The trailer for Universal Picture's Mortal Engines just dropped today and steampunk fans are more than excited to check out this new post-apocalyptic adventure movie by Christian Rivers.
Speaking in an interview with Screen Rant during a set visit in Wellington England, Rivers opened up about his upcoming film saying that he hopes to steer Mortal Engines away from its YA source material and turn it into a cross between Harry Potter, Mad Max and Star Wars.
Though the director doesn't want Mortal Engines to be a copy of any of those films, he'd like his live-action adaptation of Philip Reeve's novel to be somewhere in the middle of the three.
"And so, I think that's been probably the biggest thing that we've done to sort of shift it out of what I'd sort of characterized as YA. Like,when we were sort of looking for partners to make the film, I drew a triangle between Mad Max, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. And I said, this film needs to land in the middle of those three. It won't be any one of those, but it'll - that's a target there."
The director says that he also had the protagonists of the film aged up so that it would lean closer to the age of the stars in Lucasfilm's sequel Star Wars trilogy. According to Rivers, he wanted protagonists that leaned into the cusp of "you know, what am I going to do with my life?" and not teenagers. Though it might not mean much to some, the added age certainly does help give the film a more serious tone and helps steer it away from the YA genre.
Mortal Engines hits cinemas December 14, 2018.
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