Movies
It’s ‘The Darkest Hour’ for Young Actress Olivia Thirlby
Olivia Thirlby, one of my favorite up-and-coming actresses, has scored the leading role in The Darkest Hour, a sci-fi action movie from Summit and New Regency, reports Heat Vision. Chris Gorak (Right At Your Door) is directing the pic, which is being produced by Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov and Tom Jacobson. The script, which Gorak and Josh Zetumer are currently revising, is set in Moscow and follows a group of Americans traveling in the city when an alien invasion occurs. Thirlby, the young actress known for supporting roles in such indies as Juno and The Wackness, plays a trust fund girl trying to survive the attack who teams up with others to try to defeat the invaders. The movie lenses this summer in Moscow, where Bekmambetov will use his own facilities for the shoot and special effects. Thirby is also filming Jack & Diane this spring.
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
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