I’ve been saying this since I first saw it back in the day: Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men is not just one of the best movies of the 2000s, it’s also one of the greatest films of all time. From its intense and poignant story about humanity getting a second chance after decades of infertility and the broken man thrust in the middle of it to outstanding acting performances to the technicality of the various one-shotters, it’s nothing short of masterful.

This great yet underrated movie, which somehow didn't win any Oscars, features some of my all-time favorite scenes, and there’s one that I go back to more times than not. So, you can only imagine how shocked I was when I recently discovered that this visually stunning white-knuckle action set piece was improved by a tiny yet magnificent mistake in the middle of a chaotic shoot. Let me explain…

Though The Car Chase Gets More Attention, Theo And Kree’s Escape Still Gets Me

Whenever I talk to people about Children of Men and its best scenes, more times than not, someone brings up the car chase sequence where Julianne Moore’s Julia Taylor is shockingly killed. Though that scene is an all-timer and let me know that Alfonso Cuarón’s was on a whole other level than his contemporaries, it’s still not my favorite sequence from this visually striking dystopian thriller.

Near the end of the movie, when Theo (Clive Owen) and Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) are attempting to reach the rendezvous point so that the new mother and her child can escape the U.K., they find themselves in the middle of a bloody fight between the military and refugees. The sequence ends with a jaw-dropping moment where the fighting stops due to the baby’s cries (the first anyone has heard in nearly 20 years), but the nearly nine-minute shot is a masterclass in filmmaking and intensity. And a mistake made it even better.

A Mistake In The Chaos Of Filming Made This Scene Even Better

There’s this really cool moment about a minute into the sequence where Theo is running through a bus when the camera is splattered with blood. The blood stays there for a large chunk of the scene, and so I always thought this was an intentional decision on Cuarón’s part in an attempt to make it more intense, but that wasn’t the case.

In an interview with Vulture years after the film’s release, the Academy Award-winning director revealed that this wasn’t meant to happen and that a squib went off at the wrong time, as he was going to use something similar in Julianne Moore’s death. But due to the confusion of the chaotic set, no one heard him say cut, as he explained:

While the scene would have been great even if it didn’t have the blood splatter, it added so much to the sequence and made you feel like you were part of the action (especially on the big screen). It just goes to show you that the smallest of errors can lead to something magical.

If you want to go back and watch Children of Men ahead of its 20th anniversary later this year (it’s just one of many great 2006 films worth celebrating), it’s one of the best movies available on the Criterion Channel. Maybe I’ll do that just now…

Gwyneth Paltrow is an Oscar-winning actress and the founder of Goop, who is known for occupying the big screen. Nowadays she's known for taking a step away from acting, although she returned in a big way with Marty Supreme. But she recently reflected on the early days of her career, and explained why she turned down a graphic sex scene opposite Ethan Hawke in Great Expectations. And the pair really had a good laugh about the story.

Long before her tenure as Pepper Potts in the MCU (which is streaming with a Disney+ subscription), Paltrow was a young actress working with a variety of well-known directors. That includes Alfonso Cuarón's Great Expectations, which hit theaters back in 1998. During a chat with Hawke for Vanity Fair, the two reminisced about a sex scene they originally had in the film. Paltrow recalled her initial reaction to the pitch, saying:

This is a pretty understandable reaction, even for folks who have never acted before. It takes a ton of vulnerability to do love scenes, and this was long before intimacy coordinators became a position on sets. Gwyneth was in her twenties when filming Great Expectations, and has concerns about her director father Bruce Paltrow seeing her simulate sex onscreen.

In the video, Ethan Hawke shared what Cuarón pitched for the scrapped love scene for the book to screen adaptation of Great Expectations. In his words:

While the acclaimed Y tu mamá también director had a clear vision and passion for this sequence, Paltrow's reaction was seemingly less than enthusiastic. The star of Boyhood continued the story and went on to say:

There were still some steamy scenes in this movie, but Paltrow was able to advocate for herself at a young age about things she was not comfortable doing on camera. You've got to admire her strong sense of self, as many young performers hoping to establish themselves in Hollywood might not be so brave.

Later in that same chat, Gwyneth Paltrow further explained why she was so worried about this cut sex scene when filming Great Expectations. As she put it:

This makes a great deal of sense. Paltrow has seemingly become more confident as she got older, and cared less about what her family might say about love scenes. Indeed, Gwyneth had some sex scened opposite Timothée Chalamet in Marty Supreme, making headlines in the process.

Marty Supreme is in theaters now as part of the 2025 movie release list. As for Great Expectations, it's streaming for free over on Sling TV.

On the surface the 2025 movie schedule is operating according to plan, but as always the movement going on in the shadows is equally important. Fans eagerly awaiting all things connected to James Bond 26 would know that, as recent movement has led to brand new speculation that has another Oscar-winning director is "in talks" to snag the gig. And whether or not you’re one of those fans hoping Christopher Nolan lands this job, it’s a possibility that’s equally exciting.

Alfonso Cuarón Is Supposedly In Talks For Bond 26

Amazon-MGM’s rumored Bond 26 ramp up leaves a lot of ground to be gained, especially if the 2027 release date is something those in charge want to maintain. Just as you can bet that the search for the next Commander Bond has heated up, inquiries for the next director to make it happen will also be a hotly tipped concern.

While the ever interested Christopher Nolan is still one of the favorite candidates for the gig, Cuarón has allegedly claimed that he’s in talks for the job, during a recent Masterclass for the Paris Cinema Club. Per a Twitter post from someone in attendance, this text is the source of this recent rumor:

On one hand, without video of the event, it’s kind of hard to really determine the specific context of those remarks from the Roma director. However, there are three factors that make this scenario more likely, the first of which is the recent hiring of new James Bond producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman.

Heyman’s previous collaboration with Alfonso Cuarón on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban has shown that the two parties work well together. Not to mention his reinvention of the Potter dynamic in the third film makes for a promising sign of what he could do with the James Bond legacy.

While it’s far from a done deal, the fact that the Gravity mastermind is even reportedly entertaining this idea is something - as Cuarón previously turned down a chance to dance with 007.

Christopher Nolan’s Final Cut Concerns With James Bond May No Longer Be An Issue

Per a recent report from Variety about the recent James Bond tensions that saw Amazon-MGM Studios’ creative control deal come to pass, the Tenet writer-director was still fired up to jump into the world of 00-antics. But that didn’t happen, as Nolan’s typical condition of having final cut over his projects created this dilemma:

Meanwhile, another Variety story saw Alfonso Cuarón tell an audience at the Marrakech Film Festival in 2024 that he turned down an unnamed 007 adventure for the following, similarly motivated reasons:

The common thread between directors like Cuarón and Nolan is the fact that a “Bond Film,” in its previous form, was something they'd rather observe than make. However, all that has changed after the Amazon-MGM deal installed new producers that might be open to some fresh pitches.

We’re at the dawn of a new age, however - one where Nolan, Cuarón, or even Bond 25’s original director Danny Boyle could potentially find themselves given carte blanche to revitalize the James Bond franchise. For someone who’s loved following this saga as long as I have, it sounds like the exact sort of thing this series needs to continue making cinematic history.

It’s happened before, through director Martin Campbell’s superb Casino Royale, and it’s high time we saw 007 get that sort of treatment again. Not to mention, if that example, along with the Alfonso Cuarón rumors have taught us anything, it’s that the second time around can be as beneficial for 00-directors as they can for the leading men who vie to slip into that iconic tuxedo.

It has been six long years since the brilliant Alfonso Cuaron delivered a follow-up to his masterful, Oscar-winning drama Roma, which was a deeply personal love letter to his home country, and his childhood. And if you wanted to see what Cuaron had in store, you needed an AppleTV+ subscription. That’s where Cuaron streamed the seven-part drama Disclaimer, which starred the magnificent Cate Blanchett as an award-winning journalist forced to confront a harsh memory when two people whose lives were impacted target her for revenge.

Please stop reading now if you somehow made it this far into the story without watching Disclaimer… and if you are bothered by plot details and spoilers.

The original series Disclaimer tells two versions of the same story, where Catherine (played by both Cate Blanchett and Leila George) encounters a young traveler named Jonathan (Louis Partridge) while vacationing in Italy. The duo has sex, even though Catherine is in charge of your adolescent son, Nicholas (George and Bertie Haarer). But the truth of the encounter keeps the audience guessing.

The narrative in Disclaimer builds to a harrowing water rescue. Young Nicholas, unattended, takes a boat out into the ocean. As many on the beach try to save him, Jonathan swims out to the boy. He manages to rescue him… but drowns in the process. It’s a heart-wrenching scene, filmed masterfully by Alfonso Cuaron, who uses all of his tricks to submerge us in the ocean alongside a very tired Jonathan.

When the master came on CinemaBlend’s official ReelBlend podcast to discuss his new work Disclaimer in full, we asked him about staging the ocean rescue. And we discovered that it was a LOT more complicated than one might imagine. As Cuaron told ReelBlend:

That is very much in line with the entire way that Disclaimer played with our conceptions of narratives, and reliable narrators. The show routinely shifted back and forth between the Italian incident and present day, when the impact of the affair landed on Catherine (Blanchett), as well as Jonathan’s parents (Kevin Kline, Lesley Manville). And it’s important to note that some of the recollections of the Italian incident are seen through rose-colored glasses.

But on top of all that, there are was the technical aspects of the ocean rescue, as Cuaron went on to tell us:

That’s why I love having filmmakers like Alfonso Cuaron on the ReelBlend podcast. You might have watched the boat rescue in Disclaimer and realized that it was intense. But would you ever think that the director had to move his production from Italy to South Africa so that they could shoot in a tank, protect their child actor, but still match the intensity of the natural light that already had been captured? SO crazy. And also, so awesome.

In my own opinion, Disclaimer is one of the best shows available on AppleTV+ at the moment, because of all of the talent involved. And now that you have seen it, keep talking advantage of that subscription by circling some of the upcoming AppleTV+ projects, to see what’s waiting for us in 2025 and beyond.

In modern day Hollywood, no property is safe from interpretation. Movies, television shows, and stories that we adore have the potential to be reimagined, whether they be 50 years old, 100 years old, or barely two decades old. Most of you reading this won’t be able to imagine anyone other than Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, as he captured our hearts and our imaginations over the course of the legendary film adaptations. But we’ll have to get used to a fresh face in the part, because Warner Bros. plans to approach each book with a broader scope, and adapt them into season-long TV series. That, to me, sounds equally interesting, and troubling.

We will know right away if the early Harry Potter books can sustain an entire television season. The first two books are the thinnest, with the mythology really blossoming once we reach book three, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I don’t have the strongest memory of the Prisoner of Azkaban book, but I do know that the film adaptation is my absolute favorite of the series, primarily because director Alfonso Cuaron took over from Chris Columbus, and took the material seriously, injecting maturity, danger, and dramatic stakes into the story. Cuaron also cast Gary Oldman and David Thewlis in the franchise, and showed how experimental filmmakers could elevate JK Rowling’s text.

Cuaron recently appeared on an episode of CinemaBlend’s official ReelBlend podcast to talk about his stunning AppleTV+ series Disclaimer. And when we picked his brain about handling a full season of TV for Disclaimer, we also brought up the pending Harry Potter adaptation, and his thoughts on something like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban being told over the course of several episodes. And Cuaron confessed to CinemaBlend:

This is going to be the challenge for all of the Harry Potter novels as they try and adapt them for long-form television. Yes, you can focus on every small detail that’s available in the books. But sometimes, “brewing out the essential” helps a story to move quicker. I suppose it’s possible that die-hard fans of the novels will want to see every story beat brought to life in the planned show. But I wonder how that will affect pacing.

Still, it’s comforting to hear Alfonso Cuaron verify that he thinks this can work in serialized-television form. The movies themselves had all sorts of obstacles they needed to overcome to make the adaptations soar. The TV shows can learn from those mistakes, and make some of their own mistakes. But so long as they treat the TV adaptations as a “completely different experience,” as Cuaron says, they have a good chance at creating something special.

Here's our full chat with Alfonso Cuaron on ReelBlend:

Make sure that you have your HBO Max subscription up to date, so you can binge the Harry Potter movies, and then dial into the new show once it’s finally available on the streaming service.

Filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón returns to discuss the making of his new Apple TV+ show "Disclaimer" starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, and Sacha Baron Cohen. Cuarón was the first director we ever had on the show over six years ago, and we are honored to welcome him back for his latest project. In our interview, we discuss some of the heavy topics tackled in "Disclaimer," the brilliance of Cate Blanchett as both an actor and producer, and whether or not it will be another six years before his next work.

Alfonso Cuarón directed one of the fan-favorite entries in the Harry Potter saga with "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," and. we asked what the new TV adaptation of that story could do differently than his own film. It's an interview you don't want to miss! We'll be back next week with more interviews and a full episode of the show so stay tuned.

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October rolls on, and with it, we get closer to Halloween. That means even more spooky content is coming to all the best streaming services. But don’t worry, if horror isn’t your bag, there’s still a lot more coming this week that will make your various streaming subscriptions worthwhile.

Video game fans with a Netflix subscription will want to be sure to check out what’s new on Netflix, while fans of The Simpsons will be getting something extra special for Halloween if they have a Disney+ subscription. Here’s a look at some of the interesting-looking new content streaming this week.

New TV

Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft - October 10 (Netflix)

Lara Croft has become one of the most popular video game protagonists ever, which explains why the character is being adapted for the screen by two different streaming platforms. While a live-action Tomb Raider series is currently in development at Prime Video, this week Netflix debuts an animated series with the iconic heroine voiced by the amazing Hayley Atwell.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, A New Short from The Simpsons - October 11 (Disney+)

The Simpsons and Halloween go hand in hand, and fans will get a bit of extra fun this year. While the newest entry in the Treehouse of Horror series won’t arrive until November, a new animated short for those with a Disney+ subscription, The Most Wonderful Time of Year, will see Sideshow Bob teaming up with Disney Villains. It sounds like a hilarious match which should make for some Halloween fun.

Disclaimer* - October 11 (Apple TV+)

Cate Blanchett may have flopped at the box office recently with the ill-fated Borderlands movie, but she’ll be back to doing what she does best with Disclaimer*. Blanchett plays a well-respected journalist who receives a copy of a new book that reveals a secret in her life she kept hidden for years. The series is written and directed by Oscar-winner Alfonso Cuarón.

New Movies

Caddo Lake - October 10 (Max)

The Maze Runner star Dylan O’Brien stars in Caddo Lake a new supernatural thriller that follows a family’s search for a missing eight-year-old girl. The disappearance triggers a family’s past trauma. Based on the look of the trailer, and the fact that the film is produced by M. Night Shyamalan, it appears there may be some supernatural forces at work here.

Mr. Crocket - October 11 (Hulu)

There’s something inherently creepy about a lot of children’s television. Maybe why Mr. Crocket looks so wrong. Originally a short film released by Hulu, now your Hulu subscription will give you access to a feature-length version of the story about a children’s TV host who comes out of a haunted VHS tape to steal children.

This week will also bring a new episode of Agatha All Along as well as big finale episodes on Apple TV+ for the newest season of Slow Horses as well Bad Monkey starring Vince Vaughn.

In 2013 Alfonso Cuaròn’s Gravity won several Oscars in technical categories thanks to the way it created a true feeling that Sandra Bullock was alone in the vacuum of space. Gravity was seen as a major special effects achievement that pushed the boundaries of what we thought filmmaking could do, and it turns out that basically nobody, including James Cameron, thought it would be possible to do in this way.

Cuaròn recently discussed his attempt to get Gravity made. After coming up with the story and the screenplay the Children of Men director realized he wasn’t sure how to actually make the movie with the available technology. He went to two other accomplished directors, David Fincher and James Cameron. Per what he revealed to Deadline, the first told him it simply couldn’t be done. The second told him it could be done, but it was going to make it the most expensive movie ever made at the time. Cuaròn explained…

One of the biggest issues for the director was that his last film Children of Men had been a financial flop (though critically acclaimed). The simple fact was that, while a studio might give James Cameron $400 million to make a movie, they weren’t going to give that kind of money to Alfonso Cuaròn, especially at that moment in time.

While movie budgets are never publicly disclosed, it’s estimated that Gravity actually cost somewhere around $100 million, with $20 million for Sandra Bullock's salary. While actual space programs cost less, whatever James Cameron had in mind for making the film would have quadrupled the budget. It would have made the production more expensive than Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which was -- at the time -- recognized as the most expensive movie ever.

The director did eventually find his “own way,” utilizing new technologies as well as animation to put Sandra Bullock in the darkness of space. Those methods weren't without their own costs. Robert Downey Jr. was originally going to co-star in Gravity, but he had to drop out because he had difficulty with some of the techniques being used for the zero gravity effects. George Clooney would replace him.

While test audiences, who saw incomplete visual effects, were apparently less than thrilled, when the movie was actually done and being shown at festivals, things changed. Gravity would go on to gross over $700 million on its $100 million budget. That’s a blockbuster success story if ever there was one. If the director had wanted to make $400 million movie at that point, he might have had a shot.

The directors on this list are among the greatest in the history of cinema, with films that are considered the best of all time; films that will never be forgotten. What about those movies they brought all their tremendous talents to, but which aren’t remembered as well? Here is our list of great movies, by great directors, that don’t get talked about enough these days. 

The Frighteners - Peter Jackson

The Frighteners is such a great movie, and it’s criminally underrated. No, it's not as sprawling or overwhelming as Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, but it has all the heart and more. Michael J. Fox leads as a con man/exorcist who can see and interact with ghosts. The Frightners is really funny, well-paced, and delightful. 

The King Of Comedy - Martin Scorsese 

When you think of Martin Scorsese, “comedy” is not usually the first word that pops into your head, but The King Of Comedy is really a pretty great movie, and while it’s technically a comedy, it’s really dark. Goodfellas has some comedy in it, like Joe Pesci acting like a clown… but a true (dark) comedy? This Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis-led film stands alone in Scorsese’s canon. 

