CHAPPIE (also available in IMAX)
Director: Neill Blomkamp (DISTRICT 9, ELYSIUM)
Cast: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$er, Jose Pablo Cantillo with Sigourney Weaver and Hugh Jackman
In the near future, crime is patrolled by an oppressive mechanized police force. But now, the people are fighting back. When one police droid, Chappie, is stolen and given new programming, he becomes the first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself. As powerful, destructive forces start to see Chappie as a danger to mankind and order, they will stop at nothing to maintain the status quo and ensure that Chappie is the last of his kind.http://chappiemovie.net
“CHAPPIE”
Production
Information
From the director of District 9 comes Chappie, starring Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, with Sigourney Weaver
and Hugh Jackman. In the near future, crime is patrolled by an oppressive
mechanized police force. But now, the people are fighting back. When one police
droid, Chappie, is stolen and given new programming, he becomes the first robot
with the ability to think and feel for himself. As powerful, destructive
forces start to see Chappie as a danger to mankind and order, they will stop at
nothing to maintain the status quo and ensure that Chappie is the last of his
kind.
Columbia Pictures and MRC present
in association with LStar Capital a Kinberg Genre production, Chappie.
Starring Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, NINJA and ¥O-LANDI VI$$ER, Jose
Pablo Cantillo, with Sigourney Weaver and Hugh Jackman. Directed by Neill Blomkamp.Produced by Neill
Blomkamp and Simon Kinberg.Written by Neill Blomkamp& Terri Tatchell. Executive Producer is Ben Waisbren. Director of Photography is Trent
Opaloch. Production Designer is Jules
Cook. Editors are Julian Clarke, ACE and
Mark Goldblatt, ACE. Visual Effects
Supervisor is Chris Harvey. Music by
Hans Zimmer.
ABOUT THE FILM
In his films District 9 and Elysium,
filmmaker Neill Blomkamp invited viewers to reimagine our world. In those films, Blomkamp combined pulsing
action with a social conscience that made the films unforgettable. In his new film, Chappie, Blomkamp is at it again.
Set just a few years from now, the
world is under the thumb of autonomous, robotic police droids, called
Scouts. “They can’t be reasoned with,
they can’t be negotiated with, they cannot be swayed,” says Blomkamp.
With the entire city under the
so-called “protection” of the police droids, in comes an entirely new creation
– Chappie, the first robot that can think and feel for itself. Once a police droid, Chappie is stolen and
put to entirely different purposes.
There are those, like Vincent
Moore (Hugh Jackman), see a thinking robot as the end of mankind – after all,
when a machine can think, what does it need a human for? But others, like Chappie’s creator, Deon
Wilson (Dev Patel), see Chappie as a living, breathing, and entirely human form
of life – and the last hope for humanity, even if he isn’t human himself.
“The idea was to take something as
unhuman as a robot – especially a police robot – and give him complete human
characteristics, to the point that he becomes more emotional than the human
characters,” says Blomkamp. “That’s the
backbone of the irony of the movie – a police droid becomes sentient, and
begins to display characteristics that are more moral, ethical, and
conscientious than human beings tend to.”
In the film, Blomkamp tells the
story of a young, impressionable mind – the robot, Chappie – who falls in with
the most unlikely of influences.“Chappie is quickly pulled into the seedy,
crime-ridden underworld of Jo’burg, and he’s raised by two parents – one good,
and one bad,”says Blomkamp. From here,
Chappie is caught between powerful forces – and when those forces face off, an
entire city hangs in the balance.
Simon Kinberg, who produces the
film with Blomkamp, notes that Chappie
fires on all cylinders because Blomkamp does what he does so well: the film
combines the big ideas that obsess the filmmaker with an action-packed, highly
entertaining story unlike any other. “He’s
made an action movie that is also a dramatic character story that is also an
intellectual study about what it means to be human, what it means to have
intelligence. The most important thing in the film is that the audience falls
in love with Chappie, that their hearts break when Chappie is hurt and are
excited when he is victorious. You root
for this robot. The movie does a lot of
different things in a way that only Neill can do.”
“The film raises questions – when
would a robot be considered human?” asks Sharlto Copley, who plays Chappie in
the film. “Is it because they can paint,
or like a certain kind of music? For
humans, it would probably be if the machine had feelings – if we were
connecting with a machine in the way that we connect with people. I think that’s what would make most people
call a machine ‘alive’ – if it experiences emotions in the same way as us.”
The lead role of Chappie – a Scout who is given
consciousness by artificial intelligence– is played by Sharlto Copley. Copley performed the role on camera,performing
in each scene opposite the other characters. Not only did this allow
Chappie to feel like a very real and authentic character, but it helped the
other actors to bring their characters out to the fullest. Later, in
post-production, Blomkamp worked with the wizards at the VFX facility Image
Engine to bring Chappie to fruition, painting the robot Chappie over Copley’s
performance and creating the robot from Copley’s movements. The way that Copley emoted in his scenes
informed everything about the robot – from the way Chappie moves, or sits, or
holds his head... even Chappie’s ears.
In many films with CG characters,
the filmmakers sometimes choose to film the scene with only the live-action actorsas
they perform against only a single point.
That was never going to happen on Chappie. “There was never going to be a world where we
filmed with a tennis ball on the end of a C stand,” says Kinberg. “It was always going to be real and in the
moment.”
“Sharlto’s performance is the
thing that bringsChappie to life,”Kinberg continues. “He is so human and sad, touching and
vulnerable. You feel it in his body
language and voice – everything takes its cue from Sharl. The way the robot’s eyes move, the way its
ears move, and certainly the way its body moves – all of that is dictated by
Sharlto’s performance.”
Kinberg also says that having Copley
performing the scenes helped all of the actors.
“For the other actors, when you’re interacting with a real person, it
all feels more real, human, textured and grounded,” he explains.
Copley says that in some ways, the
role was like any other. “Neill said, ‘You
just play the role, and we put the robot on top,’” the actor explains. “The film should work with me in the grey
suit – you should still be able to watch the film and be moved by it.”
Copley notes that Chappie is
unlike any role he’s ever played before.
“It was quite interesting for me, movement wise,” he says. “I had to be very aware of every mannerism. The essence of Chappie is in how he moves and
how he reacts – and not necessarily what he’s saying.”
Even though he would never be seen
on film, Copley wore two pieces of costume attire to help get the character
right. “I wore a chest plate, to keep my back and chest proportions the same as
Chappie’s,” he notes. This allowed
Copley to know what spaces he could fit in and how the robot would sit or stand
in certain positions. In this way, when
an actor grabs Chappie’s shoulder or chest, the actor’s hands are in the right
place when Copley is replaced by Chappie in the computer.
But the chest plate wasn’t
all. “I wore a grey suit with tracking
markers for the animators. It was skin tight, and skin tight clothing is not
gangster,” he says. Needing something that would help him feel like a gangster,
Copley added a pair of shorts and a belt.
“During the gangster scenes I would loosen my belt and drop the shorts
half way down my backside. That was my trick, to transform from grey suit man
into gangster Chappie. It helped create the right kind of gangster movements.”
Copley says that the
unconventional style of shooting and animating the film was a great
benefit. “Animators will tell
you there’s a huge difference between animating something from scratch and
working with what an actor has already done,” he says. “It’s a lot easier for
them to create a moving character if the base performance is already there.
Obviously, it’s also a lot better for the other actors to have a grey suit
actor actually on set that they can interact with.”
