Connect with us

movies

‘Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox’ Creative Team Explains “The Anatomy of Bias”

Published

on

For Amanda Knox, trying to prove her innocence while being declared guilty resulted in the hardest battle of her life. 

The Hulu Original limited series, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, depicts the real life story of Knox, who was wrongfully convicted for the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher, while studying abroad in Italy in 2007. The show traces Knox’s relentless years–long fight to prove her innocence and reclaim her freedom while examining why authorities and the world stood so firmly in judgment against her. 

During Deadline’s Los Angeles Contenders TV event on Sunday, executive producer Monica Lewinsky explained why it was essential to bring this story to life along with unraveling public perception of the controversial decades old case. After initially meeting Knox in 2017, Lewinsky thought of the misogynistic coverage of the case, where Knox was referred to as “Foxy Knoxy” for her youth and good looks, and related that to her own experience in the media as a young woman caught up in the storm of lies and sensational media coverage. 

“I had met Amanda in 2017, and I had felt so much compassion for her. And in 2021, when I had come across an article where she had talked about wanting to do a film of her memoir [Waiting to be Heard], I was in a deal at 20th Century and thought about a limited series,” Lewinsky said. “I was drawn to it so much because in her story, I see just the wider lens, which we really cover in the series of what happens to a young woman when you’re thrust onto the world stage and you’re feasted upon and regurgitated by the media for entertainment, clicks and dollars. And when you start to see those, for me, there were so many parallels of my own experience, so many more times than I had ever even imagined being triggered in Amanda’s story of things that I experienced.”  

Lewinsky also emphasized, by turning to the audience, asking how many people even knew the name of Kercher’s true killer.  “[We remember the ridiculous moniker] Foxy Knoxy. But how many people here know the name Rudy Guede? That’s exactly the point of why we’re telling this story. Why do we remember Foxy Knoxy and not the actual person who killed her?” 

Grace Van Patten, who stars as Knox, talked about capturing the most harrowing moment of her life on screen. “It was extremely intense. Not only in the series, but in Amanda’s life. [Trying to portray] the emotional intensity and shock that Amanda is feeling in the moment [she was sentenced and dragged to jail] is such a turning point for the series as a whole. What I find so beautiful about the series and Amanda’s story is how fiercely she came back from that. To show her at her lowest low, which is what we all spoke about with Amanda, to really show her at her lowest point so that we can watch her rise from it and really come back from it.” 

RELATED: Full Coverage Of Deadline’s Contenders TV Event

Showrunner K.J. Steinberg chimed in, talking about how she wanted to be as fair as possible to the case by also including narratives outside of Knox’s point of view. “I wanted to show her point of view, but I also wanted to [have] episodes that are from other characters’ points of view as well. We really need to understand the how of [the case]. It wasn’t a whodunnit. It was a howdunnit and a whydunnit. How did this innocent girl from Seattle end up in this position and why did we come to believe it? That’s one of the running themes of the show, which is the anatomy of bias, which was what are all the false beliefs that each of us had? What are the false beliefs that the police had when they entered that crime scene and started to observe things? And how did they end up building such a deeply false narrative about her that even sticks today? There are people who still believe in her guilt, even though she’s been exonerated and even though they’ve seen so much material proclaiming her innocence.”

Check back Monday for the panel video.

>

Continue Reading

movies

One Night Only Writer, Producer Talk Movie’s No Premarital Sex Rules

Published

on

Ever since the official trailer dropped for the Callum TurnerMonica Barbaro rom-com One Night Only, quickly racking up millions of views on its way to its nearly 40 million total, internet commentators have had a lot of questions about the film’s central premise in which premarital sex is illegal apart from one 12-hour period a year.

How is this law enforced? Are people breaking the law? How did this legislation pass? What counts as “sex” under this new mandate? Are marriage (and divorce) rates skyrocketing? What about affairs?

Rest assured: Some of those questions are answered in the movie, and explanations are starting to trickle out online for those unconcerned about spoilers. Beyond that, One Night Only writer, Travis Braun, who saw his screenplay top the 2024 Black List, has answers, but they’re not all in the Will Gluck-directed Universal movie now in theaters.

“I set out to write a movie about the circus that is modern dating, and I thought how fun if we could set that all in one night, and I have answers to those questions, and some of them are in the movie,” Braun told The Hollywood Reporter at the One Night Only premiere earlier this week in New York.

Braun said he definitely thought about the specific rules of the film’s alternate reality, framed as three years on from the no-sex act being passed, but didn’t want to get too deep into the politics of the world of the movie.

“There’s a big mythology that I’ve built out and then as you develop a movie you start to pare down and you go: What does an audience really care about, and what are they showing up to see? For me the answer is always a love story, romance,” he told THR. “I hope they can come in and we’ll show them how this world functions, and then they can just enjoy the movie and have fun. The whole focus of this was love story and romance first, and the world-building obviously has to make sense and has to be there, but ultimately we weren’t interested in getting into the politics of it. We wanted to tell a story about these two incredible people trying to find love on this crazy night.”

