With his first five films telling stories among various locales and time periods in and around New York City, James Gray seems to be eager to expand his palette. His upcoming “The Lost City Of Z” will be set in the jungles of South America, and after that, he’s going interstellar with “Ad Astra” (Latin for “to the stars).
Casting is currently underway for that long gestating sci-fi project, production is slated to start in early 2017, and we’re excited to see what the director does with the genre. While story details are being kept secret for now, back in 2014, Grey told the Playlist about the challenges he anticipated in the making of “Ad Astra.”
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“Well, I’ll tell you what happens mostly: we filmmakers all fall into the same trap, which is to blow your mind at the end. Which is not possible. Audiences have seen everything, there’s nothing that’s going to be ‘awe-inspiring.’ What happens really is that you have to come up with something conceptually amazing, not visually amazing. And that’s a challenge,” he explained. “It’s a challenge and I don’t want to make the film unless I think I’ve gotten it right.”
As for “The Lost City Of Z,” with our appetites whetted following the leak of the sales trailer, I’d expect it to drop at one of the major fall festivals, so keep an eye out.