Murphy's Multiverse

Tag: Interviews

  • EXCLUSIVE: Every ‘Moon Knight’ Easter Egg is Intentional Says Production Designer

    EXCLUSIVE: Every ‘Moon Knight’ Easter Egg is Intentional Says Production Designer

    Easter eggs can oftentimes be a double-edged sword for fans. In the case of Wandavision, the rabid hunting of easter eggs from fans proved to be a source of weekly disappointment. And because Moon Knight is a similar mystery box, fans are debating heavily whether an object onscreen is an easter egg or just a coincidence to avoid disappointment. For example, the Kang logo on one of the bad guys’ shirts.

    In our interview with the show’s production designer Stefania Cella, she revealed that every easter egg fans see on screen is intentional and not a happy coincidence.

    All deliberate. There are no accidents. Marvel is very cautious and very aware of what are the [easter eggs]. That was an educating curve for me; what [easter eggs] can be involved and what are the things to leave out. There are the usual easter eggs for comic lovers. I put them in there personally.

    Whether those easter eggs are purely aesthetic or a teaser of what’s to come, it’s nice to see the amount of detail put into the show. Compared to Wandavision where the people making it admitted that some of them weren’t intentional (the aerospace engineer, for example), the people making Moon Knight seemed to have learned from Marvel Studios’ previous mistakes.

  • EXCLUSIVE: ‘Polar Bear’ Director Discusses Difficulty of Making the Documentary

    EXCLUSIVE: ‘Polar Bear’ Director Discusses Difficulty of Making the Documentary

    Disneynature’s upcoming documentary Polar Bear is the latest installment in the film studio’s collection after 2020’s Elephant. Helmed by directors Alastair Fothergill and Jeff Wilson, the directing team behind Disneynature’s 2019’s Penguins, the documentary tells the story of a particular polar bear over a 15-year time period.

    Given the immense time period and the unforgiving Arctic environment in which Polar Bear was filmed, making the documentary unsurprisingly came with extreme challenges. In an exclusive interview with Murphy’s Multiverse, director Jeff Wilson described some of these challenges, including why a 15-year time period was necessary:

    We also wanted to tell this amazingly important environmental story. And to tell that over a three-year period would be dishonest and impossible. But to tell it over a fifteen-year period was absolutely the right time scale in order to kind of capture the change that would happen within a bear’s life.

    Jeff Wilson

    Polar Bear also specifically follows one bear, making the process that much more arduous. Wilson went on to explain why they needed a female bear to film:

    [B]ear behavior is all learned from a mother bear. And so it was crucial for us to tell a story from a mother’s perspective and the story about the mother bear, because that’s where all the interesting behavior happened. That’s where the cubs learn from their mother. So we knew that we had to have a female bear.

    Jeff Wilson

    But finding the bear for Polar Bear—and filming in general—came with enormous environmental difficulties as well. WIlson continued:

    [We] have to spend as much time in that there’s presence as we can possibly stand. And bear in mind that we’re working at the temperatures down to minus 45 degrees. And there’s only so long that you can actually, you know, physically survive in that environment before you have to go back and get a hot meal and have some sleep. And so on any given day, you will have to start from scratch and try and find that bear again and go out and try and find that mother and her cubs again. So it’s a very, very difficult process.

    Jeff Wilson

    The work put into to the documentary will pay off when audiences get to enjoy the film soon. Disneynature’s Polar Bear launches exclusively on Disney+ on Earth Day—April 22, 2022.

  • EXCLUSIVE: How The Ennead Was Brought To Life In ‘Moon Knight’

    EXCLUSIVE: How The Ennead Was Brought To Life In ‘Moon Knight’

    2022 seems to be the year where the true deities of the MCU get introduced. While the early Thor films established the Norse gods as pseudo-space aliens, Moon Knight wastes no time in treating these beings like the divine pantheons they are. And in Episode 3 of Moon Knight, the Ennead, the cabal of Egyptian gods living among us through their avatars, was revealed in their full glory.

