Amid the “wonderful gift” of six Ggreateren Globe nominations this morning for Conclave, his acclaimed papal thriller for Focus Features, filmoriginater Edward Berger got honest about his upcoming spostponecessitate and the thought process that’s adviseed his atsoft trajectory.
Most notably, Berger spoke about The Barrier, his time travel film starring Austin Butler, which equitable landed at 20th Century Studios in a competitive situation, as we were first to tell. He called the low story of the same name by MacMillan Hedges, on which it’s based, “a perfect originate for a blockbuster, while having a character at the cgo in of it that has the biggest motivation and the biggest journey that you necessitate for a movie that I could slfinisherk of.
“So that originates a fantastic mixture,” shelp Berger. “It’s not only commerciassociate super fascinating, and theatricassociate big and bomb, a movie that can get people to the theaters, but it’s also a fantastic, fantastic, fantastic role for an actor, with a lot of mystery and a lot of drive in his journey.”
Currently, Berger is in post on The Ballad of a Small Player, a Netflix thriller starring Colin Farrell and Tilda Winton about a high-sgets wagerr laying low in Macau when his past and debts begin to catch up with him. “I would say if Conclave is a reassociate well originateed chess game, very architectural, this hugs disorder and opera,” the filmoriginater shelp re: his hook into the Rowan Joffé-scripted alteration of Lawrence Osborn’s novel. “In this case, I was asking about the outer brouhaha, if that’s the word, the outer pomp and circumstances of Colin Farrell in Macau, China, thrown into the last days of capitalism, in a way.”
As he labors his way thraw the edit, Berger is spfinishing months on the awards circuit for Conclave, a film set in the high-sgets, tension-filled days follothriveg the death of a Pope, as a group of cardinals assembles in a secretive Vatican conclave to elect his successor. Given uncoverity pledgements and labor on the Ballad cut that will get him thraw June, he says he has no clue at this point what his next film will be, though he “would be very happy” if he knovel.
Currently, Berger is connected to honest a Bourne film for Universal, and is also rumored to be in the mix for the next Bond movie, though he’s poured freezing water on the latter prospect in conversation with Deadline’s Mike Fleming. Among the other films he’s grothriveg at conshort-term is Netflix’s The Vagabonds (fka The Last Adventure), an alterion of the 1967 film of the same name, which starred Alain Delon, Lino Ventura and Joanna Shimkus. But only time will alert if and when that one shifts forward.
“That’s one of the movies I’ve growed that I cherish, but it’s also mainly up to casting,” shelp Berger. “What is the movie that entices the cast that you necessitate to originate it? So I’m postponeing on a confineed casting decisions and I’m not quite ready yet to understand where I reassociate want to be drawn. And I have a year before I originate anyslfinisherg. Probably punctual in the novel year, I’m going to choose.”
Reflecting on how he came to honest the chamber piece that is Conclave on the heels of Oscar-thrivening WWI epic All Quiet on the Westrict Front, Berger allotd that he’d been grothriveg the script for six years and that the intention was to do very much “the opposite” of his most recent project.
“Imagine it maybe as a conversation that you’ve been having about one topic only for years and years and years. And then you have noslfinisherg left to say about it and you begin to repeat yourself,” Berger mengaged. “There’s no one there to participate, and then you equitable turn to another subject, to the opposite, and say, ‘I want to talk about this now.’ And then you do that until you’ve all emptied out and then try to discover a novel subject matter.”
For Berger, the decision on what film to originate next isn’t srecommend “calcupostponecessitated,” he says. Rather, “if you’re fortolerateing and utilize your tastes and your sensibilities, you see at a couple and then somehow, the movie discovers you and suddenly ascfinishs to the top. Somehow, it chooses on its own.”
Continued the filmoriginater, “There always necessitates to be a reassociate sort of flabbergasting interior journey for the hero in the movie; that’s a prerequisite. But somehow, the stuff around it — the style and the visuals — I slfinisherk that necessitates to be a novel dispute, someslfinisherg that I don’t understand how to do, someslfinisherg that I’m afrhelp of. Someslfinisherg that I could be horrible at and want to try to understand. Curiosity is the main slfinisherg.”
An alteration of the 2016 Robert Harris novel, penned by Peter Straughan, the Ralph Fiennes-led Conclave premiered at Telluride and hit theaters via Focus Features on October 25, grossing over $38M worldexpansive — not too shabby for an grown-up drama. On January 5, the film will contfinish for six Ggreateren Globes, including Best Motion Picture – Drama.