Peggy Sue Got Married - Francis Ford Coppola

Peggy Sue Got Married is a deceptively simple film. Unlike Francis Ford Coppola’s more-talked-about epics like The Godfather films and Apocalypse Now, this film, starring Nicolas Cage and Kathleen Turner, is smaller, but that doesn’t mean it’s lesser. It’s a weird time-travel tale, but at its heart, it’s really a love story, and while it's not Coppola’s best work, it’s well worth a watch and should be talked about more often. 

Jackie Brown - Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Taratino has famously said that his next movie, his 10th, could be his last. Whether that holds true or not remains to be seen, but it’s a safe bet Jackie Brown will still be his least talked about.

Strange Days - Kathryn Bigelow

Kathryn Bigelow’s won Oscars (for The Hurt Locker) and she’s directed cult classics (Point Break). Strange Days is certainly closer to the latter. In it, Bigelow dabbles in science fiction, a rarity for her, but it’s unsurprising, as Strange Days was written by her then-husband James Cameron. It doesn’t have the iconic quotes that Point Break has, nor is it as white-knuckle as The Hurt Locker, but it is a great time capsule to filmmaking in the mid-90s and well worth remembering. 

Amistad - Steven Spielberg

Wedged between The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Saving Private Ryan in Steven Spielberg’s filmography, is Amistad. It’s easy to understand why this powerful historical drama revolving around a landmark court case regarding the slave trade is overlooked, but it shouldn’t be. It’s a moving story, told expertly as only Spielberg can, with a monster cast including Matthew McConaughey, Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Freeman, and Djimon Hounsou, among many others. 

Clockers - Spike Lee

Let’s be clear here, Clockers is not Spike Lee’s finest work. It doesn’t reach the heights of movies like Do The Right Thing or Malcolm X, but it's still a really good movie. It gets lost in Lee’s stellar filmography, which is understandable. It’s also a testament to just how good Lee’s career has been. 

Talk Radio - Oliver Stone

Talk Radio has everything you expect from an Oliver Stone movie. Its pacing and storytelling are perfect, it’s a fascinating and terrifying story that pulls from the real-world events of a murdered radio show host. It also has a healthy dose of conspiracy, as any great Stone film does. 

The Bling Ring - Sofia Coppola

Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring is a meta-tastic heist film that is not only a ton of fun to watch with celebrity cameos and great acting performances, but it also touches on some of the emerging trends that exploded in the years after the movie came out, notably influencer culture. It’s too often overlooked in Coppola’s stellar filmography. 

The Game - David Fincher

David Fincher is a master, and his filmography is full of great movies, like Se7en and Fight Club. The movie he made between those two classic is The Game with Sean Penn and Michael Douglas. Understandably, it’s overshadowed, but it’s an amazing film that is every bit as good as those two more talked-about movies. Even when people watch Fincher’s whole body of work, The Game gets overlooked and it shouldn’t. 

Casualties Of War - Brian De Palma

Casualties of War was released in 1989, which was the tail end of a slew of excellent Vietnam War movies released in the late ‘80s, like Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and Hamburger Hill. Despite earning well-deserved praise from critics, the Brian De Palma film bombed, and as such, it's unfortunately one of the director’s least talked about movies when it should be one of the most. 

Matchstick Men - Ridley Scott

Usually, when movie fans talk about Ridley Scott, it’s his sprawling historical epics like Gladiator or Napoleon that dominate the conversation, along with sci-fi classics like Alien and Blade Runner. Matchstick Men is a smaller movie, a dark comedy about a con man with a myriad of personal problems played by Nicolas Cage. It’s a wonderful performance by Cage, and despite not performing well at the box office, it’s been well-reviewed over the years.

Inherent Vice - Paul Thomas Anderson

Inherent Vice from Paul Thomas Anderson is a complicated movie, based on a complicated book by Thomas Pinchon. It’s easy to understand why it’s not as talked about as some of Anderson’s other movies, like There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights, but it’s every bit as good as those, featuring great acting performances and wonderful cinematography. 

Out Of Sight - Steven Soderbergh

Steven Soderberg is known for stylish filming techniques with snappy dialog and interesting plot twists. It’s all right there in Out Of Sight, but the movie still gets overlooked. It was Soderbergh’s first big-budget film, and maybe that’s why it doesn’t get talked about enough. It was also his first collaboration with George Clooney, which makes it even more confounding that it’s not more popular. 

Barry Lyndon - Stanley Kubrick

It’s hard to really argue that any of Stanley Kubrick’s films are not talked about enough, but Barry Lyndon comes the closest here. It’s most revered for its cinematography, but it’s also a wonderful story. While it doesn’t have the panache of A Clockwork Orange or the scope of 2001: A Space Odyssey, it’s still a Kubrick film and it’s one of the best ever made. 

Stardust - Matthew Vaughn

Matthew Vaughn has quietly put together one of the finest resumes in Hollywood. The Kingsman movies are a hot franchise, he’s dabbled in Marvel, and may have inspired the choice of Daniel Craig as James Bond after directing him in Layer Cake. Stardust seems to get lost in the shuffle, but it’s maybe, low key, his best film. 

Ryan's Daughter - David Lean

David Lean is rightfully most remembered for three films, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago. Lost in the discussion of those films is Ryan’s Daughter, a retelling of Madame Bovary set at the end of World War I. It was the last film Lean directed for 14 years and we can only wonder what he might have done had he not semi-retired. 

Fantastic Mr. Fox - Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson has developed one of the most distinct styles in film history, which translates brilliantly to animation, as well. Anderson’s first foray into the genre was Fantastic Mr. Fox, starring George Clooney, Meryl Streep, and Bill Murray, among others. While it may never outshine his live-action classics, it should be discussed more as one of his best works. 

Bound - The Wachowskis

The DNA of the Wachowskis is very evident in Bound, their first movie. It was made on a shoestring budget, so it doesn’t have the over-the-top effects of The Matrix series, but you can see where they were headed in their filmmaking. 

Intolerable Cruelty - Coen Brothers

When you have a filmography like the Coen Brothers, inevitably, some of the movies won’t get talked about as much as others. Intolerable Cruelty is one of those that gets lost in the mix, behind movies like The Big Lebowski and others that are among the best movies of the ‘90s and beyond. 

Insomnia - Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan is among the most beloved directors of the 21st century, creating what feels like independent films, but with monster budgets. That DNA was on display early in his career with Insomnia, which has everything you’d expect from a Nolan movie, but with less than half the budget of Oppenheimer. 

The Fan - Tony Scott

There are few better action directors in Hollywood history than Tony Scott. Most remembered today for classics like Top Gun, and Days of Thunder, The Fan should be talked about more. It’s not a perfect movie, but De Niro’s performance is terrifying (in a great way) as a baseball fan obsessed with Wesley Snipes' character. It’s action horror, and it’s great. 

Vincent And Theo - Robert Altman

Robert Altman had one of the most up-and-down careers in Hollywood history. After a string of successes in the ‘80s, his career was almost sunk by Popeye. It took years for him to rebound, but he did with Vincent & Theo. That led to a career revival, but it’s hardly remembered anymore, overshadowed by his early and later films. 

She's Having A Baby - John Hughes

One of the biggest reasons John Hughes is so loved by people who came of age in the ‘80s and ‘90s was his ability to write and direct genuine teenage characters. That extended to a young married couple starting their lives together in She’s Having A Baby. It’s not as quotable as some of Hughes’ other movies, but it’s still sharply written and a fun watch. 

Only The Lonely - Chris Columbus

Chris Columbus has some directed some huge films in his career, most notably Home Alone and Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone. He's also got movies like Mrs. Doubtfire and Adventures in Babysitting on his resume. One film that is not talked about enough is Only The Lonely starring John Candy as a man looking for a wife, but dealing with a controlling mother. 

Beowulf - Robert Zemeckis

Generations of high schoolers have been confounded and frustrated by Beowulf. Some love the old English classic, but many hate it. It takes a bold director to take it on as a movie. Robert Zemeckis makes it work, and work well. Still, given the material, it’s not a surprise it’s not talked about as much as Zemeckis’ more popular movies like Back to the Future. 

Great Expectations - Alfonso Cuaron

Director Alfonso Cuaron has made some of the best movies of the last 20 years, including Roma, Gravity, and Y tu mamá también. One of his films that doesn’t get talked about much anymore is 1998’s Great Expectations starring Gwenyth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke. It’s a bold modernization of the classic Dickens novel that can be polarizing, but still worth talking about more.

Ed Wood - Tim Burton

Of all the movies Tim Burton has made, it’s unsurprising that Ed Wood is one of his least discussed. It’s a love letter to legendary B-Movie director Ed Wood, and despite being filled to the brim with great performances, it's not as popular as many of Burton’s other works. 

Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil - Clint Eastwood

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is not exactly the kind of film you might expect from Clint Eastwood, but you should. Some of his best work is when he strays away from the tough guy movies he’s so well known for and this is a great one, starring John Cusack and Kevin Spacey. 

Away We Go - Sam Mendes

Sam Mendes is best known for movies that cover heavy topics, movies like American Beauty, 1917, and Road to Perdition. That's probably the reason 2009's Away We Go with John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph isn't talked about as much, but it's a sweet movie about a couple dealing with major changes in their life and how to handle them. 

Sleepers - Barry Levinson

Sleepers is a dark, dark film. It's also really, really good. With an all-star cast that includes Brad Pitt, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Kevin Bacon, and many more, it's surprising it doesn't get talked about as much as some of director Barry Levinson's other work, but given the subject matter, it can be a very hard watch.  

High Anxiety - Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks is a living legend and his filmography is filled with some of the most quotable movies of all time. One that doesn't get quoted much, or even talked about much, is High Anxiety. It was, believe it or not, the first time Mel Brooks also played the lead in one of his movies, so that alone should garner more attention. 

Great directors usually have long filmographies, so it's only natural that some of their finest work would be talked about less than their most groundbreaking or biggest films. That said, many movies should be talked about as much as those classics, but aren't. Here's to that changing now! 

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter has entertained the public for decades now, starting with J.K. Rowling’s novels, and expanding to movies, video games, and theme parks. The eight-film Harry Potter movie franchise has remained a vital part of pop culture, with the cast still closely associated with their signature characters. That includes Ron Weasley himself, Rupert Grint, who confirmed a totally on-brand story about him, Emma Watson, and Daniel Radcliffe. Because sometimes life imitates art.

Moviegoers watched the trio of leading Harry Potter actors grow up before our eyes, as they starred in eight movies across a decade of time. And while they’ve all gone on to great things in their adulthood, they’re often fielding questions about their time at Hogwarts. Rupert Grint recently appeared on British GQ, where he answered questions about him from the internet. One is a viral story about the set of The Prisoner of Azkaban, where director Alfonso Cuarón asked the trio to write an essay about their character. In the story Emma Watson wrote 16 pages, Daniel Radcliffe wrote one paragraph, and Grint failed to turn in anything at all. The Servant actor responded honestly about this claim, saying:

Well, there you have it. It looks like Rupert Grint did indeed blow off an assignment from director Alfonso Cuarón while working on Harry Potter 3. Although the 34 year-old actor has a few reasons why he decided to skip out. Still, it really is funny to see how close he and his co-stars really were to their Wizarding World characters at the time. 

Rupert Grint’s comments to GQ come as he’s promoting his role in M. Night Shyamalan’s new thriller Knock at the Cabin. But as his press tours are wont to do, eventually the conversation (unsurprisingly) turned to Harry Potter. While he, Watson, and Radcliffe were starring in a global film franchise, they were still just kids. And sometimes kids skip out on their homework, especially when dealing with other stressors.

Later in that same video, Rupert Grint went on to share why Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was such a major change for the franchise. He gives Alfonso Cuarón the credit for bringing in a more adult feeling to the Wizarding World, and for digging deeper into the universe as a whole. As he put it,

He’s not wrong. Harry Potter 3 saw the students of Hogwarts looking more disheveled, and even wearing muggle clothes. Each character got a custom wand design, and Alfonso seemingly put in a big effort with the young cast at the time... even if Rupert Grint sometimes went full on Ron Weasley and didn’t always do his homework. You can watch Rupert Grint answering the internet’s questions about him below, courtesy of British GQ. 

Rupert Grint was recently able to reunite with the rest of his magical co-stars thanks to the streaming event Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts. Fans are also wondering if they might once again join forces to adapt the Cursed Child plays for film, but there’s currently no plans for that to come to fruition. In the meantime, the leading trio is definitely keeping busy.

Knock at the Cabin will hit theaters on February 3rd. Rupert Grint is also starring in Servant on Apple TV+, which is airing its final season now. In the meantime, check out the 2023 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience.

In just a few years, Children of Men, the Alfonso Cuaron-directed the sci-fi tale starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine and Chiwetel Ejiofor, will cross the barrier that we’ve already hit with Back to the Future Part II and Blade Runner, where we surpass the future date the movie is set in.

Of course, that will hopefully be a good thing, as Children of Men doesn’t have the most joyous of futuristic qualities like Back to the Future’s hoverboard or self-lacing Nikes - or even Blade Runner’s flying cars - instead telling a bleak, but ultimately hopeful, story of trying to protect the first child born in nearly 20 years.

Children of Men is celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2021, and while some find the story to hit harder now, let’s use this chance to celebrate Cuaron and company's work on the intricate, dour, and epic story with some Children of Men behind-the-scene facts.

Cuaron Nixed Any High-Concept Designs To Create A More Broken-Down Future

A lot of science-fiction films conceive of set designs and technologies that portray stunning advancements, but that wasn’t what Alfonso Cuaron was looking for with Children of Men. When setting the film in 2027 - 21 years ahead of when it was made - Cuaron specifically sought a future that would be recognizable and rundown; ignored by a world that’s future is non-existent without children.

This meant that the art department team had to forgo their first instincts. In an interview with Brad Brevet, Cuaron describes meeting with the art department and seeing their concept drawings from other sci-fi films they had worked on, featuring supersonic cars and cool gadgets.

Cuaron had to say no to all of these, as the film that he had in mind was more reminiscent of war-torn and refugee countries like Iraq, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland, and the nuclear disaster site, Chernobyl. He described the look that he wanted not as imagination, but as “reference;” with the world being immediately recognizable to the audience.

Clive Owen Nearly Starred in Blood Diamond Before Joining Children of Men

Clive Owen was having a big moment from 2004-2005. He earned rave reviews and an Oscar nomination for the Mike Nichols’ film Closer, and then had one of the key roles in the hugely popular adaptation of Sin City. Not surprisingly, Owen was in demand, but had he veered left instead of right, we may not have seen him as Children of Men’s Theo.

In a 2017 interview with Vulture looking back at the making of Children of Men, Alfonso Cuaron revealed that his leading man was almost cast in the Blood Diamond role that went to Leonardo DiCaprio. Ultimately Owen picked Children of Men, and as he tells it, Cuaron was the motivating factor, saying that he was on his list of directors he wanted to work with.

Michael Caine Based His Character On John Lennon

Another key pickup for the cast was Michael Caine, who has the supporting role of Jasper, Theo’s long-time friend and outlet. Jasper is also a bit of a hippie who loves to smoke pot and who was a bit different from Caine himself, who tends to be more conservative. So, he found inspiration in the form of John Lennon.

Caine, who rose to fame right around the same time as The Beatles, became close friends with Lennon, bonding over their working class upbringings and a shared sense of humor, Caine wrote in his autobiography.

When Caine pitched basing Jasper on John Lennon, Cuaron loved the idea, as he recalled to Vulture. The look of Jasper certainly is reminiscent of Lennon, with the long hair and beard.

The Production Team Created Every Single Newspaper Used In Julianne Moore’s Introduction Scene

Early on in the movie, Theo is captured by members of the anti-government group the Fishes as part of a plan to rendezvous with Julian, his estranged partner and leader of the Fishes. This meeting takes place in a shed covered from top to bottom in old newspapers. Beyond the fact that these guys are still getting a printed newspaper in 2027 (something we may sadly lose before then), what’s crazy about this set design was that the production crafted each and every story on those newspaper pages.

Of course, someone as detailed as Alfonso Cuaron wasn’t going to just let the pages be gibberish and not having any meaning to the story. As described in a special feature on the Children of Men DVD, the production crew had to write headlines and stories for each piece of paper used on the set, basing them all on what kind of stories may have happened in the years leading up to the events of Children of Men. This often includes terrorist attacks, refugee crises and, of course, infertility.

Next time you watch Children of Men see what stories you can spot in the scene.

One Of The Film’s Long-Takes Happened Because No One Heard Cuaron Say Cut

Perhaps the biggest hallmark of Children of Men is the multiple one-shot scenes it has throughout. Alfonso Cuaron and Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki were meticulous and innovative when it came to capturing these scenes, which would run for several minutes (Lubezki would top even this with Birdman appearing as one continuous sequence). However, one of the one-shot scenes that appears in the movie was the result of nobody hearing Cuaron say “cut.”

In the last act of the film, when all Hell breaks loose in the refugee camp, we get an extended one-shot scene following Theo as he tracks down and rescues Kee and the baby. Cuaron said in multiple interviews they had about 14 days to shoot the scene, but because of all the things that are going on, it took four to five hours to set up, meaning, at best, they could get two shots a day. Even worse, Cuaron says 12 days into their allotted time they hadn’t even rolled the cameras yet.

The scene was finally ready to go on the afternoon of the 13th day, but the first take only went about a minute before Cuaron called cut. The next - and final - day their first take is going nearly perfect, but the camera operator trips. There was just one last chance to get the shot.

Here’s what happened on that final take, according to Cuaron via the Vulture interview:

Cuaron further explained that they planned to have a blood splatter on the camera (through digital effects) for the earlier one-shot where Julianne Moore’s character dies, but Chivo recognized that it fit perfectly in this instance and that’s what made it into the film.

