Having delivered critically and commercially successful new installments in some of cinema’s best-loved franchises for his last two projects – 2014’s Godzilla reboot, the 30th movie in Toho Studios’ monster-heavy Japanese series, and 2016’s Star Wars prequel Rogue One – you could forgive British director Gareth Edwards for sitting back and waiting for the next mega-blockbuster to come knocking.
However, there are no such easy options for Edwards, who with The Creator, has delivered that growing rarity on Hollywood release schedules – an original story; in this case, one about a future war for survival between humans and AI, which he co-wrote from his own idea.
If that was not daring enough in an era of sequels, franchises and spin-offs dominating the global box office, Edwards also claims to have made his film “in reverse”.
“Normally when you make a film like this, what happens is you design the world," he says. "You do all these cool pieces of artwork. You show a studio. They say, ‘You'll never find anywhere that looks like this. You'll have to build it on a sound stage. It'll cost $200 million, and you'll shoot against green screen.'
“We were like ‘No, forget the literal images. This is just the idea. We'll design it based on whatever we actually film. So we'll do all the design when we finish the movie.’ We'd sort of make the movie in reverse.”
Edwards assembled a small crew and shot footage in “seven or eight” countries around the world – also using apparent composited archive footage of Beirut’s devastating 2020 port explosion, which sparked outrage when the trailer was released last month. Disney and the production team have so far declined to confirm the source of the footage.
Edward says the process of designing the film was so effective that he does not want to return to traditional methods. “When it was all finished, we’d edited the film, got frames from each shot in the movie, then we gave them to the production designer and the concept artist,” he says.
“What normally happens a year-and-a-half earlier happened during the edit. They were painting and designing all the sci-fi on the shots we were actually using. Everything's really efficient as you only use what you see. It feels like I never want to go back to the other way of making a film.”
Growing threat
Edwards’s approach to making the film may have been something of a break from the everyday, but its subject matter is one that is rarely outside the headlines in 2023 – the growing threat to humanity posed by AI.
The topicality of the film hasn’t escaped the director’s notice – his cast isn’t joining him in promoting the movie due to the Hollywood strikes, in which the use of AI has become a key battleground for actors and writers alike.
Edwards told the audience at July’s ComicCon that, as a director, he was “contractually obliged” to promote his film despite many of his colleagues being on strike, and at the movie’s LA premiere last week he joined the audience to film a message of support on his phone for his striking cast.
Nonetheless, the director insists he was not trying to be topical, much less controversial, when he began developing the movie: “I started writing this in 2018, when AI was up there with flying cars and living on the moon,” he insists. “It was something maybe you would see in your lifetime, probably not.”
Despite the continuing debate over AI, and the existential war against it depicted in his movie, Edwards is positive about the technology overall: “Every major technological breakthrough that's happened in the last century or so – electricity, computers, the internet – they always have seismic changes on industries and there's a bump in the road that we have to get over,” he reasons. “But when the dust settles, I think we all look back and go ‘I'm glad we have electricity. I'm glad we have computers.’ I think this will be another one. The next few years will probably be tricky, but I think the positives will outweigh the negatives.”
Edwards’s optimism is comforting, until he hedges his bets: “I say that because when the robot apocalypse happens, they'll have this recording and they'll know,” he laughs. “So I'll be left. I won't be enslaved like you.”
The Creator is in UAE cinemas from September 28
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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WandaVision
Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany
Directed by: Matt Shakman
Rating: Four stars
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'The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey'
Rating: 3/5
Directors: Ramin Bahrani, Debbie Allen, Hanelle Culpepper, Guillermo Navarro
Writers: Walter Mosley
Stars: Samuel L Jackson, Dominique Fishback, Walton Goggins
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Men’s singles
Group A: Son Wan-ho (Kor), Lee Chong Wei (Mas), Ng Long Angus (HK), Chen Long (Chn)
Group B: Kidambi Srikanth (Ind), Shi Yugi (Chn), Chou Tien Chen (Tpe), Viktor Axelsen (Den)
Women’s Singles
Group A: Akane Yamaguchi (Jpn), Pusarla Sindhu (Ind), Sayaka Sato (Jpn), He Bingjiao (Chn)
Group B: Tai Tzu Ying (Tpe), Sung Hi-hyun (Kor), Ratchanok Intanon (Tha), Chen Yufei (Chn)
The design
The protective shell is covered in solar panels to make use of light and produce energy. This will drastically reduce energy loss.
More than 80 per cent of the energy consumed by the French pavilion will be produced by the sun.
The architecture will control light sources to provide a highly insulated and airtight building.
The forecourt is protected from the sun and the plants will refresh the inner spaces.
A micro water treatment plant will recycle used water to supply the irrigation for the plants and to flush the toilets. This will reduce the pavilion’s need for fresh water by 30 per cent.
Energy-saving equipment will be used for all lighting and projections.
Beyond its use for the expo, the pavilion will be easy to dismantle and reuse the material.
Some elements of the metal frame can be prefabricated in a factory.
From architects to sound technicians and construction companies, a group of experts from 10 companies have created the pavilion.
Work will begin in May; the first stone will be laid in Dubai in the second quarter of 2019.
Construction of the pavilion will take 17 months from May 2019 to September 2020.
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
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if you go
The flights
Emirates offer flights to Buenos Aires from Dubai, via Rio De Janeiro from around Dh6,300. emirates.com
Seeing the games
Tangol sell experiences across South America and generally have good access to tickets for most of the big teams in Buenos Aires: Boca Juniors, River Plate, and Independiente. Prices from Dh550 and include pick up and drop off from your hotel in the city. tangol.com
Staying there
Tangol will pick up tourists from any hotel in Buenos Aires, but after the intensity of the game, the Faena makes for tranquil, upmarket accommodation. Doubles from Dh1,110. faena.com
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The 12 breakaway clubs
England
Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur
Italy
AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus
Spain
Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Real Madrid
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MATCH INFO
Watford 1 (Deulofeu 80' p)
Chelsea 2 (Abraham 5', Pulisic 55')
