BIGFOOT THRILLER DEVOLUTION IN CAPABLE HANDS OF KIWI DIRECTOR

Based upon the slick visuals and chillingly deft touch in building the suspense in his Sundance 2021 hit Coming Home in the Dark, it was announced in June that director James Ashcroft would helm Legendary Pictures’ prestige horror property, Devolution. An adatation of the blockbuster bestseller Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by World War Z author Max Brooks, it represents a high-profile Hollywood debut for the New Zealand-born filmmaker and his writing partner, Eli Kent.

While on the promotional circuit for Coming Home in the Dark in late 2021, Ashcroft offered up some insight into how the project was developing. Full disclosure - your correspondent is a Sasquatch obsessive and Brooks' book, which chronicles a Bigfoot pack attack deep in America’s forested heartland, was the literary highpoint of 2020.    

“Unlike you, I never had a lot of interest in anything Sasquatch, certainly wasn’t expecting to fall in love with Sasquatch lore” Ashcroft laughs, speaking via Zoom from his Wellington home, “but now I am utterly obsessed and fascinated by all things Sasquatch! I am only just getting into this magnificent world of Bigfoot and his cousins across the world.” (Pictured, right: Ashcroft, on the set of Coming Home in the Dark)

He quickly points out that, like most great horror tales, there is meaning in the monster’s presence. “Max has written a story that the Sasquatch are only a part of, a mirror to what the story is really about,” he explains. Brooks’ narrative focuses on the small, isolated community of Greenloop, an eco-centric commune who suddenly are cut off from the rest of the world after a volcanic eruption. In addition to lacking outdoor survival skills and resources, they soon find themselves the focus of a group of hungry, desperate, highly intelligent Sasquatch. 

“This is a story of human arrogance and hubris, that assumption that we can go into someone else’s house and do as we wish,” says Ashcroft. “When that tenuous link to civilization is cut, what happens to us then? Then there’s the human drama of watching this eco-community implode, a group of people that then has to deal with the environment’s apex predator, the Sasquatch.”

Brooks’ novel was critically acclaimed upon release and spent several weeks on US bestseller lists. While acknowledging its B-monster movie premise was part of the fun, literary critic for The Gaurdian U.K., Neil McRobert, also pointed out that Brooks’ novel made for a challenging read in the time of COVID. “The true terror for a post-pandemic reader,” he said in his June 2020 review, “is in the grounded reality of how victims of disaster can be overlooked and how thin the veneer of civility and technology is revealed to be in the face of grand social disruption.”

The big-screen adaptation means the project is coming full-circle from its origins. Brooks had first planned to write a screenplay and successfully pitched to Legendary. But soon the project cooled and slipped out of development until Brooks re-approached Legendary founder Thomas Tull for the novel rights. (Pictured, above: Max Brooks)   

No casting or production start date has been announced yet, but Ashcroft and Kent are moving quickly through the screenplay drafts. “I’m really loving it! It’s a really wild ride,” says Ashcroft. “We are thinking of it as sort of The Poseidon Adventure, meets a more adult Jurassic Park, meets Straw Dogs.”

THE DUNE GALLERY

Vanity Fair overnight revealed exclusive first-look images from Denis Villeneuve’s forthcoming adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic 1965 science-fiction novel, Dune. The director’s first film since Blade Runner 2049 will unfold in two parts, the first of which is scheduled to premiere December 18. “I would not agree to make this adaptation of the book with one single movie,” Villeneuve told VF writer Anthony Breznican. “The world is too complex. It’s a world that takes its power in details.” (All photo credits: Chiabella James)

(Above: Timothée Chalamet, as Paul Atreides, and Rebecca Ferguson, as Lady Jessica Atreides)

The French-Canadian director, who co-wrote the script with Jon Spaihts (Prometheus; Doctor Strange; Passengers) and Oscar-winner Eric Roth (Forrest Gump; Munich; A Star is Born), shot the film in several countries to capture the landscapes imagined in Herbert's series of books. Exteriors were lensed in Jordan, Norway, Slovakia and the U.A.E., while mammoth studio sets were constructed on the Origo Film Studio lot in Budapest, Hungary.

(Above: Villeneuve, left, on-set with star Javier Bardem, as Stilgar)

Protagonist Paul Atreides is played by Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet, who recalls the sandstone valley locations in remote southern Jordan which served as the otherwordly landscape of the planet Arrakis. “There are these Goliath landscapes, which you may imagine existing on planets in our universe, but not on Earth," the actor told Vanity Fair. "I remember going out of my room at 2 a.m., and it being probably 100 degrees. The shooting temperature was sometimes 120 degrees. They put a cap on it out there; if it gets too hot, you can’t keep working.”

(Above: The House Atreides, Left to Right: Timothée Chalamet, Stephen Mckinley Henderson, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa)

Cast announcements ignited the internet, with the rabid fanbase weighing in on every production development. Alongside Chalamet will be Oscar Isaac as his father, Duke Leto Atreides, and Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Paul’s mother and member of the mystical Bene Gesserit sect. Other cast members include Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho, Zendaya as Chani, Javier Bardem as Stilgar, Charlotte Rampling as Gaius Helen Mohiam, Dave Bautista as Glossu Rabban, David Dastmalchian as Piter De Vries, Chang Chen as Dr. Wellington Yueh, Stellan Skarsgård as the villainous Baron Harkonnen, and Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck.

(Above: Zendaya, as Chani)

In 2017, Villeneuve told Variety that the opportunity to direct an adaptaion of Dune was too good an opportunity to let pass. "Since I was 12 years old, there was a book I read, which is Dune, which is my favorite book," he said. "After Prisoners, the producer [at] Alcon asked me what I would like to do next. I said, ‘Dune, if anyone could get me the rights for Dune’. And I knew it was very difficult to get those rights. I have images that I am haunted by for 35 years."

(Above: Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Liet Kynes)

Though a devotee of Herbert's novel, Villeneuve understood a 2020 adaptation of a 1965 story would need to be made contemporary, regardless of how visionary the source material had been. As Lady Jessica Atreides, Rebecca Ferguson had her part expanded considerably. "She’s a mother, she’s a concubine, she’s a soldier,” says Ferguson. “Denis was very respectful of Frank’s work, [but] the quality of the arcs for much of the women have been brought up to a new level." Arrakis ecologist Liet Kynes has been gender-swapped entirely, with Sharon Duncan-Brewster playing the part written as a white man. "This human being manages to basically keep the peace amongst many people," says the actress. "Women are very good at that, so why can’t Kynes be a woman? Why shouldn’t Kynes be a woman?"

(Above: Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho)

Key contributors to the production include composer Hans Zimmer (Dunkirk; Interstellar; Crimson Tide); director of photography, Australian Greig Fraser (Lion; Vice; Rogue One; Zero Dark Thirty); editor and longtime Villeneuve collaborator Joe Walker (Arrival; Sicario; 12 Years a Slave); and, production designer Patrice Vermette (Vice; The Mountain Between Us; Cafe de Flore). Crucial to the production are veteran costumers Bob Morgan (Three Kings; The Lord of War; Inceptions) and Jacqueline West (The Revenant; Argo; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), who supervised the construction of the functional desert-wear known as 'stillsuits'.

(Above, from left: Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck; Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica Atreides; Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides)

ALL PHOTO CREDITS: CHIABELLA JAMES. First published by Vanity Fair on April 15, 2020.