David Cronenberg as Influence appeared first on /Film.

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Of the three major superhero films opening this summer, Fox’s Fantastic Four is the most mysterious. We’ve yet to see a still or poster, let alone a full-fledged trailer. Happily, that starts to change today with the first official behind the scenes look at the movie.

Michael B. Jordan, Miles Teller, Kate Mara, and Jamie Bell lead the superhero pic, which is directed by Josh Trank. Simon Kinberg and Jeremy Slater wrote the screenplay. Get your Fantastic Four behind the scenes peek after the jump.

The trailer for the film will be attached to Kingsman: The Secret Service next month but Collider debuted the first official behind-the-scenes images from Fantastic Four. The first shows Jordan with Kinberg. The second has Trank on set.

Interestingly, Jordan’s costume lines up pretty well with Nerdist‘s illustrations of costumes from the movie, which you can see below. These aren’t official concept art, but an artist’s rendering based on information from an inside source.

Human Torch’s outfit looks close enough that it stands to reason the others probably aren’t far off either. Jordan had previously described the costumes as “containment suits.”

In an accompanying interview at Collider, Trank explains why they “consciously decided to not release anything official” until just now:

This isn’t like The Avengers. Even when the first Avengers came out, there were four other movies that people were familiar with. The suits and the tone and the look and the feel. So they could release those things or drop them on Twitter. With Simon on the X-Men movies, there were other movies that came before the last X-Men movie so Bryan [Singer] could feel more confident in tweeting teases of what’s to come. But this movie, we really want the audience to have the proper reaction to this material seeing it for the first time. You’ve really got to put your best foot forward. You can’t just leak an image to strike up a conversation. You want people to see something that has thought behind it. And the teaser should do just that. With conversations online, you can’t really control it. In this day and age people have come to expect that artists are going to give everybody information on Twitter about what they’re doing, but not every artist is like that. I’m not really like that. If I was painting a picture I wouldn’t want to take a picture of a single paint stroke. I’d rather show people what it looks like when it’s done.

We’re still waiting to get our first taste of the actual film, but these behind-the-scenes pics sure are doing a great job of getting us hungry for more. Fantastic Four will be in theaters August 7.

The post First Look: ‘Fantastic Four’ Behind-the-Scenes Images Reveal Human Torch Costume appeared first on /Film.

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You can’t throw a rock at Sundance without hitting a coming-of-age tale, but it’s safe to say Turbo Kid is different from most. The Park City at Midnight entry follows an orphaned boy (Munro Chambers) in a retro-futuristic, post-apocalyptic 1997. After his best friend (Laurence Leboeuf) is kidnapped by the evil Zeus (Michael Ironside), he sets out across the Wasteland on his BMX bike to find her.

Co-director Anouk Whissell describes it as “an old crazy 80s kid movie,” while co-director François Simard adds that it’s “made for the inner children in all of us.” (Yoann-Karl Whissell is the third co-director.) But it’s not made for people who are also children on the outside — it’s gleefully gory, as you’ll see from the first Turbo Kid trailer after the jump.

Epic Pictures debuted the first Turbo Kid trailer.

Turbo Kid actually started out as a contest entry for the T segment of ABCs of Death. It lost to Lee Hardcastle’s T is for Toilet, but caught the attention of producer Ant Timpson, who asked whether the trio might consider making their short into a full-fledged feature. The results will be unveiled for the first time tonight at Sundance.

Here’s the Turbo Kid synopsis from Sundance:

It’s 1997. In a ruined post-apocalyptic world, the orphaned Kid survives on his own through drought-ridden nuclear winter, traversing the Wasteland on his BMX, scavenging for scraps to trade for a scant supply of water. When his perpetually chipper, pink-haired new best friend Apple is kidnapped by a minion of evil overlord Zeus, the Kid summons the courage of his comic book hero and prepares to deliver turbocharged justice to Zeus, his buzzsaw-handed sidekick Skeletron, and their vicious masked army.

