It’s almost silly that we still have more trailers and TV spots circulating for J.J. Abrams’s latest movie, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which opens in less than a week. The film pretty much sold itself on its most recent trailer – even to the tune of $50 million dollars in advanced ticket sales already in the can, thus attributing to just how nototiously competitive tickets for these event-films can get.
As such, there’s probably a handful of people (of which I’m among) who will unfortunately be catching the film long after its first week. These seats usually go fast and to that affect, the new film knows exactly what kind of climate it is in upon aiming to attract as wide an audience as possible, which that means casting. For this,
we go back to January when news broke of casting updates regarding three principals of director Gareth Evans’s cult-acclaimed action franchise, The Raid – Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman. The news was a surprise to everyone, further signaling even more greatness in favor of their career progression among fans of their work dating back to Evans’ 2009 debut,
Merantau. However, it was an update that wasn’t supposed to arrive as soon as it did and it remained shrouded in secrecy among those in the know, although given the nature of the internet and how fast the web works, it was already too late and only a matter of time before the obvious would come to pass.
That said, it was this week that
/Film provided extra insight from a press junket where Abrams offered his own take on what inspired him to get the fan favorites from
The Raid and
The Raid 2 involved in the movie. Granted, the roles are pretty small with all three characters playing members of an intergalactic gang in the film but it still left Abrams pretty fond of how they worked so well on set, especially considering the new photo now having viral showcasing what three look like in costume:
I was just a fan. It was an opportunity. I knew we needed people for this one sequence that would be particularly fun to see a group of people working together. It was simply just as I had seenJohn Boyega in Attack The Block and thought “how cool would it be to work with that guy one day?” and the opportunity arose and it worked out. And opportunity arose for this and I thought “God, I wonder if the dudes from The Raid would be available?” And to my amazement, and they were willing, and they were incredible. They showed up and did a terrific job.
This won’t be it for our trio of action stars from Indonesia with a number of titles currently pending from each; a few titles to look out for would be Liam O’Donnell’s
Beyond Skyline, Kellie Madison’s
The Gate series, Peter Berg’s
Mile 22, Timo Tjahjanto’s
Headshot, Randy Korompis’s newly announced
Foxtrot Six with Mario Kassar and Ario Sagantorio respectively exective producing and co-producing, and God willing, Evans’s
Blister and
The Raid 3.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens releases wide on December 18.
Photo: Twitter
