SAN DIEGO – “Metallica: Through the Never” director Nimrod Antal and producer Charlotte Huggins were on hand at San Diego Comic-Con — where they presented a new trailer for the film — to attempt to tell us what the hell is going on in their film.
The concert documentary meets feature film as Dane DeHaan stars as a silent roadie for the band, representing the metal band’s fans and its crew who are “willing to die for the band,” Antal said in his interview with HitFix.
“There’s something about the fan energy that’s within the movie that exists also at Comic-Con,” Huggins explained about how the band inspires a die-hard fandom.
Antal feels that listeners will be whipped into a frenzy over the 14-song set-list, which he calls a “greatest hits” approach. Metallica came into the project — which shot last August — with a specific set list in mind and worked with the “Predators” director to formulate a plot and structure around those songs. Songs like “Battery,” “The Memory Remains,” “Nothing Else Matters,” “Master of Puppets” and “Enter Sandman” will be included. And it sounds sort of like a concept album in movie form, or a very long music video with 14 songs in it.
“Tonally and within the film structure — with the atmosphere of the film — there were certainly certain songs that played well into our hands. We stayed rel faithful to the band’s set-list and tried to form a narrative we could weave into the concert,” Antal said. “The band’s persona, their energy and certainly the love they have for what they do, those made their way into the film. I’m very proud of it.”
Of course, Metallica appeared in another film about a decade ago, for gripping band documentary “Some Kind of Monster.” In it, fans got close to the band as it rehearsed, bickered, auditioned and sussed its way through its own middle age. Here, viewers will only see the band “as themselves” as performing musicians Metallica.
“This is a very different monster from that film. The narrative portion, though, they do appear, but that’s not what makes the film what it is,” Antal said.
“They are never off-stage, they appear as musicians. It’s not a documentary, it’s not a behind-the-scenes-movie at all,” Huggins continued.
Watch the rest of the interview above, on how the filmmakers are inspired by the band, how seriously the band takes themselves and chat about their favorite songs from the “greatest soundtrack known to man.”
And check out the new, Comic-Con-premiered trailer below. “Metallica: Through the Never” heads to IMAX theaters on Sept. 27 and to general theaters a week after.