“Chappie’s
animators are incredible,” adds Copley.“They’ve managed to capture and
translate every nuance of my performance. In addition, they had the challenge
of trying to translate my facial movements onto Chappie, who has almost no
face. They did an incredible job. I feel like they elevated what I gave them
together we created some kind of unique being. “
Taking on the role of the film’s
villain, Vincent Moore, is Hugh Jackman.
As an engineer who is very opposed to the idea of artificial
intelligence, Vincent takes Chappie’s advancement personally, as Simon Kinberg
explains. “Vincent is a twisted,
militaristic, aggressive, insecure, brilliant scientist who believes the world
needs this massive weapon he’s created,” Kinberg says. “He’s sacrificed everything for this
program. He was a soldier, and to get
what he wants, he takessome insane, extreme tactics. He’d light the city on fire to get what he
wants.”
“I don’t
think I’ve ever had as much fun playing a character as Vincent Moore,” says
Jackman. “He’s an Australian, so it was
nice to use my own accent. The key to
understanding Vincent is he will not lose.
Even when the odds are against him, even when all the signs are pointing
in another direction, that’s when he fights harder. He feels what he is doing is so important,
that he can’t accept anybody else’s direction or even the fact that anyone else
can win.”
Because he
rarely plays a villainous role, Jackman relished the opportunity to play a
realistic villain with a justifiable point of view. “The best villains don’t think they’re
villains,” he says. “He brings a genuine
argument to the table, and he’s convinced that what he’s doing is right and
necessary. What makes him a villain is
his inability to lose. That trumps
everything and he becomes very destructive, very angry and vengeful.”
Kinberg,
also a producer of the recent X-Men
films, has worked with Jackman on four films.
“He has that movie star magnetism,” explains the producer. “He’s had it since that first X-Menmovie, I’ve seen it on stage. In this movie, he obviously still has that,
but it’s completely different, because he’s playing the villain. I think Hugh was excited to be playing an
Australian – there’s a certain Australian archetype of the athletic bully, and
he was definitely accessing that. This
was a chance for him to play a whole different side of himself as a performer.”
Vincent’s
opposite is Deon Wilson, Chappie’s creator, played by Dev Patel. A young engineer developing artificial
intelligence, he’s in direct opposition to Jackman’s Vincent. “Most of all, Vincent hates artificial
intelligence,” says Jackman. “He thinks that’s humans playing God. He argues that crime is unpredictable, so it’s
a human issue, and it’s vital for any weapon to be controlled by a human.”
Deon
represents the new wave of programmer, according to Blomkamp. “He has the spark of youth about him,” says
the writer-producer-director. “I wanted
him to be a prodigy – an Oxford or MIT artificial intelligence research student
that the company gets their hands on, but who quickly finds that the company’s
goals for him are very different from his own goals – and so all of his spare
time goes to his own true love.”
“Deon’s
real passion is in creating artificial intelligence – being a party to creating
the next step in evolution – but I think it’s also because he just wants a
companion,” says Kinberg. “He doesn’t
connect with too many people – he lives in his head and his computer. He falls in love – as a brother, a friend,
and a mentor to Chappie.”
Patel says
that the character changed between the time he first read the script and
shooting the scenes. “When I first read
him, I completely related to his heart.
I knew he was intensely passionate about artificial intelligence, but I
was worried he might be too passive in some scenes. Then, I got to the set and I met Sharlto and NINJA
and ¥O-LANDI. After meeting them, it was
a natural reaction to give the character more of a backbone, to be more
defensive and aggressive about his work.”
What was
it about NINJA and ¥O-LANDI? “I didn’t
really know of them before we started shooting; I’d heard whisperings about
this crazy band from South Africa, Die Antwoord,” he recalls. “They’re absolutely fascinating; they play a
version of themselves, which is great, because it’s just truth. It’s as raw and organic as possible. They bring themselves to this movie, and
create this wild juxtaposition.”
Acting
opposite Copley, Patel watched as Copley created a wholly original
character. “Sharlto is kind of like Deon
– he’s so crazy passionate that you get a bit overwhelmed when you meet him,”
he says. “Even though he was going to be
a CG character, he was so expressive.
His diction, his tone of voice, the character choices he made. Acting opposite him was quite easy. Sharlto is a lot older than me, but I was
playing a father figure to him, which was strange. I think Deon genuinely cares about this
robot; he wants it to succeed, and that’s why he keeps going into Ninja andYo-Landi’sden.”
Kinberg
says that Patel was the first and, ultimately, only choice to play the
role. “The reality of the world is that
right now, a bunch of kids in garages are making the technology that will
transform our world. So, when we started
talking about casting Deon, everyone we even discussed was under the age of 30
– and for Neill, his first choice was Dev. Dev feels intelligent, but he also
feels very sweet and human, open-faced, a little wounded. The audience can identify with that – not as
a nerdy scientist, but what it’s like to be lonely, to want a friend, to want
to be acknowledged. In the end, I talked
to Dev’s agent, and I said, ‘This is a call that very few agents get, but he’s
the only option for the part so he has to do it.’”
Overseeing
these dueling programs in her company Tetra Vaal is CEO Michelle Bradley,
played by Sigourney Weaver.“All she cares about is the bottom line,” says
Kinberg. “She doesn’t really care about
the technology, or even whether it’s helping or hurting crime; she just wants
to make as much money as possible. Neill
may be making some commentary on CEOs there, but I think more than anything he
finds it comical and absurd, the way she really just doesn’t care.”
How does Blomkamp feel about
Weaver – one of his sci-fi heroines – performing in his movie? “I’m still surprised when I can get people
who have crafted my own creative interests – my childhood, to some degree – to
work on the films that I want to make,” he says. “So, having her on set was quite bizarre but
also very natural. She’s very easy to
communicate with and she’s very talented.
It was effortless, but then every once in a while I’d realize it was
actually Ripley on set, and that was mind-blowing.”
For Weaver, the feeling of respect
is mutual. “He’s one of those
masterminds,” she says. “He’s
comfortable with all of the technology – not only the classic science fiction
technology, but what’s really happening.
He sent me links to robots that are being made now that are just amazing
– you still think of that stuff as the future.
He’s also dazzling visually, but what I really love about working with
him is that he’s both relaxed and knows what he wants. That makes it easy for the actors – he guides
you in the direction he needs you to go.”
When Chappie is endowed with
consciousness from Deon’s new program, he falls into the most unlikely hands – NINJA
and ¥O-LANDI VI$$ER. In the film, they
are low-level gangsters looking for the score that will set them on the path to
riches, but in real life, they are the rap-rave duo Die Antwoord, an act like
no other. “They defy definition and
explanation,” says Kinberg. “You have to
see them to fully understand what they’re about, because they’re so completely unique. They’re a rap group, a cultural phenomenon,
they’re insane artist-performers.”
In the movie, they are acting
under their own names, but playing characters.
“The characters of Ninja and Yo-Landiare former musicians who have been
forced to turn to crime for survival,” Kinberg explains. “They don’t want to live this life, they want
to get out of Johannesburg, but there are not many other choices for them.”
For two novice actors playing
characters under their own names, it’s not surprising that the characters share
key similarities with the actors’ stage personae – but Kinberg says there are
key differences as well.Of the characters, he says, “Ninja has a very strong,
aggressive vibe about him, while Yo-Landihas a sweetness about her, but they’re
both badass people who are comfortable even in the scariest places in
Johannesburg. In real life, NINJA and ¥O-LANDIhave
an intelligence – they have crafted a place for themselves in the world – while
in the movie, they are victims of the world.
