Netflix let David Ayer do whatever he wanted on Bright (Comic Con 2017)

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

It's likely that by now you've seen the latest trailer for BRIGHT, the weird-as-hell-looking urban crime fantasy horror movie that is, if nothing else, unique-looking. (I'm calling it HARSH TIMES meets HELLBOY 2, myself.) Said trailer was shown to a curious Hall H crowd that wasn't quite sure what to make of the film. And maybe that's not a bad thing? As awesome as being in Hall H can be, you're used to the usual gamut of superhero trailers and the like, but something along the lines of BRIGHT isn't so commonplace. It's an R-rated fairy tale where humans live among orcs, fairies and elves, with a magic wand that grants wishes being the object of all the characters' pursuits.

David Ayer and magic wands don't necessarily go together, but to hear him tell it he was simply blown away by Max Landis' script (prior to this, Ayer has exclusively written his own screenplays). And to be able to merge his gritty brand of street-smart melodrama with characters who look like they've stepped out of LORD OF THE RINGS and put on suits, well, that's a gamble.

A gamble Netflix allowed him to take. Both Ayer and his star Will Smith said Netflix literally let them do whatever they wanted with the film, which made for a big-budget experience not very usual in this town. "Not your standard issue PG-13 studio movie," Ayer said. "This is some shit you haven't seen before."

After the trailer was played, we saw a clip from the film: Smith, a human cop, and his orc parter played by Edgerton are attacked by villainous elf Noomi Rapace and her henchmen in a gas station. Also in the mix is Lucy Fry's Nika who is a "bright" (aka magic user). A car driven by the elves crashes into the gas station and literally drives back and forth within it around while Rapace shoots at Smith with a machine gun. Edgerton's character is crushed by the car, but as orcs and elves and the rest are much more durable than humans it doesn't really faze him. It's a fairly violent sequence, and it proved this movie will clearly be rated R.

While Rapace's character is the antagonist, she said she doesn't see it that way; she's just trying to make the world better for her own kind. The wand that everyone wants apparently was hidden within Rapace's arm, and she pulls it out during one sequence (for reasons that aren't clear at the moment). She and Fry's character will not be seeing eye to eye, as in the clip Rapace hisses "traitor" in her direction. The wand, it should be said, cannot be touched by human hands, or they’d just be obliterated instantly.

As you can see from the trailer, all of this is played completely straight, another perk Ayer found working with Netflix, which didn't have any kind of creative control over the project. There will also be plenty of allegory to be found; Smith joked that it was refreshing to see a movie where a black man is the one doing the discriminating, because in the world of BRIGHT the cops are heavily biased against orcs and give them trouble at every opportunity. (You'll no doubt have noticed the "fairy lives matter" crack in the trailer.)

"David asks you to do some weird shit sometimes," Smith commented about his director, and the rest of the cast appeared to concur. For example, he would speak to Edgar Ramirez in Spanish on set and have Ramirez translate for the rest of the cast and crew, for no other reason that to create a unique environment for everyone involved.

Unique is definitely what BRIGHT intends to be.