The Creator Interview: Director Gareth Edwards

If there’s one thing director Gareth Edwards’ experience with independent filmmaking taught him, it’s how to utilize your available resources efficiently. From his 2010 indie hit, Monsters, to gargantuan blockbusters like Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Edwards put that knowledge to the test on The Creator, starring John David Washington, with a radical new way to turn the craft on its head after realizing that “in over a century, we've not changed a thing.”

Edwards co-wrote The Creator with screenwriter Chris Weitz (Rogue One), which is a cautionary tale of sorts about the ever-looming presence of artificial intelligence. In this future, humans and AI are warring over control, but that war may soon be coming to an end when the designer of this advanced AI, known only as the Creator, develops a weapon powerful enough to put an end to the war. While grieving the disappearance of his wife, played by Gemma Chan, ex-special forces agent Joshua is assigned to take down this Creator’s plan, but discovers this all-powerful AI weapon is in the form of a child (Madeleine Yuna Voyles). The Creator also features Allison Janney, Ken Watanabe, Amar Chadha-Patel, and Ralph Ineson.

In an interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Edwards gives us a peek behind the curtain to find out how he managed to direct an expansive sci-fi adventure like The Creator on less than the typical Hollywood dime. To create a futuristic, dystopian world, Edwards and a condensed crew traveled to breathtaking locations like “Tokyo, Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia” and more to capture scenes with real out-of-this-world imagery. The trick was taking mountainous backdrops and gleaming ocean shots and including the AI-riddled world of The Creator in the edit rather than putting his cast against a green screen. Edwards discusses working with Dune’s talented editor, when he first considered filming this way, and why the assembly cut was nearly five hours long. He also shares fond memories of Collider’s Directors on Directing panel at this year’s Comic-Con.

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