They’re less self-conscious and less in control of their destiny.”
Of their characters, NINJA says,
that in the movie, the robots are oppressive.
“We’re going, ‘Damn these robots, they’re everywhere,’” he says. “We can’t do our thing, because these robots
are taking over.” That leads to the
characters kidnapping a police droid – who becomes Chappie.
NINJA says that he and ¥O-LANDI
wanted to be a part of the movie for the chance to work with Neill
Blomkamp. “Neill is our favorite
director in the world,” says NINJA, “so when he asked us to be in Chappie, it
was, like, complete freakout. And he
asked us to star as ourselves, which is just a bit of a dream come true.”
“The reason why we like District 9 so much is because nothing
like that had ever come out of South Africa,” says ¥O-LANDI. “Usually, South African movies are quite
boring. This was super fresh, done
properly, and it was Hollywood but all of its flavor was all about South
Africa.”
Blomkamp encouraged the stars to
bring much of themselves to the parts.
Not only did he let NINJA and ¥O-LANDI choose the guns they wanted – but
to influence the colors as well. “We
said, ‘Can we paint our guns luminous pink and luminous yellow? Can we paint the bullets candy colors as
well?’” Ninja relates. “He asked us what
car we wanted, and I said, ‘Can I get my car, except souped-up?’ And Neill went and souped it.”
The parts were created especially
for the performers. What’s the
difference between the NINJA and ¥O-LANDIon stage as rappers, and the Ninja and
Yo-Landi of the film? On stage, ¥O-LANDI
says, “I usually have a more punk-style life and more of an attitude. For the movie, Neill kept pushing for a
softer side of me, a more maternal side, not so punk, just soft towards Chappie
and motherly. It was a little bit
different and cool to explore that side – I wouldn’t have thought of it. It’s another side of ¥O-LANDI that I hadn’t
fully explored, and that was a cool, unexpected twist.”
NINJA says that there it’s a side
that sometimes does come out in real life.
“¥O-LANDI’s got this pit bull called Angel,” he says. “When she speaks to Angel – ‘oh, you’re so
cute’ – she speaks in this high pitch. I
said that she should speak to Chappie like that – she started to speak to the
robot in that cute, high-pitched voice.”
CREATING CHAPPIE AND THE MOOSE
Blomkamp’s road to Chappie began more than 10 years
ago. As a young director and visual
effects artist, Blomkamp created a show reel of fake commercials that would
show agents the kind of work he was capable of producing. “I was just messing around, and I designed
that robot in 2003 in Lightwave,” he explains.
“It was influenced by a lot of Japanese influences and anime; I’m not as
into anime and manga now, but I wanted the genesis of the entire film to remain
true to what it was – this bizarre, weird, fake commercial. I wanted Chappie to be very much like that
robot.”
So, long before principal
photography began, the filmmakers were deep into designing the look of Chappie
on screen. The process fell to teams at
two companies: Image Engine, where the visual effects were overseen by Visual
Effects Supervisor Chris Harvey, and WETA Workshop, where the physical effects
team was headed by WETA Specialty Props Effects SupervisorJoe Dunckley. Together, inspired by the robot that Blomkamp
had designed 10 years earlier, they would design a robot that would function
both in the computer and as a physical prop.
Two-and-a-half years before
filming began, the filmmakers shot test footage in Johannesburg to show that
their plan would work. With the proof of
concept a success and the film greenlit, Image Engine and the team at WETA
Workshop worked together, back and forth, refining and perfecting the
design. “This was a different process
for us,” Harvey says. “On Elysium, everything was built at WETA
and then came to Image Engine to create digitally. On this movie, Neill went with a different
approach. Neill spent months working
through original concept art with WETA, thensent that art to Image Engine as 2D
sketches. From that artwork, we fully
realized the characters in three dimensions.
We were able to solve a lot of animation mechanics before the practical
models were built; we were able to refine the design so that we knew he would
actually work.” From there, Image Engine
shared the digital models with WETA Workshop, working back and forth to refine
the design, so that the WETA team could build a practical model.
Dunckley says that Blomkamp’s
direction for the design of Chappie was to aim for reality. “He wanted it to be real – he didn’t want it
to be over-the-top in its functionality,” he says. “He couldn’t have laser beams pop out of
nowhere. It had to be tough, but it also
had to look like something a government could afford in a few years’ time.”
The design of the Moose as an overly
large, overengineered robot proposed as a supposed alternative to the robot
police Scouts followed the same back-and-forth process, even if the approach of
the design was completely opposite. “The
Moose is Neill’s baby,” says Dunckley. “We’re very proud, because from an
engineering standpoint, it works very well,”Dunckley adds. “It looks beautiful, and it looks like it
would work – it looks like it would come to life and attack you.”
Blomkamp designed the Moose to be
unrealistic. “It’s satirical – it’s what
a defense company does with extremely expensive, inefficient, giant, cumbersome
mechanics that they can charge taxpayers a very high rate to do. It was the most brash, overdesigned, crazy
concept that I could come up with. And
we realized it in the same way that visual effects were realized in the 60s,
70s, and 80s: model makers would kit-bash things together out of pre-designed
pieces of real-life technology, and that’s what I did, in the computer. From there, WETA Workshop and Image Engine refined
it to the point that every toe joint and rotary device would actually be
animatable, and WETA built a three-and-a-half-meter real version.”
For a police force of 110 Scouts,
WETA Workshop built 11 practical dummies.
“We individualized them,” says Dunkley.
“They all have number plates, so we can swap out a number plate, or
panels with different aging – we can show a Scout as brand-new or as five years
old and needing maintenance. That’s one
of the tools we used so that the audience could identify Chappie – he’s Scout
22, and he’s had damage to an ear, which has been replaced by an orange test
ear. It’s easy to follow that orange ear
through the compound.”
Dunckley
says that those ears aren’t just identification markers – in their design, they
give the animators the power to show what Chappie is feeling. “It’s most obvious in the ears,” he
says. “Different positions show you
different expressions.”
As Chappie takes more damage
through the film, the WETA Workshop team was able to change his look. “There are eight stages to Chappie,” says
Dunckley. “There are three
Chappieskeletons and eight sets of panels representing each stage. Once he’s got the damage to the chest, we
removed external panels and replaced them with the next stage. He gets attacked, he gets burnt, he gets
shot, shot some more, graffitied by Ninja and Yo-Landi, and on and on. A lot of work went into the physical development;
the complication is that everything we shot on set with the dummy – the
physical Chappie – had to relate back to the visual effects character and the
continuity they had to follow, and we collaborated closely with Image Engine to
identify each stage and go through a texture shooting process so that they
could closely map each stage.”
The practical Moose model also
required similar thought. “The model is
functional from a set perspective – even though it’s so large, we could break
it down and get it out of the set in 30 minutes,”Dunckley continues. However, getting there, in the build of the
practical model, was a complicated task.
“Neill wanted the Moose to be in a threatening forward position pose,
which actually throws it off-balance.
So, we put a lot of weight into the legs, allowing us to center all of
that weight in that forward momentum stance.
It weighs about a ton – about a ton of Moose.”
