The Big Picture · Interview
April 21, 2017/ 30 min/ Sean Fennessey
Sean Fennessey talks to Ben Wheatley about 'Free Fire,' contained action, and pre-vising a shootout in Minecraft.
6 films across 1 segment.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
Ben Wheatley on 'Free Fire'
A 1970s arms deal that collapses into a single-warehouse shootout, with Brie Larson, Armie Hammer, and Cillian Murphy. Wheatley traced it back to a forensic FBI report on a Miami gunfight, and built the set in Minecraft to walk the space before shooting; executive produced by Martin Scorsese.
The film that got Scorsese's attention. Wheatley uses it as his benchmark for how much dread an audience can take.
Wheatley's bucket-list shot: a musket firing into a puff of dust.
The cerebral, talky film 'Free Fire' was a deliberate reaction against.
His prior comedy: 120 hours of rushes, he notes, arguing the case for shooting digital.
Kinji Fukasaku's Yakuza saga, which Wheatley picks as the thing that recently knocked his socks off, a box set he watched over three or four days.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing Taxi DriverMean StreetsThe Friends of Eddie CoyleThe Wolf of Wall StreetThe Terminator
In development Freak Shift
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Doctor WhoDeep Breath
Comics Hard Boiled