It’s no surprise that we haven’t seen Gareth Edwards since he directed Rogue One. That production turned out to be pretty turbulent, with reports that he had even been replaced by Tony Gilroy who finished the cut we saw in theaters. Who knows how much of that is true, but it’s clear he needed a break and it would take something special for him to return. That film is the sci-fi epic The Creator, which takes place in a future where man and robot are in conflict.
Speaking with SFX Magazine, Edwards talked about his reason for directing The Creator, and the benefits of working with a smaller budget than he had for Rogue One and Godzilla…
“I got to make a very low-budget science fiction film with Monsters, and I realized there were some serious advantages to having no money,” he said. “It was kind of a shock to have all the money you could ever want, and still be limited. I felt like if I could somehow get that big bag of cash and send it back in time to me when I was making Monsters, the possibilities would have been infinite. And so, in a weird way, I was trying to find that kind of scenario again. I was as much interested in the process of how to make the film as I was the idea.”
The budget for The Creator was somewhere around $80M, which is still pretty significant. In the newly-released final trailer, you can see that every dollar was well spent. The world that Edwards has created looks incredible, mixing sleek, futuristic tech with others that appear to be from earlier eras.
While previous footage has focused on the human vs. robot action in a society where androids are fighting for their right to survive, this trailer centers on the bond between a man, a special forces agent played by John David Washington, and the android child he has been sent to destroy, played by newcomer Madeleine Yuna Voyles.
Also in the cast are Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Sturgill Simpson, Allison Janney, Veronica Ngo, and Ralph Ineson.
The Creator opens in theaters and IMAX on September 29th.