Despite coming from visual
effects, Harvey says there are huge advantages to having practical models on
the set – first being that the robot can actually appear on camera at
times. “If the robot is inanimate in a
shot – if he’s off or if people are working on him – we don’t have to add that,”
he says. In addition, the practical
model can service as reference for a visual effects shot that will be added
later. “We could light it and move it
around with the cameras in place,” he says.
“There’s a shot with Chappie in the rain; it was hugely helpful to bring
the robot head out and watch how the rain hit and ran down and the lights
reflected off of it; we were able to bring that back to the office and study
it. It gives us a true visual
representation of what it would look like if it had been there on that day.”
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
For this film, Blomkamp returns to
his home town of Johannesburg, the setting for his breakthrough film, District 9. “At first, I didn’t want to set the film
there, because District 9 was set
there,” he says. “We looked at setting
it in America. But that didn’t feel as
unique to me. The themes of the movie
tied into Johannesburg in quite a real way.”
Sharlto Copley says that every
aspect of the film is influenced by its setting. “Creatively, as an artist, Neill draws on his
upbringing and experiences. That’s what
we’re doing in this film – and certainly what I’m doing with this
character. I’m drawing on people in the
community. There are a million things in
the film that are inspired by Johannesburg; it’s a critical part of the film.”
James Bitonti, the film’s first
assistant director and co-producer, says, “The film was written for
Johannesburg, because that’s a world that Neill really knows. When we started scouting locations, we saw
some of the locations he was talking about – the den, the bridges – and we really
got a feel for the city. It made the
script stand out even more. So often, a
script is written for an anonymous city, so to step off that plane and see some
of the places Neill wrote into the script made the script that much better.”
Jules Cook, the film’s production
designer, was responsible for the look of the film, working with set decorator
Daniel Birt. “A large amount of this
film was repurposing Joburg locations, some of which were a struggle to find,”
says Cook. “A lot of them were better than
sets we could build.”
For example, Ninja and Yo-Landi’sden.“We
initially looked for a house, and we saw a number of smaller locations. But Neill fell in love with a space that they
could live in and do their own thing and hide out. And me, I’m a huge fan of abandoned spaces,”
says Cook. “The challenge was to make
all of that work in their hideout, but still have it feel like their home. So, Ninja was able to help out – they put
their own artwork and their style into it, the style that comes from their
music videos. They made the space their
own.”
In decorating the den, Birt says
that inspiration came from a mix of the NINJA and ¥O-LANDI of real life, and
the Ninja and Yo-Landi characters written into the film. “I did a lot of research into them and their
music videos – anything I could find on the net,” says Birt. “And then, I tried to put my twist on making
them different for the film, better suited to the script than everything they’ve
done before. They already look cool
because they always do – it’s just a twist on what they’ve done before. You look at it on screen andyou’re thinking, ‘What
is going on with these people? What is
this place?’ If you don’t already know
who NINJA and ¥O-LANDIare before you see the movie, that set gives you a crash
course pretty quickly.”
Chappie’s room within the den,
Birt says, is a mix of his influences. “Chappie
is learning from Deon, and he’s learning from Ninja and Yo-Landi,” he
notes. “So the approach to dressing his
room is to use what Chappie’s learned.
He’s replicated the bed that Yo-Landi sleeps in, but in his own style
with what he can find. The artwork, he’s
done a little family in chalk – replicating what Ninja’s done on the walls.”
For many locations, the production
team relied on Blomkamp’s personal knowledge of the city. “As we were looking for environments for
Hippo’s lair, Neill mentioned his home, and when we looked at it, it was the
place he wanted to shoot,” Cook recalls.
“We turned this semi-derelict environment into a gang den, filling the
pool with guns – we brought the whole space down. When Neill and his sister arrived there, I
think they were a bit taken aback.”
Another such location was the
freeway chase and shootout. It turns out
that many years ago, Blomkamp and Copley dreamed of shutting down that freeway
to shoot a car chase – and on Chappie,
that dream came true. “If you stick at
something long enough, it begins to cycle back and work out,” says
Blomkamp. “When I was growing up here,
the thought of shutting down a national highway so you can shoot a transit
heist seemed like an impossible idea.
Shooting on that particular highway makes it feel like a crime unique to
Joburg, which is why we wanted to do it.
It’s an amazing feeling to have done it with this film.”
One of Cook’s goals was to
contrast the Scouts and the Moose by putting them in very different
environments. “We conceptualized it as a
big space for the Moose and a small space for the Scouts,” he explains – even
though the Scouts are an up-and-running program and the Moose is only Vincent’s
pie-in-the-sky vision. “The Scout room
is a functioning environment – they’ve got the contracts and are building the
robots – while the Moose is pure R&D and he’s trying to sell this
thing. They’re pouring money into this
ludicrous monster. I suppose the two
rooms reflect Vincent and Deon, in a way: Deon’s space is more humble and
up-and-running, and Vincent’s is larger than life.”
Cook was also responsible for
designing the interface that would allow Vincent to operate the Moose. “Neill and I talked about how we would
operate the Moose chair – how much would go through the neural helmet and how
much would be physical. You could do the
whole thing mentally, but it wouldn’t necessarily work in the film – the
audience needs to see him controlling it.
So, we added joysticks and monitors that let others see what he’s seeing
through the helmet.”
ABOUT THE STUNTS
For the stunt and action
sequences, Blomkamp collaborated closely with stunt coordinator Grant Hulley,
who served in a similar capacity on District
9. “Neill comes up with his concepts
for the fight and action sequences, and then allows us to run with it,” says
Hulley. “He wants us to push it as far
as we can.”
Hulley says that Blomkamp’s
background in visual effects was a huge addition to the film – and not because
the director would rely on visual effects.
“The old adage of ‘We’ll fix it in post’ didn’t play on this film,” says
Hulley. “He knows what you can get in
post and what it’s better to get in camera.
He wants it from the performers and the actors.” A good example,
Hulleysays, is one particular bike flip.
“There’s a cool jump, some fire, a droid knocks the rider off and the
bike goes spinning,” he notes. “That could have been done in post, but instead, we put cables on
the performer and on the bike itself, so that the stuntman comes off and the
bike also goes spinning off. We did it
in two takes, but we did it for real.”
Because the film contains so much
action – helicopters, flipping cars, not to mention actors in suits who would
be replaced with CG characters – the stunt team had the art department build
mini-sets to scale to help plan the complicated sequences.
Part of Hulley’s work was working
with a stunt double for Copley – that is, a stunt double for an actor who would
be painted over by CG in the final film.
“You’d think that part could be anybody, but it can’t. Visual Effects keys off Sharlto and his
movements – his character comes through with it. Our stunt double, Ian Stock, had to try to
mimic Sharlto’s movements. It’s Sharlto’s
character that we’re going to feel.”
In fact, finding stunt doubles for
all of the characters was a challenge.
Stunt doubles have to be roughly the same size as the actors they are
doubling – and have a haircut and tattoos that match. “The extreme haircuts on this show – Ninja, Yo-Landi,
Yankie, Hippo – were a challenge,” he points out, “Plus the tattoos. I don’t even know how many tattoos NINJA has
– I don’t even know how you’d count.
Every morning, our stunt double had to have all of those tattoos put on.”
The film’s opening sequence was
perhaps the greatest challenge. “We had
three helicopters, with droids and human police in two of them. Another chopper had the camera. We were working with decelerators, we had a
pipe ramp for one of the vehicles, a lot of gunfire, bike gags – and then we
had to bring the actors into it. And
Brandon Auret, who plays Hippo, isn’t wearing a shirt, so we had to find ways
to hide pads to keep him safe – he had to jump through windows. And Ninja and Yo-Landi’svan gets flipped –
the effects guys put a cannon in there.