The Child Birthing Scene Was An Improvised One-Shot Take

Despite the amount of planning that went into crafting each one-shot scene in Children of Men, sometimes you just have to go with your gut, and that is what Alfonso Cuaron did when he decided to make the scene when Kee gives birth another one-shot take.

Clive Owen told Collider that it wasn’t until they got to the set to shoot the child birthing scene that Cuaron decided he wanted to do it as one-shot. Owen describes the decision as part of Cuaron’s effort to viscerally put the audience into the action by doing as much in real-time as possible and avoid potentially manipulative cuts.

The Baby Was Created By Combining A Doll And CGI Tracking

So, where did the Children of Men baby come from? Well, when a mommy and da -- wait, sorry. In this case, the baby was a combination of an animatronic doll and CGI technology.

On the Children of Men DVD, a special feature details the creation of the baby as the one-shot plays out. After Kee is laid on the mat and Theo takes their guide to the door, crew members put Clare-Hope Ashitey in a special rig that would allow them to simulate childbirth. When the moment came, out came the animatronic baby for the actors to hold. The special effects team then used CGI tracking on the doll so that they could then provide realistic movement.

Banksy Almost Provided Artwork For Children Of Men

One artistic feature that didn’t come to fruition in Children of Men was having artist Banksy create special artwork which would be scattered throughout the film.

Cuaron, again to Vulture, said that he was a fan of Banksy while he was still just coming onto the scene in East London. He managed to get in touch with his manager and they met for coffee, though it turned out to be an odd, ideological interview, according to Cuaron, with the manager sitting behind him and asking questions; on brand for Banksy's reputation as an unpredictable artist.

Ultimately, Banksy did not sign onto the project, though he did allow for one of his existing murals to be used in the background of a scene, which fittingly enough is a preserved piece in the Ministry of Art Theo visits in the film.

Children of Men is available to stream now for free on Peacock. You can also listen to the ReelBlend interview with Alfonso Cuaron from 2019.

It was a cold and rainy January 2007 afternoon when a college buddy and I took advantage of a cancelled class and went to our local theater to watch Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men. As a freshman in college who was two months away from his 19th birthday, I wasn't ready for what was about to unfold before my eyes over the course of the next two hours, and honestly, I don't think I was actually ready for everything this bleak yet incredibly beautiful piece of dystopian art had to offer until much later in life.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved Children of Men and it has remained one of my favorite movies since that fateful wintry afternoon in that cheap matinée screening, but I don't think I GOT the film and its messages until a recent viewing. In those 13 years since I first watched Clive Owen's Theo Faron go from a broken down man with nothing to lose or gain to someone who would sacrifice everything for humanity, I've graduated from college, gotten married, become a father, and experienced one of the worst global crises in generations. To say my perspective on life has changed would be cutting myself short.

That most recent viewing absolutely shook me to my core and had an impact on me like I have never experienced. Blame it on emotions running high, blame it on everything going on around me, or blame it on Alfonso Cuarón's intimate story of hope in the face of despair, but this movie hit me harder now than ever before.

How The Death Of His Son Changed Theo

By the time we catch up with Theo Faron in the opening scene of Children of Men, life as he once knew it is long gone, his son has been dead for nearly 20 years, and his marriage to Julian Taylor (Julianne Moore) is all but a distant memory. The thing is, we don't know that until later in the film, leaving our first few minutes with the clearly broken man trying to figure out the how and why of his downtrodden nature and reliance on a pint of booze in his coat-pocket to get him by in life. When I first saw the movie, I thought that Theo was just the typical anti-hero who never got over the loss of a child. That all changed on my recent viewing.

I have never gone through the experience of losing a child, and so I hopefully never understand the pain, grief, or guilt clearly visible in Clive Owen's portrayal of Theo, but having children of my own I now empathize with the broken shell of a man. In late 2019, my daughter broke her leg at a birthday party, and while that's different than say dying of the flu, I felt like I failed her as a parent as she let out the most heartbreaking cries I've ever heard. As parents, we're supposed to protect our children, and in that situation, I felt like I was to blame for the break. Multiply that feeling of failure and helplessness to the nth degree and you have Theo's shattered and closed-off mindset.

How Meeting A Pregnant Kee Changed Theo

When Theo is first contacted (or kidnapped) by his estranged wife Julian in the early goings of Children of Men, he only goes through the process of securing transit papers so that he could earn some much-needed funds. All of that begins to change, however, when Theo, Kee (Clare-Hop Ashitey), Luke (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and Miriam (Pam Ferris) survive the ambush that claims the life of Julian in the process. This used to be my favorite scene in the movie just from a filmmaking standpoint, but now the part that hits me the most is what follows a few minutes later.

When the survivors of the ambush make it back to the compound to rest up, Kee reveals to Theo that she is pregnant, not so much as telling him, but displays the first baby bump the world has seen in 18 years. At that moment, Theo is transformed from a broken man fumbling through life to a protector that will do anything (and I mean anything) to protect Kee and her unborn child. Watching that scene as a parent helped me finally realize that the part of Theo's heart long thought to be dead was alive and well. The gravity of the situation is inescapable at this point and starts the brilliant second-half redemption story of Theo and humanity as a whole.

The Accuracy And Honesty of The Film's Depiction Of A Global Crisis

The first time I saw Children of Men, I had never lived in a world that was going through global criss as severe and devastating as the one in the movie, but little did I know that 13 years later I would find myself in the middle of one of the biggest pandemics in generations. Watching the movie during the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed the way I think about Alfonso Cuarón's depiction of a global crisis — both the good and the bad.

On one side you have the abandonment of hope and freedom in Cuarón's vision of 2027 England with the refugee crisis, military forces setting a checkpoints, and a general sense of despair that's ultimately leading towards violence. Back in 2007 I thought that nothing like this would be possible outside of war-torn nations, but here we are in 2020 with the fear and uncertainty in the wake of a devastating and mysterious pandemic. It's a tough pill to swallow, but the depiction of the global crisis brought on by widespread infertility in the dystopian science-fiction thriller doesn't look all that far-fetched.

On the other hand, however, we see throughout the movie that there are scores of people who care and will do anything and everything to turn the page and bring back something that has been missing for quite some time: coming together in an attempt to get things back to normal or at least as close to normal as possible. Watching people like Julian reaching out to Theo (who she hadn't seen in years) to help get Kee to safety is not too far off from what we saw at the beginning of our current situation where people who hadn't spoken in years called, texted, or messaged long-lost friends and family members just to see how they were doing, proving that we can't do this alone.

The Importance Of Hope

At the very core of it, Children of Men is a story about the importance of hope, and that message resonates with me more now than ever before. From the beginning of the movie, the audience is thrown into a depressing and seemingly hopeless environment, but over time (and the introduction of the Kee's pregnancy) we see what the movie is all about. During my most recent viewing of this great work of art, I was brought to tears by the scene where Kee delivers the baby and she and Theo continue their journey to safety. As they walk through the violent confrontation between the military and armed rebels, the world gets its first glimpse of the first newborn in nearly 20 years and everything stops. It's dead silent as everyone catches a glimpse of the hope and innocence of the child.

I openly wept as Kee and her daughter were guided through the bombed-out apartment building as they sought safety and refuge mostly because we are all looking for a shred of hope, no matter how small or short-lived it may be (the fighting almost immediately starts up after they pass). As we continue to push forward and remain hopeful during these trying times, we are all looking for something to rely on and something to look forward to, and this has shown me the importance of hope because it's what keeps us going.

A lot has changed in my personal life as well as the world around me since I first saw Children of Men back on that cold January 2007 afternoon, and despite the emotional toll it had on me, I can honestly say I've never appreciated it as much as I do now. How about you? Has the way this movie, or any other movie actually, changed since you first saw it? Make sure to sound off and share your stories in the comments below.

The Harry Potter franchise brought aboard four different filmmakers during the course of the eight films, with one of the most notable being Alfonso Cuarón. The Academy Award-winning director helmed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which is regarded by many to be the best film in the franchise. While it’s hard to argue with how Cuarón’s work turned out, it turns out Warner Bros. was initially courting another filmmaker for the job.

Murder on the Orient Express director Kenneth Branagh, who also played Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, confirmed that he was once in talks to direct a Harry Potter film. However, nothing ever became concrete:

While confirming to Collider that Azkaban would have likely been the project, he definitely thinks Warner Bros.’ ultimate choice worked out well in the long run:

Kenneth Branagh is right, as Alfonso Cuarón’s work on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban cannot be understated. The film not only served as a strong entry in the series, but it also served as a stark turning point for the franchise, in terms of both storytelling and aesthetic. Following Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter entered darker territory that was much more mature than the relative lightness of the early films.

Cuarón was definitely a great fit for the job, but one could argue that Kenneth Branagh could have also brought something interesting to Azakaban or any Harry Potter film for that matter.

Over the years, Branagh has definitely proven himself to be a capable director and one who enjoys doing adaptations. Some may not have enjoyed his version of Artemis Fowl, but his big-screen versions of Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing are proof that he can take material and successfully translate it to other mediums.

In addition, Branagh also has experience working with effects-heavy blockbusters. Most no doubt know that he directed 2011’s Thor and successfully brought the God of Thunder into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the public eye. With this, he likely would have had no trouble managing the technical aspects of the Harry Potter films.

It’s interesting to consider what Kenneth Branagh may have done with a Harry Potter film, especially when you consider his body of work. The chances of him directing something connected to the Wizarding World may seem slim at this point, but at least he did manage to carve out a place for himself in the fan-favorite franchise.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is currently available to stream on HBO Max.

In addition to the esteemed guidance of developer and executive producer Jon Favreau, The Mandalorian has been blessed with an outstanding variety of talents in the director’s chair. The likes of prestigious TV director Deborah Chow (set to executive produce the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi solo series), Thor: Ragnarok’s Taika Waititi (also the voice of robot IG-11), Bryce Dallas Howard (outdoing her own father on a Star Wars project) and other directors were at the helm of at least one episode of the Disney+ exclusive’s premiere season.

With Season 2 approaching not fast enough, one of the things we are excited to see (in addition to Pedro Pascal’s interstellar bounty hunter/adoptive father back in action) is who will filling in for directorial duties for future episodes. We have heard that Star Wars veterans Rian Johnson and J.J. Abrams have expressed interest, but considering The Mandalorian seems to have benefited greatly from welcoming in new blood to a galaxy far, far away, perhaps the series should continue to honor that tradition.

With that in mind, I have compiled a collection of names who would be perfect to direct a future episode. Not only would their directorial vision appropriately match the tone of The Mandalorian, but they may bring the already exciting storytelling to new heights.

David Fincher

Lately, David Fincher has made television his primary focus, serving as executive producer on several Netflix series, such as Mindhunter or Love, Death & Robots, so why not bring him over to Disney+ for an especially intense episode or two of The Mandalorian? Fincher might be the last name you would think to associate with the streaming service considering a more prevalent trend of cynicism throughout the Fight Club director’s career. However, if you recall, he got his start directing music videos for the likes of Paula Abdul and Madonna and made a seamless transition to lighter fair with the magical The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, so I do not think Baby Yoda’s cuteness will be threatened by the director’s touch.

Patty Jenkins

Also known for having a dark vision is Patty Jenkins, especially from her brutal, Oscar-winning Aileen Wuornos biopic Monster, but the filmmaker has more eclectic talents than many might realize, having also directed episodes of Arrested Development and Entourage. Not only could Jenkins balance The Mandalorian’s humorous moments with its more prevalently earnest tone, but also apply the same magnetic energy she brought to Wonder Woman for its action sequences. Plus, it would make for a pleasant reunion with Pedro Pascal, whom she directed in the 2015 TV movie Exposed.

Alfonso Cuaron

I cannot recall a more masterful depiction of the perils of outer space than Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, which is why I would argue that the visceral sense of interstellar danger in The Mandalorian could definitely benefit from the four-time Oscar-winning, Mexican-born filmmaker’s distinguished imagination. Like how he rejuvenated the Harry Potter franchise with his dazzling third installment, Cuaron could bring a unique sense of style that no Star Wars project has ever seen before. Just the thought of a seamless, single-shot battle sequence between Mando’s Razor Crest and an Imperial ship (from an episode shot all in real-time) is enough to have me begging for it to become a reality.

Kathryn Bigelow

Speaking of interstellar danger, the name of the franchise is Star Wars, right? Yet, rarely have any of the films or related properties -- The Mandalorian included -- truly captured the reality of combat, like how Kathryn Bigelow did with 2009’s The Hurt Locker, resulting in her Best Director Oscar (the first awarded to a woman). Full disclosure: I am not one to necessarily promote graphic violence, especially on Disney+, but The Mandalorian has come closer to that than any live action program on the streaming service and fans are hoping to see Season 2 up the ante. Bigelow’s vision would be just what the series needs to get that extra boost of authenticity to its shootouts.

Denis Villeneuve

I do not believe there is a more dignified voice in sci-fi cinema than Denis Villeneuve, as the French-Canadian filmmaker made clear to me with the astounding achievements of Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. With his upcoming Dune update being referred to as “Star Wars for adults,” I am amazed he had not been considered to be a part of the franchise before. Tapping him to bring his gift for complex, rawly emotional narrative and intoxicating aesthetics to at least one episode of The Mandalorian would be a sufficient test run before, maybe, giving hm his own spin-off trilogy?

Jennifer Kent

“Mando” is a bounty hunter of exceptional boldness and pristine ability, so much so that I believe we have still have yet to see his skills put to the ultimate test. If Australian filmmaker Jennifer Kent (whom you may know from her 2014 horror masterpiece The Babadook) put Pedro Pascal’s hero on a pursuit as hellish as the vengeful heroine of her 2019 period drama The Nightingale endures, that would make for one relentlessly gripping journey.

Phil Lord & Christopher Miller

Whatever your opinion of Ron Howard’s take on Solo: A Star Wars Story may be, you got to feel bad for how things ended for its initial helmers, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. The duo behind instant classics 21 Jump Street and The LEGO Movie must have had a refreshing vision for the Han Solo origin story that might not be exactly what the world of The Mandalorian asks for, but, like everything else they do, they could easily figure out how to perfect it. Giving them another shot at their own Star Wars epic (without too much creative stifling) with an episode of the series would be more than Lord and Miller fans could ask for.

Steven Spielberg

Of all the names I have listed here, no one is more qualified to take the journey to a galaxy far, far away than the single most important filmmaker of the last 50 years. While he might be hesitant to take the job out of loyalty to his friend and co-creator of Indiana Jones, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg has the fantastic scope, brimming ingenuity, and undeniable passion for out-of-this-world storytelling that no one else can master quite the same. Therefore, no episode of The Mandalorian may be as unequivocally adventurous, magical, or simply epic as his.

Do you believe these cinematic titans are the right fit for The Mandalorian, or is there someone else you feel deserves the honor more? Let us know and be sure to check back for more updates on the Star Wars spin-off series here on CinemaBlend.

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2018 marked some pretty important milestones in Netflix’s history of original films, as director Alfonso Cuarón’s intimate portrait Roma was the first original from the streaming service to be nominated for the honor of Best Picture. This eventually lead to the film being selected as a Criterion Collection release for home video, which includes the documentary Camino A Roma, which translates to the English title Road To Roma.

Recently released into the Netflix library, Road To Roma is a deeper look into the process and intent behind Cuarón’s vision for Roma. Showing footage from a one-on-one interview, as well as the shooting of the film itself, it’s a firm reminder of just how amazing the movie is.

It’s through this documentary that a lot of different and insightful facts are revealed, several of which we’ve pulled out of Camino A Roma as examples of things we learned from the experience. While this isn’t a totally comprehensive list, as there’s a lot to learn, here’s what we found to be most insightful.

Camino A Roma Might Be The First Criterion Special Feature To Arrive On Netflix

Our first factoid isn’t in the film, but instead comes from its existence. As listed in the description for Road To Roma, this special feature is part of the Criterion Collection’s physical home video release of Roma, which is currently available on the market.

As both Netflix and Criterion have started a relationship that will see future home video releases of originals like The Irishman and Marriage Story, we might get to see more special features like these on the streaming side in the future.

Alfonso Cuarón Didn’t Initially Want To Write A Screenplay For Roma

When crafting the story for Roma, Alfonso Cuarón didn’t want to stick to a standard cinematic narrative. In fact, when describing his process, the writer/director mentioned the following as his intent:

Eventually, Alfonso Cuarón would write a screenplay for Roma. However, he had his own ways of making sure the film’s reality

Cuarón Skipped His Usually Meticulous Research For Roma

If there’s a driving factor for what Roma became, it’s the concept of memory. Alfonso Cuarón didn’t dive into any sort of deep research he did on films such as Children of Men or Gravity. Rather, the sort of authenticity that Roma was trying to build was the world as Cuarón remembered growing up in.

The lack of research not only helped him feel like the movie was more real, but it helped Alfonso Cuarón feel out the story. Even smaller details, like the messiness of the family fridge and what sort of food containers were inside, was orchestrated by Cuarón’s memories.

Alfonso Cuarón Actually Cast His Childhood Nanny In Some Earlier Films

In the story of Roma, Alfonso Cuarón’s functional lead character, Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) was based off of a real figure in Cuarón’s childhood. Nanny Liboria “Libo” Rodriguez, the woman who helped take care of Alfonso as a child, actually played a nanny in an early Cuarón masterpiece: the Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal starring dramedy Y Tu Mama Tambien.

Her character looked after Diego Luna’s protagonist, Tenoch, and her big scene is actually shown in Road To Roma. In addition to that particular role, Rodriguez was also cast in Alfonso Cuarón's debut film, Sólo con tu pareja, in a rather hysterical cameo. So naturally, as much as he respected Libo to cast her in his early films, it was only a matter of time before he’d want to make a movie that was partially about her influence in his life.

