Daisy Ridley Addresses Filming Disastrous $13 Million Sci-Fi Flop Co-Starring Tom Holland 3 Years Later: “Not Without Its Difficulties”

Daisy Ridley addresses behind-the-scenes difficulties while filming her $13 million sci-fi flop co-starring Tom Holland, three years after the movie’s release. Ridley was red-hot in 2021, coming off her performances as the heroic Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and its pair of high-grossing sequels. Holland, meanwhile, was equally incandescent after becoming the MCU’s plucky Peter Parker beginning in Captain America: Civil War, and continuing through a series of appearances both in Spider-Man standalone films, and Avengers blockbusters.

Life outside the franchise bubble has been difficult for Ridley and Holland, however, as both young stars have seen their non-Disney projects meet with lukewarm critical and commercial response. Ridley’s starring vehicles Sometimes I Think About Dying, Magpie, The Marsh King’s Daughter and Young Woman and the Sea came and went without much fanfare. Holland, meanwhile, has found equally tough sledding when discarding his Spider-suit, with misfires like Cherry and The Devil All the Time on his ledger.

Ridley Addresses The Difficulties Of Filming Chaos Walking

Doug Liman Directed The Troubled Production

Ridley and Holland’s Chaos Walking flopped hard in 2021, grossing just $13 million domestically on a budget of $100-$120 million. It was a disaster that was easy to see coming, as the YA adaptation threw up nothing but red flags all throughout its production. Principal photography on the film began in 2017, with the notoriously difficult Doug Liman as director. The film was ultimately pulled from its 2019 release date, as budget-swelling reshoots were ordered with Fede Alvarez taking over for Liman.

Ridley is now getting candid about the tough job of filming Chaos Walking, three years after the movie’s delayed release, and ultimate box office failure. Speaking to Empire magazine, she addressed Liman’s unusual working methods, while singling out a particularly difficult scene that saw her literally panicking:

“The filming of this was… not without its difficulties. Doug [Liman] works in a way that is different to most people that I’ve worked with. Very off-the-cuff. But this scene, I remember feeling the abject terror of playing someone who cannot swim, and going out into quite a fast running river. I can swim, but when you’re playing someone who can’t swim, the panic gets to you. But I love that outfit, love that wig, and we take what we can from these things.”

It Seems She’d Like To Forget Making The Big-Budget Flop

Ridley and Holland have both taken stabs at making smaller, edgier movies away from the soft landing spot of Disney, and missed the mark more often than not. Chaos Walking, in theory, should have been a safer proposition, being an adaptation of a popular novel, directed by a filmmaker with a lot of hits on his resume.

But the big-budget movie was not such a solid play, in hindsight. The dystopian YA sci-fi cycle had run out of steam by the time the film even went into production, and was beyond over by the time it released. Ridley and Holland’s theoretical bankability was supposed to be another factor in the movie’s favor, but it seems it’s their big, Disney-funded franchises that are bankable, not their own names.

Given all that has been reported about Chaos Walking, from delays to reshoots to the director being replaced, it seems the film was indeed a chaotic experience. Ridley’s recollections only add to the litany of bad reports from the movie’s set. It seems she had a literally terrifying experience on the movie, so it’s no surprise she has less-than-fond memories. She at least enjoyed her hair and costume, thankfully.

Source: Empire Magazine

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Chaos Walking

Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley star in Chaos Walking, a film adaptation of the dystopian thriller novel series by Patrick Ness. Todd Hewitt has been brought up to believe that a viral germ has killed all the women in a colony world and unleashed Noise, the unique ability to read people’s and animals’ minds. Later, he comes upon a patch of silence and soon discovers its source: a mysterious woman named Viola Eade – beginning the discovery of the truth of the new world’s history.

Release Date

March 5, 2021

Runtime

109minutes

Director

Doug Liman

Writers

Charlie Kaufman , Lindsey Beer , John Lee Hancock , Gary Spinelli , Patrick Ness , Andrew Gottlieb

Budget

$100 million

Studio(s)

Lionsgate

Distributor(s)

Lionsgate

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