There was a hell of a lot going on that week, and it all worked out
well.”
ABOUT THE COSTUMES
Diana Cilliers, who previously
collaborated with Blomkamp on District 9,
oversaw the costume design. She says
that despite the setting in the same city, the costume design came from a very
different aesthetic in the two films. “In
District 9, we had a very specific
styling of downtown Johannesburg. On
this film, Neill didn’t necessarily want to do that again; we went with more of
an east coast American gangster look.”Cilliers also helped with dressing
Chappie, collaborating with the props department as the gangsters give the
robot chains and jewelry.
Deon, on the other hand, did have
a specific look. “There’s a specific
part of Johannesburg, Kempton Park, where many people work in the defense
industry,” she says. “It’s an
old-fashioned styling – not really vintage, but definitely conservative, no
flamboyance – a person tries to be invisible, in a way.”
Vincent, too, has a wardrobe that
comes from his character. “Neill described
the character as Australian farming stock kind of guy, who also has a military
background,”Cilliers says. “Hugh was very game.
We started off slightly more caricature, and we got to a place that was
more real and absolutely a unique look for Hugh. His hairstyle is quote specific, as well as
the shorts and the socks.”
One way to show the way that
costume can define a character is in the wardrobe differences between Yankie –
part of the gangster trio with Ninja and Yo-Landi – and Hippo, the gangster
boss. “We tried to give Yankie an LA
gangster feeling – it was very specifically not South African. So, we researched that quite extensively and the
three of us, Neill, Jose and I, collaborated on the final look, and Sarah
Rubano, the make-up and hair department head, added some amazing tattoos. Hippo, on the other hand, is very South
African, very Johannesburg, and Sarah’s hairstyling and tattoos are very much
that. We tried to make the wardrobe
subtle, so that it didn’t interfere or become too much. In both cases, the tattoos were designed
specifically for the characters.”
Of course, the characters with the
most unique look are Ninja and Yo-Landi.
“Their look is established, and Neill specifically wanted them to be
their personas. So, we engaged GabbyDe
Gersigny, who did the styling for all of their music videos. It was quite important to keep that styling
within the feel that they’ve had.”
ABOUT THE CAST
SHARLTO COPLEY (Chappie) most recently starred opposite Angelina
Jolie in the worldwide hit Maleficent
for Disney. Copley made his on-screen debut as Wikus in the
Oscar®-nominated science fiction film District
9 for director Neill Blomkamp and Sony Pictures. He is also known for his
role of Murdock in the 2010 adaptation of Fox’s The A-Team for director Joe Carnahan, with Liam Neeson and Bradley
Cooper. He reunited with Blomkamp in summer 2013 as the villainous Kruger in Elysium, opposite Matt Damon. He then
starred opposite Josh Brolin in Spike Lee’s rendition of Oldboy, as well as performances in Europa Report with Michael Nyqvist and Open Grave. He is currently executive producing and starring in Hardcore, the world’s first action POV
feature film. Upcoming releases include The
Hollars, a John Krasinski-directed comedy-drama, in which Copley stars
alongside Richard Jenkins, Anna Kendrick, Josh Groban and Charlie Day. Copley
also stars as the lead Christian Walker, a homicide detective and ex-superhero,
in the upcoming Sony PlayStation Network series Powers, and voices the lead character in his first animation voice
performance in TheSnow Queen 2.
DEV PATEL (Deon) is about to start shooting
Garth Davies’ upcoming film Lion, and
recently wrapped shooting the independent film The Man Who Knew Infinityin which he plays the lead role opposite
Jeremy Irons. He was most recently seen on TV starring opposite
Jeff Daniels and Emily Mortimer in the 3rd and final season of HBO’S Golden
Globe nominated series “The Newsroom,”created by AaronSorkin, for which he was
nominated for a 2013 NAACP Award for Best Supporting actor for his portrayal of
Neal in the show. Patel has also starred in the cult hit “Skins” for the BBC
and in M. Night Shyamalan’sThe Last
Airbender.
Patel was last seen in theaters starring opposite
Dame Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, and Maggie Smith in John Madden’s
Golden Globe and SAG nominated film The
Best Exotic Marigold Hotelfor Fox Searchlight Pictures, which also became a
worldwide commercial success.
Patel catapulted to success in 2009 when he starred
in the Academy Award® winning film Slumdog
Millionaire and received rave reviews for his performance and garnered a
number of award wins including the National Board of Review Award for Best
Breakthrough Performance, The British Independent Film Award for Most Promising
Newcomer, The Broadcast Film Critics’ Choice Award for Best Young Actor, and
The Chicago & Washington Film Critics’ Awards for Most Promising
Performer.
In
2009, Die Antwoord burst onto the international scene out of the deep dark
depths of South Africa. The rave rap duo of NINJA and ¥O-LANDI VI$$ER introduced ZEF culture into the pop
culture lexicon, and pop culture hasn’t been the same since. Early videos “Zefside”
and “Enter the Ninja” racked up a combined 35 million views, the band’s website
crashed due to the influx of traffic, and no one has been able to look at Pink
Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” art the same way again. America was calling and
in 2010 NINJA and ¥O-LANDI took their maiden voyage to the States. A major
label bidding war ensued and the band ultimately signed a million dollar deal
with Interscope records.
Their
debut album, “$O$,” was released later that year. The band embarked on tours of
the US, Europe, and Australia. Selling out shows and spreading the ZEF word
worldwide. The music videos, all conceived by Die Antwoord and directed by
NINJA, only got bigger and weirder. A
whirlwind 2010 ended with NINJA and ¥O-LANDI teaming up with fellow troublemaker
and innovator Harmony Korine starring as themselves in his short film “UmshiniWam.” The short sees NINJA and ¥O-LANDI flex their
acting muscles as wheelchair-bound lovers and gangsters.
Not
content to rest on their ZEF laurels, Die Antwoord returned in 2012 with their
anthem “I Fink U Freeky.” Taken from
their sophomore album “TEN$ION,” the song and its arty black-and-white video,
co-directed by acclaimed photographer Roger Ballen, is an homage to their
beautifully freaky world and the legions of fans who now inhabit it. The video
currently has 60 million YouTube views. Die Antwoord toured in support of “TEN$ION”
through 2012, with marquee festival appearances including Lollapalooza, Outside
Lands Festival, Austin City Limits, and Voodoo Festival. They stepped out from
their busy tour schedule to appear in the spring 2012 T by Alexander Wang ad
campaign. Videos for “Baby’s on Fire” and “Fatty Boom Boom” were added to the
canon. In total, their videos have over 130 million views and their albums are
approaching half a million sales worldwide.
In
June 2014 Die Antwoord dropped their third LP, “Donker Mag,” Afrikaans for “Dark
Force.” The dark force of Donker Mag
spawned singles “Cookie Thumper,”“Pitbull Terrier,” and “Ugly Boy,” and took
the band to their biggest festival and headline shows to date in the US and
Europe. While still touring in support
of Donker Mag in 2015, NINJA and ¥O-LANDI have been hard at work on tracks for
their next album.
Jose
Pablo Cantillo
(Yankie) grew up in the small Midwestern town of Terre Haute, IN as the
youngest of three competitive brothers.
