Joe Cornish talks Netflix Ghost Hunter series Lockwood & Co and Attack The Block 2 updates

Joe Cornish’s teen drama about ghostbusters Lockwood and Co. launches worldwide today on Netflix. Ruby Stokes (Bridgeton) and newcomers Cameron Chapman and Ali Hadji-Heshmati as a teenage trio who run an independent ghost-busting agency in London while facing off against corporate rivals run by adults.

The eight-part series of Cornish’s Complete Fiction Banners is based on Jonathan Stroud’s books about an alternate modern world where homicidal spirits have been attacking people since the 1960s and only teenagers have the ability to see and recall them. Netflix ordered it as one of seven UK originals announced in December 2020. plywood has grown and the ratings this week have been overwhelming.

“We have these brilliant books to draw from,” Cornish said in an interview with Deadline this week. “The challenge is to get it on screen with the scope, energy and detail we want, with the time and money to do it, and to polish it and honor the books.”

Cornish sat down with us to discuss his ambitions for the show and update us on the progress of the highly anticipated sci-fi action-horror sequel Attack block 2which is currently being developed in collaboration with John Boyegas UpperRoom Productions, Film4 and Studiocanal.

The original Attack the block, now in its tenth year, followed Boyega and a gang of inner-city kids as they battled aliens in a London tower block. It was a hit, won audience awards at SXSW and the Los Angeles Film Festival, and launched Cornish’s career as a sought-after director.

“There was a lot of time in between Attack the block and my second film, so I’m trying to focus a little more on keeping other projects in development while I’m making things,” he said. “The first Attack the block was made in the utmost secrecy, so we had time to make it as good as necessary. We are now in the middle of this process.

“John and I do a very detailed review and research to find out the reality, which we then fuse with science fiction fantasy. We enter the real world with brilliant explorers and find people whose lives intersect with these characters for detail and realism. It’s a co-production and we’re going to take our time to get it right.”

world building

Lockwood and Co. is Cornish’s first feature screenwriting series and his first as showrunner, though he doesn’t like the term. “I refused to use that term because ‘show’ sounds like a West End musical and ‘runner’ sounds like sport, and those are not areas I want to work in,” he joked. “I was more of a producer and executive producer. It was a group effort by me, Nira, [Complete Fiction co-founder and Head of Film & TV] Rachel Prior and [Head of Development] Bradley down.

Cornish directed episodes one and eight and oversaw the rest of the script and filming. His focus was to build an image of a world based on four elements that Stroud created for the books: killing ghosts by touching people, young people who can sense them earlier than adults, agencies founded by adults, the young Said to help people deal with spirits, and salt and metal in various forms can repel the apparitions.

“We really tried to avoid unnecessary exposure,” he said. “I tried to approach it like a process where detectives go about their work and you understand their methodology. In general, we just try to create an interesting atmosphere.

“We want to immerse the audience in the story and let them fend for themselves. You have to respect your audience and their intelligence and accept that they are looking at their phone with both eyes and not one. So far it has worked.”

Casting and production took place in difficult circumstances under lockdown conditions during the pandemic, and a sometimes tight budget meant that ghost scenes had to be cut. However, the aggressive nature of the show’s performances means its presence is limited, Cornish said.

“You can’t leave ghosts hanging in the shadows when they attack. They’re like attackers, so we don’t have the luxury of a glance or anything ambiguous. They should be here and on your back. We have to put ghosts on your face.”

Cornish also did their best to emphasize this Lockwood and Co. theoretically falling into the YA category, the ambition is much broader.

“The books and world building are so clever, and the rules that Jonathan laid out for ghost fights and ghost fights are extraordinarily well-honed for the material,” he said. “We tried to make the stake real, so it’s not knowing, funny or meta. It’s not a reboot or a franchise; It’s an original piece of heartfelt, haunting and funny stories centered on three lovable characters.”

Cornish career

Cornish first came to attention with comedy partner and podcaster Adam Buxton when he created the cult comedy sketch series Channel 4 in the 1990s The Adam & Joe Showin which they made toy figures war of stars and created iconic characters such as British director Ken Korda. They followed with quirky and popular radio shows on BBC and XFM before bringing Cornish’s global breakthrough to directing. Attack the block in 2011. He then went on to work in Hollywood as a writer The Adventures of Tintin and ant man, although he left the latter before it was published. In 2019 he made his second film, The boy who would become kingand now he’s writing and directing a Mark Millars adaptation starlight fun. However, most of the attention is focused on it at the moment plywood and Co. and Attack block 2News that broke the deadline in 2021.

The show is Netflix’s first with Complete Fiction, the company Cornish co-founded distance from each other and sean of the dead Producers Parke, Prior and Last night in Soho Director Edgar Wright. “We have many projects with them in active development, but to be honest I’m already so far into it plywood I can’t tell you what they are,” he said. Writers’ rooms for various projects are underway, though details are scarce.

Unfortunately, Cornish killed the idea of ​​reuniting with comedy partner Buxton for a new series or film – something many fans have sporadically requested over the years – instead saying they would continue to reunite The Adam Buxton Podcast Christmas specialties.

“The great thing about the radio show and the podcasts is that when we’re together, we feel very comfortable just doubting and making things up,” he said. “What naturally developed on the TV and radio programs is that we go out and make toy films, write songs, do crazy shit and then get together and chat on the spur of the moment and give each other gifts. Is there a way to do that on TV?”

With his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, he said the BBC’s slow-motion Ob-Doc series Mortimer and Whitehouse: go fishing made him think Bad dads, an imaginary series in which he and Buxton would escape their families and shoot into the wind on a park bench. “It would be nice to do that, but it would have to be formulated by a nice behavioral psychologist who works in TV development and would understand all our weaknesses.”