Movies

‘Bright’ Trailer: Orcs and Humans, Living Together. Mass Hysteria.

The Netflix film from the director of ‘Suicide Squad’ has some serious originality. Like gangster elves.
By  · Published on July 21st, 2017

The Netflix film from the director of ‘Suicide Squad’ has some serious originality. Like gangster elves.

It might not be fair to David Ayer or to this new movie of his, Bright. But it’s inescapable. This is the director who, with plenty of studio “assistance,” gave us Suicide SquadAnd as fans, we’re going to be reckoning with that for a long while. But here’s the rub: Ayer is a filmmaker who has made really interesting, gritty, dark and unique films in the past. It’s why he looked like a good fit for Suicide Squad going into the project. Both Fury and End of Watch have a raw quality to them. The story of SS will be that Ayer wanted to go too dark with a superhero movie and the studio panicked in the 11th hour.

Even in the time since Suicide Squad, Ayer has been making waves by showing a little too much edge for the tastes of Hollywood. He recently exited Universal’s Scarface reboot for creative reasons with rumors swirling that it had a lot to do with his darker approach. Maybe the world isn’t ready for an even bloodier, more sadistic version of Tony Montana. Perhaps Universal will get Jason Segel to make it with Muppets, instead.

Alas, Bright presents David Ayer an opportunity to work inside the Netflix system, where filmmakers are allowed free reign over their projects and their visions can thrive. Whether or not unrestrained David Ayer combined with an unrestrained story from Max Landis (Chronicle) is a good thing is yet to be seen. Thanks to Netflix, we’re all going to have the freedom to find out together.

In this trailer, we get a lot of story and world-building. Orcs, humans, elves, and all manner of magical creatures living together in a modern day Los Angeles. It’s End of Watch meets Lord of the Rings. As the trailer rolls on, we see that relative newcomer Lucy Fry (11.22.63) plays an elf woman at the heart of the story. She finds a magic wand and now everyone in LA is ready to kill for it. Can Will Smith and Orc Joel Edgerton stop all the madness and save the day?!

Bright hits Netflix on December 22. Check out the very interesting trailer below, followed by a picture of Edgar Ramirez as a gangster elf and Noomi Rapace as elf Catwoman.

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Neil Miller is the persistently-bearded Publisher of Film School Rejects, Nonfics, and One Perfect Shot. He's also the Executive Producer of the One Perfect Shot TV show (currently streaming on HBO Max) and the co-host of Trial By Content on The Ringer Podcast Network. He can be found on Twitter here: @rejects (He/Him)