Nobody is to be trusted in the latest trailer for 20th Century Fox's Bad Times at the El Royale. The enigmatic project opens against Damien Chazelle's Neil Armstrong memoir First Man and Sony's kid-friendly sequel Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween in theaters this October.
Written and directed by Drew Goddard, Bad Times revolves around seven strangers who cross paths at the El Royale: a rundown hotel that has a history of its own. Set in the late 1960s, Bad Royale stars Jon Hamm, Jeff Bridges, Dakota Johnson, Cailee Spaeny, Chris Hemsworth, and Cynthia Erivo as the Royale's guests, each of who nurses a secret they would prefer to keep hidden. Lewis Pullman rounds out the main ensemble as the hotel's concierge, with Nick Offerman and Russell Crowe playing undisclosed roles.
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Between the first Bad Times at the El Royale trailer and this new preview, a clearer - but not too revealing - picture of the film is beginning to form. It looks like Bridges is a criminal pretending to be a priest, whereas Johnson and Spaeny are on the run from Hemsworth's finely chiseled (but threatening) cult leader. Meanwhile, both Hamm and Pullman seem to know a thing or two about the truth behind the El Royale, and Erivo is clearly troubled, but (maybe) has less to hide than everyone else. For more on that, watch the latest trailer below:
Bad Times very much has shades of Goddard's directorial debut on the cult hit horror-comedy The Cabin in the Woods, yet its premise and style are more in line with a twisty noir mystery-thriller. At the same time, the trailers make it clear that everything is far from what it appears to be in Bad Times. If so, that's one more thing it has in common with not only Cabin in the Woods, but even Michael Schur's The Good Place (a TV show Goddard worked on) and its many game-changing rug pulls.
As evidenced by his previous movie scripts (The Martian, Cloverfield) and TV writing (Angel, Lost, Daredevil), Goddard is well-versed in the art of putting clever spins on well-trod concepts. By the look of things, he may succeed in doing that again with Bad Times at the El Royale and deliver a noir film that pays homage to the genre's past, yet brings something fresh to the table. In that event, there will be all the more reason for everyone to get excited about finding out what Goddard has in mind for his third movie as director - the Deadpool spinoff X-Force.
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Source: 20th Century Fox