The Actors In Roma Were Never Given The Full Script

When casting actors for Roma, Alfonso Cuarón wasn’t concerned with whether or not those he cast in the film were professional actors. As long as whomever he cast could actually act, that’s all that mattered. Knowing that he never gave any of them the script to Roma, we can see why that was particularly important.

During shooting, Cuarón would tell the actors on set what they needed to know for their characters in that moment. But besides those details, nothing else was known to the actors in the cast of Roma. This would lead to one of the film’s most memorable performances, but more on that later.

Even The Extras Casting in Roma Was Extensive

There was an extra level of perfectionism that Alfonso Cuarón added into his process when casting Roma’s Mexico City of the ‘70s. With the extras that were selected to populate the film’s background, there was a more intense criteria of breaking down who was needed.

Factors such as gender, social demographic, and whether they’d be in in cars or walking on the street were considered when selecting the people to populate any particular scene. Cuarón would even coach the extras on their specific functions in a scene, as we see in Road To Roma when he gives notes to street vendors during one of Cleo’s trips to the movies.

Truth Trumped Perfection On Roma

When framing one particular shot during the sequence of Roma where the family Cleo takes care of goes away for New Year’s, AlfonsoCuarón actually chose a different shot than the one that felt like a better cinematic fit. His reasoning was based in just that thought, as Cuarón felt that while the shot was “better,” it wasn’t true.

Much as the driving force of memory had Alfonso Cuarón aiming for a more authentic Roma experience, he didn’t want to feel like he was aiming for something too perfect. Or, worse, he didn’t want his shot to look like he was merely paying homage to something he saw before. With that in mind, he chose a different shot, leading to the sequence we saw in the final film.

One Specific Roma Scene Helped Alfonso Cuarón Deal With Childhood Trauma

Filming one of the scenes where the father of the family at the center of Roma, Antonio (Fernando Grediaga,) leaves to the chagrin of his wife, Sofia (Marina de Tavira,) Alfonso Cuarón found himself in what he personally described as a foul mood. After taking a walk, and having a bit of an internal monologue, the reason became clear.

Cuarón credits that day on set as a moment where rather than judging his own father for being absent in his family life, he was actually trying to understand the emotions behind his actions. His directorial and story eye unconsciously upset him, as he had a bit of a breakthrough with his own past on set.

Alfonso Cuarón Had To Make Roma In Black And White

When it came to filming Roma, the vision for the actual visuals to the film were very much intended to be gorgeously modern, with extreme clarity. Alfonso Cuarón did not want to apply any sort of grainy texture to the look, and he almost made it a full screen ratio presentation as opposed to wide screen.

The one factor that never changed though was the fact that Roma was meant to be a black and white masterpiece. Cuarón stated that when he was planning out the film, it was the only way he could see the film. And so, the film was filmed with beautiful digital clarity, in glorious black and white.

Two Specific Moments In Mexican History Also Inspired Roma’s Story

Describing Roma as a movie that deals with both “personal scars” as well as those scars inflicted upon the Mexican culture of Alfonso Cuarón’s childhood, the director mentions two specific historical events that influence the story he wanted to tell.

Both the Tlatelolco Massacre of October 2, 1968 and the Corpus Christi Massacre, also known as El Halconazo, of June 10, 1971 were instrumental to Roma’s actual narrative. Cuarón shows the latter event in the film, during the sequence where Cleo and Sofia are out shopping for baby furniture. That sequence came from the director’s childhood fascination with a photograph of that very furniture store during that event, which showcases onlookers witnessing the violence on the streets.

Cleo’s Reaction To Her Stillborn Baby Came Out Of Total Surprise

Tying back into the specific facts that Alfonso Cuarón not only refused to show the actors in Roma the complete script, but also insisted on casting actors professional and novice alike, the intense scene where Yalitza Aparicio’s Cleo delivers her stillborn baby was a surprise revealed to the actor on the day of filming.

Aparicio suspected they had a live baby waiting under her gurney for what would turn out to be one of Roma’s most iconic moments of heartbreak, but as the actual medical professionals cast in the film did their job, she learned the truth the same way Cleo did on screen. It yielded an amazing emotional response, and lead to Cuarón having to comfort Yalitza Aparicio after they cut.

Roma, In Its Own Special Way, Is Alfonso Cuarón’s “First Film”

In a beautiful, final revelation during Road To Roma, Alfonso Cuarón emotionally proclaims that Roma is, in a very special way his first film. His exact remarks on the subject were as follows:

Telling a story of autobiographical importance, through a lens of historical events and personal memory, is something that definitely feels like a crowning achievement in Cuarón’s career. While he’s dealt with personal trauma in huge blockbuster capacity in the past, this more personal vision is one that brought out the best of Alfonso Cuarón yet again.

In turn, Road To Roma only heightens that achievement, as throughout a documentary that proudly shows the personal approach that Cuarón used to make Roma, we’re also allowed to see the creator behind this cinematic gem extoll the virtues of cinema, in every shape or form.

This documentary also serves as a great incentive to watch Roma, be it for a first or fifth time, after completing its winding journey through the production. If you’ve seen the film before, it only serves as a highlighter for those moments that Alfonso Cuarón’s personal touch really accentuated.

But if you’re new to the film, and don’t mind trading spoilers for some deeper context on what you’re about to watch, then viewing the documentary just might be a good idea. In either case, both Road To Roma as well as Roma are currently streaming on Netflix, ready to break your heart and lift your spirits in the most beautiful way possible.

So far, Roma’s awards season has been aa celebration. Alfonso Cuaron’s emotional tribute to his childhood has been picking up accolades left and right, and recently led all films (well, tied with The Favourite) for the most Oscar nominations, with 10. But the film finally hit its first obstacle on the road to Oscar glory, as a visa issue for one of the film’s stars is threatening to be a blemish on the upcoming Academy Awards evening.

Mexican actor Jorge Antonio Guerrero says in a new interview with Quien that he has been denied a visa to enter the United States three separate times, preventing him from attending any press events on behalf of Roma. Guerrero plays an important role in the drama. He is Fermin, the man who impregnates Cleo (Oscar nominee Yalitza Aparicio), and then abandons her.

Jorge Antonio Guerrero does not know why he keeps getting denied visas to enter the U.S. He says he first started trying to obtain a visa early last year, but it wasn’t even on behalf of Roma. Initially, it was just for tourism. However, as the film gained in popularity, Guerrero says he tried again to gain access – even with the help of Netflix, who wanted him to attend events like the Golden Globes and, eventually, the Oscars. However, he routinely has been denied.

This is not the first time that a talent has been unable to attend the Academy Awards because of travel issues tied to the current political climate. In recent years, cinematographer Khaled Khateeb wasn’t able to witness his documentary The White Helmets win Best Documentary Short last year because of the travel ban that’s in place in the U.S. Additionally, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi revealed that he would skip the Oscars because of the existing travel bans, and his movie The Salesman went on to win Best Foreign Language Film.

Jorge Antonio Guerrero isn’t giving up hope. In the Quien interview, he admits that there is a process in place, and with Netflix’s assistance, he’s still hoping to be at the Oscars to support him film, and cheer on his nominated co-stars, including Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira.

Roma could have a very big night on February 24. Some argue it’s the frontrunner for Best Picture, having picked up 10 total nominations including Picture and Director. Alfonso Cuaron made history with the nominations when he became the first person to receive a Director and Cinematography nomination. And, of course, Roma’s success continues to be a win for Netflix, as the streaming giant makes waves in the awards season.

We will see what happens with Guerrero’s visa, but it’d be great if he could attend the Oscars alongside his creative collaborators, and possibly celebrate a few key wins for the movie on Oscar night.

The ReelBlend podcast has a handful of Patron Saints. Steven Spielberg. Martin Scorsese. Damien Chazelle. Christopher Nolan. But never before has one of the Patron Saints of ReelBlend joined us on an actual episode.

Until this week.

In support of his Golden Globe-winning masterpiece, Roma, Alfonso Cuarón sat down with ReelBlend co-hosts Kevin McCarthy, Jake Hamilton and Sean O'Connell to discuss his filmmaking process, the need to see Roma more than once, and the Gravity nod that's included in the film. The entire interview is part of this week's new ReelBlend, so give the episode a listen.

Since we are coming off of Sunday's Golden Globes, the guys spend the bulk of the show discussing the results, and how they impact the ongoing Oscar marathon. They analyze the surprise win for Glenn Close over Lady Gaga, the momentum shifts for Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book, and Kevin's pure joy that First Man got recognized for its score.

Speaking of Kevin, he's recording his part of this week's podcast from New Zealand. Earlier, Jake talked about a trip he took to WETA on behalf of Alita: Battle Angel. This week, Kevin gets to do all of that, including being "directed" in a fight sequence by Robert Rodriguez. You can bet there will be Geeking Out.

As for Geeking Out, the guys did plenty of that while interviewing Alfonso Cuarón for Roma. Have you watched that movie yet? It's on Netflix now, so what are you waiting for?

ReelBlend is a weekly podcast that we do on CinemaBlend. You can download the latest episode (and all of our past episodes) for FREE on our iTunes page! Visit. Subscribe. Like and comment. Review! Apple loves when you have star ratings and reviews, so if you listened, and you liked it (or even if you didn't), let us know. We also are on Spotify. And Google Play. And basically everywhere that you download podcasts. So download us!

Meanwhile, follow the guys on Social Media! We have an official Twitter feed for the show, so follow @ReelBlend. In addition, follow the guys at @Sean_OConnell, @JakesTakesand @KevinMcCarthyTV.

The Harry Potter franchise needs to accio director Alfonso Cuarón back into the fold. I don't think he's "too good" for this now. I also don't think he's too artsy for such a mainstream franchise. Since he already has a history in this world, the final Fantastic Beasts movies would be the perfect time for his return. Here's why.

Alfonso Cuarón just won the Best Director Golden Globe for Roma. He already has a Best Director Oscar for Gravity. He's the director behind the striking adaptation of P.D. James' Children of Men. And he directed the best Harry Potter film, in my opinion, Prisoner of Azkaban.

David Yates has directed the first two Fantastic Beasts movies, and it seems like he's down to direct at least the third film, but there are meant to be five films in this series. Yates previously directed Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and both parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Producer David Heyman has said they'd love to have David Yates direct all five planned Fantastic Beasts movies, but it isn't confirmed that he'll do so. Yates has served this franchise well, but what the franchise needs right now is the same shock to the system that Alfonso Cuarón brought with Azkaban.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was Alfonso Cuarón's one-and-only Harry Potter film, and it's a polarizing one. Everything about the third Harry Potter film was a jolt after Chris Columbus' childlike and exceedingly faithful Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The third book was more mature, and they found the perfect director to take the story, actors, and visuals to the next level.

That's what the later Fantastic Beasts films need. The first two films have already spent enough time being faithful to J.K. Rowling's detailed exposition. Hopefully by the time we get to Fantastic Beasts 4 and 5 we can stop getting new backstory speeches and spend more time focusing on individual characters. That is where Alfonso Cuarón as a director would be such an asset.

The final Fantastic Beasts films will be bringing us to the ultimate duel between Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) and Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law). Cuarón's gift for getting raw, standout performances -- from veterans like Sandra Bullock and Clive Owen to newcomers like young Daniel Radcliffe and Roma's Yalitza Aparicio -- would be put to perfect use in the later films. He might also know how to solve the Newt Scamander problem. But that's a tall order.

Daniel Radcliffe has often praised Alfonso Cuarón, and the choice to hire him for Prisoner of Azkaban. Here's more of what he told HuffPost:

Alfonso Cuarón has never shut the door on making a Fantastic Beasts movie. He did, however, say back in 2014 that while he had "a very beautiful experience" making Azkaban, and he loves and admires J.K. Rowling, he didn't want to take on the first Fantastic Beasts movie because he wasn't interested in projects based around a lot of visual effects at that point. He was fresh off Gravity and wanted to clean his palate of that.

Well, he just did. With Roma. That gorgeous very personal black-and-white film set in his native Mexico was the ultimate palate cleanser. It's not clear what Alfonso Cuarón has planned after Roma. He doesn't have a long filmography, and he seems to choose his projects very carefully. On the surface, you wouldn't imagine the same director making Gravity and Roma, never mind that director also making the third Harry Potter movie. I love that I don't already know what he'd do if he did return for a Fantastic Beasts movie. That's part of the excitement.

J.K. Rowling's strength is as an author, not a screenwriter. But it may take someone like Alfonso Cuarón to really sell that point. He has co-written most of his films. He seems like he'd be confident enough, and have enough insider-yet-outsider status, to be critical with Rowling's scripts and focus on the show rather than the tell. After all, if you've read The Children of Men, you know it's very different from the subsequent film, which was as fantastic and bold as any Alfonso Cuarón movie. It was its own thing.

The Fantastic Beasts scripts aren't based on books, but they are based on the canon J.K. Rowling has been building. If there really are five films worth of story there, then use the medium to make those stories more visual -- not with more effects, but with Alfonso Cuarón's creative visual storytelling. Let his artistry loose. And get this man more epic tracking shots!

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald did not move the franchise forward for fans. It did worse at the box office, and with moviegoer reactions, than Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It looks like David Yates is going to continue for the third film, which already has a title and is fairly well along toward its 2020 release date. But give Alfonso Cuarón the endgame.

Not enough people are going to see Roma, I fear, but he could bring his talent for storytelling, visuals, and strong individual performances to a popular (but possibly fading) franchise that could use new direction.

Fellow Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro is the one who convinced Alfonso Cuarón to direct a Harry Potter movie to begin with, so we made need del Toro to come back and play coach again on this one.

Fantastic Beasts 2 is still playing in some theaters, as the many new films of 2019 start to take over multiplexes. Fantastic Beasts 3 is scheduled for 2020, with Fantastic Beasts 4 expected in 2022 and Fantastic Beasts 5 in 2024. There's plenty of time to lock Alfonso Cuarón in for that final movie, so ... consider it, J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros.?

Big crowd pleasers like Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody may have dominated the Golden Globes last night; however, Netflix's Roma came through in a few key categories. In fact, Alfonso Cuaron won Best Director for the project, prompting one journalist to ask Cuaron how he felt about some distributors believing "that Roma's success signals the death of independent filmmakers." The director's answer was apt:

There have been some outspoken people in the industry who have spoken out against choosing streaming platforms instead of theatrical releases, including big names like Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan. People who don't like the streaming platform have stated its aversion to keeping theaters in business as the main reason they aren't on board. However, to Alfonso Cuaron's way of thinking, it's unfair to compare the two mediums.

He went on in his talk to discuss how his very Mexican-oriented movie was filmed in "black and white" and also "in Spanish." He mentioned it has no stars and would likely never thrive in a regular theatrical release. In that context, he feels Roma is a good fit at Netflix.

You can take a look at Alfonso Curaron's full answer (via Variety), below.

The subscription streaming service has started ramping up its efforts to produce original movies by big name directors. Martin Scorsese has a new movie coming in 2019. This year saw Alfonso Cuaron and Joel and Ethan Coen create titles for awards consideration on the streaming platform. (Roma has been more popular with critics than The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.)

Still, Netflix has a long way to go if it hopes to produce big budget titles rivaling what we see on the big screen. The streaming service has attempted to replicate or at least approximate the theatrical experience with movies like Bright, with mixed results.

At some point, it may turn out that Netflix becomes a great platform for the indie filmmaker while people continue to go to the theater for bigger, splashier kinds of spectacle. We'll have to wait and see how the system works in the future, but one thing is for certain: Movie theaters made more money than ever this year.

You can catch Roma on Netflix, now, or take a look at the full list of Golden Globes 2019 winners.

While it wasn't up for either Best Picture category, Alfonso Cuaron's Roma won big at the Golden Globes this year. Not only did it manage to take home the Best Foreign Language Film award -- which was really expected -- but Cuaron also beat out the likes of Spike Lee, Adam McKay, Peter Farrelly, and Bradley Cooper to win Best Director. It's a big development in this year's award's race, but with it now in the past there is one important question remaining: will it translate to success at the Academy Awards?

On a statistical level, the answer is a bit of a mixed bag, as recent history suggests different things for the two categories in question here: Best Picture and Best Director. In the case of the former, it's hard to predict a relationship between Roma's win tonight and the top Oscar just because there isn't a lot of history to work with. The last film to win the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and go on to get a Best Picture nomination was Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which was all the way back in 2000 (and the movie ultimately lost to Ridley Scott's Gladiator).

This would suggest that Roma doesn't have much of a chance at qualifying for the biggest Academy Award, but that's probably not fair. One could argue that no foreign film since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has received the same kind of universal fanfare that Cuaron's movie has received, which could easily result in it being a statistical outlier. Roma probably would have been nominated for Best Picture -- Drama at the Golden Globes this year, but it wasn't eligible because that category is exclusively for English-language features. Had it been, though, it's Oscar chances might seem a bit clearer.

But while things are very murky on the Best Picture side of things, the fact that Alfonso Cuaron won Best Director at the Golden Globes is actually excellent news for his Academy Award chances in the same category. There hasn't always been a correlation between the two award shows, but they have matched up very well in the last few years. Specifically, with the exception of 2014 -- where they disagreed about Richard Linklater and Alejandro G. Iñárritu -- they have seen their selections match up going back to 2013... which was also the year that Cuaron won both prizes for his movie Gravity.

On beyond statistics, however, there is another very important factor to consider -- and it's a factor that has been discussed at length throughout this awards season: the fact that Roma is a Netflix movie. While the Golden Globes is a show that keeps movies and television on equal footing, which would explain their openness to accept features from the streaming platform as "films," there will likely be at least some among the Academy voter populace that don't agree with that sentiment (and it should be recognized that there is zero overlap between that group and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association).

There are going to be individuals who feel that the limited theatrical run it went on before heading online shouldn't qualify it for Hollywood's highest honor, and those individuals certainly won't be voting for it in any categories no matter how significant the Golden Globes success. If that delegation is big enough, it could seriously hamper Roma's chances at winning top prizes at the Oscars.

