Editorials
Set Visit Part 2: Danny Trejo and Topher Grace Hit the ‘Predators’ Jungle!
In the second part of our visit to the set of Predators at Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas, we talk to Danny “Machete” Trejo about why Robert Rodriguez is always giving him knives, get the skinny on similarities to the first film from director Nimrod Antal (hey, is that Rodriguez creeping around the sidelines of the shoot?), learn what it’s like to jump off a waterfall from Topher Grace (the next Paul Reiser?), and catch up with buffed-up action hero lead… Adrien Brody? Also, we’re told to expect at least a couple Ahnuld-style one-liners. Get to the choppa!
“I’d like there to be. It’s pretty fun. It would be good to have on a reel…where you’re very serious…and then you have [in Schwarzenegger voice] ‘Stick around!’” – Actor Adrien Brody on whether Predators will have ’80s-style action-movie one-liners
While much of our conversation with Trejo was Machete-oriented, he did take a moment to praise Antal after being asked how hands-on producer Robert Rodriguez had been during the Predators shoot. “He’s kind of behind the scenes on this one. That surprised me, but that purely shows Nimrod’s capability. Because if Robert didn’t like what he was doing, believe me, he would be there”, he told us. “Nimrod is a great director. He really kinda surprised…you know, I’ve worked with a lot of directors, I think I’ve got 180 movies now. So I kinda know who’s good and who’s full of shit, you know. I love directors that know what they want.”
Speaking of Antal, we got a chance to catch up with the young director between takes on one of the studio’s massive soundstages. The scene being shot was a claustrophobic one, involving the movie’s star Adrien Brody crawling through some sort of constricted passageway. Brody, who may seem an odd choice for the lead in a big-budget sci-fi actioner, was described by Antal as being part of he and Rodriguez’s strategy to cast “against the grain”. “We thought casting a physically `Schwarzenegger-esque’ character would have done the original film a disservice and would have done this film a disservice because we are not trying to remake or copy the original film”, Antal opined. “I told everybody early on that I can make anybody look tough. What I can’t do is teach them how to act, so it was great to have very talented actors from the get-go and it makes my job much easier.”
Antal admitted that Predators would exhibit “subtle” nods to the original film in the series, but for the most part would maintain an original feel (for the record, he – as well as Rodriguez when we spoke with him later – was non-committal on the question of a Schwarzenegger cameo). However, he did mention that one major element they were borrowing from the first movie was the use of a longer, more suspenseful build-up. “I think in any monster movie, the more you can hide the monster, and the more you can keep him back from the story, the better”, the director told us. “It’s a science fiction film, but staying true to the first film it was about the build and the suspension and the anticipation of what was to come, and we’ve relied on that.”
Like Nicotero, Antal also made it abundantly clear they were making a point of distancing themselves from the AvP films. “[That decision] was based on the designs [of the Predators in the AvP films]”, he told us. “They kept on getting bigger and bigger, and longer and longer swords and blades, and the weapons became slightly cartoonish by the end there. So we wanted to just bring it back. And I think science fiction – the best science fiction is grounded science fiction. It’s science fiction you can believe and you buy into, and as far as design and everything else that’s what kept us grounded.”
Interestingly, one link Predators does share with the AvP series is editor Dan Zimmerman, who cut the second film in the series, Requiem. When pressed on this interesting contradiction, Antal was short with his answer, which came off (intentionally or not) rather ambiguous: “He’s a talented kid, and you work with what you’re given so I am not concerned about that.” By “work with what you’re given” I’ll just assume he means Zimmerman was working with what he was given on AvP: R and end it there. I’ll leave it up to the rest of you to reach your own conclusions.
On the question of CGI vs. practical f/x, Antal did his best to downplay the amount of digital effects that would make it into the final film. “I don’t know if I am at liberty to get into the actual specifics. There’s minimal CG and 99% of it will just be enhancement of practicals. So for instance, one thing I know I can talk about, a blade extension, you know, where we aren’t actually having the blade fly out as a live prop, things like that would be accentuated with CG…and certain scenes within the dog sequence.”
