John Bradley on Moonfall and the Scope and Ambition of The Three-Body Problem Series at Netflix

With director Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall now playing in theaters, I got to speak with John Bradley about making the movie. If you haven’t seen the Moonfall trailer, or the first five minutes of the movie, the film tells the story of an unlikely team of individuals (Halle Berry, Bradley, and Patrick Wilson) who are tasked with saving the Earth when the moon is knocked off its orbit by a mysterious force and comes hurtling towards earth. Moonfall also stars Michael Peña, Donald Sutherland, Kelly Yu, Eme Ikwuakor, Carolina Bartczak, and Charlie Plummer. The script was written by Emmerich, Harald Kloser, and Spenser Cohen.

During the interview, Bradley talks about why people love watching end of the world movies and TV shows, how Emmerich is a master of disaster films, his reaction to seeing the movie for the first time and seeing the finished VFX, what it was like filming the antigravity sequences, and what it’s like reacting to things that aren’t there. In addition, with Bradley attached to Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ upcoming sci-fi series at Netflix, The Three-Body Problem, I asked if he can tease anything about the show. He said:

“It is very cool. I finished the books just before Christmas. What I will say about it is David and Dan haven’t taken the easy route. There are elements of this…the ambition of this that makes even Game of Thrones look like fairly safe ground. The ambition, the scope of it. The sheer size of it is going to break a whole new set of rules all over again I think.”

If you’re not familiar with The Three-Body Problem, the three-book series by Chinese author Liu Cixin tells the story of humanity’s first contact with an alien civilization. The first book was published in 2014, and Netflix was granted the rights to produce and English-language adaptation with Cixin serving as a consulting producer and Ken Liu, who wrote the English translation, also serving as a consulting producer. The cast also includes Jovan Adepo, Tsai Chin, Liam Cunningham, Eiza González, Jess Hong, Marlo Kelly,, Alex Sharp, Sea Shimooka, Zine Tseng, Saamer Usmani, and Benedict Wong.

Watch what John Bradley had to say in the player above, and below is exactly what we talked about.

John Bradley
How Emmerich is a master of disaster films.
Why do people love watching movies and TV shows about the end of the world?
What was it like making his first big budget Hollywood movie versus what he expected?
How I wanted the Night King to win on Game of Thrones.
Does it ever get easier reacting to things that aren’t there when making a movie or TV show?
Did he enjoy filming the antigravity sequences?
What was his reaction watching the film and seeing the VFX for the first time?
What can he tease about The Three-Body Problem series at Netflix?

Here's the official Moonfall synopsis:
"In Moonfall, a mysterious force knocks the Moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it. With mere weeks before impact and the world on the brink of annihilation, NASA executive and former astronaut Jo Fowler (Berry) is convinced she has the key to saving us all – but only one astronaut from her past, Brian Harper (Wilson) and a conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman (Bradley) believes her. These unlikely heroes will mount an impossible last-ditch mission into space, leaving behind everyone they love, only to find out that our Moon is not what we think it is."

#Moonfall #JohnBradley #TheThreeBodyProblem

For interviews, movie reviews, and more visit https://collider.com

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL
  / collider  
  / collider  
  / collider