\n\tThe indelible flaming image ended up on the film\u2019s original poster, yet it was borne out of a scrappy indie sensibility from writing and directing duo Kevin and Matthew McManus.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe knew we needed to grab the audience,\u201d Matthew McManus says. \u201cSometimes it feels like it\u2019s a competition between the big screen and the small screen in your hand. We need to have something that makes people put down their phones and lean in. That wasn\u2019t even in the script, but it was just a conversation we were having. You\u2019re trying to think of what\u2019s going to have the biggest impact, and you\u2019ve got a limited budget, and when you start talking about that with your stunt guys, you realize it\u2019s actually not terribly expensive if you just do it once and get it right. So that was the strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/variety.com\/wp-content\/themes\/pmc-variety-2020\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStella Marcus<\/p>\n
\n\tAnother key part of the strategy was the duo asking their sister, who has had recurring roles on series like \u201cLaw & Order: Special Victims Unit,\u201d \u201cSEAL Team\u201d and \u201cMemory of a Killer,\u201d to star. Given the emotional heft of the script and the role, they felt confident she would be able to carry the film on her shoulders.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHiring your sister, who\u2019s our favorite actress, you can ask her to do all sorts of things you would never ask a regular actor to do,\u201d Kevin McManus says. \u201cThe stunt guys were going through everything saying, \u2018Oh, this is a stunt and this is going to get expensive.\u2019 \u2018Well, Michaela will be doing her own stunts.\u2019 She\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, I will. All right.\u2019 She got right in there, got her hands dirty pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen the duo first started working on the film ten years ago, their sister was too young to play their protagonist. However, given the slow process of securing funding, when it came time to actually make the movie, Michaela McManus was a perfect fit, and was moved to receive the offer.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been working now for 20 years, and Hollywood can put you in a box, and that\u2019s where you fit \u2014 that\u2019s where they see you,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat I love about working with my brothers is that box just goes away. I\u2019ve known them forever, so they\u2019ve seen me in everything, and they\u2019ve coached me on a million auditions, so they know me as an actor better than anyone. They\u2019ve always been my champions in that they don\u2019t see me in that box ever. It\u2019s so refreshing. The role of Irene is not a role that anyone would put me in. Even just getting an audition would probably be tough for my manager to get me in the door, just to get a shot. So that was hugely important to show this other side of me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWith the emotional core of the film set, the filmmakers had to visualize how to create an effective multiverse without the big budget of the MCU. They used clever visual clues to signal the new worlds to the audience.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cEvery movie we made up to this point, we never cared too much about continuity,\u201d Kevin McManus says. \u201cIf you\u2019re noticing the continuity, we\u2019ve got a bigger problem, right? People aren\u2019t paying attention to the story. With this one, the joy is in the continuity. You\u2019re seeing that the mugs change colors, or you\u2019re seeing that one sign changes ever so slightly. We were trying to find these small, tiny tweaks as these little easter eggs for how the multiverse changed. Our multiverse, it\u2019s not a big Marvel multiverse where things are changing drastically between one universe and another. Instead, it\u2019s tiny.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThis specialized canvas allowed Michaela McManus to fully explore the depths of her character\u2019s fury.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cDealing with this intense material was probably the most exhausting work I\u2019ve ever done,\u201d she says. \u201cI was diving into it and trying to be as locked in as possible each day. My brothers being there, there\u2019s the safety and trust that allowed me to go to those places, and I felt safe. But it was really hard. When we wrapped, I said, \u2018OK, I need a beat, because having to face Irene\u2019s reality every day was exhausting.’\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tDespite the sci-fi, action and horror wrapped exterior, the filmmaking duo unwraps a contemplative outlook at the core.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe story is about the perils of revenge, but it\u2019s also a cautionary tale about trying to rewrite your own history and change your circumstances,\u201d Kevin McManus says. \u201cThere\u2019s this great saying that, \u2018No man can step into the same river twice.\u2019 It\u2019s a different river and a different man. That\u2019s the thesis that hopefully you\u2019re walking away thinking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWatch the \u201cRedux Redux\u201d trailer below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sometimes you just need to light a guy on fire. The first scene in \u201cRedux Redux,\u201d in theaters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,409,111,139,69,162705],"class_list":{"0":"post-294693","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-redux-redux"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}