Gareth Edwards Shows Support For Striking Actors At ‘The Creator’ Special Screening

Natalie Sitek and Anthony D'Alessandro
·3 min read

Throughout an entire junket day as well as a special screening tonight at the TCL Grauman Chinese Theatre, The Creator filmmaker Gareth Edwards showed his solidarity for the pic’s cast as the SAG-AFTRA strike continued into its 67th day.

Earlier today in a series of press video interviews at the London Hotel, Edwards donned rotating black T-shirts with the name of actors in his cast; a visual spirited shoutout to the actors that starred in the $80M New Regency/20th Century Studios/Disney sci-fi movie. The pic’s cast includes John David Washington, Gemma Chan, Allison Janney, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Ken Watanabe, among several others.

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All of this culminated in Edwards having the Chinese Theatre audience tonight record a special message to the striking cast.

The Creator
The Creator

Recording the video on his phone, Edwards told his cast “Hi everyone, really miss you, wish you could all be here, but I made some new friends and they all want to send you a message of love and support,” at which point the entire theatre gave a huge cheer. You can watch the video below.

Edwards was very prescient when it came to making The Creator in that the pic deals with a war between humans and A.I. robots. And you know if there’s one thing on the minds of many in town, from studio execs to WGA and SAG-AFTRA members, it’s the impact of A.I. Washington’s spy mercenary, Joshua, in the film is searching for his wife who’s been missing for five years and believed dead following an attack on the Asian village in which they became separated in the aftermath. She was pregnant at the time. Joshua is also protecting a robotic child during the pic, believed to be the lynchpin in the robots’ war on humans. Edwards co-wrote the movie with his Rogue One: A Star Wars Story scribe, Chris Weitz.

Added Edwards tonight about his latest movie, “No one is really creating original sci-fi blockbusters anymore, it’s an endangered species.”

At a recent trailer drop, Edwards said that when he pitched the film, executives wanted to know the backstory as to why there was a war between humans and A.I.; if artificial intelligence was a good idea. “The setup of that movie is pretty much the last few months,” Edwards said at the time.

“A.I. was the fairy tale of this story. A.I. was like the other — the people that were different to us, that we kind of want to get rid of,” he explained back on Aug. 29. “But the second you make an A.I., all kinds of fascinating things start to happen.”

The Creator hits theaters on Sept. 29 and can also be seen then in Imax and PLF screens.

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