Roma's marketing will certainly get a boost from the victories this evening, and Netflix may see a bit of extra traffic toward the movie in the upcoming weeks, but it's Academy Award future is still an interesting question mark. It has all the makings of a Best Picture and Best Director contender, but whether it will be able to cross the finish line and secure those key nominations won't be clear until the morning of January 22nd.

You are, no doubt, familiar with the old Hollywood formula whereby a filmmaker does one for "them" (a commercial moneymaker with broad appeal) so that they, in turn, can do one for "me" (a deeply personal story that might be a financial risk for the backing studio).

This helps explain both how and why acclaimed director Alfonso Cuaron transitions from the eye-popping, big-budget spectacle of Gravity -- which banked $723 million worldwide and earned Cuaron his Best Director Oscar -- to the intimate, tough-to-market, foreign-language masterpiece Roma. By definition, this is a "one-for-me" effort that, if you let it in, really speaks to all of us, no matter your background.

Alfonso Cuaron pulls Roma from memory. Literally. This is a loose interpretation of his own childhood, using sets that mirror his boyhood home in Mexico City. (Cuaron reportedly worked tirelessly with producers and set designers to retrieve authentic furniture, sometimes even borrowing pieces back from relatives, to recreate as seamlessly as possible the image of his past residence from his head.)

"Loose" also means that not much happens in Roma, in a traditional sense. But the beauty of Roma is discovered in the exquisite details. It's structured in a way that Cuaron's cameras are assigned to follow the members of a Mexican family over the course of a year from 1970 to 1971. That direction falls into two categories, which are linked.

In one, the mother Sofia (Marina de Tavira) tends to her four children as she makes excuses for their absentee father, Antonio (Fernando Grediaga), who travels for work. It becomes apparent that Antonio is stepping out on Sofia, though their marital strife largely plays out in whispered conversations assigned to the background of scenes.

At the forefront is Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), the family's dedicated nanny who spends her days tending to the clan's needs -- though she frequently neglects to sweep up the family dog's poop, much to Antonio's chagrin. Cleo balance's the family's heavy workload with a meager social life, meeting and falling in love with Fermin (Jorge Antonio Guerrero). Complications arise in both scenarios, with Cuaron exploring how -- despite their class differences -- the journeys of Cleo and Sofia run parallel, especially because of the involvement of the young children.

Even as I list all the reasons why I love Roma, I acknowledge that they're largely the reasons why too many mainstream audiences will reject it. How many black-and-white, foreign-language films that are about the little moments in the lives of two women top the box office charts each year? You can count them all on one finger.

But it's the bold risk, and the personal reward, that's attached to Roma that makes it so special. Alfonso Cuaron is a master as visual detail, and his magnificent cinematography -- he stepped in as Director of Photography after his friend, the equally brilliant Emmanuel Lubezki had to exit the project -- is gorgeous and packed with detail. You could watch Roma multiple times and focus on different portions of the frame, discovering something new and different -- and yet, intentionally included by the filmmaker -- each time.

Roma, too, is a film best appreciated once you understand where it's ultimately going. Not that the destination is important in Roma. There's no final-scene twist that makes the meager activities of the protagonists more significant. And while there is emotional growth and maturation -- earned through some painful sacrifices -- the family, and Cleo, are largely in the same space they occupied at the beginning of the movie. It's us, the audience, that has changed.

Roma changed me. And it changed how I view Alfonso Cuaron, as a storyteller. His technical proficiency was never in question, not after masterful, provocative accomplishments like Gravity and Children of Men. But Roma held me tight in its grip on the most mundane of developments, from the scrubbing of tile floors, or a trip to the cinema, to the pregnancy of a household nanny. It's the ramifications of each event that grew to carry their own weight, because Cuaron knew to linger in moments, and cast realistic performers over marquee-bursting talents.

And on a second pass, you will come to understand the brilliant metaphors and foreshadows that Alfonso Cuaron weaves into his narrative -- background inclusions that won't make complete sense until you have the full picture that is Roma. Cuaron's revolutionary use of sound adds existential dread to key moments in his story. Roma is actually bookended by the sound of water, done in such a way that still devastates me whenever I think back on it.

Roma is also a fascinating case study, in this sense. It demands a theatrical view, because the big screen spotlights Cuaron's spectacular attention to detail in his staging and cinematography. And I know, beyond a doubt, that the sound of the waves in that pivotal conclusion, won't have the same impact at home, no matter how good your speakers.

And yet, Roma is a Netflix movie. One that's getting a limited theatrical run (praise the Gods of Cinema), but still will be seen by the majority of curious driver-byers on their TV screens. That's a crime. However, without Netflix, Roma might not exist, because traditional studios would never give an experimental movie like this a chance -- even with the "one for me" formula in play.

For now, be thankful Roma exists. It's a special masterpiece, from a special, masterful filmmaker.

It's a debate being waged by theatrical purists, and it's not expected to be settled any time soon. How can industry folks support Netflix releases if they aren't being given a proper theatrical distribution before hitting the streaming service? Yet, as prestige filmmakers like Joel and Ethan Coen, Paul Greengrass and Alfonso Cuaron continue to take their talents to Netflix, the streaming giant is figuring out ways to get these new releases a theatrical window (especially when the movies have awards aspirations).

During a recent New York City screening of his new film Roma, Alfonso Cuaron conducted a Q-and-A with select journalists and spoke openly about the fight to ensure that this movie would get a theatrical window before hitting Netflix. More on that in a moment. But it was when he opened up about Netflix and the changes they can bring to the theater, we found these comments to be revolutionary, as Cuaron explained:

These aren't the words of a first-time director fresh out of film school trying to get his experimental arthouse picture onto the big screen. Alfonso Cuaron arguably should be at the height of his power, coming off of a Best Director win for his last film, 2013's Gravity, in which he pushed the envelope of technical achievement and white-knuckle storytelling on the IMAX screen.

And even when he brought a deeply personal and, yes, unconventional project around to studios, he saw what he describes as that "filter" that pops up. He doesn't elaborate, but you can assume what was said by nervous executives with tight purse strings. Who will be the marketable star of Roma? It needs to have subtitles? Why can't you film in color?

When Alfonso Cuaron took his project to Netflix, he was met with an openness not found at the major studios nowadays, and he saw an opportunity to bring needed diversity to the movies that are making their way to theaters. Roma is nothing if not diverse, set in Mexico City in 1970 and '71, and following a family (modeled after Cuaron's) who suffers highs and lows over the course of a year.

But at the same time, Cuaron knew that working with Netflix meant that he had to fight tooth and nail to secure a theatrical release for Roma, because he filmed on 65mm film, and he uses Dolby Atmos sound as a character in the film (for real, the sound of water is an actual presence in the movie that's important to the result).

So far, it has been an uphill battle. Netflix can't work with the major theater chains of AMC or Regal, for they seek 90-day windows of exclusivity before a movie plays on Netflix.

Negotiations with major indie chains like the Alamo Drafthouse recently hit a snag because, according to sources at Business Insider, Netflix asked for too much to ensure that Roma would be shown in the best possible conditions (biggest house, 70mm projector, Atmos sound) for a four-week window.

But the wheels are turning on Netflix movies making their way to theaters when prestige directors demand it, and a year ago, we weren't even having this discussion. So long as filmmakers like Alfonso Cuaron continue to push the envelope of the type of content that can be screened -- and Netflix works with theaters to get these features in front of audiences -- then this model can increase the level of diversity that used to be accepted, and recently has been washed away.

There's a flip side to this conversation, which shows that in the moment, there's no right answer. For while Alfonso Cuaron was busy defending the theatrical experience, and the need for the movie to play in a multiplex before hitting Netflix, his incredibly gifted leading lady, Yalitza Aparicio, was telling us that she needs the movie -- her debut performance -- to hit TV so her family can see it. She explained:

And you KNOW that Alfonso Cuaron wants that audience to be able to appreciate not just the performance of his leading lady, but that of his entire cast. Roma arguably was made for them, though the experiences in the movie are universal. If not for Netflix, there's a good chance this community might never see the film.

This is the give-and-take currently powering the swirl around the release of Roma, a movie that we fully expect to contend all season as we wade through the Oscar conversation. At the moment, I have no clue what movie would come close to beating Roma for Best Cinematography. Also, Roma (in my humble opinion) has incredible shots at nominations for Picture, Director, Actress and numerous technical Oscars.

And it should be seen on the biggest screen possible.

Look for Alfonso Cuaron's Roma in a theater near you when it begins screening later this month. Later, it will hit the streaming giant of Netflix on December 14.

There's going to be an interesting struggle heading into the upcoming awards season that will cause shifts into how prestigious films are viewed, and marketed. By this, I mean that Netflix is revealing itself to be a major player in the developing awards race -- both for Oscars, and for the smaller (but still valuable) trophies at the Golden Globes or the Critics' Choice Awards. But the hook of Netflix has always been, "Avoid the theaters and see these movies in the comfort of your own home, whenever you want."

This strategy might be fine for a drama like The Kindergarten Teacher, where the subtlety of Maggie Gyllenhaal's creepy performance won't be lost on your television, or for a riveting thriller like Paul Greengrass' 22 July (available on the streaming service right now). But some Oscar contenders backed by Netflix absolutely need to be experienced on the big screen, and Roma is one of those features.

I know this because I traveled to the inaugural 919 Film Festival in Chapel Hill, North Carolina specifically to experience Alfonso Cuaron's new story on the big screen (just in case a local screening isn't made available before the movie hits theaters). Intimate, emotional and extremely powerful, Roma is a masterful application of craft and composition in favor of a wholly unique story that's born from Curaron's own childhood. It's shot in gloriously beautiful black-and-white. And it manipulates sound in ways that are very important to the story (the sound of water bookends the movie in two breathtaking sequences that will blow your mind when they connect).

This might be lost on a viewer trying to watch Roma at home on Netflix. For better or for worse, a Netflix experience allows you to be distracted. You can pause the movie. You can check your phone. You can get up off the sofa to use the bathroom, or get a snack. These are things people do in a theater, mind you (as much as nearby patrons despise them for it), but a theatrical experience usually provides a commitment to the artist's vision, and Netflix, in the home, can't make that guarantee.

At the same time, Alfonso Cuaron will probably be the first person to tell you that his experimental and deeply personal Roma might not exist without the support -- creatively and financially -- of Netflix. The streaming giant agreed to distribute the film, and even gave it a fancy new Netflix logo that suggests prestige and acknowledges the company's awards aspirations.

But Roma also has been making the film-festival rounds, showing itself on big screens in Venice, Toronto and Chapel Hill at the 919 Fil Festival, where it served as the Opening Night film (with co-stars Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira in attendance). It's about to open the Savannah Film Festival in Georgia, where audiences again will be able to see the movie on the big screen -- as it should be viewed, in my expert opinion.

Variety reported back in August that Netflix plans to release Roma in theaters, but a scan for that theatrical rollout produced no results. Hopefully we will learn more details as December approaches, as Netflix has a streaming date of December 14 for the movie. If that's the only way that you can see Roma, then by all means, program it into your Netflix.

But my trip to the 919 Film Festival in Chapel Hill confirmed what I initially believed. Roma deserves a big-screen watch, so if it's screening anywhere near you, go out of your way to experience it that way.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is regarded by many as the best movie in the franchise. The credit for that goes largely to Alfonso Cuaron, who took the franchise is an entirely fresh direction. Now, the director says that it is fellow director Guillermo del Toro who is largely responsible for his decision to take on the project. In a conversation that took place while Cuaron was in talks, it was del Toro who pushed Cuaron to actually read the books, which changed his perspective on the entire project. According to Cuaron...

Alfonso Cuaron had previously directed an adaptation of Charles Dickens Great Expectations as well as the much-lauded Y Tu Mama Tambien for which he would receive an Oscar nomination. It seems the director might have thought that a movie like the Harry Potter series was somehow beneath him, but Guillermo del Toro called him out, calling him arrogant, and insisting that he actually read the material before he passed judgment on it.

Needless to say, it worked. Alfonso Cuaron did go to the bookshop and he called Guillermo del Toro back when he was halfway through the third novel, the one he would eventually adapt into a film. He got another earful from his friend, though, one assumes this time it was all meant with the best intentions. Cuaron tells Vanity Fair...

Making it his own is certainly what Alfonso Cuaron did with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. While the first two films had been translated pretty faithfully from the page, Azkaban takes more liberties with the story, but in doing so it makes for a more engaging story. In many ways, it's the film that really set the tone for what was to come in the franchise. One certainly has to wonder how things would have been different if Cuaron hadn't been set on the right path by del Toro. He might not have directed it at all or he might have done it, but without the same perspective on the material.

Alfonso Cuaron's new film, Roma, hits Netflix in December.

It is not often that we get a new film from director Alfonso Cuarón. His last movie was 2013's Gravity, which won him an Oscar for Best Director, and before that was 2006's Children of Men. So when the auteur has a new movie coming out, it's worth paying attention. The director's latest effort, Roma, leaves the science fiction genre behind and sees Alfonso Cuarón return to his roots in his first Mexico-based film since Y Tu Mamá También. The first trailer doesn't give us much in the way of plot, but it does convey the feeling that this will be something special that is heartwarming and inspirational. You can check out the beautiful trailer for Roma below:

This first trailer doesn't really tell you specifically what the film is about and instead leans into the tone and feel of the film, and does an incredibly effective job at it. The music and Alfonso Cuarón's beautiful black and white cinematography have a stirring quality to them that works on your emotions before we even know these characters. Watching the trailer, you just get the sense that this is going to be truly moving film. I don't even want to see another trailer, I just want to see Roma.

Roma follows a year in the life of a middle class family living in Mexico City in the 1970s. The trailer has this sprawling quality to it that indicates the story is going to cover all the highs and lows that this family goes through set against the backdrop of political turmoil like the Corpus Christi Massacre in 1971. Alfonso Cuarón has spoken about how personal this film is to him as he himself grew up in Mexico City in the 1960s and '70s, and while the film isn't necessarily autobiographical, much of it was taken from his own memory.

As you may have noticed from the trailer, Roma is a Netflix film. Netflix has been getting into the prestige film game since Beasts of No Nation and is now working with Alfonso Cuarón on Roma and Martin Scorsese on next year's The Irishman. In addition to hitting the streaming service, Roma will be showing at TIFF and receive a limited theatrical release later this year, no doubt to qualify for awards consideration. It's a pity that most audiences won't get to see this film in theaters. Alfonso Cuarón shot the film digitally on 65mm with the Alexa65, and it looks positively stunning. I fully expect one of the director's famous long takes in this gorgeous format and it is deserving of a big screen presentation.

However given that it is a prestige Spanish-language film shot in black and white, you can see how Roma might struggle with a wide release in theaters. Thankfully it will still be getting something of a theatrical run and will be available to a wide audience to experience on the streaming platform.

In addition to Roma, you can check out the other huge original movies still headed to Netflix this year in our guide. For all of the biggest movies heading to the big screen, take a look at our release schedule.

Some filmmakers become known for their ability to craft pulse-pounding blockbusters. Other filmmakers become known for more pensive and thoughtful dramas. Seldom do we see filmmakers that have the ability to combine the two schools of thought into something magical. Alfonso Cuarón is that sort of rare filmmaker, and the Gravity director's latest piece of cinema sounds like something we won't want to miss.

We've just learned that Alfonso Cuarón has officially partnered with Participant Media -- the same company responsible for last week's The Light Between The Oceans -- to direct his first film since 2013's Gravity. Specific details surrounding the upcoming collaboration remain limited at best, but we do know that the film will center on a year in the life of a middle class family in Mexico City family in the mid 1970s. It will be the director's first Mexico-based film since Y Tu Mamá También in 2001, which has become a modern classic with a 92% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes - so let's hope he can recapture that magic a second time. We'll just have to wait and see, as we still know very little about the film.

That being said, we do know that this movie will have a very strong connection to Alfonso Cuarón himself. The Oscar winner has spoken out about the project, calling it "deeply personal," which makes sense when we consider the fact that the Mexican filmmaker actually grew up in Mexico City during that particular era. It might not be completely autobiographical, but it will surely come from somewhere very real and raw.

Based upon the basic description of the project, it sounds like Alfonso Cuarón intends to scale back the scope of the drama, at least compared to his recent films. Arguably the four most well known films on his resume -- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Gravity, and Children of Men -- are all very technical, and/or effects-driven movies. By moving to a more grounded and personal story, it looks as though Cuarón will offer mainstream audiences something very different than what they would typically expect from him.

Of course, if Alfonso Cuarón has a new movie coming out, that can only mean one thing: insane, long takes. Over the course of his last few films Cuarón has become incredibly adept at crafting uncut sequences that set new precedents for filmmaking. Go back and watch the opening 17 minutes of Gravity; it's all one, long take. Or, you could always go back and watch this classic single take scene from his 2006 epic, Children of Men:

We will keep you up to date with all of the latest and greatest details related to Alfonso Cuarón's upcoming project as more information becomes available to us. The film will commence production in Mexico this coming fall.

Last February, author Tess Gerritsen received information that would, over the course of a year, fuel a monumental legal action against Warner Bros and New Line Cinema. That battle pertained to the record breaking, crowd pleasing, Academy Award-winning film Gravity - which, as it happens, shared its title and bits of space terror with a novel that existed over a decade before the film's genesis. A year after the fact, a decision has been made about Gerritsen's lawsuit. That decision has prompted the author to reveal that information, which has highlighted why this suit is probably one of the most important in Hollywood's history.

