Doug Liman's reshoots on Chaos Walking are getting some extra help thanks to Don't Breathe director Fede Alvarez. The film is an adaptation of a YA book series written by Patrick Ness that is set in a world where women have almost completely been wiped out due to a virus and the mostly male human population can now communicate to one another through their thoughts. The heady sci-fi concepts, as well as Liman, attracted two of Hollywood's brightest stars to the film, with Tom Holland taking on the lead role and Daisy Ridley as his co-star.
These pairings brought great excitement for Chaos Walking early on, but after production concluded, everything about the film went dark. That is, until a report came that reshoots were needed to fix the film - which was recently said to be "unreleasable" in its current state. It took several months for Holland and Ridley's schedules to clear, but Holland recently revealed that the reshoots have begun in Atlanta. He's continued to update the status of them on his Instagram, and now we know that Liman is getting some additional input from a fellow director.
In a new report from THR, they have revealed that Don't Breathe director Fede Alvarez has been brought aboard Chaos Walking as a consultant. Alvarez joined the reshoots after a request by Lionsgate and Liman, and his work began by reading over the additional scenes Liman made. He is said to have given him extensive notes on the material and then the two directors worked together to hash out what needed to be done. Alvarez is currently on set of Chaos Walking's reshoots, which will last three weeks and add $15 million to the movie's budget, with the hope of dramatically improving the quality.
Liman has seen several of his movies undergo major changes before, during, and after production, but this will be one the rare times that someone else is actually helping him out in this fashion. Liman previously clashed with Angelina Jolie on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and saw the filming schedule delayed due to the many changes that were happening. His recent film Edge of Tomorrow saw heavy amounts of rewrites come its way too, so this has (unfortunately) become par for the course with Liman, making reports over Chaos Walking's status unsurprising.
The addition of Alvarez's talents as a writer, director, and producer will hopefully pay dividends when it comes to Chaos Walking's final cut. The goal of these reshoots is to improve the movie after all, and even if the approach isn't preferred, Liman has found the ability to save his troubled productions on multiple occasions in the past. Chaos Walking could just be the latest example of this, as the surplus of talent involved gives plenty of reasons to hope this will be the case again.
Source: THR