He excelled in tennis, martial arts, baseball and of course the Hoosier
sport of basketball. He attended Indiana
University, where he graduated from the Honors Business Program. It was
at IU while fulfilling speech requirements that Cantillo took his first theater
class and discovered his passion for acting. Upon graduation, Cantillo
moved to New York to study formally at the renowned Atlantic Theater Company
and Barrow Group Schools.
After leading several stage productions in off Broadway
companies, Cantillo turned his attention to film and television. His work
has been enjoyedin the widely released films The Manchurian Candidate, Crank, Disturbia, and
Elysium. In television, he has been the lead villain
in “Sons of Anarchy,” and has recently been wreaking havoc on the “The
Walking Dead.” He’ll next be seen on screen in Solaceopposite
Anthony Hopkins and Colin Farrell.
Cantillo is also a successful television producer. He created
the hit series “Repo Games” for Spike, which is going into its third
season. He has also co-created and
piloted two other series for Spike and will executive produce an unscripted
docu-series pilot for A&E this fall.
Cantillo is also producing his first scripted independent feature
entitled, Produce, which
is filming in Kentucky this November.
He lives with his beautiful wife and high school sweet heart
Kristi and two lovely daughters in Santa Clarita, CA.
SIGOURNEY WEAVER (Michelle Bradley) is an
Academy Award®-nominated and Golden Globe-winning actress who has created a
host of memorable characters, both dramatic and comic, in films ranging from
Ripley in Alien to Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist. Over the years,
she has captivated audiences and won acclaim as one of the most esteemed
actresses on both stage and screen.
Born and educated in New York City, Weaver
graduated from Stanford University and went on to receive a Master’s degree
from the Yale School of Drama. Her first professional job was as an understudy
in Sir John Gielgud’s production of “The Constant Wife,” starring Ingrid
Bergman.
Weaver made her motion picture debut in Ridley
Scott’s blockbuster Alien. She later
reprised the role of Warrant Officer Ripley in James Cameron’s Aliens, which earned her Academy Award®
and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress.
Following Alien,
Weaver had starring roles in three back to back hit movies: Gorillas in the Mist, in which she
portrayed primatologist Dian Fossey, the Mike Nichols comedy Working Girl, and Ghostbusters II. Weaver received her second and third Academy
Award® nominations and was awarded Golden Globes for her performances in Gorillas in the Mist and Working Girl. Other films include the
thriller Copycat, Paul Rudnick’s
comedy Jeffrey, Roman Polanski’s
gripping film adaptation of Death and the
Maiden, Half Moon Street with
Michael Caine, and Ridley Scott’s 1492:
Conquest of Paradise.
In 1997, Weaver joined the ensemble of Ang Lee’s
critically acclaimed film The Ice Storm,
playing alongside Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Elijah Wood and Christina Ricci. Her
performance garnered her a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe nomination, and a Screen
Actors Guild nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She later gave a
galvanizing performance in A Map of The
World, Scott Elliott’s powerful drama based on the novel by Jane Hamilton,
which earned her universal critical praise and a Golden Globe nomination for
best actress. She delighted audiences with her flair for comedy, along with
crewmates Tim Allen and Alan Rickman, in the science fiction comedy Galaxy Quest, directed by Dean Parisot,
which proved to be a hit of the 1999 holiday season. She followed this with the
popular comedy Heartbreakers, playing
opposite Gene Hackman and Jennifer Love Hewitt.
In 2003, Weaver played the cold-blooded, red-headed
warden in the hit comedy Holes,
directed by Andy Davis, and she starred in the film version of The Guys, with Anthony LaPaglia,
directed by Jim Simpson. Following this, Weaver appeared in M. Night Shyamalan’sThe Village and received rave reviews
for her performance in Imaginary Heroes,
written and directed by Dan Harris.
Other film credits include Infamous with Toby Jones and Sandra Bullock; Jake Kasdan’sThe TV Set; Snow Cake, opposite Alan Rickman; Tim Allen’s Crazy on the Outside; The
Girl in the Park, opposite Kate Bosworth; the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler comedy Baby Mama, and Andy Fickman’s comedy You Again alongside Jamie Lee Curtis,
Kristen Bell and Betty White. In 2008, Weaver lent her voice to Pixar’s box
office smash Wall-E, as well as The Tale of Despereaux with Matthew
Broderick, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Watson.
In December 2009, Weaver starred in James Cameron’s
groundbreaking film Avatar, which
went on to be the highest grossing film of all time. The film won a Golden
Globe for Best Picture and also received an Academy Award® nomination for Best
Picture. Other film credits include Cedar
Rapids starring John C. Reilly, Anne Heche and Ed Helms; Paul with Simon Pegg, Seth Rogen,
Kristen Wiig and Jason Bateman; Mabrouk El Mechri’sThe ColdLight of Day with Bruce Willis; as well as Red Lights with Robert De Niro.
Weaver most recently worked with Juan Antonio
Bayona in his new film A Monster Calls,
a drama based on the bestselling book.
Her co-stars are Felicity Jones, Liam Neeson, and Lewis MacDougal.
Weaver received a Tony Award nomination for her starring
role in “Hurlyburly” on Broadway, directed by Mike Nichols. She played Portia
in the Classic Stage Company of New York’s production of “The Merchant of
Venice.” In 1996, Weaver returned to Broadway in the Lincoln Center production
of “Sex and Longing,” written by Christopher Durang. In fall 2012, she starred
in the Lincoln Center production of Christopher Durang’s“Vanya and Sonia and
Masha and Spike,” which moved to Broadway in 2013. That year, “Vanya and Sonia
and Masha and Spike” took home the Tony Award for Best Play.
Weaver originated roles in two A.R. Gurney world
premieres, “Crazy Mary” at Playwrights Horizons, and “Mrs. Farnsworth,” at the
Flea Theater. She also starred in Neil LaBute’s play “The Mercy Seat,” opposite
Liev Schreiber, which John Lahr of The New Yorker described as offering “performances
of a depth and concentration that haven’t been seen in New York for many
seasons.” Weaver also originated the female lead in Anne Nelson’s “The Guys” at
The Flea, where it was commissioned and directed by Jim Simpson. “The Guys”
tells the story of a fire captain dealing with the aftermath of 9/11.
In TV, Weaver received Emmy, Screen Actors Guild
and Golden Globe nominations for outstanding performance by a female for her
role as Mary Griffith in Lifetime’s “Prayers for Bobby,” which was also Emmy
and Golden Globe nominated for Outstanding Made for Television Movie. In 2012,
she was seen in USA Network’s miniseries “Political Animals.” She received a
SAG, Golden Globe and Emmy nomination for her performance.
HUGH JACKMAN (Vincent) is an Academy Award® nominated, Golden Globe and
Tony Award winning actor who has made an impression on audiences of all ages,
proving that he is as successful on stage in front of live crowds as he is on a
film set. From his award-winning turn on Broadway as the 1970’s
singer/songwriter Peter Allen, to his metal claw-wielding Wolverine in the X-Men franchise, Jackman has proven to
be one of the most versatile actors of our time.
The
Australian native made his first major U.S. film appearance as Wolverine in the
first installment of the X-Men
series, a role he reprised in the enormously successful X2 and X-Men:The Last Stand
in 2006. In May of 2009, Jackman played Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which serves as a prequel to the popular
series. This last July, 2013, audiences saw Jackman in the popular role once
more in the next X-Men chapter, The Wolverine. Jackman reunited with the
X-men team for X-Men: Days of Future Past,
which was released last May.
