Audiences know director Sean McNamara for faith-friendly movies like “Soul Surfer,” “The Miracle Season” and “Harvey.”
It’s why McNamara’s newest, “Dangerous Game: The Legacy Murders” might come as a surprise. The R-rated thriller has a large frame depend, genre-style gore, and a few diabolical twists.
“It’s a complete departure,” McNamara admits with a snort. “I wanted to try something new.”
Mission achieved.
“Dangerous Game” follows a dysfunctional extended family accumulating on the behest of its rich patriarch, performed using display screen icon Jon Voight. They should set their squabbling apart when a voice compels them to play an immersive homicide thriller recreation … with fatal penalties.
The frame depends on rises whilst the rest members of the family scramble to free up the puzzle. It’s like an Agatha Christie yarn, as advised using horror maestro Eli Roth.
What isn’t new for McNamara along with his newest mission? Working with Voight. The two collaborated at the “Baby Geniuses” franchise and the impending “Reagan” biopic.
“He’s a consummate professional. He starts his research months before [the production begins] ,” McNamara says of Voight, who performs a KGB agent in “Reagan,” set for 2023 unlock.
Voight isn’t simply probably the most perfect actor of his era, says the director. He’s a dedicated artist and collaborator.
“He sits with me and talks about the whole story, to make sure the whole story works. He’s right there and he makes it a better film,” he says, including Voight’s presence affects his co-stars, too. “All those young people on the set, they’re upping their game around somebody who’s such a great star.”
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McNamara’s movie canon doesn’t come with any MCU fare or “Transformer” romps. He’s a private director, telling tales that uplift audiences. For “Dangerous Game,” he entered a brand new realm of splashy FX and horror-approved make-up.
In one scene, Voight’s persona suffers an electrical surprise, forcing the actor to bear a large make-up replacement to turn its effect.
“Every movie I do I have to learn something new .. that’s what makes movies fun,” he says, an enthusiasm Voight mentioned attracted him to the mission.
Even McNamara’s intensive Hollywood resume won’t get ready for his subsequent mission. “Reagan,” starring Dennis Quaid because the conservative hero, must inflame the traditional wars anew.
The director suggests his way gained’t be guilty.
“I’m not very political at all. I’m very independent,” says McNamara, who notes “Rocky” director John G. Avildsen used to be set to direct the long-gestating biopic sooner than he handed in 2017.
McNamara starts with the idea he used to be clumsy is compatible with the mission. A handy guide and rough learning of the script modified his thoughts.
“It’s a family film,” he says, the person who tracks Reagan’s existence from his formative years to his two phrases within the Oval Office, and past. “Sixty percent of the film is [set] before he becomes president.”
The movie will likely be won warmly using Red State U.S.A., certainly, however, McNamara says the biopic doesn’t shy clear of the president’s political hurdles, just like the Iran-Contra scandal and the AIDS disaster.
The Gipper’s outstanding professional arc might come as a wonder to audiences.
“People hated him back in the ‘60s … and he was done with politics for four to five years, and then he became president,” he says.
The director’s subsequent initiatives increase his inventive canvas past “Game’s” demise and destruction. One fact-based story follows a pair who were given married on the Dachau focus camps, an “amazing love story,” he says of Josef and Rebecca Bau.
He’s additionally directing “Trinity,” a big-screen adaptation of Leon Uris’ tome regarding Ireland’s combat for freedom through the past due 1800s, and early 1900s.
“Dangerous Game: The Legacy Murders” is the newest movie to debut in each theater and VOD. McNamara sounds hopeful that audiences will search for his film out on each platform. The thriller gives a unique yarn, one without franchise ties or IP concerns.
“People want new material, they’re hungry for new films, whether it’s on film or digital,” he says. “The appetite for the film is huge.”
