Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
We’ve had a few rather shaky rumors that Benicio del Toro and Carrie Fisher might be part of the scenes to be filmed on the newly neoned streets of Dubrovnik, but a new report from Mos Croatia names Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley. It’s certainly a lovely place for a staring contest.
On the Oscars red carpet last night, Daisy Ridley told MTV News that Episode VIII does indeed pick up where The Force Awakens left off, and about working with Mark Hamill.
(This may not be exactly VIII related, but since we’re here: Fashion bloggers Tom & Lorenzo and the Fug Girls on Ridley’s dress.)
→ A curious dome-shaped building has been spotted at Pinewood. It’s similar to those found at the monastery at Skellig Michael.
→ The Dubrovnik street set now lights up, and not for nothing – it looks like they’ll be doing some night filming.
→ It seems the film may also be scouting for caves in Mexico.
There were no wins for Star Wars at the Academy Awards tonight, but at least The Force Awakens lost (mostly) to fellow genre films. Mad Max: Fury Road pretty much swept the technical categories at the Academy Awards, shutting out The Force Awakens in Editing, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing. Star Wars’ best chance was considered to be Visual Effects, which was instead won by Ex Machina in a surprising upset. John Williams lost out to The Hateful Eight’s Ennio Morricone, who paid tribute to 5-time winner Williams in his speech.
But hey, we did get an appearance by Threepio, Artoo and BB-8. Later, Daisy Ridley was joined by Dev Patel to present Best Documentary, and J.J. Abrams presented Best Director to The Revenant’s Alejandro G. Iñárritu.
This morning, Stitch Kingdom spotted a cover on the pre-order page for The Force Awakens Blu-Ray from Walmart. The product page is still live, but not searchable. Some are reporting that this is the Walmart exclusive cover, but I don’t really see any sign of that. (Though it’s certainly possible we’ll see multiple covers – I hope not just slipcovers.)
Reports have the Blu-ray coming out April 5, with digital copies available as soon as March 15. We’re still waiting an an official announcement, maybe as soon as Tuesday.
→ J.J. Abrams talks about Harrison Ford and how he reacted to his big moment in The Force Awakens with Fandango.
→ Daisy Ridley and J.J. Abrams talked about Star Wars at the Oscar Wilde Awards, which was held at the Bad Robot office. Ridley got a bit more specific (maybe too specific) on Skellig Michael with Goss.ie.
→ The Hollywood Reporter looks at The Force Awakens’ chances at the VFX Oscar. Reminder: Daisy Ridley and J.J. Abrams will be presenting at the ceremony tomorrow tonight.
→ The Force Awakens publicity team, at least, has already won one honor: The Maxwell Weinberg Showmanship trophy.
StarWars.com has the official announcement that Episode VIII has begun production at Pinewood this morning. It adds officially adds three new actors: Benicio Del Toro, Laura Dern, and newcomer Kelly Marie Tran. (Entertainment Weekly takes a look at Tran’s previous work.)
Returning from The Force Awakens are Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, and Andy Serkis.
Video footage shows director Rian Johnson, Hamill and Ridley filming on Skellig Micheal in September, and a hint as to where VIII picks up…
…Or is it? Note that only one shot – Ridley holding out the saber – is actually a close duplicate to what we saw in The Force Awakens. While they may be keeping things less restrictive this time, let’s not put too much faith in what they’re willing to show us.
Meanwhile, as the day winds down…
The Force Awakens will cross $900M domestic at the box office today, and $2B worldwide tomorrow, Disney announced.
In related news, Lionsgate said today that Star Wars is partially at fault for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2‘s less-than-predicted performance, lessening the November movie’s numbers by “somewhere between $50M and $100M.” Don’t blame the players, blame the game? And maybe even the ever-more-eye-rolling trend of splitting adaptions into two parts… I saw both Mockingjays in the theater, but I gotta tell you, by the second movie I was pretty much already over it.
→ The sound we hear in The Force Awakens when Kylo Ren uses the Force has an unexpected source: A purring cat, Dave Acord tells Nerdist. Matthew Wood also talks about recording Ren’s mask dialogue with Adam Driver. (Acord also reveals there’s a sound from Raiders of the Lost Ark in the mix.) At The Daily Dot, Wood gets into even more detail about the archival sounds used in the new film, as well as the ADR process and other details.
