“My set is amazing”
Our good friend @Unklerupert has yet again supplied a summary of Duncan Jones’ activities. Including stuff about Dad, Baby “Tusky” and his day job as successful international director.
Over to you Unk… (All bold text is a clickable link and there are lots of links in the following)
#WARCRAFTmovie #DuncanJones
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Hello! You may recall our last update on all things Duncan Jones back in November 2015. At the time the first trailer for Duncan’s latest film WARCRAFT, a big budget adaptation of Blizzard Entertainment’s massively successful game World of Warcraft, had been released along with the announcement of his next project MUTE, a return to Sci-Fi set in the same fictional universe as Duncan’s debut feature MOON.
A lot has happened since then of course, not the least of which was the passing of Duncan’s father David Bowie on January 10th of this year. Time passes and life continues, and new life comes into being as well. On the 10th of February Duncan announced that he and is wife Rodene were expecting a new Jones. “Circle of life.” as Duncan commented on his Twitter announcement.
Skip forward to now and Duncan and Rodene are quickly approaching the release of both of their new babies, tiny Jones (or “Tusky” as Duncan mentioned as a potential name in a recent interview) and WARCRAFT both being due for release in June! So, it’s a busy time in the Jones house right now. The release of a new film obviously involves a lot of promotion and Duncan has taken it all in his stride, as usual, talking not only about WARCRAFT, but about his hugely influential Dad too.
Speaking to Nicole Evatt, Associated Press, Duncan recalled time spent with his Dad on film sets.
“My dad was obviously prolific in music, but he also acted and I think I had the most fun when we were on film sets… I think I got the bug back then.”
“Because the musical gene did not express itself in the way one might have hoped, my main hobby with my dad was shooting little one-stop animations and I just always carried that interest in film.”
“I think as much on the creativity level — his bravery and willingness to try stuff that other people weren’t expecting. I did two science-fiction films and then jumped into a video game movie, and now I’m going to go from this behemoth to another tiny, little indie. So just doing what feels right at the moment on a creative level is certainly something I got from him.”
Duncan is pictured here on the set of The Man Who Fell To Earth with his Dad and the film’s director, Nicolas Roeg. The colour picture is of Duncan in director mode on the set of WARCRAFT.
Speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Duncan confirmed his Dad had got a chance to see what he’d been working on with WARCRAFT
“Before he passed he got the chance to see an early rough cut, and, you know, he’s a dad, so he was proud. He was proud back then and I’m sure he would have been proud of the finished film.”
“He was just excited for me to be branching out and trying out different things. He taught me a lot of things, but one of them was to be brave and to go with what feels right. And for me, you know, having an opportunity to do this felt right.”
WARCRAFT isn’t the only film on Duncan’s mind of course, there is also his much anticipated return to Sci-fi with MUTE which Duncan described to Empire magazine in the UK this month as
“The story of Leo, who’s mute due to a childhood accident. He’s looking for a missing person in mid 21st century Berlin, the Casablanca of the future.”
Talking to Empire about the casting of Alexander Skarsgård as Leo Duncan said
“I think he’ll do a terrific job. Leo is a character who doesn’t talk, so much of the communication is going to be about the nuances of the performance and where I put the camera to pick them up. But it’s also a three hander. The other two character are a pair of buddies who are incredibly talkative, very loquacious and witty. You’re bounced between their two stories, one guy who’s silent and the other who are babbling all the time. So I think it has a nice balance to it.”
Duncan has previously described MUTE as a love letter to Blade Runner and revealed a few more influences to Empire:
“Paul Schrader’s Hardcore meets Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H. It goes very dark, then it also goes very darkly funny. It’s science-fiction urban, so it certainly owes some of it’s influence to Blade Runner. But, in a way, the references to Blade Runner are more superficial.”
The June issues of Empire also exclusively features the first concept art from MUTE over 2 pages, as well as 6 pages on WARCRAFT. Well worth picking up!
With the WARCRAFT release almost upon us, Duncan’s putting in a lot of work on promotion but attention is obviously starting to shift towards the arrival of the baby.
“I’m so excited, our baby is due to arrive within a week or two of the film coming out. I did all the hard work now. It’s a movie, it’s on it’s way, it’ll do it’s own thing. I’ve got this other baby I’ve got to be responsible for and worrying about now. It’s going to be a crazy June.”
Despite joking about a baby name (“Tusky”) during a very funny interview at PAX EAST, Duncan and Rodene’s baby’s name has not been revealed. Duncan and Rodene do know though whether they are expecting a boy or a girl.
In a very moving moment in this interview with Marc Malkin for E! Duncan revealed:
“We were very fortunate when found out what the gender of our baby was going to be. We were able to get the Doctor to write it on a card, without us seeing, and then I got to spend Christmas with my Dad and he actually told what the gender was going to be.”
Having watched Duncan get back into work after a tough start to the year, I think his Dad would quite rightly be very proud to see how committed and hard working he has been in the build up to WARCRAFT’s release. Duncan’s obviously very proud of what the entire cast and crew have achieved on this film, his enthusiasm and delight at every little detail shines through on every interview you’ll watch over the next couple of weeks. There are a couple you should not miss though.
WARCRAFT Movie Panel with Duncan Jones and Robert Kazinsky (Orgrim Doomhammer).
Duncan & Rodene Jones live on Periscope touring the WARCRAFT press expo at Universal.
Rob Kazinsky’s behind the scenes tour of The Lion’s Pride Inn
The main thing to know, for all you none gamers out there, is that Duncan and the gang have created a film that is for everyone. If you are a World of Warcraft player, there will be tons of call backs to the game that you’ll love. If you’re not a World of Warcraft player, maybe not even heard of it, it doesn’t matter. Let’s all get out to those cinemas and support a unique film maker. Check out the latest WARCRAFT trailer.
WARCRAFT release begins in France, Belgium & The Philippines on the 25th of May with the rest of the world following shortly after, 30th of May in the UK (which is also Duncan’s Birthday!). China 8th June, US 10th June, Japan 1st of July. Full list of release dates on IMDb.
Oh! Another bit of MOON related news, Dark Bunny Tees now have an officially licensed range of MOON gear if you fancy a mooch over on their site 🙂
If you want to say hi to Duncan, you’ll find him most days over on Twitter.
Keep up to date with further Duncan related news with on Twitter, or Facebook.
