One of the most anticipated movies of this season is one we never really expected: Dev Patel’s directorial debut, Monkey Man. But it could have slipped completely under the radar. And as it was originally set to be released exclusively on Netflix, the director and star knows that it took a lot of faith on the part of none other than Jordan Peele to get it to the big screen.
Speaking at Monkey Man’s Los Angeles premiere – after debuting at last month’s SXSW – Dev Patel said that Jordan Peele “took us from this thing that was brushed under the carpet to putting us on top of the mantel piece,” apparently referring to the reports that Netflix found the film too “gritty” for the service. “He saw the film; Jordan saw me as a filmmaker, someone broken out, like what he did with his amazing comedy show and became this filmmaker…He understood the strength of using genre to talk about more interesting motif things, societal issues, using it as a trojan horse.”
Jordan Peele has of course been a trojan horse himself with films like Get Out, giving minorities a voice in genre films – for him, horror – that they haven’t had to this degree. With Monkey Man, hopefully that will do something similar, especially considering the movie has been described as “John Wick in Mumbai.”
After Netflix essentially folded on the idea of Monkey Man, Universal picked it up for $10 million, giving it the theatrical release that all buzz points to being earned.
Here is the official synopsis of the movie: “Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage, Monkey Man stars Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash.. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.”
Will you be checking out Dev Patel’s Monkey Man in theaters this weekend? Are you surprised at the strong response for the movie?
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