Bolstered by a pitch-perfect synth score, and clever and cheeky period details, co-directors François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell create a raucous retro-futuristic action comedy that pays homage to ’80s movies great and small, while adding their own flair with inventive and exuberant violence and gore (prepare for disemboweling by exercycle). Sci-fi legend Michael Ironside delivers with malevolence and glee as the larger-than-life Zeus, a despicable villain with joie de vivre.

The post ‘Turbo Kid’ Sundance Trailer Zips Through a Post-Apocalyptic 1997 appeared first on /Film.

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Another screenwriter is rocketing off to a galaxy far, far away. Chris Weitz is set to pen the Star Wars standalone being directed by Gareth Edwards, following Gary Whitta‘s departure a couple weeks ago. More on the Star Wars Chris Weitz news after the jump.

THR reported the news. Whitta was set to write the Star Wars spinoff last year. He left earlier this month after completing a first draft. As of now, he’s moved on to 20th Century Fox’s adaptation of Mark Millar’s Starlight. We had previously heard that Simon Kinberg would take over.

Weitz is best known as the co-director and co-writer, with his brother Paul Weitz, of the Nick Hornby adaptation About a Boy. The screenplay earned a nomination at that year’s Oscars. Weitz also wrote Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming live-action adaptation of Cinderella — which, like Star Wars, is set up at Disney.

As a director, Weitz’s credits include The Golden Compass (which he also scripted), The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and A Better Life. In addition, he’s working on a post-apocalyptic YA trilogy. The first book, The Young World, hit shelves last year, with the second, The New Order, due out this summer.

Casting on Edwards’ Star Wars standalone is just barely getting underway, with Tatiana Maslany, Felicity Jones, Rooney Mara, and Kate Mara all testing for a role. Rumor has it the plot centers on a group of bounty hunters stealing plans for the first Death Star, with both Boba Fett and Han Solo slated to appear.

Edwards’ Star Wars film is due out December 16, 2016. It’s one of two Star Wars spinoffs in the works; Josh Trank is helming the other.

The post Chris Weitz to Write ‘Star Wars’ Spinoff appeared first on /Film.

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Ever since Daniel Brühl was cast in Captain America: Civil War, theories have been flying fast and heavy about whom he might be playing. Meanwhile, Marvel’s keeping mum. But another source may have just confirmed what many of us already suspected.

Hit the jump to find out what the Daniel Bruhl Captain America Civil War role might be. 

As mentioned above, Marvel has yet to issue any official information about Brühl’s character. However, a casting call (via Screen Crush) lists Brühl as playing Baron Zemo, alongside Chris Evans as Captain America, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Sebastian Stan as Winter Soldier, Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Frank Grillo as Crossbones, and Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther.

Baron Zemo was one of the most popular guesses that emerged following Marvel’s announcement of Brühl’s casting. There were unconfirmed reports at the time that Brühl could play a minor role in Captain America: Civil War before resurfacing in Doctor Strange as the primary antagonist. However, those reports seem to be mistaken as Baron Zemo is more of a Captain America villain.

Here’s our earlier rundown of the character:

There are actually many Baron Zemos in the comics, but the two best known are Heinrich Zemo and his son Helmut Zemo. Heinrich is a prominent Nazi scientist who was eventually killed in a battle with Captain America. Helmut went after Captain America to avenge his father, and eventually took over the Baron Zemo mantle. Though Helmut Zemo is ultimately a villain, he’s somewhat morally ambiguous. His motivations are less purely evil compared to other villains, and he sometimes poses as a superhero. He’s pretty popular as Cap villains go. It wouldn’t be surprising if Marvel wanted to work him in.

During the Civil War, Baron Helmut Zemo plays both sides. Iron Man asks Zemo to recruit villains to the pro-registration side, which Zemo has already been doing; meanwhile, Zemo also goes to Captain America and gives him a key that will break him out of a superhuman prison.

Brühl seems like a natural fit for the part, and he’s definitely got the charisma to turn Baron Zemo into a classic MCU villain. Let’s just hope Marvel gives him the chance to do his thing — the franchise has a pretty meh track record when it comes to baddies.

Captain America: Civil War opens May 6, 2016. Anthony and Joe Russo are directing.

The post Daniel Brühl’s ‘Captain America: Civil War’ Role Revealed? appeared first on /Film.

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