Something Went Wrong but You Can Try Again
A 'Lost Urban center' Group Chat With Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum and Daniel Radcliffe
Their movie comedy will be under shut scrutiny at the box office. But they aren't fazed and accept lots to say about that Brad Pitt cameo, "Magic Mike" and "Harry Potter."
Channing Tatum, Sandra Bullock and Daniel Radcliffe are starring in the rom-com take a chance "The Lost City." Credit... Amy Harrity for The New York Times
They play potential lovers in "The Lost City," but in real life, Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum share a very different kind of bond: They're play-date parents.
On a lively Zoom call with their "Lost City" co-star Daniel Radcliffe, Bullock and Tatum described what information technology's like at present that her daughter, Laila, and his daughter, Everly, have both reached the sleepover stage. "Daniel, you'll experience this 1 day," Bullock said. "It's a major coup when you lot tin safely permit your kid to become to someone else'southward firm without thinking they're going to die."
In "The Lost City" (in theaters March 25), Bullock plays romance novelist Loretta Sage, whose life is on autopilot until she's kidnapped by a rich eccentric (Radcliffe) who believes she tin lead him to a hidden treasure buried deep in the jungle. The novelist's cover model Alan (Tatum) mounts an unlikely rescue, helped, at times, past an equally dashing merely far more capable mercenary (Brad Pitt, in a cameo). And as Loretta and Alan endeavour to escape together, sparks fly, punches are thrown and swamp leeches are picked carefully off his naked body.
But the movie comes with an additional set of stakes specific to Hollywood's post-pandemic future: Every bit the theatrical business constricts, volition people still go come across an old-fashioned comic run a risk where the actors lack any superpowers besides A-listing charisma? It helps that "Dog," which Tatum co-directed and starred in, was a recent theatrical hit, but Hollywood will as well expect to coming films like "The Lost City" and "Bullet Railroad train" (a Pitt-led action comedy in which Bullock returns the favor with a cameo of her ain) to decide whether there'due south a path for big studio movies outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The hope is that audiences are even so eager to come across moving-picture show stars being movie stars, and as Bullock, Tatum and Radcliffe playfully ribbed each other during the Zoom phone call, their screen chemistry was evident. At one point, when Tatum was interrupted by the advent of a Dutch shepherd straining to lick his face, Bullock rolled her eyes. "This is a plug for 'Dog,'" she joked. "Beautifully timed, Channing."
Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.
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Channing and Sandra, what do you retrieve about the very starting time time you met?
CHANNING TATUM I've blocked it all out.
SANDRA BULLOCK There'south some PTSD attached to it.
What happened?
BULLOCK Nosotros met through drama, in the primary's role at preschool. Nosotros were called in together because Everly and Laila were trying to alpha the other one out, and we prayed it was the other'south kid that caused the harm. Simply actually, I retrieve we met for the first time at my altogether political party. You were a plus-one.
TATUM That's right, I think that was my first week in Hollywood. You were the beginning celebrity person I met. God bless his soul, Chris Huvane [the tardily talent director] actually brought me there. I believe he was DJing at that bespeak, he wasn't managing.
BULLOCK Yes he was. All the Huvanes took over my party — I had no say in my own birthday. I went, "I have iii friends here. I don't know who everyone else is."
Sometimes that can make for a successful party.
BULLOCK You would call up, if it were in my favor. But I was like, "Is anyone hither for me?"
TATUM I had a blast, personally. I was a kid from Florida, basically non even an player at that signal. I was still just a model, and I made it to her party!
BULLOCK You were never only a model, Chan.
Channing, afterward that first Hollywood party, could you ever have foreseen that you'd someday exist naked in the Dominican Commonwealth, letting Sandra pick leeches off you lot?
TATUM Expect, I might have been convinced that I would be naked in the Dominican Commonwealth. But yeah, when yous shoot that, you only go, "Hi, everyone. My name's Channing. I'll be naked today. Allow'south hit the cherry-red button."
BULLOCK And so I get on my knees and I go, "Is this thing on? Let me just tap it, make sure it'due south on."
TATUM Information technology was on. It was definitely on.
Daniel, what's it similar to play the bad guy opposite these two?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE It was a huge corporeality of fun. It's weird because they worked really, really hard on this film and did quite a grueling physical shoot, and I was having a very arctic time and being like, "Hey guys, you all seem really tired." Just Sandra, your kids also hung out a lot during filming, right?
BULLOCK That's the reason we did this film, then they could have ane long, Covid-safe play date. Nosotros even brought motorbikes down there. All nosotros cared almost is that Everly and Laila were just having the time of their lives.
