Thursday, April 11, 2019

All About Donald Glover’s Secret Movie

What is Guava Island? In short: it’s a music-driven, hour-long film that premieres tonight at Coachella. In long? Let Nicole Sperling take you inside the top-secret project, which Donald Glover shot clandestinely in Cuba with the help of collaborators like Hiro Murai and Rihanna, who stars in the project as Glover’s love interest. “We wanted to assure that we had as much creative freedom as possible,” producer Carmen Cuba told Sperling in an exclusive interview. “Everything about this project and Donald in general, in terms of his intentions for his life and his career, is to protect his freedom; freedom of expression and freedom of process.” That said, the team behind the film also understands the value of a few leaks—like the photo of Glover and Rihanna that churned social media into a frenzy before the film had been officially announced. “The leaks helped build the breadcrumbs of the mystery. And looking back, it all worked in our favor. The news cycle is so fast, the interest cycle is so fast, that maintaining interest in something for so long is a hard thing to do,” said Cuba. “There is still a lot of stuff that fans don’t know that they will be surprised about and hopefully happy about.”
Elsewhere in HWD, Yohana Desta looks back at seven shows seemingly inspired by the epic, sex-and-sword-fights scale of Game of Thrones; Laura Bradley analyzes Chip and Joanna Gaines’s next big career move; two key Jane the Virgin cast members open up about the telenovela’s biggest twist yet; and Kate McKinnon signs on to play Elizabeth Holmes in a Hulu series that already sounds like the hottest ticket of 2020.