"IT'S THE MOST REVOLUTIONARY TAKE ON THE MOVIE MUSICAL SINCE DE PALMA'S 'PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE'"
Birth. Movies. Death.'s Jacob Knight, excited that Sony has moved the release date up six weeks to June 28th, writes the following about Edgar Wright's Baby Driver:"Baby Driver is unlike anything you’ve ever seen – a rip-roaring Walter Hill homage that takes 40 years’ worth of action picture grammar, places it in a blender, and then adds a healthy spike of pop music bliss. If Busby Berkeley were obsessed with crashing cars (for real – the driving stunts are 100% practical and mind-blowing), this is the motion picture he’d make. It’s the most revolutionary take on the movie musical since Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise, and melted the faces of all who attended its SXSW World Premiere."
Deadline's Brian Brooks filed a report from SXSW on March 11. Here's an excerpt:
Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver hit the ground with tires squealing this evening at its world premiere at SXSW, with the writer-director and key cast along for the ride for the packed screening at the Paramount Theater. “That is going to make a lot of money,” was among the comments overheard as the revved-up audience left the screening and a boisterous post-movie Q&A that climaxed Day 2 at the festival.Wright took the stage for the Q&A joined by stars Jon Hamm, Eiza González and Ansel Elgort, who plays the young innocent Baby, an unlikely maestro behind the wheel of a getaway car. The music-fueled actioner is the first film Wright wrote by himself (he previously co-wrote features he also directed including Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and The World’s End), and said tonight that Baby Driver had “existed” in his head for 22 years...
...“I was just listening through my record collection and I’d envision scenes,” Wright said tonight of how his movie came together. “I wouldn’t write scenes until I found the right track.” Music is central to the film. Gunshots, dialogue and action sequences are choreographed to the mostly high-energy soundtrack. Elgort’s Baby is the getaway driver for a crime boss (Spacey) who taps various criminals to pull off high-stakes heists. Each job becomes more intense than the last, and the chases more outlandish. Baby Driver is an homage to the ’70s car chase movies of Walter Hill, whose voice can be heard in the movie.
In 2012, Wright did the first read-through of a draft screenplay with Hamm, the only actor from that year who remained on the project. “This is a departure from the films I’ve done in the past,” said Wright. “It definitely took the longest [of my projects] to write.”
Previously:
Edgar Wright influenced by De Palma for Baby Driver