Back in 2015, Collider partnered up withIMAXfor a screening series. The goal was to show both old and new movies and have intimate conversations with the people involved in bringing the films to life. While I had optimistic goals for what I wanted to accomplish, over the past two years we’ve absolutely exceeded my lofty expectations by showing some of the biggest new releases before they’ve been in theaters, including meet and greets for the fans. To every filmmaker and actor that’s worked with us, I say thank you!
However, there is one person that deserves an individual shout out and that’s directorFrancis Lawrence. That’s because every idea has to start somewhere, and back when the idea was just a dream, Lawrence agreed to launch the IMAX screening series by letting us showThe Hunger Games Mockingjay – Part 2and sitting down with me for an extended Q&A with a lucky group of fans. Because of that screening, I was able to reach out to other filmmakers and studios to show it can be done and the rest is history.
With Lawrence’s fantastic spy thriller,Red Sparrow, now in theaters, we recently held a special IMAX screening for Collider readers here in Los Angeles. Once the movie ended, I sat down with him for almost an hour to talk about making the movie, which also included a ton of great audience questions. Thankfully, IMAX shot the interview for Facebook Live so I can share it with everyone below.
During the Q&A, the filmmaker shared some great stories about working withJennifer Lawrence, what it’s really like filming the brutally violent scenes, how he didn’t want to make an erotic thriller, what he learned from test screenings, his four-hour first cut, which scenes he deleted and why, how he’s done shooting on film, what it was like showing Jennifer Lawrence the movie for the first time, and so much more. Trust me, if you’re curious howRed Sparrowwas made you’ll learn a lot watching this Q&A.
Again, a huge thank you to Francis Lawrence for doing this Q&A, and for helping us launch the Collider Screening Series. Below the video is a list of exactly what he talked about.
Red Sparrowalso starsJoel Edgerton,Matthias Schoenaerts,Charlotte Rampling,Mary-Louise Parker, andJeremy Irons.
Francis Lawrence:
