Ryan Coogler shares Sinners sneak peek with wild new trailer
Fear has a new vision in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners
Sliding into the director’s chair for his first feature since the emotional Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, writer and director Ryan Coogler reveals his new film, Sinners, is his most personal yet.
“With this film, I got a chance to dig into my own ancestral history here in the States, [and it was] not dissimilar to what I was doing with the Panther film,” he says of the thriller, which stars Michael B Jordan in dual roles as twin brothers who return to their Jim Crow-era Mississippi hometown, only to discover a great evil is waiting to welcome them back. “It's interesting because each time, at each point in my life, that statement has been correct, but never like this one.“
Popcorn Podcast joined the Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind the critically-acclaimed Fruitvale Station, Creed and Black Panther in a private press conference, where he gave select media a sneak peek at the latest Sinners trailer and revealed more about the mysterious evil – and yes, we can now confirm that vampires are involved.
“Vampires are an element of the movie,” Coogler admits. “But it’s not the only supernatural element. It's about more than just that and I think it’s going to surprise folks, in a good way.”
Although Sinners marks Coogler’s fifth feature film – and his fifth working with leading man Michael B Jordan – this is the first time he has tackled an original horror, despite admitting that his previous projects gave him nightmares.
“Each time I make something – and none of the films I’ve worked on have had the horror-thriller element like this one – but each time I'm conquering a personal fear of mine, and this is no different,” Coogler says. “On my other films, I would have awful nightmares… on this one, strangely enough, and I think it was because some of the scenes we were doing were so crazy, I didn't have them as much. I might have been getting out whatever subconscious terror I had in my work day, you know? I was able to sleep like a baby.”
He may be getting shut-eye, but we’re set for sleepless nights with Sinners joining other highly-anticipated releases, including Wolf Man, The Woman in the Yard and Heart Eyes, alongside buzzy sequels Black Phone 2, 28 Years Later, Megan 2.0 and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, in what is shaping up to be the year of horror.
The new trailer, released publicly today, reveals more about what we can expect from Sinners, including the big focus on music and how prescient and divisive that was in the culture of the time.
“One of the things we explore in the film is blues music and blues culture… and that, literally, that [kind of] music has a very close relationship with the macabre, so to speak, with the supernatural,” Coogler says. “It was called the ‘Devil's Music’ and the dichotomy of a lot of these incredible singers, even to this day, they learned how to make music in the church and yet they chose to make music that maybe was frowned upon.”
With creatures of the night closing in, two brothers stand at the centre of it all and Coogler says Jordan fans will get twice as much bang for their buck.
“It’s a brilliant performance. I can't wait for folks to see him. It's Mike unlike I've ever seen him before,” he shares.
Take a peek for yourself in the trailer below.
