A24 and film producer Alex Scharfman are ready to shine towards the Unicorn Legend with the latest genre release from Arthouse publishers. exist The death of the unicorn, Jenna Ortega (Wednesday) Paul Rudd (Avengers: The Final Game) Playing a daughter and father who accidentally runs past a baby unicorn on his way to a major conference, which could cause the family to deal with dad’s wealthy employer. A strange sequence of events will lead to a discovery that may change the world if it actually leaves the realm of a mansion from the secluded magical forest.
IO9 recently sat down with Scharfman to discuss the film’s Genesis, the decision to play Ortega with the most interesting actors today, and why irony in today’s world requires fantasy to fantasize to laugh at it.
Sabina Graves, IO9: So I’m not usually a fan of unicorns, but I think you’ve finally made me a unicorn girl. So thank you.
Alex Scharfman: This is what Jenna said. Jenna doesn’t like unicorns. I mean, I didn’t like unicorns until I started researching this movie. But yes, I think hopefully people get depths that we don’t know for a while.
IO9: I understand now. They can be metal like hell. Let’s start from scratch. What is the backstory of your specialty in this project? Because it was a crazy journey.
Scharfman: This idea just came to me. The opening scenes were scattered somewhere in my mind and I really didn’t know where that came from. But sometimes, this happens, you imagine a scene and you’re like, “Where did that go?” It’s natural to pull the thread of “Where is that?” and “What if someone hit a unicorn with a car?” “What is a unicorn?” Like, as a human, what do we bring to it?
IO9: When you imagine this happening to your daughter and her father, do you think: “Oh, Paul Rudd is that dad”?
Scharfman: At the time, no, before the actor or the role – it’s a situation. And I don’t know what happened, where they were going or what happened. [it was] It’s just something that comes to my mind. It took me a few years to start exploring it.
IO9: Absolutely. It also gives me a resonance of Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, which requires fantasy elements to tell a very real satirical story.
Scharfman: Can I say I’m a huge Kurt Vonnegut nerd? In fact, he had a story about a medieval father and son, which was strange.
IO9: Oh, yes, his unicorn hunting story.
Scharfman: Unicorn Trap.
IO9: Right!
Scharfman: Yes, OK. So you know the story.
IO9: Are you actually thinking about this when you write this article, or is it happening?
Scharfman: Honestly, this is a bit accidental. I have read and have the full vonnegut anthology. I’ve read every short story he’s written. But that’s not the one I think positively, because unicorns aren’t actually the central figure. More about father and son.
IO9: It is certainly important to remember that you were a big fan of that time. Do you think there are fundamental principles for making such satirical films, especially when it feels like satirical every day in real life?
Scharfman: Interestingly, when I started writing this post, I started outlining 2019. I think in autumn 2019, Go out of the knife As soon as I came out, I was like, “Oh, cool, ironic.” Obviously, we have had a lot of irony in class comments lately. I think when I started studying unicorn mythology and unicorn legends, I thought it was very attractive to me. But especially the tapestries we encounter throughout the movie, which are about a Lord sending his court and his slave to kill the unicorn and bringing it back to him so that he can have it forever.
It’s about commoditized natural and social hierarchies to a large extent that makes one say, “Go and do this for me, bring it back here so that I can have something” which I think is fundamentally about class and irony. I thought this story naturally asked this. As far as the context of 2025 is concerned, I think when you do horror satire, The fun of doing this is to be able to do horror and irony. [They] The genre of being with metaphors, I think there is an interesting opportunity to keep the metaphor consistent.
But, I do think, I think this movie is intentional and unquestionable, because we live in a ridiculous era. Maybe that’s what we’re doing right now, we live in an era where the world’s wealthiest people serve in the White House. It’s much like it’s all on the surface. Now, I feel that there has been more cover and a certain degree of etiquette or norm has been out the window since then. It was appropriate for me to make something direct and hopefully cathartic, and I certainly thought of the unicorns’ sense of violence and restorative sense of justice, which was perfect for the moment we lived.
IO9: Just like a whale to a yacht! Amazing. No, it is so wild that it happens to be at that wavelength, because I die from will [Poulter’s] Petulant Tech brothers perform. Because I’m like me, wow, like we’ve been seeing people like this all the time now, but he just nailed the character.
Scharfman: I disagree. I was lucky to have the will in the movie and provided the performances he did because I thought it was fun and wild and growing, but it was also very rooted in this human psychology, which I think is to a greater extent, “How do we get here?” What kind of personality do we develop and promote as a society? This millennial boy tech brother, these self-proclaimed masters of the universe, think they have all the answers through a certain level of courage and come forward.
IO9: He and everyone around with Jenna are the most interesting people. So it’s crazy to see a fool like her and Richard [E. Grant] and Paul [Rudd] Straight face. Like Anthony [Carrigan] And the damn grandfather clock. I didn’t catch it from the first view until Jenna pointed it out!
Scharfman: That’s one of my favorite jokes. It really killed me. The film draws inspiration from many biometrics from the 70s to the 90s, but also ironically in the sense of genre. Extinct Angel and [Robert Altman’s] Gosford Park. These movies are real ensemble movies, and I love an ensemble movie where you have all these characters representing social structures or larger prototypes than yourself. And because they are very inclusive, they are a little bigger than life. In this very encompassing ecosystem [of a film] It gives people the opportunity to get a little big from time to time and bring it to dramatic and fun camps.
It was such a fun person to live there, and then Jenna was the surrogate for the audience. She is our eyes and ears. She is the one we agree with. That’s the essence of the story. [it] always [Jenna’s character] Located in the heart of this weird world, Ridley deals with the Leopold family and their plans to get to know these crazy people. Paul’s role is really recognized [they] It’s crazy, but he wants crazy people, so he doesn’t seem to behave like that, and she doesn’t like games.
IO9: Back to your inspiration for this biometric aspect, I’ll definitely get the vibe of John Carpenter and Amblin. What is the mechanism for in-depth research? It’s obvious that unicorns are created, where they are a combination of practical and CG, and how do you want to frame them in the story? I’m glad you didn’t shy away from hiding them.
Scharfman: I think that in the characteristics of contemporary creatures, you need to be for the audience, especially movies that intentionally reshape creatures. Keep them in shadow, keep them in the fog, blocking them for a while, but at the end of the movie they are in spacious daylight and just walk down the stairs, you know, and make you happy, saying, “We’re actually going to do a good clean look on this.”
IO9: What actions must the actor take for all these suspense scenes?
Scharfman: This is a combination of things we have. Sometimes we have live horses and we have puppets. We have big beautiful puppets. I love puppets; they are fun. We will use puppets whenever possible. It’s really important to have as many practical elements as possible throughout the process, not only for the actors but also for me writing footage, just wanting to see as many of these footage as possible.
Of course there is VFX, but even if we have VFX, our puppet heads are more like VFX lighting reference heads. We also let the puppets walk through the camera so that the actor knows where the creature is and how it looks at each location, and how it develops. They have a real sense of touch. Obviously, some of the shots are just puppets. It’s always exciting when you can figure out that this is part of a filmmaking process like this.
The death of a unicorn Open this Friday.
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