Empire Australasia - 03.2020

(Ann) #1
Andy Samberg romcomPalm Springsbecame the festival’s
biggest sale ever. What’s all the fuss about?

No. / 8 Why this is the biggest


Sundance movie ever (by $0.69)


Above: Here we
go again: Nyles
(Andy Samberg)
and Sarah
(Cristin Milioti)
live through the
same day over
and over again.
Below: Director
Max Barbakow.

PLENTY OF FILMS generate buzz
at Sundance, the indie fi lm festival to
rule them all. But few fi lms garnered
as much word-of-mouth this year as
Palm Springs, the Andy Samberg-
starring debut feature from director
Max Barbakow. With inklings of
Groundhog Day and Van Wilder,
the fi lm made history when it was
sold to distributors for the biggest
Sundance sale ever.
The fi lm has a straightforward
premise: Palm Springs follows party
bro Nyles (Samberg), stuck reliving the
same sex, beer and pizza-driven day,
over and over again, with Sarah (Cristin
Milioti) accidentally entangling herself
in Nyles’ inescapable time loop. Also,
J.K. Simmons plays a deranged man
who inexplicably hunts Samberg with
assault rifl es and grenades. Trading
heavily on the irreverent wit that made
Samberg a fan favourite in Brooklyn
Nine-Nine, it’s both a hilarious romcom
and endearing existential crisis —
asking the question, is reliving the same
day without fear of death or risk a life
worth living at all?
The movie is the defi nition of funny.
It proved the biggest crowd-pleaser of
the festival, and with a rare 100 per cent
on Rotten Tomatoes, the fi lm sparked
a furious bidding war among studios.
Neon (the distributor behind Parasite in
the US) and US streaming service Hulu

ultimately snatched the global rights
to the comedy in a record-breaking
deal: $17,500,000.69, cheekily blowing
past the previous Sundance high
($17.5 million for Nate Parker’s Birth
Of A Nation) by 69 cents, a punchline
of a distribution deal. (Deadline later
reported that the fi nal fi gure may be
closer to $22 million.)
It’s a huge fi gure — and considering
Samberg has never headed up a
live-action box-offi ce hit, could be
considered risky. More worrying still,
comedies like Late Night, Brittany Runs
A Marathon and Blinded By The Light
were all huge sales at last year’s
Sundance — yet none of them made
much of a box-offi ce impact. Clearly,
though, with Parasite’s huge success
(it is the biggest Korean film ever in
the US), Neon is feeling punchy.Palm
Springscould be another ticket for
them to go
But the
such a mass
partnered w
Hulu sugge
motivation.
life on strea
like Sandbe
has become
in Sundanc
Springsis d
on watchlis
ROBERT DAN

provides a colourful backdrop for the
fi lm’s hand-to-hand combat, including a
spectacularly lengthy “oner”, an apparently
one-take car chase and fi st fi ght that follows
not just Rake but his pursuer — Randeep
Hooda’s Sarju — and the local police force.
The fi lm then decamped to Thailand for
interior scenes and its big fi nale, a gun
battle across a bridge.
When Empire visits the set in January
2019, fi lming on that sequence is just
beginning, and Rake is fi ghting his way
through a marketplace swarming with
bad guys. We regularly break interviews to
stuff in earplugs and are warned to stand
back to avoid burns from fl ying cartridges.
At one point, Hemsworth is interrupted
by a small explosion nearby. He shrugs
slightly; it’s pretty normal by now. “Usually
you get a warning about that.” Then he hefts
his weapons and goes back to work, to bring
to life a broken man who found something
worth fi ghting for. Hemsworth’s break
from action cinema can wait a little longer.
HELEN O’HARA


EXTRACTION IS COMING SOON TO NETFLIX


uld be another ticket for
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ere’s another reasonbehind
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Comedyhas a healthyshelf
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ea bingeable hit. If the reaction
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estined tofind a longlife
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NIELS

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