One reason to hope that the film will at least serve as a worthy follow-up to the original film is Antal’s obvious affection for the franchise. Nicotero talked about one particular moment during the shoot when Antal showed off his true geek-fan stripes. Between takes of a fight sequence between two of the Predators, during which one of the Predators shatters the blade of the other one, Antal took the tip of the broken weapon for a souvenir. “The idea is that one of the Predators breaks one of the blades and gets a stronghold on the other Predator”, said Nicotero, clearly relishing the tidbit. “And Nimrod yells `cut’ and runs out and…picks up the tip of the broken blade and sticks it in his pocket. I thought it was just a really funny thing to do. I went over there later and he said, `Dude look, there’s mud on it and it’s all scratched up! This was used in an actual Predator versus Predator fight!’ And I said well, I would’ve given it to you. But know he wants to put it in a little shadowbox and frame it.”
“[Prop-master] Tommy Tomlinson…who worked on the original film [too], is already sick of me going, `Uh, what’s gonna happen with that?'”, said Antal. “I have [the broken blade] in my closet right now…I even kept the mud on it.”
With the filming of another take back underway (and with Rodriguez himself creeping around the sidelines), we were hurried along for a little one-on-one time with Topher Grace, who plays the character of Edwin. He himself admitted he felt like the odd man out amongst all the other “action-hero” types in the film, particularly considering the group he’s a part of is supposed to be made up of elite warriors.
“I’ve been singing this song from Schoolhouse Rock, `one of these things is not like the other…'”, Grace joked. I then noted that his character sounded similar to Paul Reiser’s in Aliens. “I had just seen the longer version – which is like an hour longer – of Aliens coincidentally when I read this script”, he answered. “I was dubious because I really liked the first Predator, but all the sequels haven’t been as good. Then when I read this, I thought, `What Aliens was to Alien, this is to Predator‘. Because Predator never really got its due; it never really got that sequel. Nimrod’s such a huge fan of the original. It reminds me of James Cameron. He had everything that was in the original, but he wanted to go in a slightly different direction and create all this new stuff. And this is the same thing.”
So about the Paul Reiser thing…? “Edwin is very different than everyone else in it”, Grace told us. “You’re supposed to wonder why he was chosen when all these other similar types were selected. And there’s a twist. Of course. Actors live to play twists.” Guess we’ll have to wait and see if my Reiser/Aliens comparison pans out – from the sound of it though, this character just might have more “layers” than Reiser’s (Edwin a secret badass? An ally of the Predators? We’ll find out in July I guess.)
Grace, an extremely likable guy who is every inch the kind of person you’d expect him to be, also spoke about Antal’s insistence on keeping the effects and stunts in the movie as “in-camera” as possible (as opposed to that other franchise he recently became a part of). “Everything we’ve done, we’ve done”, he told us. “There’s a big reliance in Spider-Man on green-screen. It’s always easier for actors when it’s there. When you’re really jumping off a waterfall [which Topher’s character – and Topher himself – really does at one point in the film] there’s less acting required. You don’t have to pretend what it’d look like to jump off a waterfall. So I love that Nim and Robert made a real effort – I mean, my body doesn’t like it because I’m bruised everywhere – but it’ll add to the realness of the film.”
Next we were shuffled over to speak with lead actor Adrien Brody, the “unlikely choice” who didn’t seem so unlikely anymore once we saw him shooting that last scene back on the soundstage. The actor, who I doubt has the body type necessary (he’s very long and lean) to put on the bulk of someone like Schwarzenegger or Jesse Ventura, nevertheless did quite a bit of pumping up for his role as Royce, one of the stable of hardened warriors, who Brody vaguely described as “complicated”: “We’re making a very different movie, but there’s always going to be some expectation, especially because of Schwarzenegger making the original Predator and being such a body builder”, he told us. “You know, I’m not trying to do anything like that… the important thing for me, rather than a six pack and being kind of buff, is to put on a little size and you know, both as a look and what that does for me as a person, how I feel. To feel strong enough to handle myself in a situation that this guy would be presented [with]. I’m almost twenty…I’m basically up twenty pounds from my last role. I eat all day. [Laughs]”
Thankfully, the actor doesn’t take himself as seriously as you might expect given his on-screen pedigree, with his history of taking on dramatic roles in films by top-shelf directors including Roman Polanski, Terrence Malick, and Spike Lee. In many way, he hopes this part will be a stepping stone to being considered seriously for roles that don’t have “Oscar bait” stamped all over them. He spoke in particular about the Polanski film The Pianist which, while it was a boon for his career, made it even harder for people to believe he had the capacity to play a lighter role. “Beyond some people who knew my work from some of the films I had done in the past, that was my introduction to the world”, said Brody with palpable frustration. “And the topics I was discussing were very serious. And I take the work seriously, I take all that…but I don’t take myself that seriously. What I guess [The Pianist] conveyed is, ‘Oh, what a serious young man that person is.’ And then it’s impossible to be seen differently.”
