In today’s pop culture and entertainment landscape, directors don’t necessarily get the name recognition they deserve. Of course everybody recognizes the names Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino, but they are many talented filmmakers that don’t fill seats in movie theaters because of their name. Now I can’t really say, because only time will tell, but I’m predicting that there will be a new name that will be well known, if not only with the hardcore movie fans. This name is Denis Villeneuve.
Denis Villeneuve (pronounced Denny) is the 48-year-old French-Canadian director from Trois-Rivières, Québec, and I’m not the only one predicting his success; Indiewire refers to Villeneuve as “...one of Hollywood’s most sought-after [director] in recent years…” and a “...rising director… who has scored three consecutive critical hits…”. Two of those are the dark, child abduction film “Prisoners,” and his drug cartel drama “Sicario.” “Sicario” was crowned by many critics and fans as one of the best movies of 2015, receiving three academy award nominations, while “Prisoners” received one, but finds itself ranking 229 on IMDb’s Top 250 list.
Emily Blunt in "Sicario"
The reason I’m talking about Villeneuve now is because of his next two projects. The first one “Arrival,” which is coming out Nov. 11, is already receiving massive buzz. After releasing the first trailer on Aug. 16 (which you can watch right here), it is the 16th most popular film on IMDb and is already receiving Oscar buzz. “Arrival” stars Amy Adams as Dr. Louise Banks, a linguist who is recruited by the government to translate an extraterrestrial language after 12 alien pods land around the planet. The film co-stars Jeremy Renner as Ian Donnelly, a mathematician, and Forest Whitaker as Colonel Weber, an army officer.
Amy Adams in "Arrival" trailer
After watching the trailer myself, besides thinking it’s an interesting idea and that I would like to see it, I can’t help but notice many visual similarities with 2014’s “Interstellar.” That should be a very good thing, because besides being a film that did very well, “Interstellar” won the Oscar for best visual effects that year. Lastly, even though it is too far to tell, some critics are predicting good things for Amy Adams. Being regarded to as “the female Leonardo DiCaprio” (meaning she’s been deserving of an Oscar for a long time) there is talk that the five-time nominee may win her first statue. Again, it is too soon to tell, but the same publication (Indiewire) predicted Leo’s Oscar back when “The Revenant” trailer was released, so who knows.
Villeneuve’s next big project has also been making some waves. Small waves, but waves none the less. Denis Villeneuve has been put onto the “Untitled Blade Runner sequel” as director after Ridley Scott stepped down due to conflicts (most likely due to directing “Alien: Covenant”). This film, planned to be released in 2017, is a sequel 30-plus years in the making. “Blade Runner” is the cult classic film based off of Philip K. Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” The film adaptation starred Harrison Ford, an “ex-blade runner," who is recruited to hunt down four escaped “replicants,” (synthetic humans) who are planning to find their creator. “Blade Runner” was an enormous success, with two Oscar nominations and the 97th spot on the American Film Institute’s Top 100 films list.
Still from "Blade Runner"
While the plot for the sequel is currently unknown, even if the film isn’t that great, it is still guaranteed to make a fortune (even though I don’t think it will be). Plus Villeneuve has Ridley Scott, the director of the original film and massive Hollywood veteran, helping as producer/writer, and Ford reprising his role Rick Deckard. Besides Ford, the film already has a star-studded and interesting cast: Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas ("War Dogs"), Robin Wright, Dave Bautista (Drax in "Guardians of The Galaxy"), Barkhad Abdi (Muse in "Captain Phillips"), Lennie James (Morgan Jones in "The Walking Dead") and just publicly announced Aug. 18 the new Joker himself, Jared Leto. Again, even if the film isn’t that great, it will be extremely interesting to see this diverse cast of Hollywood veterans (Ford and Wright), current stars (Gosling and Leto) and potential new stars (de Armas) work together.