    We spoke to production designer Stefania Cella about the process of bringing these characters to life and the lengths they had to go through to keep it as respectful as possible.

    I went to Egypt to educate myself about Egyptian culture. We had an Egyptologist with us helping us translate hieroglyphs. It’s a long process of research.

    Balancing the elevated fantasy from the comic books with the historical accuracy of Egyptology is not easy feat but Cella and Marvel Studios managed to bring it all together cohesively.

    All the references to the literature on Egyptian worship, that was through proper research. We are very historically correct in the way we approach hieroglyphs and we try to be respectful because it was a religion. The way we made everything fantastic is based on the idea that there was this room inside the Pyramid where the gods meet. We married both fantastic and historic by being very proper on research but also taking creative liberties by imagining a fantastic chamber inside the Pyramid.

  • EXCLUSIVE: Disneynature’s ‘Polar Bear’ Directors Reveal the Most Impactful Moments

    EXCLUSIVE: Disneynature’s ‘Polar Bear’ Directors Reveal the Most Impactful Moments

    Disneynature has created quite the collection of wildlife documentaries over the years. The next installment, Polar Bear, tells the story of a new mother whose memories of her own youth prepare her to navigate motherhood in the increasingly challenging world that polar bears face today.

    Polar Bear is narrated by two-time Academy Award nominee Catherine Keener and helmed by Alastair Fothergill and Jeff Wilson, the directing team also behind Disneynature’s Penguins. The documentary is full of moments in the polar bear’s life that will surely make viewers experience a wide range of emotions. In an exclusive interview with Murphy’s Multiverse, directors Fothergill and Wilson revealed some of the moments that impacted them the most. Fothergill recounted a moment when a polar bear was filmed doing an “aquatic stalk”:

    For me, the moment when the female was hunting the seal—they’re doing their what’s called an aquatic stalk—which actually, interestingly, has become more and more common with climate change. But that moment when she was so so carefully and quietly, trying to push herself out of the water, so she could grab the hooded seal. We were there and the cameraman and I, literally, were holding our breath. And we held our breath for a long time because it’s a very long shot in the film. And then she goes back down so quietly and sneaks under the ice flow and tries to grab the shield that fails. That, for me was an amazing moment. Never been filmed like that before.

    Alastair Fothergill

    Both directors note moments that they experienced which had never been caught on film before. While Fothergill described a hunting moment affected by climate change, Wilson recalls a particularly joyful moment:

    [For me,] the serendipity of finding a sperm whale carcass washed up with 20 Bears feeding off of it. It’s something that completely was beyond my wildest dreams. And so to be there and to witness that…And a well fed bear is a happy bear and a happy bear as a playful bear. And there are some very, very unique and special and never been seen before kind of behaviors that are happening around that where you just have 20 bears who come together and play together and almost like a pool party, or barbecue, you know, that just that is so special and so unique that you know, that’s going to be forever seared into my memory as as an experience.

    Jeff Wilson

    Viewers can experience these moments and more for themselves when Disneynature’s Polar Bear launches exclusively on Disney+ on April 22, 2022—Earth Day.

  • An Interview With The Filmmakers Behind ‘Polar Bear’

    An Interview With The Filmmakers Behind ‘Polar Bear’

    Our own Mary Maerz was fortunate to spend a few minutes picking the brains of Jeff Wilson and Alaistair Fothergill, the visionaries behind Disney’s latest nature documentary Polar Bear. Check out the video below:

  • EXCLUSIVE: Disneynature’s ‘Polar Bear’ Director on the Film’s Hopeful Ending

    EXCLUSIVE: Disneynature’s ‘Polar Bear’ Director on the Film’s Hopeful Ending

    Disneynature’s latest documentary, Polar Bear, tells the story of a new mother whose memories of her own youth prepare her to navigate motherhood in the increasingly challenging world that polar bears face today. While the film has many uplifting and joyous moments, it takes place against the background of climate change in the Arctic that is threatening the survival of polar bears.