Just like Antal, Brody remembers the excitement of seeing the first film in theaters when he was a kid, making him somewhat of a kindred spirit with the director (they are also the same age). “This really means a lot to him and I think his excitement helps motivate everyone else”, he said of his director. “We’re pretty motivated to bring something. And the look of the film – I don’t know if you can get a sense of it from the monitors – but this looks like you’re stepping out of a Geiger painting. It’s reminiscent of Alien and all these kinds of movies that I love, and the feel is very kind of foreboding and spooky.” The actor also gave us a bit more insight into the outdoor set serving as the “Predator camp” that we’d seen at the beginning of our visit – which from what he said sounds like it may serve as the setting of the final battle between man and beast.
“Once it’s done up and things are burning and carcasses are hanging, it is Hell”, he said enthusiastically. “I looked around, and I was like, wow, this is Hell. This is what Hell would look like. And I’m interacting with the Predator, you know. It was a dream-like moment, because it was so surreal that I was in this situation with something that I grew up with, you know? It had such a significance. And yet, in between shots, he [the actor portraying the Predator – I assume the leader “Black”] was like, ‘Are you alright, brother? Did I hurt you?’ [Laughs] He was choking me out and it’s just funny, chit chatting with this monster with an articulating jaw.”
As for the final confrontation, one can only hope it’s as cool as the third-act, “mano-a-mano” fight between Schwarzenegger and the Predator, where we learn of the alien hunter’s true motives and get a sense of a mutual respect between the two characters. Interestingly, Brody was somewhat ambiguous as to how much of that element will be present in this installment. In one breath: “There was another draft that had even more of that which I really liked, but I don’t think…we’re not going to go that route.” And in the next: “I do think that will be present. That was a really cool part of the original.” Alrighty then.
But hey, we can at least expect some good one-liners, right? “I have a few that I’ve asked to put in and some that we’re working on, and well, we have yet to do the couple that I’ve thought of”, he told us. “And then I’ve done a couple that were scripted that I think can be deemed one-liners. So…I’d like there to be. It’s pretty fun. It would be good to have on a reel, at least, somewhere, where you’re very serious and you have all these kinds of movies [laughs] and then you have [in the Schwarzenegger voice] ‘Stick around!'” That would be awesome – although somehow I doubt Brody has much of a need for an audition reel these days.
Oh, and as for working with Morpheus (aka Laurence Fishburne), Brody had this to say: “Fish is amazing. He’s so cool. Telling war stories from Apocalypse now, it’s great. I mean, he brought such a wonderful energy to the movie and it comes in the right spot, and I think people will get a kick out of that, but I don’t think they’ll be taken out of the picture. It will be fun. We came up with a funny exchange, and you’ll have to see the movie. Hopefully they’ll put it in, but some choices that Fish had made gave me an opportunity for something I improvised and they were cracking up. So we’ll see. If I can get them to let me play a little bit, it will be in there.”
Time for a breather? Nah, not really. Next we were herded (moo!) inside the Troublemaker facilities to be given a tour (at one point by Predators producer/Rodriguez ex-wife Elizabeth Avellan), through room after room of concept art, props and prop masters, costumes and costume designers, and every other niche of the Troublemaker enterprise you could possibly imagine. It truly is impressive, if slightly overwhelming. The enormous prop warehouse alone houses items from all past Rodriguez/Troublemaker productions – guns from Desperado, wooden stakes from From Dusk Till Dawn, knives from Sin City, gadgets from the Spy Kids movies. It was an embarrassment of riches, really, and at a certain point I began to feel like I’d been caught up in a whirlwind of curiosities, so many that it became impossible to process it all. That being said, the studio has a refreshing air of independence about it, a sense of freedom (perhaps due to physical distance alone) that makes it feel worlds away from Hollywood. In other words, they’ve earned that “Troublemaker” moniker.
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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