The comic-book movie starring Charlize Theron was directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, who assembled a diverse team for the film.
The new Netflix adaptation of “The Old Guard” graphic novel might be the most radical superhero movie made so far.
Sure, the plot doesn’t immediately signal this: The story follows four immortal soldiers who for centuries have fought the good fight for humanity, and just as they take on a new recruit they come under fresh attack from powerful forces.
But look a little closer: The team’s commander is a woman, Andromache of Scythia — Andy, for short — played by Charlize Theron. And the newly recruited immortal Nile is a young Black woman Marine played by Kiki Layne. Two men, a Christian and Muslim, provide the romance, having fallen in love after killing each other (repeatedly) during the Crusades.
Then there’s the production itself, led director Gina Prince-Bythewood. The first Black woman director of a superhero or comic book movie, Prince-Bythewood hired many talented women filmmakers for her team — including her longtime editor Terilyn A. Shropshire — to give more women a shot.
“The crew I put around me were who I felt was best for the job and would impact the film positively,” Prince-Bythewood says by phone from her home in Los Angeles recently. “It’s not a politically correct thing at all; it is that these women were incredible.
“The reality of our industry is that their resumes are not as long as their male counterparts, but it’s not about talent: It’s strictly about opportunity,” she says.
What Prince-Bythewood did with the opportunity when Skydance Media hired her to direct was make a movie that’s as thrilling as any superhero movie – and more human than most.
“Part of my pitch to Skydance and then Netflix was that for this film, it is an action-drama,” she says. ‘And the quiet parts are as important as the big set-pieces, because without the audience investing in the characters the action can feel monotonous.
“If everything is tied together, for me, that’s when I get most invested. So it was really about starting there.”
A new direction
Before “The Old Guard,” Prince had mostly directed smaller budget dramas and romances like “Love & Basketball,” “Beyond The Lights” and “The Secret Life of Bees.”
But she’d been wanting to move into the action side of things, directing the pilot of the Marvel series “Cloak & Dagger” and spending nearly two years on the Spider-Man related comic-book movie “Silver & Black” before it stalled out.