    Still, Polar Bear ends on a noticeably optimistic note, with the mother bear (in the form of the voice of two-time Academy Award nominee Catherine Keener) expresses that she and her cub will persevere and survive the changing and dangerous environment. In an exclusive interview with Murphy’s Multiverse, directors Jeff Wilson and Alastair Fothergill were asked why they chose to end Polar Bear in that way. Wilson stated:

    I think it’s important for our audiences to have a sense of empowerment and hope at the end of the film, because we believe that that’s the greatest emotion that will drive people to take action. And that really helps us get our message across.

    Jeff Wilson

    Wilson went on to describe one particular moment in the film that embodies that spirit of hope and resilience:

    [The] extraordinary images of the mother bear climbing the iceberg…it’s so impossibly beautiful that you’d never imagine that would happen. But when you film something like that—and you realize at that moment in time when you’re filming it—the power of those images, and the power of the metaphor of what is happening there, you do suddenly the chemistry of script and narration and music and and just the serendipity of capturing that unique moment. [It] gives you the power to take hope, and plant it firmly in the audience’s lap and say, hey, look, this, there is hope here. But you know, there’s also uncertainty.

    Jeff Wilson

    Viewers can enjoy the documentary’s story and powerful moments when it releases on Earth Day. Disneynature’s Polar Bear launches exclusively on Disney+ on April 22, 2022.

  • EXCLUSIVE: Disneynature’s ‘Polar Bear’ Director Explains It Was Impossible Not to Highlight Climate Change

    EXCLUSIVE: Disneynature’s ‘Polar Bear’ Director Explains It Was Impossible Not to Highlight Climate Change

    Film studio Disneynature is gearing up for the release of its newest documentary, Polar Bear. Narrated by two-time Academy Award nominee Catherine Keener, the film tells the story of a new mother bear whose memories of her own youth prepare her to navigate motherhood in the increasingly challenging world that polar bears face today.

    Murphy’s Multiverse recently sat down with directors Alastair Fothergill and Jeff Wilson, who previously directed Disneynature’s 2019 Penguins. While following the same bear over the course of 15 years, Polar Bear undoubtedly brings the effects of climate change on the Arctic into the spotlight. Interestingly, Fothergill noted that the goal of the documentary was not to make it “an environmental movie”, but it was impossible to tell the story of a polar bear without climate change playing a major role. He stated:

    [T]he movie isn’t an environmental movie, we hope it’s an entertaining and engaging family movie. It’s impossible today, honestly, to make a movie about polar bears without telling the story of the challenges they face. And that’s why we very deliberately chose to tell the story of a female bear looking back at the last 15 years…there’s been an enormous amount of change over that time period.

    Alastair Fothergill

    Both directors described moments in the film where they were able to catch footage of polar bear behavior that had never been documented before. But the environmental challenges the bears face created scenarios that even the veteran wildlife filmmakers were surprised by. Fothergill elaborated on that factor:

    There was a very moving moment where a mother and her cub are literally going into too thick, melted mud, you know and struggling to get to make it. Now that that is reality of climate change, but we didn’t expect to film it…And a lot of moments like that were fresh. We knew the climate change was going to be the basis of the whole story. Because polar bears are [] at the cutting edge, so we expected to see it. But we were surprised by some of the detail of what we filmed.

    Alastair Fothergill

    Disneynature’s Polar Bear launches exclusively on Disney+ on Earth Day—April 22, 2022.

  • EXCLUSIVE: Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union Talk ‘Cheaper By The Dozen’

    EXCLUSIVE: Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union Talk ‘Cheaper By The Dozen’

    With the way how things are turning out in the world, people could use some wholesome family-friendly warmth. Disney+’s latest offering, Cheaper By The Dozen, does exactly that. Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union star in this iconic remake of a remake about a family with a dozen kids living through life. We briefly spoke with both Braff and Union about their roles as the heads of the family Paul and Zoey Baker, respectively, and asked how they approached the characters.