Paradigm
"The Lost Metropolis" will be ane of the titles that Hollywood looks to in order to judge the future of theatrical moviegoing. Sandra, you produced the movie. Is that a layer of additional pressure?
BULLOCK We had until Feb. 9 to decide whether information technology was total theatrical or day-and-appointment, simply nosotros're here to entertain in whatever capacity it can get out. It was the same matter during filming: We quarantined, fed and housed 650 people, 450 of them Dominicans, who voluntarily left their families for three months in order to be safe. The logistics were a bitch …
TATUM That'south an understatement.
BULLOCK … only you practise this all so you tin can put a moving-picture show up that feels like it has some escapism to it, and a location that deserves to be seen on a major calibration. You're prepared to release information technology in any way people tin come across information technology, but yous go along your fingers crossed for theatrical.
Yous've all starred in some pretty huge box role hits, but how do you decide now whether you should practise a project for streaming or for theaters? Does that stardom thing to you lot?
TATUM The rules are and so amorphous at the moment that I don't think it'south really up to us. I but opened "Dog," and nosotros weren't sure if it was going to go to theaters when Amazon bought MGM. We were merely similar, "OK, we're a modest pic, nosotros don't actually have control over whether this is going to go straight to streaming." But I was confident that "The Lost City" deserves to be on a big screen, and I thought that Sandy was going to protect that.
RADCLIFFE With this movie specifically, I hope people are in a place where they experience similar they can go to the theater and enjoy information technology, because this is a grab-your-friends-and-go-cheer picture that lends itself to a large communal feel. Simply ultimately, I just desire to make stuff that I like, and I don't really mind too much where it gets seen. A lot of the stuff I practice is so weird that I'm like, "Whoever'southward going to allow me brand this, I am going to go with."
Sandra, your thriller "Bird Box" was one of the first certified streaming blockbusters.
BULLOCK "Bird Box" originally was at Universal with Scott Stuber producing, and it was intended for theaters, only we couldn't get the financing that we needed to pull it off. Scott had but been wooed by Netflix, and he said, "Would yous consider doing it over hither? Nosotros can make the film we want to make." I was really intrigued by it considering, every bit a woman, we are limited in what our choices are, but so you go to Netflix and they're similar, "We'll give you whatever you need."
It took 3 years for you to follow that up with another starring vehicle — the drama "The Unforgivable," which was also for Netflix.
BULLOCK No studio would have fabricated "Unforgivable" and put information technology on the big screen in this time that we're in. I like being able to play in all the fields that I want to play in, and I don't desire to be express. I just want people to come across stories that they chronicle to, whether it's at home or in the theater.
This film was originally called "The Lost City of D." What happened to the D?
BULLOCK I'd like to think that Paramount became very evolved and thought they didn't want to play favorites. Why does the D get all the attention? Why non "Lost City of 5"? Not everyone's into D. Some people actually admire and like the Five.
Channing, you'll before long be starring in the Zoë Kravitz-directed "Pussy Island," and then perchance you can weigh in on that sort of championship parity.
RADCLIFFE Best championship.
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TATUM It's why I wanted to practise the movie — it'southward such a bold, bold statement. That movie specifically does demand to be called this, I think. It'due south not but for a joke, and I hope we get to proceed it.
"The Lost Urban center" features a lot of romantic comedy elements, and that'due south a genre we don't get equally much of on the big screen anymore. Why do yous recollect the rom-com fell out of favor?
BULLOCK Because they were bastardized and so undervalued — anytime someone said "chick film" or "rom-com," it was but disparaging. Merely when you go back to the '30s, '40s and '50s, anything with a base of comedy and chance that also had romance in it wasn't marginalized the way that information technology is now. I think when everything swung toward the very masculine action-hazard, women got relegated to the arm piece or damsel in distress. And then, when rom-coms came upwardly, it was always similar, "Oh, we're going to allow the women come back in, only it'south going to be this formula that we like, and it tin can't exist too edgy."
Daniel, even when you starred in the 2013 romantic one-act "What If," it felt similar those films were already becoming a rarity.
RADCLIFFE Speaking of titles, skilful luck, because "What If" was once called "The F Word." It stood for "friend" in that context and they were yet like, "No, y'all can't even imply that in people's minds," then they called it "What If," which could be the championship of any pic about anything.
This film is very much in the tradition of "Romancing the Rock," an risk with romantic-one-act elements. But "Romancing the Stone" was nearly 40 years ago! It's surprising that it would take so long for Hollywood to mine that for more.