Gerritsen took to her blog to comment on the recent decision made by U.S. District Judge Margret Morrow to throw out the $10 million lawsuit that claimed Warner Bros. and Alfonso Cuaron made a film that bares more than a coincidental resemblance to her 2000 New York Times bestseller Gravity. Gerritsen is not allowed to make any new claims in the matter, however she has been given 20 days to "revise [her] complaint." This looks to be exactly what the author behind the wildly successful Rizzoli And Isles series is about to do, and her statement below is why this case is so important, as she feels the case embodies the following concern:

The big sticking point of Tess Gerritsen's latest revelations is that the adaptation of Gravity, a project optioned by New Line Productions in 1999, entitled her to, "based upon" credit, a production bonus, and a percentage of net profits." However, after 2008's Warner Bros take over of New Line Productions, Alfonso Cuaron allegedly took the idea for his film of the same name from the Tess Gerritsen novel. What's even more interesting is, according to Gerritsen's literary agent, Cuaron was attached adapt Gerritsen's book before directing the alleged ripoff of the same name.

The new angle for Tess Gerritsen and her legal team is to explore the exact relationship between New Line and Warner Bros, as well as whether Warner Bros was right in allegedly assuming that they had no obligation to honor the New Line deal made with Gerritsen. This seems to stem from Gerritsen's claim that in her rewrite for the theatrical adaptation of Gravity, she re-wrote her third act to include, "scenes of satellite debris destroying ISS and the lone surviving female astronaut adrift in her spacesuit." The premise for her third act does, admittedly, overlap with the entire premise of Cuaron's Gravity.

This case does point out an important subject that should be taken into consideration when negotiating with a film company. With the rapid pace of buyouts, mergers, and acquisitions that film studios go through, it's hard to keep pace with who has the exact rights to develop what project the acquired studio has in its holdings. Does the dissolution/take over of a company dissolve previous deals they've made under the old company's header? That's up to Gerritsen's team to determine and for the courts to rule. We'll probably hear something new in the next 20 days, so as soon as we hear anything new we'll let you know.

When we factor in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and more recently, the visual feast that was Gravity, it's no wonder people were excited by the idea that Alfonso Cuaron might be the one to helm the anticipated Harry Potter spinoff/prequel(ish) film(s) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Unfortunately, from what Cuaron recently said, it doesn't sound like the director is interested in the project.

According to Global Post, Alfonso Cuaron's only set plans for the near future involve looking after his kids during the summer. "I'm once again connecting with life," Cuaron said. "I have no plans of any kind."

That in itself isn't a direct denial of the report that Cuaron was "deep in talks" to direct J.K. Rowling's Fantastic Beasts movie. However, Cuaron goes on to speak fondly of J.K. Rowling, but stresses that he's not currently looking for projects "based around lots of visual effects." And given the anticipated magical "fantastic" beasts in Rowling's upcoming film, it seems fair to assume Cuaron's words rule out any involvement in Fantastic Beasts. "I'm coming out of a five-year process of doing visual effects," Cuaron said. "And now I sort of want to clean my palate of that a little bit."

This is surely not what Harry Potter fans wanted to hear, given how well Cuaron handled Prisoner of Azkaban, which was arguably the best directed of all of the Harry Potter films. Not only did it handle the source material well, but the tone and visual style of the film really took the franchise to the next level.

Alfonso Cuaron earned himself a much-deserved Academy Award this year for helming the 2013 space-set drama Gravity. And given the spectacular visual experience he delivered with that film, as much as we'd love for him to bring that talent back to Rowling's world, it's also completely understandable that he might be looking to step away from visual effects for a while.

So we're back to speculating over who might helm Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The story will center on Newt Scamander, fictional author of Hogwarts textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It will be set seventy years before Harry Potter arrives at Hogwarts, and will begin in New York. The script is being penned by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling herself, and last we heard, Warner Bros. wants to make the story into a trilogy. The first film is set for a November 2016 release date, which gives WB some time to find the perfect director, but hopefully we won't have to wait much longer to find out who that will be.

A few days ago, there was speculation that Alfonso Cuaron would be a potential director for Fantastic Beasts, And Where To Find Them over at Warner Bros. But there's a very strong chance the WB also want him for another project, if reports are true. How would you like to see Alfonso Cuaron attempt the unthinkable and make a prequel to a film by Stanley Kubrick?

SchmoesKnow is reporting that an offer is out for Alfonso Cuaron to direct The Overlook Hotel, a prequel to The Shining. No plot details have been released, but it's believed that the script is from former The Walking Dead showrunner Glen Mazzara. The powerful screenwriting team assembled for this movie includes Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island), Bradley Fischer (Zodiac) and James Vanderbilt (The Amazing Spider-Man). With both Beasts and Overlook on the table, Cuaron might select one, both or neither films to helm, as he's basically got a blank check after Gravity grossed $716 million worldwide.

It's a little depressing to see Cuaron use his newfound success and freedom to just jump right back into franchises, though. And is this really the best idea? The guess is, this would be more in-tune with Kubrick's movie than Stephen King's original book. King didn't much care for the movie, which has gone on to earn plaudits as the greatest horror movie of all time. (Up for debate, of course!) But he did write an unusued prologue for The Shining called Before The Play. Still, it's hard to trust King's judgment since his dislike for the original movie led him to call up old buddy Mick Garris to make a sanitized, and therefore sane adaptation of the book as an ABC TV miniseries. Even if you haven't seen this misstep, you know that The Shining should be a lot of things. Sane isn't one of them.

But on the other hand, a prequel to The Shining isn't like a prequel to, say, Star Wars or The Thing. There aren't exactly choice puzzle pieces that need to fit into place. If the script has ambition, The Overlook Hotel could be a blank slate for any filmmaker with a bit of imagination. Just take a look at Doctor Sleep, King's recent sequel to the book that is almost a completely different genre. The Shining works as a jumping-off point to a lot of creativity. The question is, does the WB view it like that? Or do they only see the dollar signs that come from the generations of viewers who enjoyed The Shining in theaters, on VHS and DVD?

Maybe Cuaron drops this and it ends up being unwatchable hackwork from someone else. Or maybe Cuaron's imagination is allowed to roam, and he makes something that is able to define itself separately from both the Kubrick and King versions of the story. Fingers crossed.

There seemed to be very little doubt on who would win the Best Director Oscar, and ultimately it was Gravity helmer Alfonso Cuaron who took home the big prize. The ace filmmaker defeated a murderer’s row of filmmakers to earn the gold at the 86th Annual Academy Awards, justifying years spent developing Gravity from a mere sliver of an idea into a $700 million juggernaut. Thanking the production team, collaborators like Guillermo Del Toro and ultimately his wife, Cuaron made a touching speech where he lived up to his promise to stumble over pronunciations with his eccentric, charming accent.

Gravity traveled through two administrations at Warner Bros., struggling to earn a greenlight as Cuaron pitched a $100 million thrill ride primarily through the eyes of one superstar. Originally that would be Angelina Jolie, with Robert Downey Jr. providing the support, but none of the parties involved expected a daunting technical process that basically involved the invention of entirely new technology.

Cuaron has previously spoken candidly about the harsh career of a filmmaker following his muse. Commercial failure led him to make the low budget Y Tu Mama Tambien, which earned him the greatest critical support of his career, but left him essentially unemployed and broke. A trip to Hogwarts led to Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, a movie that gave Cuaron his biggest film yet, and an eternal job in Hollywood. And while Children Of Men earned three Academy Award nominations, he didn’t receive a Best Director nod, a decision that much of the industry considered a mistake.

The Mexican filmmaker defeated a group that included 12 Years A Slave helmer Steve McQueen and American Hustle nominee David O. Russell, each of whom were potential contenders. Also nominated was Alexander Payne for Nebraska, his sixth Oscar nomination, and Martin Scorsese, who brought us The Wolf Of Wall Street. Tough crowd. Hard to beat that. Cuaron’s achievement just adds to the phenomenal success of the film, which has collected hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide and has essentially given Cuaron a blank check throughout the industry. He hasn’t decided what his next project will be, but it will be a hot ticket, no matter what it is.

Many of you caught Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity over the weekend. As we reported, the sci-fi thriller banked an impressive $55M ton win the box office and set a number of October records. But there’s one particular scene that’s irking even those who loved the movie, and the director has an interesting explanation as to how the scene came to be.

We’re about to dive into massive spoilers for Gravity, so STOP READING if you haven’t already seen Cuaron’s movie!

Still with us? OK, so the scene in question involves the return of Clooney’s veteran astronaut, Matt Kowalski. Late in the game, Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) has reached her breaking point. She thinks that she has exhausted every possible opportunity to return home. She shuts down the oxygen the capsule that contains her, and prepares to asphyxiate. But she’s woken out of her stupor by her supervisor (Clooney), who reminds her of one last option she hadn’t explored. Only the catch is, Kowalski’s still dead, and Stone was – what? Imagining him? Envisioning him? Conjuring his essence? The scene is open to multiple interpretations.

Cuaron, himself, addressed the scene directly in a Vulture interview, and explained that much like Bullock’s character, the filmmaker and his son, Jonas (who co-wrote the screenplay) also felt like they were hitting dead ends. They were struggling with figuring out how to make that scene work. And it was Clooney who helped them with a rewrite, ending up with the scene in question. As Cuaron puts it:

Clooney, to his credit, isn’t exactly some diva leading man who simply wanted to insert himself into another scene (though I doubt Warner Bros. had ANY issue bringing this A-lister back into what’s essentially a two-actor stage play). He’s an Oscar-nominated director with a string of pedigreed dramas on his resume. And I commend him for offering advice to Cuaron … and to Cuaron for actually taking it. Film is such a collaborative effort, even on a movie like Gravity, which appears to be the driving voice of one distinctly talented filmmaker.

The scene isn’t included below. But any excuse we can come up with to keep showing you the exquisite Gravity trailers, we’re going to take it. Now, weigh in. Did you like that scene? Would it have bothered you if it played out differently? Or did the return of Clooney’s character take you out of Cuaron’s otherwise mesmerizing masterpiece? Let us hear your thoughts below.

We’re only a week into the month of October and out of the gate we already have an Academy Award frontrunner. Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity first picked up incredible buzz when it hit the festival circuit in late August and early September, screening at the Venice, Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals, but now that the film has landed in theaters it has earned three more feathers in its cap: near universal critical praise, very strong audience reception, and shattered box office records. The hard work by the filmmakers and stars behind the film is paying off, but it was a long and challenging process to get the movie made.

The main attraction of Gravity is certainly the absolutely stunning visual effects work, which many critics have judged groundbreaking, particularly mixed with the director’s signature unbroken, flowing cinematography. But it was finding the balance between these two important factors that Cuaron believes was one of the biggest challenges in making the movie. Speaking during a press conference held in Beverly Hills, California a couple weeks ago, Cuaron explained that from the get go the production had to completely change its thinking about movement due to the fact that the story is set in space where the titular force is completely absent.

“Our brain thinks from the standpoint of gravity, of horizon and weight,” the filmmaker told the crowd of reporters. “It was a whole learning curve because it’s completely counterintuitive, and we started choreographing with pre-vis, meaning animations. The problem is that people that animators, they learn how to draw based upon horizon and weight. It was a big, big learning curve with experts coming to explain the physics and what would happen. You would tell who was the new animator in the room because it was a guy who was completely stressed out and wanted to quit.”

Not just a taxing process for the visual effects artists, making Gravity was also arduous for star Sandra Bullock (and no, we don’t mean the fact that she goes without make-up in the movie). In order to play Dr. Ryan Stone, a scientist who is sent into orbit to help repair a malfunctioning satellite, the Academy Award winning actress said that taking on the role meant needing to retrain her entire body from the neck down so that it would look as though it were reacting within a weightless environment.

“Everything that your body reacts to with a push or a pull on the ground is completely different than it is in zero g,” Bullock said. “So to make that second nature just took training and then weeks of repetition and then syncing it with Alfonso’s camera and the mechanics and mathematics of it all and then separating that from your head where you had to connect with the emotion and tell the emotional story.”

In order to get the shots and positions needed, it took more than a few pieces of special equipment on the set of the production, which Bullock ultimately found a way to be comfortable with. “There were various contraptions that existed on the soundstage which that, when I first saw them, you just made them your friend as quickly and as physically as you could because if you didn’t, they were so confusing and complex.”

As many incredible technological and visual achievements the film features, however, Cuaron doesn’t want people to solely focus on them. Instead, all of those leaps forward were made because they were what the story needed in order to be told visually. Asked about balancing the sound, visual design and atmosphere, the director said that it was when all three came together to help convey the emotional journey that it was most important.

“I think that each one of those tools on their own, they are meaningless,” the director said. “They can be cool, but they don’t convey the emotions you want… From the moment that we finished the first draft, pretty much nothing changed in terms of each one of the moments and the set pieces. What changed quite a lot was with the involvement of Sandra and George [Clooney] because suddenly it was the clarity of this emotional journey and how we were going to convey those emotions.”

Gravity is in theaters more and you can find out more about the film right here.

Movie studios have traditional tracking numbers, which can give them ideas weeks ahead of time how their films will perform when they finally open. And while we occasionally get glimpses of those in the press, we mostly rely on something a lot more public and people-oriented: pre-sales at online ticket sellers like Fandango and MovieTickets.com. Fandango in particular is good about sharing their data, and when they promote strong sales, it usually indicates a hit its on its way. It happened for The Hunger Games and Les Miserables among many others, and now it's boding incredibly well for the weekend's biggest, most visually dazzling release, Gravity.

We got an idea last week that Gravity was in good shape heading into its opening weekend, but now that the audience is speaking with its ticket-buying dollars, the future looks even brighter. According to Fandango Gravity is selling more tickets than Argo was days before its opening last year, and even more than Bullock's summer hit The Heat; Argo opened to $19 million and of course went on to win Best Picture, while The Heat had a huge $39 million opening and eventually made $224 million worldwide. That comedy hit proved that Bullock's huge The Blind Side ($309 million worldwide) wasn't a fluke, and allowed Warner Bros. to invest heavily in Gravity's marketing, confident that audiences would turn out to see Bullock (not to mention her equally famous co-star George Clooney).

Even better, 91% of Gravity's ticket sales are for 3D showings, suggesting that moviegoers are listening when people like us tell them that it's an absolute must-see in 3D. We're pretty much universally crazy about the movie around here, with both Sean and I writing raves about it, but it's the kind of thing that, if you don't see it on a gigantic screen and with the 3D that director Alfonso Cuaron carefully crafted, you're really not seeing it the right way. There's probably nothing better you can do with your weekend than going to see Gravity, so head to Fandango (or ticket retailer of your choice), buy some tickets, and see the future of movies at your local theater.

Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity opens in sneak previews tonight and everywhere tomorrow, and as you might have heard, we're pretty crazy about it. Cuaron's technical wizardry, which creates the actual feeling that you are somehow floating in space, is the big sell, but the performances from Sandra Bullock and George Clooney elevate the film to some surprisingly emotional highs. Sure, they were cast partly because they're big names who can draw audiences, but they add a key human component to what could have just been a special effects extravaganza.

But, until not all that long before production began, neither of them was going to be involved in the film at all. If you're a fan of Cuaron from films like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban or Children of Men you may have been following the long development of Gravity, and the many actors who attached their names to it, but if all you know is the posters featuring Sandra Bullock in a space helmet, time to catch up!

Angelina Jolie

In the beginning, way back in 2010, Angelina Jolie was Cuaron's top pick to take the lead role of Dr. Ryan Stone. In our breathless reporting we said she had "bailed on Wanted 2" to make it happen, which is hilarious because Wanted 2 is seriously never going to happen no matter what they say and Jolie had no business being in it anyway. At the time I also said Gravity "sounds a lot like Duncan Jones's Moon," and that "No, I seriously doubt this movie will manage to be better, despite my abundant love for Cuaron." Moon is still great, but hindsight proves me a major dolt on that one. Oh, and then Jolie bailed on the project after all.

Robert Downey Jr.

Only weeks after Jolie got on board and almost immediately departed, Robert Downey Jr. agreed to join the cast as Matt Kowalski, a character is essentially written as a non-superpowered version of Iron Man-- capable of many wisecracks while inside a bulky suit. Earlier this summer, while being completely gracious, Cuaron explained why Downey Jr. probably wouldn't have been such a great fit for the film anyway: "It was very clear that the technology we were going to use -- it was not the most compatible thing for what Robert is the best at. That is, he takes one scene and he just starts riffing. And because of the technology that we use, it's pretty much limited. We have to preprogram the film before shooting.” That's a nice way of saying "he doesn't like to use the script, and this film lives and dies by the script." And Downey Jr. has the Avengers to let him ad lib, so it all seems to have worked out.

Scarlett Johansson

While Downey Jr. was still attached, Scarlett Johansson's name popped up as a potential option for the female lead. This was still back in 2010, only a few months after Johansson's first appearance as Black Widow in Iron Man 2, so she had recently proven action chops that suggested she could fit the part. But at 26 years old that summer, she was also a liiiiiiittle young to play a grieving mother and top-flight scientist. Not to be ageist, but come on.

Blake Lively

I know, right? It seems impossible now, but at one point in that crazy of summer 2010 we were trumping up "the battle of the blondes," as Johansson and Lively were the rumored top choices for the female lead role. Lively had just finished shooting but had yet to release Green Lantern, which could have made her a big name if it hadn't flopped so terribly. Of all the alternate casting choices for this film, this one's the most mind-boggling by far.

Marion Cotillard/Carey Mulligan/Olivia Wilde/Naomi Watts/Abbie Cornish/And Many More!

At some point Warner Bros. got so panicked about finding the right female lead for the film that they auditioned just about everybody, and even went back and begged Angelina Jolie to take it, which she again turned down. The pressure was on to cast a woman who could open a movie on her name alone, and at the time Jolie was pretty much the only game in town. It was September of 2010, just a few months after Sandra Bullock's surprise Best Actress Oscar win and a few months before the surprise box office success of Black Swan. Which leads us to…

Natalie Portman

Portman was part of that crazy auditioning derby, and at one point rumor had it that Portman had the role sewn up if she wanted it. By then Black Swan was playing festivals and earning raves, especially for Portman in the role that would eventually earn her own Best Actress Oscar. Portman had the same age problem that Johansson did, but suddenly even more bankability, and seemed like a pretty reasonable alternative to Jolie. Except it required Portman to actually want the part, and the accompanying physical challenges…which apparently she wasn't quite up for.

