Bad Robot’s ‘God Particle’ Is Not Like ‘Interstellar’, Says Star David Oyelowo
Julius Onah’sGod Particlegot a big boost in advance hype last month when we learned it was actually the thirdCloverfieldmovie, as we’d long suspected. But otherwise, Bad Robot is taking their usual secretive approach toGod Particle. StarDavid Oyelowowon’t even disclose which character he’s playing in the movie. The most revealing thing he will say is that it’snotlike his other sci-fi space travel spectacle,Interstellar.TheWrappumped Oyelowo for more details onGod Particle. Though the actor said producerJ.J. Abramswould put “a gun to my head” if he gave away any spoilers, he did talk it up in general terms. “Every single day we were on that set we were agog with the inventiveness and innovation, between the technology, the story and the audacity of what we were trying to accomplish,” he said. “It’s an incredibly exciting and innovative piece of storytelling. It’s incredibly surprising.”
That said, we’ve got a few of the details already. We knowGod Particlecenters on a group of astronauts who make a shocking discovery and wind up fighting for survival in an altered reality. It’s easy to see how that description might share some superficial similarities with Christopher Nolan’sInterstellar, but Oyelowo is quick to shut down that comparison. “The only connection I would say is both films involve space and both films involve me. That’s about as much connection I can see between the two,” he said.
Which kind of makes sense.Interstellaris a fine film, but it doesn’t really fit the Cloververse mold.Cloverfieldand10 Cloverfield Laneare not strongly connected in a narrative sense, but Abrams and company seem to envision the franchise as more of an anthology series a laTwilight ZoneorBlack Mirror, and what the two films we’ve seen so far have in common is that they’re smart, well-crafted genre thrillers operating on a relatively small scale. We’d expectGod Particleto be along the same lines.
InGod Particle, Oyelowo andGugu Mbatha-Rawlead a cast that also includesElizabeth Debicki,Chris O’Dowd,Daniel Brühl,Ziyi Zhang,Aksel Hennie, andJohn Ortiz. In other words, it’s a pretty diverse cast, and Oyelowo had nice things to say about Abrams' efforts on that front. “You saw J.J. do that with John Boyega and Daisy Ridley inStar Wars– with a black actor and a young female actor,” he said. “He has taken it upon himself to be the change that he now wants to see.”
God Particle(which seems likely to get a new title before it hits theaters) opensFebruary 24, 2017.
