THE CREATOR Director Gareth Edwards is still open to big franchises, but only if he has his creative freedom

After making his independent film in 2010 Monstersdirector Gareth Edwards was launched into the world of big-budget, big-studio Hollywood cinema. His next film was Godzilla for Warner Bros. and from there he moved on to direct Star Wars movie Rogue One for Disney and Lucasfilm.

Edwards has spent a lot of time playing in the sandboxes of big franchises. Those films took a toll on him and after the making Rogue One took a 6-7 year break from making films. He had already spoken about it previously, saying:

“I needed to get off the ride, you know what I mean? In Hollywood you can get stuck on the hamster wheel, or whatever analogy you want to use. I just wanted to get off and take a break to take some time to think about the next thing.”

He went on to explain that even though he was making these big-budget franchise Hollywood films, he realized that more money didn’t necessarily give him freedom. He said:

“I got to make a very low-budget sci-fi movie with Monsters, and I realized there were some serious advantages to having no money. It was kind of a shock to have all the money you could want and still be limited. I had the feeling that if I could somehow take that big bag of money and send it back to when I was making Monsters, the possibilities would be endless. And so, in a strange way, I was trying to find that kind of scenario. I was as interested in the process of making the film as I was in the idea.”

When he was ready, he pushed his science fiction project The creator forward, which he described as “a bridge between his low-budget roots and big studio support for Edwards.” The question is: Would Edwards be open to returning to the big studio system for another franchise project?

The answer is yes, but it all depends on whether he has a good amount of creative freedom. She explained this in a recent interview with CB, saying:

“I like franchises, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have done two. So there are things I’d still like to do in that arena,” Edwards explained. He quickly added the caveat that even if he were working for a big studio, he would still want to use the hands-on, immersive world-building approaches he used to make The Creator.

Edwards went on to talk about not wanting to be trapped in the Hollywood “factory” and shared what his best-case scenario would be with the franchise:

“If I have to do them, I only want to do them if I can use this methodology and bring this stamp,” Edwards said. “Because you go into a certain factory, all the other things in the factory will come out. So, it’s like trying to escape the factory and just do it this way. If someone was willing to say, ‘Okay, here’s the IP: Here’s the franchise , but go ahead and do it your way.” That would probably be one of the best-case scenarios, I think.”

Good if The creator ends up being a huge success, there are studios out there that will give him the creative freedom he’s looking for.

The creator tells a story on an epic scale, set in the distant future after a “catastrophic and apocalyptic war” between humans and artificial intelligence. John David Washington protagonist of the film as a character who is tasked with saving the world, but may have to kill a child robot with artificial intelligence to do so.

The film is based on an original story and screenplay written by Edwards Chris Weitzand the synopsis reads: “In the midst of a future war between the human race and the forces of artificial intelligence, Joshua (Washington), a hardened former Special Forces agent grieving the disappearance of his wife (Chan), is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced artificial intelligence who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end war… and humanity itself.

It explains: “Joshua and his team of elite agents travel behind enemy lines, into the dark heart of AI-occupied territory… only to discover that the world-ending weapon they were ordered to destroy it’s an artificial intelligence in the form of a child.”

The creator will be released in theaters on September 29, 2023.