Producer Jacqueline Monetta, who brought Braun’s script to Gluck, said they didn’t want moviegoers to have all of the answers.

“I had a million questions. I was like, ‘What does this mean? What does this world look like? How do people communicate? What’s different?’ And that’s I think what’s so smart about it,” she said of One Night Only‘s “big idea, high-concept” premise. “We don’t answer every question in the movie, purposefully, because we want those questions to be had on the car ride home. We want people to keep talking about it and really think about what would this mean for our world, what does it mean for our world now. But I think Will and I were really specific on what questions we wanted to answer.”

In a recent Reddit AMA, Gluck also detailed how he and his team approached the world building of the movie while not wanting it to be all about the mandate and offered prospective moviegoers hints for where to find the answers to their questions.

“We spent a lot of time talking about the rules of the world, and if you’ve seen the movie, or when you see the movie, you’ll see that the rules of the world and the world building are all in the background,” he said. “It’s on TVs, signage, in thrown-away lines, because we didn’t want to give the world short shrift, but we didn’t want the movie to be about that. It’s another way I want people to see this. If they see it more than once, they’ll pick up so many more rules of the world in the background. A lot of the questions that I’ve been getting after people have seen the movie are actually answered in the movie, which is by design because I want people maybe not to know them. So, yes, it was a tricky tightrope to have them there, but not for the movie to be about it.”

Turner meanwhile echoes Braun’s advice for curious prospective moviegoers: “Go see the film!”

“You’ll realize pretty quickly what the realm is that you’re working within and it’s a comedy,” Turner says of what inquisitive filmgoers will find. “There are no great political undertones, I don’t think. This is just a place where you can escape for an hour and a half, two hours and enjoy and laugh your head off.”

One Night Only is now in theaters.

Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro at the One Night Only premiere on Monday.

Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Universal Pictures

>

Continue Reading

movies

Dwayne Johnson Reacts To Live-Action ‘Moana’ Negative Reviews

Published

on

Although the live-action remake of Moana hasn’t quite been able to catch a wave at the box office, Dwayne Johnson is proud of what they made.

The Golden Globe nominee said the Disney movie’s negative reviews, which currently sit at 32% on Rotten Tomatoes, are “just the way it goes” in the entertainment industry, and what “really mattered” was that “the culture really stood up” in the Polynesian-inspired tale.

“Our first two reviews came out. I’ll never forget it… They were amazing. I was like, wow,” he told People, noting the reviews then “went another way, as sometimes happens.”

“That’s just the way it goes because we’re in this business,” added Johnson.

A decade after he voiced the demigod Maui in Disney’s animated film Moana, Johnson reprised the role in the Thomas Kail-helmed live-action adaptation.

'Moana' live-action trailer
Catherina Laga’aia in ‘Moana’

“The challenge was, okay, let’s remember, though, what’s going to be beyond this opening weekend. Let’s remember what’s happening right now and the noise that’s happening right now,” said Johnson. “If you love it, great. If you don’t, no problem.”

Following Moana‘s July 10 premiere, the movie has gone on to make $266M at the global box office. Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro addressed the low turnout in a letter to shareholders.

“Even when our franchise films don’t meet our box office expectations, as with The Mandalorian and Grogu and the live-action Moana, our investments in these core properties fuel other parts of our company,” said D’Amaro, noting that Moana is “expected to be a strong title on Disney+, building on the success of the original film, which is one of the most streamed movies of all time.”

>

Continue Reading

movies

‘One Night Only’ Director Understands “Sex Purge” Comparisons

Published

on

While One Night Only is intended as a romantic-comedy, there are some obvious dystopian undertones that audiences can’t ignore.

Director Will Gluck recently addressed online comparisons between the Purge franchise and his new Universal rom-com, which is now in theaters, about two New Yorkers (Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner) who meet on the one night a year premarital sex is legal.

“I am very aware of the online discourse about this world and this movie being the ‘sex Purge,’ and rightfully so,” he told SlashFilm. “But I don’t want this movie to be about that. And I know I get some blowback going, ‘How could you make a movie about this not being about that?’ Because I love exploring characters and situations.

Gluck added, “Whenever us humans get put in situations, no matter how or why the situation happens, we still have to be humans and get through the day. And that’s what interests me. So we didn’t want it to overwhelm. We wanted to explain it. We didn’t want to take a side. We wanted to show both sides, but we wanted it to be about these two people going through this crazy night.”

With five movies and a TV series expanding on the universe since The Purge premiered in 2013, the Blumhouse franchise is set in an alternate reality where all crime, including murder, is legal one night a year for 12 hours.

Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro in a scene from the movie One Night Only
Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro in ‘One Night Only’

In a similarly dystopian fascist universe, albeit with a much lighter mood, One Night Only follows recently dumped pizzeria owner Owen (Turner) and singer Allie (Barbaro) meet on the one night of the year premarital sex is legal under the United States’ “chastity mandate.”

>

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2017 Zox News Theme. Theme by MVP Themes, powered by WordPress.