As The Old Guard continues to dominate Netflix’s Most Watched list, director Gina Prince-Bythewood has opened up about bringing Greg Rucka‘s graphic graphic novel to life, and how her artistic vision for the immortal warrior action-drama was facilitated by the success of a major Marvel blockbuster.
Unlike most comic book movies, The Old Guard is not only directed by a Black female director, but it features a Black woman in a lead role with Kiki Layne‘s Nile. The Netflix Original also features a fully represented gay relationship between two of the main immortal warriors: Marwan Kenzari’s Joe and Luca Marinelli’s Nicky. But according to Prince-Bythewood, none of that would’ve been possible without Black Panther.
“Black Panther changed the culture, one hundred percent,” she told Collider. Prince-Bythewood also credits Logan for proving that comic book movies can be complicated and messy, which allowed her to tackle a story like The Old Guard, which pushes boundaries that other films in the genre don’t.
I love how they’ve gotten more complicated, over the last couple years, like Logan and Black Panther, where you have all of the conceit of a big spectacle, and yet I cried in both of those. They went there with those characters. And I love that new directors have been given this opportunity to bring their aesthetics to the genre. I felt like it need that jolt. It was missing that jolt. It’s an exciting thing to see, as an audience member, but then there’s that thing of, I wanna be in the big sandbox. I wanna play and create heroes that the world can be inspired by, that we don’t often get to see, like Nile and like Joe and Nicky. It was exciting to me, and I didn’t want it to continue to just be a dream. I wanted to actively go after it and have the opportunity.
As for a sequel to The Old Guard, Prince-Bythewood says there is a plan for more movies given that comic series is a trilogy, but whether that happens, and with her behind the camera, is currently up in the air.
(Via Collider)