RADCLIFFE "Romancing the Rock" is apparently a big point of comparison, and also the showtime "Mummy" picture show with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. That'due south one of my favorite films, and this does feel like a classic adventure film where yous're rooting for the characters and rooting for the human relationship, but also it'south that slightly heightened earth where fifty-fifty in deadly, perilous moments, people are nonetheless being quippy and funny with each other and it's a delight.
BULLOCK One-act is actually hard to come past, and having someone write a iii-hander for a comedy? Impossible. So add action and adventure and scope and depth, and nosotros had three different tones going on that we had to merge, and if we didn't merge, information technology wasn't going to work. The studio kept saying, "There's no comp for this." And nosotros were like …
TATUM … that's the point. It's such a bean-counter, studio exec annotation: "What's the comp for that?"
BULLOCK I mean, it makes sense: What if they're investing and it's a huge bomb? I get it from a financial aspect, only I also know when to start getting on the phone and yelling and screaming, and I had to do it twice.
How did Brad Pitt get involved with "The Lost City"?
TATUM Brad's in this picture show?
BULLOCK Who?
I know it'southward an uncredited role, just he is in the trailer .
BULLOCK Oh, totally. We're abusing the amount of seconds we're allowed to utilise him in the trailer considering his contract was exactly the same as my contract for "Bullet Train." Brad and I have been doing favors for each other back and forth over the years. Janine Thompson, who does my hair, also does Brad'south pilus, and he got her on the phone and said, "Tin Sandy come do 'Bullet Train'?" When we saw this role, nosotros said, "All right, Janine, talk to Brad. You're right near his head correct now — lean downward into his ear and say, "You're doing 'Lost City.'" And he did.
It feels similar he'south parodying his early persona as a buff, longhaired hunk.
BULLOCK He walked in, and I went, "What happened to your body?" He's like, "I bulked up for the role." I was like, "For this role? The one where y'all're hither for three and a half days?" He even gave the states an extra day. I had to get into the trailer and go, "Mr. Pitt, I know y'all only contractually gave usa three days, but do you mind?"
Channing, how before long until you shoot the third "Magic Mike" movie ?
TATUM I leave for London tomorrow, and it's going to be pretty bonkers. We're kind of swinging for the fences — in that location never needs to be another stripper picture after this one. We're trying to exercise a fish-out-of-water story where it's a reverse-office "Pretty Adult female" story that ends up with a lot of dancing in it.
Daniel, you're making a movie about the pop parodist Weird Al Yankovic . How's that going?
RADCLIFFE I could not be more excited for people to run across information technology. I did one shot the other twenty-four hours and Al walked upwards to me afterward and was like, "Is that the weirdest thing you've always had to exercise?" I was similar, "It'southward pinnacle two, with the just other ane being Paul Dano riding me similar a Jet Ski at the beginning of 'Swiss Army Human.'"
TATUM I just love that he's at that place on set.
RADCLIFFE Oh yeah, he'south there every day. And I'grand pleased to report he is the nicest man.
BULLOCK I met him one time in New York when I lied to go a bartending task. He came in and ordered a huckleberry daiquiri and I was like, "Um?" He goes, "Do you desire me to tell you lot how to brand it?" He saw the flops of sweat and he was like, "She has no thought what she's doing." And I didn't. He was the loveliest.
RADCLIFFE I will 100 percent tell him this tomorrow.
Chris Columbus, who directed the first two "Harry Potter" movies, recently said that he hopes to direct you in a film adaptation of the play "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child." Having but revisited that world for an HBO Max reunion special, where do yous stand up on returning for a full motion-picture show?
RADCLIFFE This isn't the answer that anybody'due south going to desire, only I think I was so able to become back and bask information technology considering it'southward not a part of my twenty-four hour period-to-day life anymore. I'm getting to a point where I experience like I made it out of "Potter" OK and I'm actually happy with where I am at present, and to go back would exist such a massive alter to my life. I'm never going to say never, but the "Star Wars" guys had like 30, 40 years earlier they went back. For me, information technology's but been 10. It'due south not something I'k really interested in doing right at present.
And Sandra, what can you tease about "Bullet Train" ?
BULLOCK It was a three- or iv-day piddling role, nothing in comparison to what everyone else is doing. I just slide into Brad'south head and I stay there until the very end. I haven't seen it yet — I think for now, I just want to become a moviegoer again and enjoy things as they come up out and get excited. I can't wait.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/movies/the-lost-city-sandra-bullock-channing-tatum-daniel-radcliffe.html
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