Sandra Bullock

It has to be weird that Bullock's approach to the film she's now promoting was in the context of being a runner-up, available for the role if Natalie Portman passed. When Portman moved on she did exactly that, with a reportedly higher salary than Portman would have commanded but a big hit (The Blind Side) recently behind her, and another one (The Heat) on the horizon, though of course nobody knew it at the time. Sometimes a crazy casting process can look like fate in retrospect.

George Clooney

After all that craziness finding the female lead, Robert Downey Jr. then left the production in the lurch, off to fulfill his commitments not only to The Avengers but the zillion other projects he'd managed to attach himself to. By some miracle, George Clooney was actually available, and took on the much smaller male lead, requiring a few weeks of work as opposed to the months Bullock spent on set. And that's how two of the biggest A-list stars working today wound up fronting this expensive sci-fi movie-- after lots of other options turned it down.

A few months back I began to worry that Alfonso Cuaron’s promising science-fiction drama Gravity was going to crash and burn at the box office. Sure, buzz was growing among bloggers and critics, but after the first trailer hit theaters I was approached on separate occasions by casual moviegoers who made it a point to say how stupid they found the trailer. Each detailed how when they saw it play in theaters, the assembled audience flat-out laughed at it. I began to wonder if this space odyssey was going to be too out there for mainstream audiences. But it seems after that initial (or potentially anecdotal) phase, Gravity is back on track, and tracking phenomenally.

THR reports pre-release tracking for the outer space-set drama that stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney suggests it will make somewhere between $35 to $40 million when it opens next weekend in the US. Part of this could be put down to the A-list talent attached. A portion of this estimate is being allotted to the film’s release in 3D and IMAX 3D. Aside from boosting the sense of a cinematic event, these screenings also mean higher ticket prices. But above all, Gravity is tracking well across all age groups. According to online estimates, males over 25 are the most interested in the film, followed by females under 25, then females over 25, then males under 25.

This swell in interest among young people is especially notable, as they're a demographic not known for showing up in force to fall dramas. In attempting to lower expectations, Gravity’s studio Warner Bros points out that even critically acclaimed adult-skewing dramas—like David Fincher’s The Social Network and Martin Scorsese’s The Departed--don’t do $35 mil or higher in fall opening weekends. (Those movies made $22.4 mil and $26.9 mil respectively.) To that end, Warner Bros insists they’d be happy if Gravity hit even $30 million in its opening weekend. As tracking isn’t an exact science, it’s too soon to declare Gravity a hit. But this is definitely a promising sign for the harrowing space drama that won praise as it hit the Venice, Telluride and Toronto International Film Festivals.

If you want to know what all the buzz is about, check out the trailer below, or read Sean’s review out of TIFF. You can also tell us why you’re excited about its upcoming release for a chance to win some out of this world swag. Or take my word for it and just go when Gravity opens in theaters October 4th.

Even though it stars two of the most famous people in the world, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity is really going to sell itself on one thing: its effects. And it's not about CGI monsters or giant explosions or anything you might expect. From the moment we heard about Gravity we were enthralled by descriptions of its 20-minute long takes and claustrophobic depiction of what happens when two astronauts-- played by Bullock and Clooney-- are stranded in space. And now that we're getting looks at the film, like the new one above, Cuaron seems to be delivering on those promises and then some.

This is just one of a series of looks at Gravity we've gotten lately, apparently trying to follow-up on the huge buzz the film earned at its Comic-Con presentation. This is the second of two new trailers that have been released this week alone; the previous clip gives us a sense of what happens to leave Bullock and Clooney in this precarious position. Check out the other trailer below:

With plans to open the Venice Film Festival ahead of its October 4 release, Gravity is planting a firm flag in the midst of the chaotic fall movie season. And even if you think you're terrified of getting set adrift in space, why wouldn't you want to see it? Cuaron is a master filmmaker who's been away from the screen for way too long, and as an obvious labor of love Gravity promises to show him back in complete command of the form. For yet another extended look at the film, check out the original first trailer below. It probably says more about why you could see it than anything we could write.

Below you'll find the newest trailer for Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity - and be sure to watch carefully because there's something incredibly special and awesome about it that deserves your appreciation:

Did you figure it out? Well, if you didn't you might want to rewatch, as that entire two minute trailer was all one long, unbroken shot.

All the way back in 2010 - yes, this project has been around that long - it was not only reported that the movie would be 60% CGI, but that the entire 20-minute opening of the film would be one continuous shot. This would appear to be just a small sample of that. At San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend, Warner Bros. actually showed off an even longer version of this same scene, and if you think this trailer is tense on your computer monitor just wait until you get to see it projected on to a large screen. This movie has the potential to kill the future of space travel because after seeing it nobody will want to go up there.

Those of you who are familiar with Cuaron's work know that he is definitely no stranger to extremely challenging one-shot scenes with seemingly impossible camera movement. Take, for example, this scene from Children of Men. Cuaron actually did have to cheat a bit to make this shot come together, but it is still an amazing and flawless-looking thing to watch.

In the movie, which was written by Cuaron and his son Jonas, Sandra Bullock stars as Dr. Ryan Stone, a scientist who is in space fixing a satellite when things go horribly wrong. The craft is hit by a field of space debris that leaves her and astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) stranded in space and losing oxygen. The two Academy Award winners are the only actors who show their faces in the movie, though the voice of Houston in the trailer sounds a whole hell of a lot like Ed Harris.

Gravity is currently getting set full what looks like is going to be a full sprint through Oscar season. Not only has the film been confirmed to get its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival next month, today it was also announced that the movie will be a part of the Toronto International Film Festival - which is where most Academy Award hopefuls get their start. Following its festival screenings, Warner Bros. is set to release it on October 4th.

It’s a rare thing when a movie markets itself at the nerdvana that is San Diego Comic Con before making its world premiere at a cinema celebration as prestigious as the Venice Film Festival. But this is exactly the incredible journey Alfonso Cuarón’s upcoming Gravity is making. The science-fiction thriller that marks his long-awaited follow-up to the three-time Academy Award-nominated sci-fi drama Children of Men follows the harrowing quest of two astronauts who are stranded in space when their spacewalk is interrupted by their shuttle’s unexpected destruction. Fronted by A-listers Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, Gravity could prove a rare commercial hit for Cuarón. But in a surprisingly candid interview with The Huffington Post, the fascinating filmmaker suggests its not box office bankability that drives him.

Early on, major box office draw Robert Downey Jr. was attached to star, but in this interview—which is absolutely worth reading in its entirety—Cuarón is quick to share why he’s grateful the Iron Man became detached from Gravity. After admitting part of the problem was that it took four and a half years to get Gravity into production, he admits:

Of course Downey’s ballsy penchant for riffing is a major part of what made the Iron Man movies such a popular property. But to be perfectly frank, Cuarón had no time for that on this shoot. Because of the cutting edge tech involved in its production to achieve the weightlessness required for most of the narrative, there was no room for ad-libbing. Instead, a great deal of preparation went into every shot of the film before shooting even began. He explains:

You can learn more about the special tech employed in Gravity’s production by checking out our live blog of Cuaron’s shared Comic Con panel with Marc Webb (The Amazing Spider-Man 2) and Edgar Wright (The World’s End). And be sure to check out the trailer here.

Gravity will make its world premiere in Venice Film Festival on August 28th. A theatrical release in the US will follow on October 4th.

Set up in Hall H this afternoon at Comic-Con is Entertainment Weekly's Visionaries panel, which celebrates some of Hollywood's current "uncompromising directors" who have been electrifying audiences with their work, and who have some highly anticipated projects coming up. For Marc Webb, it's The Amazing Spider-Man 2. For Alfonso Cuaron, it's sending Sandra Bullock into space for Gravity. And Edgar Wright, it's a pub-crawl between five childhood friends who end up facing apocalyptic circumstances. We'll be live-blogging the panel for those of you who can't be here.

Here's the official panel description:

2:39 p.m. - Moderator introduces Alfonos Cuaron, Marc Webb and Edgar Wright to the panel. Lots of cheers for all three directors, especially when the moderator mentions their movies. Edgar jokes that he's only on the panel because he has the same initials as Entertainment Weekly.

2:41 - Moderator asks about bringing things to the screen. Edgar Write talking about World's End wrapping up a "thematic trilogy" (Shawn of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and now The World's End). For Marc Webb, it's taking simple, personal relationships and putting them into a massive story. He says the things he enjoy most are the relationship stuff, which ground these movies. If you don't have that, you can lose something. Cuaron talks about one single human floating in space completely alone and turning that character into a suspenseful action film with minimal elements. He wanted to put the audience in space with their characters.

2:45 - Cuaron talking about what it took to shoot the movie. When he grounded the script it became clear that the technology doesn't exist. Floating in zero gravity the whole time is the example he uses. He talked about trying the "vomit comet" - a plane that goes up and plummets, so the person inside is free falling and floating. Cuaron says it's fun, but you're limited to the space inside the plane and it lasts for 20 seconds, so it was impossible to use it. So they had to invent some other stuff. Asked to explain the "stuff" he says it's boring as hell. the core of it is robotics. For a big chunk of the film, Bullock was inside a 9x9 cube in which all the walls are LED lights. She was in the center that gyrated a little bit. Around her was her environment. He's using a water bottle to explain that everything was moving around her. He says when Sandra wasn't in the cube, she was working out because that's the only way to endure the whole thing.

Cuaron says it was easier when Bullock and Clooney were separated because when they were together they turned against him. He said they had a competition of impersonating his accent. He said they both sucked but they're funny. "They play me as a Cuban," he said. "Not as a Mexican."

2:49 - Moderator turns to Marc. Webb says the first movie they built massive rigs 300 feet long to fly Spider-Man or a stunt double under an overpass in NY. They used the stuff they made in the computer as a reference. The human body can only take so much. The reality of the physics is mind-boggling and sort of impossible to ask an actor to do. Now he's talking about villains and choosing Electro. He always though Electro was the most fun challenge of the movie because there's something so magnificent to a creature that can merge and blend. He was always fascinated and terrified by something that could disappear. Peter Parker's so grounded. He has normal problems to deal with and then he has to fight gods. Webb found it interesting to combine those two worlds. He's talking about The Fog of War documentary and having to empathize with the enemy. In order to take on Electro, Parker has to empathize with him.

2:54 - Wright's turn to talk about action. He tried to do the action sequences without cutting, so you believe the actors are doing it because they are doing it. They had to evaluate the cast members. All six of them trained with a stunt team. The fights were designed to be done all in one sequence. He says the actors were really up for it. He says you have to make it a point of pride. "They really rose to the challenge," he says. There was a scene in Hot Fuzz where they had a fight with teenagers, but it didn't work because they had to use adult stunt performers. In WE, there's a fight with 40-year-olds vs. teenagers, in which there were teen stunt performers. One of them was Chloe Moretz's stunt person for Kick-Ass when he was 12. Wright says he's going to be huge. Marc Webb says one of the best stunts they did wasn't even an action scene. It was Andrew Garfield with a coffee cup. He references Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, talking about the timing and choreography. "You sense it in the room," Webb says. "When you can sit and watch and absorb characters doing extraordinary things."

3:03 - Cuaron agree with Webb that the physical comedy is almost a lost art now. Wright talking about the thrill of doing a scene in one take and looking over it afterward to see if they got everything. He says audiences are very aware of how films are made and how quick-cutting is used. "I think when it's clearly done in one take, people really respond to it." He praises Buster Keaton's poker face during his stunts. Cuaron speaks about the viewers' awareness of real time and how that's affect with a lot of cutting.

3:06 p.m. Edgar Wright talking about a fight in the bathroom. It's not just about arranging the scene, but also putting the camera in the right place. Marc says Nick Frost's stunts were "so fucking fantastic." Wright jokingly reprimands him for swearing and then says again that they all did their own stunts. "It was really fun to design these fights with lots of limbs and heads coming off," Wright says, adding "Rated R." Wright talks about Shawn of the Dead and the scene early on when Shawn goes to the store and we can see the zombies in the background but he doesn't notice them. He says they didn't have the street blocked off. And there was a drunk guy who walked through the set and said "Fuck you!" because he didn't care that they were shooting the movie. And then Wright apologized for swearing.

3:10 - Cuaron says the adrenaline is addictive. He talks about keeping on doing it, even when everyone tells you not to. For Children of Men, they were still prepping the movie ten days in. The pressure was on, especially when the head of the studio came to talk to him about the hold-up. He talks about shooting one scene where blood splashed onto the lens. Cuaron called "cut" because there was an explosion so they didn't hear him and they kept shooting, so it turned out to be a happy accident (or a miracle).

3:14 p.m. - Marc Webb says he enjoys being surprised by what the actors bring to something. It keeps him on his toes. He thinks the audience can detect when something is performative. He says those happy accidents happen all the time. Wright considering the "happy accidents" scenario. He's talking about really cold weather conditions and how that can add to the performances, when the characters are getting more drunk and desperate. He talks about Simon breaking his hand during shooting. He said he was ok and did five more takes, then revealed to Wright the next day that the doctor says his hand is broken. Wright attributes Simon's determination to plow through five more takes, suffering in silence, to the fact that he's a producer and knew effect the hold-up would've had on shooting.

3:18 - Time for fan questions! First question is about showcasing ones skills. "What did you create and how did you manage to showcase more than one skill?" Wright says if you want to get into writing and directing, the good thing is to try to do every job so you can see what it's like from those perspectives. Wright says if you want to be a director, it's a good idea to step into everybody else's shoes, even in front of the camera, just to see how it feels. He also says you might find other fields that you might want to do.

3:21 - Next question is what inspiration the directors drew from for their current films. Cuaron mentions Spielberg's first film. Webb jokes, Operation Dumbo Drop. Wright says there were a lot of British sci-fi films when he was growing up. They're talking about their mentors. Webb was taught to edit by a man named Doug Pray (sp?), which led to him doing music videos after that. Cuaron says the idea of having mentors is something that keeps the ball rolling from generation to generation. He did 15 movies as a boom operator. he worked his way up from there. He worked as an assistant director to a director whom he considers a mentor. He said the name, but I didn't catch it. He also says he learned from Sydney Pollack to hand things down to the next generation. Wright says Sam Raimi's story really inspired him. He was 18 when he did Evil Dead and that really inspired Wright to make movies.

3:28 - Someone asked the directors about Spielberg's comments about the state of movies today. Moderator references something Spielberg said about tiered pricing and the effect that might have on films. Cuaron says he thinks a big change is coming. Talks about how you could find small movies in theaters years ago. Today it's all big movies in the multiplexes. Multiplexes are the monopoly of big films, but there are other means of distributing films now, which is exciting. The multiplexes might end up being more about big movies. Webb brings up TV, saying a lot of wonderful writers have migrated to TV. TV shows are novelistic. "The kinds of storytelling you can engage in there is pretty awesome," Webb says. Cuaron says he doesn't think of it as drama vs. fantasy or drama vs. action. He says we're living in an age where franchises and sequels are required. Wright says there's a place for everything. There's an appetite for original films. He says the multiplex needs to get more diverse. There has to be a chance for an indie film to break out. "If we don't start doing more original films, there will be nothing to remake in 30 years time," Wright says.

3:34 - Cuaron says he agrees it's not always necessary for a film to be 3D and in a lot of cases, it's an afterthought from a money-making perspective. He says they worked meticulously to make Gravity great in 3D. He says 3D takes away color and resolution. With all of those misgivings, he still preferred 3D in the case of Gravity. He says 3D is a fantastic tool, but it doesn't need to be universalized. It needs to have a reason. Webb says he shot The Amazing Spider-Man in 3D and stereo. They conceived of the movie in specific circumstances and scenes with 3D in mind. He goes on to talk about the challenges of filming in 3D. He does think it can be exquisite at its best. But it can also be really terrible. Wright says he thinks most people are lukewarm on the format because they've seen too many bad ones where it's been done after the fact. Wright references Life of Pi, Hugo and Avatar as great examples of 3D done right.

3:38 - Last question. What's next? Wright jokes he'll do Ant Man in 3D. He says it's taking so long because he wants 2015 effects. Marc Webb says he wants to finish The Amazing Spider-Man 2. There's other projects he wants to do down the road. He mentions wanting to do musicals and doing something physical-comedy related. He seems to be intentionally vague there but it sounds like he has something in mind. Wright says he'd like to work with Pegg and Frost again but the just finished this film so it sounds like it's too soon for him to think ahead. Cuaron says Gravity took longer than he thought. Cuaron says he wants to do a horror movie.

We may be neck deep in summer blockbuster season, but fall really isn't that far away-- and if you count the beginning of fall as the start of the film festival season, it's really not far. The Venice Film Festival may be far away and expensive to reach, but it's a major component of the autumn rush toward Oscars, and one contender we've been eyeing for years has just staked its claim on Venice's share of awards buzz. Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, will be opening the festival on August 28, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Gravity is Cuaron's first movie since 2006's mind-bogglingly great Children of Men, which alone is enough to make this one the top of the "must-see" list. But everything we've heard about the project since Cuaron first started developing it back in 2010, when it was supposed to star Angelina Jolie and Robert Downey Jr. It's been a bumpy road of delays, cast shuffles and release date changes since then, but earlier this year we finally got a look at actual footage from the film, and, well, take a look for yourself to see why we kind of lost our minds for it:

What might be most intriguing about the film is that, aside from the basic premise of two astronauts lost in space, we don't know a whole lot about it. Bullock supposedly carries the bulk of the film, and we suspect that Clooney does survive much longer after the crash that leaves the two of them suspended, alone, in space. The teaser that we've seen doesn't give anything away, which is a beautiful thing in a world where most trailers are perfectly happy to give away the entire plot in hopes of getting you into the theater.

