Though found-footage films have been dominant as a genre in Hollywood over the past decade, filmmakers continue to find ways to evolve the genre in order to make sure that it keeps its mass appeal. Whether it be in superhero films or horror films, the found-footage genre has come to a point where audiences are invested enough to see whatever new addition to the style Hollywood has to offer.
With director Dean Isrealite’s “Project Almanac,” the new twist is adding time-travel to the genre.
“Project Almanac” follows a group of teens who discover plans to invent a time machine and then do so, venturing to different points throughout their lives. However, once they begin to hop through time, they discover severe repercussions to their actions. The group must then scramble to fix what they have undone.
Sofia Black D’Elia, Sam Lerner, Allen Evangelista and Ginny Gardner star alongside Jonny Weston, who plays David in the film.
“It does a great job of taking something people have seen before with the whole found-footage thing, and making it fresh and new by making it about time travel,” Weston said.
The film has drawn comparisons to other found-footage films, namely “Chronicle,” due to its group of teenage protagonists. Weston says that while not flattering, the comparisons are not entirely accurate.
“I think people compare us to ‘Chronicle’ because of the teenaged cast, and that’s really flattering, but we’re a totally different film,” Weston said. “Whereas ‘Chronicle’ is an awesome superhero film, our movie is an entirely different genre, and we hope that once people see it, they’ll realize that and enjoy it for what it is.”
The film also focused predominantly on the relationships of the teens, which D’Elia says makes for a large part of the film’s subplots.
“Another thing that makes the film standout is that it really looks at how having a device like this would affect the way these kids interacted with each other and how their friendships would be affected,” D’Elia said.
The film’s journey to the screen has been a long one, undergoing a release date change (it was originally slated for February of last year) and two title changes. Though this impacted the film as a whole, the cast all agreed that as far as they were concerned, it wasn’t anything major.
“All we knew was when it was coming out and when people would get so see our work,” Lerner said.
Though the film is being distributed by Paramount Pictures, Platinum Dunes had enough confidence in the script to produce the film, thus making Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes co-owners, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form, executive producers on the film.
Evangelista said that having someone with experience behind the scenes served as a major confidence booster throughout production.
“Knowing Michael was watching what we were doing added some pressure, but really helped us know that we were going to have something great as an end result,” Evangelista said.
Gardner agrees.
“Michael has been around and really knows what he’s doing so it was really great having him there to know that somebody so experienced would be able to help us make our film as good as it could be,” he said.
“Project Almanac” opens Jan. 30.
Contact this reporter at seweinst@asu.edu or on Twitter: @S_Weinstein95
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