{"id":2669,"date":"2015-09-14T15:53:30","date_gmt":"2015-09-14T15:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/"},"modified":"2015-09-14T15:53:30","modified_gmt":"2015-09-14T15:53:30","slug":"tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/","title":{"rendered":"TIFF: ‘High-Rise’ Director Ben Wheatley Talks Taking on “Challenging” J.G. Ballard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Ritman \/ The Hollywood Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n

Since leaping from viral videos, TV sketches and ads to cinema with 2009\u2019s gritty gangland drama Down Terrace<\/em> (shot in 8 days on a $30,000 budget), Ben Wheatley <\/strong>has become one of the U.K.\u2019s most exciting filmmakers in recent years.<\/p>\n

Together with his screenwriting wife Amy Jump <\/strong>he\u2019s turned his hand to unpredictable hitman horror in Kill List<\/em>, caravanning comedy horror in Sightseers<\/em>, and a monochrome historical headtrip with A Field in England<\/em>, not forgetting a quick TV diversion with the opening two episodes of the last season of Doctor Who<\/em> (he was a childhood fan).<\/p>\n

His latest feature, High-Rise<\/em>, looks likely to propel Wheatley into the big league. Taking on J.G. Ballard<\/strong>\u2019s cult 1975 dystopian thriller about an ultra-modern luxury tower block gone horribly wrong, it\u2019s his most ambitious film to date, boasting an A-list cast in Tom Hiddleston<\/strong>, Luke Evans<\/strong>,Jeremy Irons<\/strong> and Elisabeth Moss<\/strong> and with Jeremy Thomas<\/strong> \u2013 who helped bring the only other Ballard fiction to screen in 1996 with Crash<\/em> \u2013 as producer.<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> ahead of High-Rise<\/em>‘s world premiere in Toronto, Wheatley explains why the future looked better in the 70s than it does now, how the film could easily have turned into Die Hard, <\/em>and what happened in Cannes.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Thomas has been trying to make High-Rise<\/em> since the late 1970s. How did you get involved?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amy and I had been looking at developing some books. I saw High-Rise<\/em> on my shelf and thought: \u2018Christ, that hasn\u2019t been made, that\u2019s a bit weird\u2019. So I found out who had the rights, and met Jeremy. I didn\u2019t realize at that point that they\u2019d been trying to make it and that there\u2019d been all sorts of other people attached.<\/p>\n

Until now there’s only been one film adaptation of Ballard\u2019s fictional works, Crash<\/em>, which was also produced by Thomas. Is he a particularly difficult author to bring to screen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a challenging theme in his work. There\u2019s not a lot of dialog in High-Rise<\/em>, and he plays all these games with the novel form. Although the books are very cinematic, it\u2019s not necessarily easy to adapt. It takes a brave producer to put these movies out and not everyone has the metal that Jeremy has. Crash<\/em> was one of the great unfilmable books, and they did a pretty damn good job of it.<\/p>\n

Ballard\u2019s work is often very male-centric, which isn\u2019t so reflected in cinema these days. High-Rise\u00a0<\/em>itself is mainly told from the perspective of the three central male characters. Did you and Amy look to give it a broader appeal?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, certainly. From Amy\u2019s perspective, she looked at a lot of the female characters and tried to bring them out a bit more. The women aren\u2019t really defined in the book but they come out on top, so we kind of looked at that side of it and tried to give them more of a voice.<\/p>\n

The book is set in a dystopian 1970s, which is where you set the film. Given that we\u2019ve lived through the times Ballard was describing, were you not tempted to update it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think there are a few different points of view looking at this. One is that historical drama helps you make points about the current situation that are harder to make if you make them contemporary, because they\u2019re too obvious and too in your face. There\u2019s also the thing that in the book itself, some of the issues that it deals with make less sense now, literally. They\u2019re very hard to update and don\u2019t quite work. And then there\u2019s the general sense of the book that all his predictions came through reasonably quickly. It\u2019s a tricky situation, because we\u2019re here looking back at Ballard in the past. So we kind of made a 70s that was a little science fiction, a slightly sci-fi alternative. But there\u2019s also something very interesting about the 70s, something quite terrifying about it. It was a point of time when there was the last bit of thinking about the future. Now it\u2019s either terrible dystopia or everything is slightly white like an Apple Mac. That\u2019s all we can muster. But the people in the 70s were predicting and imagining all sorts of things.<\/p>\n

Are you a big Ballard nerd yourself?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019ve read a lot of the books. He made up part of my esoteric reading as a teenager, together with Naked Lunch<\/em> and Fear and Loathing<\/em> and those kinds of books. But then that coupled with 2000 AD.<\/p>\n

This was your first time working from a novel. How was the experience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was different. There are rhythms that the novel has that force you into positions you wouldn\u2019t necessarily get into, or causes issues within the film that are counterintuitive. The novel form isn\u2019t necessarily that sympathetic to the film form, but then at the same time it\u2019s kind of nice to be forced into those situations. When you\u2019ve got a character like Robert Laing, he\u2019s not really a doer, he\u2019s an observer and is a very complicated character. If it had been written in development speak, he\u2019d be rushing up and down the building and it\u2019d just end up as Die Hard<\/em>, shuffling down lift shafts.<\/p>\n

And from High-Rise<\/em> you went straight into filming Free Fire<\/em>, with another high-profile cast and Scorsese on board as exec producer. Are your films getting bigger and bolder in scope?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually about the same size and budget. But we were lucky to do two films so close to one another. You can\u2019t ask for more than that, as a filmmaker. But we\u2019ve always had that leapfrog thing of having stuff ready to go. It\u2019s been a bit exhausting, but nothing that I could begin to complain about. It is amazing having such as cast, and so flattering that people want to work with me. We\u2019ve done the groundwork, we\u2019ve done movies that people like and went down well with actors, which is half the battle.<\/p>\n