Jackman
also recently appeared in Warner Bros.’Prisoners,
where he played Dover Keller, a
man who kidnaps the person he suspects is behind the disappearance of his young
daughter and her best friend. The film co-stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis,
and Melissa Leo.
Late
in 2012, Jackman starred in the much-anticipated film adaptation of Les Misérables, directed by Tom Hooper
(of The King’s Speech), co-starring
Anne Hathaway and Russell Crowe, based on the popular stage show originally
created from Victor’s Hugo famous novel of the same name. The ambitious musical
featured singing captured live on set (as opposed to pre-recorded in a studio),
making it one of the first films ever to successfully attempt this method.
Jackman’s standout performance as protagonist Jean Valjean earned him a Golden
Globe Award for Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical as well as Screen Actors Guild
nominations for both Best Ensemble and Best Male Actor in a Leading Role. The
film also garnered him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
Jackman
made his return to the Great White Way in
his one-man show “Hugh Jackman – Back on Broadway” in the fall of 2011. Backed
by an eighteen-piece orchestra, the revue, which previously opened to rave
reviews during its limited engagements in San Francisco and Toronto earlier
that year, was comprised of both Broadway hits and a selection of some of his
personal favorite standards. Jackman’s dedication to the Broadway community was
feted at the 2012 Tony Awards, where he received a Special Award from the Tony
Awards Administration Committee, recognizing his accomplishments both as a
performer as well as a humanitarian. His
most recent return to the Broadway stage was in the critically acclaimed Jez Butterworth play, “The River.”
In
the fall of 2009, Broadway-goers could see Jackman in the Keith Huff penned “A
Steady Rain.” Co-starring Daniel Craig, the play tells the story of two Chicago
cops who are lifelong friends and whose differing accounts of a few traumatic
days change their lives forever.
On
February 22, 2009, Jackman took on the prestigious role of hosting the 81st
Annual Academy Awards®. Live from the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, he wowed
those in attendance and helped ABC score a 13% increase in viewership from the
previous year. This wasn’t, however, Jackman’s first foray into Awards show
hosting. Previously, Jackman served as host of the Tony Awards three years in a
row from 2003 – 2005, earning an Emmy Award for his 2004 duties at the 58th
Annual ceremony, and an Emmy nomination for his 2005 appearance at the 59th
Annual ceremony.
Additionally,
Jackman has starred in Shawn Levy’s Real
Steel, BazLuhrmann’sAustralia,
Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain,
Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, and
Woody Allen’s Scoop. In addition, he
lent his voice to the animated features Happy
Feet and Flushed Away.
Other films in which he has had leading roles include Deception, SomeoneLike You,
Swordfish, Van Helsing, and Kate and
Leopold, for which he received a 2002 Golden Globe nomination.
For
his portrayal of the 1970s singer-songwriter Peter Allen in “The Boy from Oz,”Jackman
received the 2004 Tony Award for Best Actor in a musical as well as Drama Desk,
Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World awards.
Additional
theater credits include “Carousel” at Carnegie Hall, “Oklahoma!” at the
National Theater in London (Olivier Award nomination), “Sunset Boulevard” (MO
Award – Australia’s Tony Award) and Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” (MO Award
nomination).
Jackman’s
career began in Australia in the independent films Paperback Hero and ErskinevilleKings
(Australian Film Critics’ Circle Best Actor award and The Australian Film
Institute Best Actor nomination). In 1999, he was named Australian Star
of the Year at the Australian Movie Convention.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
NEILL
BLOMKAMP’s (Director / Co-Writer /
Producer) first feature film, District 9,
earned over $200 million worldwide and worldwide acclaim: four Academy Award®
nominations, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay (for Blomkamp and Terri
Tatchell). His next film, Elysium, was also a worldwide hit,
earning nearly $300 million globally.
Next, Blomkamp will direct a new film in the Alien franchise for 20th
Century Fox.
Born in South Africa, Blomkamp moved to Canada at the age of
18, beginning his career as a visual effects artist in the world of film and
television. Garnering much recognition as one of the brightest young talents in
the industry, Blomkamp was nominated for an Emmy Award for outstanding visual
effects at the age of 21. Shortly afterwards, he made the move into directing,
serving first as a music video director and then transitioning into the world
of commercials. Blomkamp quickly drew attention as a director with a unique
talent for seamlessly blending computer generated imagery with live action,
while infusing elements of emotion, humor, and mood.
Helming million-dollar commercials for Nike, Citroen,
Gatorade, Panasonic, and Namco, Blomkamp also directed many celebrated short
films, including the Wieden and Kennedy-financed short, Tempbot, which garnered the coveted No Spot Short Film Festival
Best Overall Film.
In 2004, Blomkamp was recognized as one of the Top 5
Directors to Watch at the First Boards Awards, featured in the Saatchi &
Saatchi New Directors Showcase at Cannes, and short-listed at the Shark Awards.
In 2005, Blomkamp received the award for Outstanding VFX in a commercial for
Citroen – Alive with Technology at the VES Awards in California. He has since
been featured in Shots, Shoot, Campaign, and Creativity magazines, and won
three awards in London, England at the BTAA award show.
Canadian writer TERRI
TATCHELL (Co-Writer) received Oscar®, Golden Globe, and BAFTA Award
nominations for her first produced screenplay, District 9, which she wrote with her writing partner, Neill
Blomkamp. Tatchell’s other writing
credits span the mediums, including a 90-minute one-act multimedia stage play,
news and magazine print, commercials and short films.
SIMON KINBERG (Producer) has
established himself as one of Hollywood’s most prolific filmmakers, having
written and/or produced projects for some of the most successful franchises in
the modern era.
Kinberg graduated from Brown University, and received his MFA from
Columbia University Film School, where his thesis project was the original
script, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The film
was released in 2005, starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. It became an
international blockbuster, garnered an MTV Movie Award and People’s Choice
Awards.
In 2006, he wrote X-Men: The Last
Stand, which opened on Memorial Day to box office records, and began his
ongoing relationship with the franchise.
In 2008, Kinberg wrote and produced Doug Liman’s film Jumper for New Regency and 20thCentury
Fox. In 2009, Kinberg co-wrote the film Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr, directed by Guy Ritchie.
The film set the box office record for the biggest Christmas opening day in
history. It received a Golden Globe for Best Actor, and was nominated for two
Academy Awards®.
In 2010, Kinberg established his production company Genre Films, with a
first look deal at 20th Century Fox. Under this banner, he produced X-Men: First Class, executive produced Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, and
wrote and produced This Means War.
In 2013, Kinberg produced Elysium,
which starred Matt Damon and Jodie Foster. The film also paired him with
director Neill Blomkamp, with whom Kinberg reteamed for Chappie.
On Memorial Day of 2014, Fox released X-Men: Days of Future Past, which Kinberg wrote and produced. The
film united the casts of all the X-Men
films. It opened number one (Kinberg’sseventh film to open #1 at the box
office), received critical acclaim, and went on to gross $750 million
worldwide.
Projects slated for 2015 release include Disney’s Cinderella, which Kinberg produced, starring Cate Blanchett and
Helena Bonham Carter, directed by Kenneth Branagh. Additionally, Kinberg is the
writer and producer of the highly anticipated reboot of The Fantastic Four, to be released August 2015. And Kinberg
is the producer of The Martian,
directed by Ridley Scott, starring Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel
Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, and Jeff Daniels, to be released Thanksgiving 2015.