    Braff drew inspiration from his own desires of being a whimsical fun dad one day:

    It’s kind of the dad I wanna be one day. I’m not a father but I hope when I am, I’m fun and silly. I’m going on adventures with them, down on the ground and playing with them. He’s the dad I daydream of being one day. I’m an uncle to a bunch of nieces and nephews and I have so much fun with them and I bond so closely with them. So I just made Paul the dad I wanna be one day.

    Union, on the other hand, drew inspiration from the film’s text on diversity and inclusion and approached Zoey as believable as possible.

    Zoey is a lot more patient than I am. If I put too much into Zoey Baker, it’s a whole different movie [laughs]. She definitely would’ve handled all the racial situations way differently. For me, I wanted to make it as realistic as possible. And when you talk about blending families and you have different races and cultures and levels of ability, when you’re talking about the best neighborhood for your family, neighborhoods without diversity and inclusion probably aren’t the best for your family. That’s still something I’m unlearning and I’m trying to do better with. But it was really important to show the reality of moving through life with a blended family that is super diverse.

  • EXCLUSIVE: ‘Turning Red’ Producer on The Film’s Big Finale

    EXCLUSIVE: ‘Turning Red’ Producer on The Film’s Big Finale

    Warning: spoilers for Turning Red below

    The intimate story of Turning Red takes a huge turn in the finale when it turns into a massive fight rivaling a tentpole superhero movie. The sequence, which both director Domee Shi and producer Lindsey Collins confirmed to be hardest to get right, shows a big kaiju fight among family members.

    In an interview with both Shi and Collins, I asked how early in the writing process did they come up with such a left turn for the story. Collins had this to say:

    A version of it was in there from the get-go. Not [the final] version but we always had this desire to have this kind of normal mother-and-daughter argument set against this massive monster scale. Especially if you’ve been bottling up that kind of argument for that long, it’s what that feels like. When you finally release all that pent-up anger, frustration, and sadness, it’s like a monster.

    Turning Red’s finale almost makes the story collapse on itself but thanks to Shi’s incredible story instincts, the finale remains tethered to the movie’s most crucial themes. It’s a finale that will go down as one of Pixar’s most memorable ones undoubtedly.

  • EXCLUSIVE: Domee Shi on ‘Turning Red’s Humor and Horror

    EXCLUSIVE: Domee Shi on ‘Turning Red’s Humor and Horror

    More than any other Pixar film, it’s Turning Red that taps into the sensibilities of preteens the most. A film about a preteen going through puberty, the film tackles themes and topics that otherwise wouldn’t be covered by a Disney film. Topics like those inevitably come with a sense of humor apt for its age range, which is what allows Turning Red to be funny in a way audience haven’t seen in a Pixar movie.

    Jokes about strippers, crushes, and bodily changes are some of the things Turning Red doesn’t shy from. I spoke with director Domee Shi and producer Lindsey Collins and asked how they got the green light to do such suggestive jokes. Collins admitted that she was surprised when the executives didn’t bat an eye.

    There are certainly a couple of moments in there that I was surprised we didn’t get pushed back for. I was kind of half-expecting it. But they didn’t. For the most part, they knew the film they were getting. They knew the filmmaker they had. We were also unapologetic from the very first screening. They had the opportunity to say “Uh oh” but they didn’t.

    Shi was confident about their choices, saying that a lot of the jokes were rooted in important character work and thematics.

    We also could defend those decisions too. All of the humor was connected to themes of the movie which were girl adolescence, puberty, and generational perspectives.

    Early in the movie, Turning Red shows a dream sequence that is utterly bizarre and borderline unsettling by Disney standards. In line with the earlier question, I asked Shi what prompted them to create a scene inspired by filmmaker David Lynch and how it tied into the film’s themes.

    I’m so glad you mentioned David Lynch. He was an inspiration for that part. There was an even scarier version that we cut. The version you guys saw was a scaled-back version. I like it because it’s kind of weird and it elicited a lot of laughter from the audience. My intention behind the sequence was that it’s the night that puberty arrives. So what does puberty look like as a dream? It is very Lynchian and nightmarish and weird and funny.