In the summer of 2005, with roughly $50,000 scraped together from friends and family, Jeff Nichols made his directorial debut Shotgun Stories not far from where he grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. Two things haven’t changed since – Michael Shannon has been in front of the camera for every Nichols movie and cinematographer Adam Stone has been behind it. That includes Take Shelter, Mud, and now Midnight Special, which elevates Nichols to the studio realm with a tale of a father (Shannon) and his “special” son (Jaeden Lieberher) on the run from the government and a religious cult with […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Jun 30, 2016The only American narrative in Berlinale’s Competition selection this year was Midnight Special, Jeff Nichols’s cryptic homage to utopian sci-fi and early Spielbergian iconography, and something of a return to the more fantastical genre territory seen in his breakout, Take Shelter. In the film, which reportedly had a budget of $18 million and tends to look like it cost ten times that, Roy (Michael Shannon) and Lucas (Joel Edgerton) are on the lam in Texas following their apparent kidnapping of a young boy named Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), a “special child” coveted by the CIA, cultish rural religious organizations, and other […]
by Blake Williams on Feb 22, 2016Michael Shannon has been in each Jeff Nichols feature so far, and with Midnight Special the director/star duo of Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter and Mud graduate to (seemingly) big-time studio money. (The actual number, per this interesting article, is a relatively modest $18 million.) It’s a sci-fi chase movie — the trailer gives off the general vibe. The film drops March 18.
by Filmmaker Staff on Nov 20, 2015