Beyond next year, Kinberg will be writing and producing the next X-Men movie, X-Men:Apocalypse, which will be released Memorial Day 2016. He is
also producing the X-Men spinoff
movies Deadpool starring Ryan
Reynolds, Gambit starring Channing
Tatum, and the next Wolverine movie
with Hugh Jackman.
Kinberg is also writing and producing one of the upcoming Star Wars films. He serves as consultant on Star Wars: Episode VII, and he is the
creator and executive producer of the animated show Star Wars: Rebels on the Disney networks.
BEN WAISBREN (Executive Producer) is Chairman and President of LSC Film Corporation,
which co-finances major motion pictures with Sony Pictures Entertainment
Inc. He is also an attorney with the international law firm of Winston
& Strawn, where he advises clients in the U.S. and Europe in the media
& entertainment and finance sectors. His clients include independent
production and distribution companies, private equity firms, hedge funds,
investment banks and commercial banks.
Earlier in his career, Waisbren was a managing director and head of
investment banking restructuring at Salomon Brothers in New York, following a
legal career at a large Chicago law firm, Lord, Bissell & Brook, where he
led a national bankruptcy litigation practice.
Prior to joining Winston & Strawn in early 2013, Mr. Waisbren was
the President of Continental Entertainment Capital LP, a direct subsidiary of
Citigroup, with operations in New York, Los Angeles and Paris. Before that, he
was a managing director of a global hedge fund company, Stark Investments,
where he was a co-portfolio manager in the fixed income and private equity
areas, and responsible for investments in the feature film industry, and the
formation of the firm’s structured finance fund and a related, branded middle
market leveraged lender, Freeport Financial.
Waisbren served as a member of the Board of Directors of France’s Wild
Bunch, S.A., a pan-European motion picture production, distribution and sales
company, from 2005 until 2009, in connection with private equity investments
that he managed.
He was Executive Producer of Warner Bros. Pictures’ 300; Blood Diamond; V for Vendetta; Nancy Drew; The Good German;
Poseidon; and The Assassination of Jesse James by the CowardRobert Ford. In
addition, he was Executive Producer of the following independent studio
releases: Cassandra’s Dream; First Born; Next; Bangkok Dangerous;
and Gardener of Eden. For Sony
Pictures Entertainment, he served as an executive producer of Columbia
Pictures’ 22 JumpStreet, SexTape, The Equalizer, and Fury,
and Screen Gems’ The Wedding Ringer.
TRENT
OPALOCH (Director of Photography)
reteams with Neill Blomkamp after serving as director of photography on District 9 and Elysium; his work on District
9 earned him a BAFTA nomination for Best Cinematography. His work was most recently seen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and
he will next shoot Captain America: Civil
War.
Opaloch began his career as a director of photography
shooting short films and over 100 music videos. His award-winning work includes
the Weiden& Kennedy-produced Tempbot
(Best Overall Film – No Spot Short Film Festival) for director Neill Blomkamp
and the multiple award-winning Terminus
for director Trevor Cawood.
His commercials include work for Adidas, Bungie, Nike,
Gatorade, Microsoft, Lucasfilm, Panasonic, and the thirteen-spot Visa campaign
for the 2008 Olympics, as well as commercials for George Lucas’“The Clone Wars”
and Blomkamp’s“Halo – Combat,” which won the coveted Grand Prix award at the
2008 Cannes film festival.
Jules
Cook (Production
Designer) is a production designer for feature films, TV commercials and
digital media. Known for work on the Matrix,
Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia trilogies, and recent
design work for the black comedy Two
Little Boys.
Born in Wellington and raised in New Zealand, Jules started
in the film industry early, working film construction while studying
architecture, and working through set design into art direction. Jules has a
masters from film, television and radio schools (AFTRS) and has worked
extensively throughout New Zealand, Australia, Asia and Africa.
Since graduating film school at the University of British
Columbia, JULIAN CLARKE, ACE
(Editor) has been editing for the last 12 years. After cutting his teeth on
numerous independent projects in Canada, Clarke collaborated with director
Neill Blomkamp on District 9 and Elysium. For his work on District 9, Clarke was nominated for an
Oscar® for Best Achievement in Film Editing, an American Cinema Editors (ACE)
Eddie Award for Best Edited Film Feature (Dramatic) and a BAFTA Film Award for
Best Editing. Clarke’s other work includes The
Whistleblower, starring Rachael Weisz, and TheThing for Universal Pictures.
MARK
GOLDBLATT has edited over 40 motion
pictures, including such films as TheTerminator,
Predator 2, Starship Troopers, Armageddon,
Pearl Harbor, and Rise ofthe Planet ofthe Apes”. He was
nominated for an Academy Award® (with Conrad Buff and Richard Harris) for his
work on Terminator 2: Judgment Day,
and twice nominated for an ACE Eddie Award for T-2 and True Lies. A graduate of The University of Wisconsin and
The London Film School, he is a member and former president of the American
Cinema Editors and serves on the Board of Directors of the Motion Picture
Editors Guild and the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences.
In a career spanning more than a decade and a half, CHRIS HARVEY (Visual Effects
Supervisor)has worked on such films as X-Men:
The Last Stand, Superman Returns,
Fast & Furious 6, and Battleship. Harvey also carries
considerable stereoscopic expertise, with projects ranging from the
groundbreaking Journey to the Center of
the Earth to Tron: Legacy.
But it was his role as overall VFX Supervisor on Kathryn
Bigelow's 2012 hit film Zero Dark Thirty,
and its VES Award nomination in the category of Outstanding Supporting Visual
Effects in a Feature Motion Picture, that he feels was a major turning point.
Among the directors, producers and peers he works with, Harvey
has become known for his collaborative skills, sharp eye for effective
storytelling practices and dedication to artistic excellence with a track
record of production efficiency, and has since served as the visual effects
supervisor for Daniel Espinoza’s upcoming Child
44.
HANS
ZIMMER (Music by) has scored more
than 120 films, which have, combined, grossed over 24 billion dollars at the
worldwide box office. He has been honored with an Academy Award®, two Golden
Globes®, three Grammys®, an American Music Award, and a Tony® Award. His
most recent Academy Award® nomination for Interstellar marks his 10th career
Oscar® nomination with the Academy. In 2003, ASCAP presented him with the
prestigious Henry Mancini award for Lifetime Achievement for his impressive and
influential body of work. He also received his Star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame in 2010, and in 2014 was honored with the Zurich Film Festival Lifetime
Achievement Award. Zimmer recently completed his first concerts in the UK, “Hans
Zimmer Revealed,” at the Eventim Hammersmith Apollo.
Other recent releases include The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, Ron Howard’s Rush,
Zack Snyder’sMan of Steel, History
Channel’s miniseries “The Bible”; the Christopher Nolan-directed films Inception, The Dark Knight and The Dark
Knight Rises; and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock
Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Some of Zimmer’s most notable works include his
scores for Rain Man, Driving Miss Daisy, Thelma & Louise, Crimson
Tide, The Thin Red Line, Gladiator, Mission: Impossible II, Hannibal,
Pearl Harbor, Tears of the Sun, Spanglish,
The Pirates of the Caribbean
franchise, the Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar films, The Da Vinci Code, Frost/Nixon,
and The LionKing, for which he won
the Academy Award®.
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