Gareth Edwards’ ‘THE CREATOR’ opens with $14M domestically on a $80M budget

Where has Gareth Edwards been all these years? Despite the success of 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – which now has its own prequel series in Andor and still stands as one of the more beloved projects from Disney-era Lucasfilm – the British writer-director has been absent from the spotlight. Now, 7 years later, Edwards has returned with a new original sci-fi epic titled The Creator. Co-written by Chris Weitz (The Golden Compass), The Creator seems like an anomaly in today’s Hollywood landscape. Non-IP science fiction at this level has been moving away from theaters and onto streaming in the last decade. Unless you’re someone like James Cameron, pitching an original story as huge as The Creator to executives can be nothing more than foolish. But, miraculously, here we are with 20th Century Fox placing its bets on Gareth Edwards. And for my money’s worth, this gamble pays off.

Centered around a war between humans and artificial intelligence in the not-so-distant future, The Creator doesn’t necessarily break new ground for the genre but it does offer a fascinating spin on a familiar, yet ever-so-topical tale. When discussing Gareth Edwards’ film, its rarity as a modern original sci-fi blockbuster must be taken into consideration. However, it’s also impossible to ignore just how timely The Creator feels given it being released at a time when a large portion of Hollywood (the WGA and SAG-AFTRA to be exact) have continued to fight against A.I. in the creative workspace with historic strikes. Edwards touches upon certain aspects of A.I., such as body scanning, that hit a little too close to home for the entertainment industry by pure coincidence. 

In another news, Charlie Clouser is now the first American composer to score 10 films in the same franchise with ‘Saw X’.

He beats John Williams’ previous record of 9 consecutive scores for Star Wars.