All you should need to get excited for this film is the name Jeff Nichols. The writer/director of Mud, Take Shelter, and Shotgun Stories has made nothing but high-quality films, and his reward has been increasingly bigger budgets and bigger box office totals. Midnight Special is his first studio film, and while it’s being released on a crowded weekend led by Allegiant and Miracles from Heaven, I see no reason to think it won’t surpass Mud’s $21.5 million haul and widespread critical acclaim.
A genre mixer, Midnight Special is being labeled a sci-fi chase film. Nichols and frequent collaborator Michael Shannon have dealt with the extraordinary before, so the tale of a boy with special abilities and the family trying to protect him is well within their wheelhouse. Just what the boy’s abilities are remains unclear, but they’re apparently amazing enough to attract quite a few interested parties.
Given Nichols’ other films, I expect Midnight Special will have quite a lot of character work going on. While the trailer does nothing to hide this, casual audience members might get taken by surprise. Hopefully it’s a pleasant one, and hopefully it encourages them to go back and discover just how great Nichols is.
Midnight Special is directed by Jeff Nichols and stars Michael Shannon, Jaeden Lieberher, Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, and Adam Driver. It will be released in the U.S. on March 18th, 2016 and in the U.K. on April 8th, 2016. International release dates can be found here.
Are you already a Jeff Nichols fan or is the wider release of Midnight Special going to be your introduction? Let us know in the comments!
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