You would think that any movie starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley would be a high demand movie on the fast track to the theaters, and yet, the production of Chaos Walking, a post-apocalyptic drama starring the heroes of Star Wars and Spider-Man has had a rough road to public exhibition. However, the movie is finally on its way, and we all finally have a first look at what exactly Chaos Walking is all about and what it's all about looks mildly insane. Check out the first trailer above.
In the trailer, we see Daisy Ridley crash land on a planet that is inhabited only by men. Not only that, the men of the world have a strange affliction that results in all their thoughts being broadcast out loud for others to hear. Ridley's character is an anomaly both for now being, one assumes, the only woman on the planet, and the only person who can keep her thoughts to herself. This makes her somewhat dangerous, leading Tom Holland's character to try and protect her from those that would do her harm.
For those familiar with the YA novel The Knife of Never Letting Go, this will all be expected, but for those of us who haven't read it, everything about this movie looks bonkers. I mean that it in a good way. It certainly has a unique and interesting hook to it that could make Chaos Walking feel much fresher than so many of the other YA end of the world movies that we've seen. At the same time, it's easy to see why the film was apparently so difficult to put together.
The movie includes not only Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland but Mads Mikkelsen, and it's written and directed by Doug Liman, and that's a powerhouse line up to be sure. However, Chaos Walking went into production over three years ago and will now finally see release in January of 2021. The long road is due to the fact that movie reportedly was in desperate need of reshoots that, due to the schedules of Ridley and Holland, couldn't be completed until 2019. At one point, the movie was being called "unreleasable" by insiders.
For what it's worth, the Chaos Walking trailer doesn't look like the mess we had been led to believe the movie could be. The basic set up is clear. Of course, trailers can certainly be edited to make anything look good, so we'll just have to wait and see if everybody involved was able to crack this nut or not.
Certainly, the January release date, when it was set earlier this year, made it seem like maybe Lionsgate was dumping the film in a part of the year that doesn't get a massive audience. Of course, this January all bets will be off. Movie theaters may still not be open across the country. If they are, audiences that have been starved for entertainment could end up making unexpected movies massive hits.