→ I’ve never been particularly fond of the autograph racket that goes on in this fandom, but I gotta say, the latest controversy – involving Daisy Ridley – really takes the cake.
It may be no surprise that The Force Awakens is nabbing a bunch of key nominations for the Nickelodeon 2016 Kids’ Choice Awards, but a Star Wars book has also earned a nomination, competing against both Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. DK’s Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know, by Adam Bray, Cole Horton, Michael Kogge, and Kerrie Dougherty, is one of six choices to be voted on in the Favorite Book category. Will it stand up to the likes of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and The Maze Runner? Anyone can vote as much as they want for the Kids’ Choice Awards at nick.com/KCA. Sadly, you can’t skip a category, like Favorite (Music) Collaboration.
In other categories, The Force Awakens has earned nominations for Favorite Movie, Favorite Actor (John Boyega) & Favorite Actress (Daisy Ridley). In the video games category, Disney Infinity 3.0 (which added Star Wars content) is a nominee. The Kids’ Choice Awards will air live on March 12, hosted by Blake Shelton.
We know Episode VIII filming is due to begin soon, and there’s plenty of evidence from Rian Johnson on Tumblr, an Instagram from Daisy Ridley, a Snapchat from John Boyega, and tweets from Anthony Daniels and Carrie Fisher.
Continue reading “Rian Johnson, cast hint that Episode VIII filming is nigh”
StarWars.com’s Andi Guiterrez has some questions for J.J. Abrams and the cast of The Force Awakens. Also, lollipops! Sadly not the infamous Jar Jar ones.
→ J.J. Abrams talks to io9 about the script process (including Michael Arndt’s exit,) starting fresh with Lawrence Kasdan and even the Expanded Universe. (On that note, The Hollywood Reporter on the pre-Abrams story meetings.) At Nerdist, he says he wants to see Selma’s Ava DuVernay do a Star Wars film. She seems game! And Pablo Hidalgo’s fame continues to spread, as he’s the subject of the first question from the Associated Press.
→ Harrison Ford sheds some light on “Chewie, we’re home,” at io9, and says The Force Awakens “correctly ambitious in every sense” in the LAT.
→ Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are in the New York Times! With the AP, John shares the story of how (and why) he got Robert Downey Jr. as his mentor in fame. But he couldn’t resist getting a little saucy about Star Trek with Yahoo. (Well, about William Shatner, technically. Which is, I believe, legal under the Carrie Directive)
→ It was Oscar Isaac’s turn on Good Morning America today, where he talked about flying an X-wing.
→ In an interview with IGN, Adam Driver says that Darth Vader’s “commitment” is inspiring to Kylo Ren. He’s in favor of Stephen Colbert’s explanation for the broadsaber.
→ A film still of Billie Lourd in the movie has been floating around for a while now (plus she was in one of the first TV spots) but People has an official character portrait, in which we can see she wears her hair in a toned-down version of Leia’s iconic buns. Still no character name, though.
→ J.J. Abrams, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Adam Driver were in Seoul today goofing around, while Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o and Kathleen Kennedy were in Mexico City. I can’t find any reports in English, but damn they looked cool.
→ Also: The Force Awakens was the #1 movie on Facebook for 2015; Yesterday’s spoilerific Rey action figure got DMCA’d; NASA scientist would pick Threepio over BB-8 or Artoo to take to space. I am outraged! I have to go lay down now.
![Getting close… [Tumblr]](https://i0.wp.com/clubjade.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/viii-rj.jpg?w=265&h=178&ssl=1 "Rian Johnson")
!["#VIII" [Instagram]](https://i0.wp.com/clubjade.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/viii-daisy-instagram.jpg?w=265&h=265&crop=1&ssl=1 "Daisy Ridley")
!["So, just finished training and all that kind of stuff, for the next one. And as you can see, Finn is back." [Video]](https://i0.wp.com/clubjade.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/boyega-viii-snapchat.jpg?w=252&h=447&ssl=1 "John Boyega")