Gravity won't open in the United States until October 4, but the Venice premiere could serve to give it fantastic buzz leading up to that point. That festival, which happens right before the Toronto Film Festival, is a lower-key but sometimes significant precursor to awards season, with the top prize in years past going to the likes of Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler and Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain. Then again, last year Mira Nair's The Reluctant Fundamentalist kicked off the festival to muted acclaim, and the year before it was the George Clooney-directed The Ides of March, an earnest political drama that didn't earn much critical heat in the end. Of course, like anything, the opening night of Venice depends on the quality of the film in question. And if Gravity matches half of our expectations, it will have no trouble earning its buzz come late August.

“Don’t let go.”

We’re still waiting to find out exactly what Alfonso Cuaron has in store for us with Gravity, a sci-fi thriller he has been tinkering with for a while now that stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. A trailer is expected to drop Thursday. We have a tease for that tease right here. And Warner Bros. just Tweeted this amazing new poster, with the tagline I shared above.

But what is Gravity about? We’ve heard different things over the years as Cuaron has shot, edited and perfected his next masterpiece. There are mysteries to be solved. Here’s the last synopsis we read:

And in truth, I’m going to leave the mysteries up to others to solve. This, I hope, will be the last Gravity story I write for Cinema Blend. This is one of those movies I need to see pure, to see clean. I don’t want the experience ruined for me by Vine videos and commercials for teasers for trailers. It’s Cuaron. He’s a genius. He helmed my all-time favorite Harry Potter film. He directed the mind-numbingly awesome Children of Men. We’re all going to whatever he does. I want to see it in IMAX, in its entirety.

So enjoy the Gravity teases, and this poster. I’m letting go … for now. I’ll see you in the theaters on Oct. 4.

We don't know much right now about Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, but all it takes is the barest details to get us interested-- Sandra Bullock, George Clooney and the director of Children of Men, working together on a tense drama set in outer space. The film has been kept under wraps since it went into production in 2011 and was delayed at least a year for unspecified reasons, though given the director's stellar track record that only made us more anxious to see it.

Now we're finally ready to get a look at the film's first trailer, but in this modern world, even the best-looking films don't get by unsullied by an insipid Entertainment Tonight sneak peek first. The above clip gives us our first looks at Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in their space suits, presumably at the beginning of the film that, as we understand it, is mostly about Bullock on her own and lost in space. Even when the film was part of a presentation at CinemaCon Eric didn't get to see much more of it, though he did promise that the footage is very visually impressive.

Though they're being a little vague about it, presumably to play off of Clooney's star power, the implication certainly seems to be that after a satellite crashes into the space station where they're working, Clooney is killed and Bullock is left floating in space alone, driven to return to Earth and be reunited with her family (we have no idea if that's actually a spoiler-- again, this is just based on the hints we have so far). If you're not intrigued enough to see what happens when Bullock is left shouldering a film almost entirely by herself, we've been salivating for nearly three years over a report that the film features a 20-minute long unbroken take set in space-- though since that rumor popped up back when Robert Downey Jr. was set to play Clooney's role, who knows how that might have change.

Gravity's full trailer arrives Thursday, and the film itself comes to theaters October 4.

UPDATE: In practically no time Simon Pegg has tweeted to debunk the rumor of his attachment. Given how fuzzy the rumor was to begin with this doesn't surprise us... and we won't be surprised if he winds up in the movie after all, either.

Now that J.J. Abrams has slid into place as the director of Star Wars: Episode VII, we’re kind of been in a holding pattern with regards to additional news. We’re left sifting through rumors and half-truths until Abrams can put his Star Trek sequel to bed and shift gears into Star Wars. But when you hear the same names over and over, you begin to suspect that there’s truth to the hearsay, and so it’s safe – or safer than usual – to report.

The Web site MarketSaw has two juicy names it’s trying to attach to the Star Wars universe. The blog says Children of Men director Alfonso Cuaron, who’s still putting the finishing touches on his sci-fi thriller Gravity, could be circling Episode VIII and, possibly, Episode IX. Now, who wouldn’t want Cuaron in the director’s chair for a series of Star Wars movies? He’d be a fantastic choice for any of the new trilogy chapters, or even a standalone spinoff, which MarketSaw says “will fill and expand the voids in between in multiple timelines [of the new trilogy], and have potential to then be franchised themselves in regards to the worlds they open up.”

And that’s not all. MarketSaw's source tosses Simon Pegg’s name back into the fire, saying they “can't say why, but let’s just say I have a strong feeling about that.” Again, we’ve heard Pegg’s name before, but mainly just because it’s easy to connect the dots to the actor – who is part of Abrams’ Trek universe and also a major, self-proclaimed Star Wars fanatic. But nothing, at this point, has been confirmed by anyone in the know, and so it all has to be treated as major, major rumor … for now.

How legit is MarketSaw? Well, at one point, the site broke the news that Prometheus would have ties to Sir Ridley Scott’s Alien movie, with a space jockey appearance at some point. They also wrote a story years ago about plans for a third Star Wars trilogy … and that’s coming true. But, like all sites, they went out on a limb once and missed, claiming that Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables would be shot in 3D. So sometimes they’re right, and sometimes they’re wrong. But they could be on point with Cuaron and Pegg. We shall see.

When the news broke last week that Angelina Jolie had turned down the lead role in Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity once again, Natalie Portman's name was in the mix of possible replacements, along with nearly other semi-famous actress in Hollywood. But with her performance in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan earning rave reviews at both the Venice and Telluride Film Festivals, Portman just got bumped to the head of the pack. THR reports that Cuaron has offered Portman the role without asking for a screen test, and she's now looking over the script and deciding whether or not she wants the part.

Portman's timing is incredible, and almost entirely by chance-- Gravity has been bopping around for months as the studio tried to replace Jolie, and the start of the fall festival season simply happen to coincide with the moment that Warner Bros. is ready to get Gravity going once and for all. It also helps, of course, that all reports say Portman is fantastic in Black Swan, leading the psychological thriller as a ballerina on the verge of a near-supernatural breakdown. I'll be seeing the film this Friday at the Toronto Film Festival and fully expect to be as dazzled as everyone else.

While Portman isn't necessarily the only actress with the chops to carry a movie like Gravity, which will rely almost entirely on its female lead (Robert Downey Jr. plays a smaller role), she might be the only one with that combination of bankability, talent and prestige. Here's hoping she takes the part, if only because this casting derby will start driving us crazy if it goes on much longer.

A few weeks ago we were trumping up the "battle of the blondes" between Blake Lively and Scarlett Johansson as they both vied for the lead female role in Gravity, the outer-space thriller from director Alfonso Cuaron that's already set to star Robert Downey Jr. Angelina Jolie had originally been on board for the film but bailed several months ago, and even with Downey Jr. on board the producers were apparently struggling to come up with someone to replace Jolie.

We all knew Angelina Jolie was one of a kind, but apparently she's so unique that Warner Bros. searched through all of Hollywood's starlets only to try and get Jolie back again. Deadline reports that after testing the likes of Lively, Johansson, Sandra Bullock, Marion Cotillard, Carey Mulligan, Olivia Wilde and nearly every other hot young actress you can name, the studio went back to Jolie with a better offer, and she still passed. Apparently Downey Jr.'s role is small compared to the female lead, and they need a gigantic female star to carry the film-- and there's no bigger star right now, once again, than Jolie.

Running down the list of all the other projects Jolie has in mind, from the Bosnian war love story she plans to direct to Salt 2, Deadline speculates she won't come back to Gravity no matter what, and I have to agree. Now it's just going to take one of those actresses to have the chutzpah to say not only can she act like Jolie, but she can open a movie all by herself like Jolie-- when, of course, no other female star has that power, especially for action movies. Maybe by passing Jolie is trying to help breed a new female action hero to follow her lead. It's too bad Warner Bros. didn't trust themselves or their property enough to actually give it a shot, though now they'll have to. I hope Naomi Watts or Abbie Cornish or whoever they cast-- I'm rooting hardest for Cotillard--gives 'em hell and proves Jolie right.

Now that Captain America has been cast it's time for Marvel to take the next big step forward on their multiple-movie, superhero universe project. Everything they've done and will do in Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and The First Avenger: Captain America culminates in a still far off summer tent pole team-up movie called Avengers. For Marvel it's a monumentally important film, but perhaps even more critically a desperately difficult one. Whoever ends up directing it will be tasked with handling a massive ensemble cast of established stars, a huge budget, a massively effects heavy movie, decades worth of established comics mythology, and the unreachable expectations of a billion fanboys. Directing The Avengers will require a special sort of talent.

Thanks to Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier we know that Marvel already has a mysterious short list of directors they want in charge of this monumentally important project, and we know that Leterrier is on it. No offense Louis, but we're hoping you're pretty far down on it. Avengers is too important a project and Marvel, you can do better. The obvious choice for the job is Jon Favreau, but he's already made it clear that he's taken himself out of the running. That means it's up to us to steer Marvel in the right direction. Hey Kevin Feige, before you make that horrifying call to Brett Ratner, consider hiring one of these directors instead:

Timur Bekmambetov

Timur Bekmambetov is a Russian director best known in America as the guy at the helm of Wanted, on which he worked closely with comic creator Mark Millar. In Russia, he's also known as the director of their Night Watch series, the most popular movies in Russian history. They're kind of like The Matrix with vampires. He's no stranger to event movies and he's a pro when it comes to adapting comics. Who knows how he'd handle such a massive, ensemble cast but Bekmambetov's take no prisoners, blockbuster style could be a fascinating way to approach Marvel's Avengers team-up movie.

Alfonso Cuaron

Curaon directed what is without a doubt the best of the Harry Potter movies in Azkaban, which means not only does he have a knack for gorgeous visual effects he's had a lot of experience dealing with a large, ensemble cast. More importantly, he's ridiculously talented at pretty much anything and everything. He's made his name handling all manners of different subject matters and styles with unmatched ability. His last movie, Children of Men was easily one of the best science fiction movies of the past decade, and used gritty realism in contrast to the fantasy reality of Azkaban. He's done everything from sex movies, to kids movies, to futuristic war. He's never done superheroes and though he has a few projects in early stages of development, he hasn't done a movie since 2006. Cuaron is due for a big return and it doesn't get any bigger than Avengers.

J.J. Abrams

Looking for a great ensemble film with great action sequences? Try and remember all the way back to the beginning of summer in 2009 and you'll find director J.J. Abrams' Star Trek. Yes, it was the movie that got Chris Hemsworth the lead in Thor, but that isn't the point. Overuse of lens flare aside, in just two hours the film was able to give complete back stories to its two main characters while paying dedicated attention to its source material. What more can you really ask from the director of The Avengers? Throw on the fact that he has no problem taking on an existing series and you have a formula for a perfect Avengers director.

Kenneth Branagh

When Kenneth Branagh was announced as the director of Thor, geeks worldwide did a spit-take and exclaimed, "The Shakespeare guy?" This reaction was somewhat warranted: Branagh has never been seen as a big budget director, and, yes, five of the directors 13 credits are based on Shakespeare plays. But giving Branagh the reigns of both Thor and the Avengers would give the series continuity, and if you imagine the presentation that Branagh must have delivered to producers and look at the film's incredible cast, it seems certain that everyone involved knows exactly what they're doing. Unlike Iron Man or Captain America, Thor takes place in a much larger universe, incorporating not only his character on Earth, as disabled medical student Donald Blake, but in the Norse world of Asgard where he is the God of Thunder. Branagh is the man Marvel brought on to direct the most epic aspect of the Avengers team and that level of filmmaking will be needed for their team-up.

Paul Greengrass

Paul Greengrass's gritty, realistic, shaky-cam style might seem like a strange fit for a superhero movie but, before Snyder's version took off, he was actually pretty far along on his own Watchmen take. Greengrass is obviously interested in superhero movies of a sort, and he's already attempted to make the most unfilmable superhero movie . His close-in style could be a way to handle the project's otherwise overly bloated budget Allow Greengrass to give some of the film's super-powered fights a more intimate tone and you'll keep Avengers awesome while saving money on expansive CGI. It's unlikely that Marvel could get him interested, it's hard to imagine Greengrass taking the reigns on something so many other directors have already had a hand in defining, but The Bourne Ultimatum is easily one of the best action movies of the decade and if you can get the guy who made that on board with the Avengers then you take him.

Zack Snyder

With two comic adaptations already under his belt, there is little chance that Zack Snyder would balk at the chance to direct such an epic comic book movie event flick. He has proven three times now that he's capable of creating fantastic action sequences, and, as seen in Watchmen, he has no trouble balancing a group of superheroes, and giving each one plenty of screen time to appease fans (though credit for that should be shared with writer Alan Moore). Since Marvel announced a plan to amalgamate all of its characters in to one film, critics and fanboys alike have wondered if the task is even doable. So why not give it to the man who tackled the "unfilmable" graphic novel?

Brad Bird

You can have your Dark Knight or your Spider-Man 2, even though it's computer animated, Brad Bird's The Incredibles is the best superhero story ever put to film. He's never done live-action before, but recently he's flirted with making the jump from animation, and his talent is too impressive to be limited by format. In a way, The Incredibles is exactly the kind of team-up movie you'd want Avengers to be, minus the familial element. For Bird, super-team-ups are old hat. Better still, he's already shown the ability to jump in and build on material started by others. Ratatouille was originally someone else's film before Bird was brought in at the eleventh hour to take the reigns and bring it back on track. He may not have experience with big-budget, live-action effects but with movies like The Iron Giant and The Incredibles already under his belt he's proven a mastery over brilliant storytelling on an epic scale.

Mark Millar

Millar may not yet be a well known name amongst movie fans, but he holds the rank of royalty in the comic book world. While he has yet to direct a feature, he has served as a producer on both of hi movie adaptations, Wanted and Kick-Ass. More recently Millar announced that he'll be begin making his directing debut with a superhero flick of his own creation this summer in his native Scotland. In the comic book world, most know of him through his work on Civil War, which is as big an ensemble work as there is in comics. Sure there's little chance that Marvel would take a project so monumental and place it in the hands of someone so inexperienced, but few out there that have dipped their toes into both the film and comic worlds like Millar has.

Bryan Singer

People look at the task of making a multi-superhero film as though it has never been done before. Not only has Bryan Singer done it, but he did it twice. In both X-Men and X2, Singer utilized his large cast perfectly, spending enough time with each of the main characters to create depth without sacrificing structure. To truly see how deft the director was in doing this, all you have to do is watch Brett Ratner's jumbled mess in the third installment. Hell, going from Wolverine, Jean Grey, Professor X, Rogue, Cyclops Storm and Magneto to just Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Hulk might be a walk in the park for Singer.

Jonathan Mostow

Jonathan Mostow is the most "gettable" director on this list and maybe for Marvel, the one that might end up making the most sense. He first got attention back in 2000 for directing the capable submarine movie U-571 and he followed that up with the extremely divisive Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. While fans may debate the merits of making a third Terminator movie there'd no denying that in it Mostow showed a serious talent for pulling off massively eye-popping, big-budget battle sequences. More recently he directed the capable sci-fi thriller Surrogates, based on a graphic novel. There again, Mostow showed a real talent for visually stunning effects sequences, even when saddled with what was rather mediocre script. He's experienced with the comic book genre, he knows big-budget action, he's done a movie in which he joined an existing franchise midstream, and while in the past he's been rumored for mostly dead in the water projects like Sub-Mariner right now he doesn't seem all that busy. Marvel, give him a call.

It was just a few weeks ago that we reported that Angelina Jolie may have bailed on Wanted 2 in order to make Gravity with Alfonso Cuaron, and not long after that the news came that Gravity wouldn't be happening either after Universal ditched the project. Now another A-list star has come on board to breathe life back into the whole thing.

Deadline Hollywood is reporting that Robert Downey Jr. is negotiating to take one of the lead roles in the film-- not the one Jolie would have played, but the male lead. Downey Jr. and a yet-to-be-cast Jolie replacement would play members of a space exploration team who are outside the station when it is destroyed, killing everyone else on their team. Warner Bros. now has the project, and plans to start production this summer, finishing just in time for Downey Jr. to make Sherlock Holmes 2 in the fall.

It goes without saying that Downey Jr.'s participation in any project is likely to make it worth seeing, and the prospect of the actor returning to drama after a hugely successful stint in comedy and action is even more intriguing. Too bad Jolie won't be out there in space with him-- I like the idea of them teaming up-- but presumably it won't be hard to find an actress of equal caliber now that Downey Jr. is on board.

It always seemed a little insane that Universal wanted a sequel to Wanted, given that they were planning to bring back Angelina Jolie who-- SPOILER ALERT!-- killed herself with a magic curving bullet at the end of the movie. No offense intended to James McAvoy, but he probably wasn't going to be able to carry a sequel without his super-famous co-star.

And now, New York Magazine reports that Jolie has bailed on the sequel all together, and smartly, Universal has pulled the plug rather than trying to carry on without her. The project Jolie is eyeing to do instead is Gravity, an Alfonso Cuaron-directed drama about a woman stranded in a space station and trying to get back home to her family. Yes, it sounds a lot like Duncan Jones's Moon. No, I seriously doubt this movie will manage to be better, despite my abundant love for Cuaron.

Gravity is getting the blame for Jolie bailing on the project, but really, we probably should have expected her to bounce from this long ago. Wanted was ridiculous and over-the-top and really fun, yes, but hasn't held up that well and already feels like it came out 10 years ago. Jolie can pick and choose projects as she pleases, and this is one that didn't make sense for her from the beginning. Not that it makes sense to try to beat Sam Rockwell at his own game in a Moon knockoff, but we'll get to that later.

UPDATE! EW now says Angelina Jolie has passed on Gravity as well. That doesn't mean she's doing Wanted 2, it appears that's still out of the picture. But now Gravity is too.