Has there been a lure to Hollywood and bigger budget studio projects?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m open to all sorts. But the problem I\u2019ve had with American stuff is that I\u2019ve been busy and there\u2019s been no time. Two years ago, I couldn\u2019t do anything for two years. But yeah, we\u2019re working with studios on scripts at the moment. It\u2019s not outside my world of ambition to do that stuff. I think to work within the studio system is as interesting as doing indie stuff. It\u2019s not necessarily the end game \u2013 there\u2019s not a career trajectory that ends up with you doing tentpole films. But it\u2019s almost as interesting as making smaller stuff, where you have more control. That\u2019s why I didDoctor Who<\/em>. The biggest audience I\u2019ve ever had for my work is Doctor Who<\/em>. You can\u2019t really knock that.<\/p>\n

You lined up British trip-hop icons Portishead to record a track (a cover of ABBA\u2019s \u2018S.O.S.\u2019) for\u00a0High-Rise<\/em>. How did that come about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Through the wonders of the internet. A year or so ago I was watching Glastonbury and they were doing their live set on the telly. Amy and I were just chatting and saying \u2018oh god, we love Portishead so much,\u2019 and I was looking on Twitter and someone had asked [Portishead instrumentalist] Geoff Barrow<\/strong> if he\u2019d seen A Field in England<\/em>, and he said he\u2019d loved it or something similar. I think he was actually following me on Twitter, so I did this Twitter email thing, said hello and we went from there. That\u2019s the modern world. Five or 10 years ago, I don\u2019t know how you\u2019d have even started in getting through to Portishead.<\/p>\n

Many assumed High-Rise was destined for Cannes. Was it simply not ready, or was it something else?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ha, no. You know what my answer will be. I\u2019m not cross!<\/p>\n

High-Rise<\/em> has its world premiere in Toronto on Sunday Sep. 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex Ritman \/ The Hollywood Reporter Since leaping from viral videos, TV sketches and ads to cinema with 2009\u2019s gritty gangland drama Down Terrace (shot in 8 days on a $30,000 budget), Ben Wheatley has become one of the U.K.\u2019s most exciting filmmakers in recent years. Together with his screenwriting wife Amy Jump he\u2019s turned … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTIFF: 'High-Rise' Director Ben Wheatley Talks Taking on "Challenging" J.G. Ballard - Thunderbird Entertainment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"TIFF: 'High-Rise' Director Ben Wheatley Talks Taking on "Challenging" J.G. Ballard - Thunderbird Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Alex Ritman \/ The Hollywood Reporter Since leaping from viral videos, TV sketches and ads to cinema with 2009\u2019s gritty gangland drama Down Terrace (shot in 8 days on a $30,000 budget), Ben Wheatley has become one of the U.K.\u2019s most exciting filmmakers in recent years. Together with his screenwriting wife Amy Jump he\u2019s turned … Continued\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thunderbird Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-09-14T15:53:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/social-share.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"633\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gearbox_admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gearbox_admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/\",\"name\":\"TIFF: 'High-Rise' Director Ben Wheatley Talks Taking on \\\"Challenging\\\" J.G. Ballard - Thunderbird Entertainment\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-09-14T15:53:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-09-14T15:53:30+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#\/schema\/person\/41eb8208032d7ee9602156e61d6f6c41\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"TIFF: ‘High-Rise’ Director Ben Wheatley Talks Taking on “Challenging” J.G. Ballard\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/\",\"name\":\"Thunderbird Entertainment\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#\/schema\/person\/41eb8208032d7ee9602156e61d6f6c41\",\"name\":\"Gearbox_admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/239363dc97071e1a4eb9d0cc6971f646?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/239363dc97071e1a4eb9d0cc6971f646?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gearbox_admin\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/author\/gearbox_admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"TIFF: 'High-Rise' Director Ben Wheatley Talks Taking on \"Challenging\" J.G. Ballard - Thunderbird Entertainment","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"TIFF: 'High-Rise' Director Ben Wheatley Talks Taking on \"Challenging\" J.G. Ballard - Thunderbird Entertainment","og_description":"Alex Ritman \/ The Hollywood Reporter Since leaping from viral videos, TV sketches and ads to cinema with 2009\u2019s gritty gangland drama Down Terrace (shot in 8 days on a $30,000 budget), Ben Wheatley has become one of the U.K.\u2019s most exciting filmmakers in recent years. Together with his screenwriting wife Amy Jump he\u2019s turned … Continued","og_url":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/","og_site_name":"Thunderbird Entertainment","article_published_time":"2015-09-14T15:53:30+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":633,"url":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/social-share.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Gearbox_admin","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Gearbox_admin","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/","url":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/","name":"TIFF: 'High-Rise' Director Ben Wheatley Talks Taking on \"Challenging\" J.G. Ballard - Thunderbird Entertainment","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-09-14T15:53:30+00:00","dateModified":"2015-09-14T15:53:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#\/schema\/person\/41eb8208032d7ee9602156e61d6f6c41"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2015\/09\/14\/tiff-high-rise-director-ben-wheatley-talks-taking-on-challenging-j-g-ballard\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TIFF: ‘High-Rise’ Director Ben Wheatley Talks Taking on “Challenging” J.G. Ballard"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#website","url":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/","name":"Thunderbird Entertainment","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#\/schema\/person\/41eb8208032d7ee9602156e61d6f6c41","name":"Gearbox_admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/239363dc97071e1a4eb9d0cc6971f646?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/239363dc97071e1a4eb9d0cc6971f646?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Gearbox_admin"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/thunderbird.tv"],"url":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/author\/gearbox_admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}