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www.postmagazine.com 24 POST DECEMBER 2017 OUTLOOK DIRECTORS I t's been a somewhat spotty year for Hollywood, especially in terms of "sure things" and the usual- ly-reliable crop of global summer blockbusters. On the winner's side, girls ruled as Wonder Woman (directed by a woman and the first standalone movie starring a female superhero) and Beauty and the Beast outperformed everyone's expectations, joining other hits including Spider-Man: Homecoming, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2, Despicable Me 3, Logan, The Fate of the Furious, Dunkirk and The LEGO Batman Movie. But on the loser's side, other once-reliable franchise offerings, including Transformers: The Last Knight, Cars 3, War for the Planet of the Apes, Alien Covenant and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, all under-performed. It wasn't just all about winning and losing superheroes and big-bud- get franchises, though. Low-budget dramas, thrillers and comedies also per- formed well, including T2 Trainspotting, Gifted, Baby Driver, Get Out, The Big Sick and Girls Trip, proving that helming smaller, grittier films can often be a smarter choice for a director. Here, several top directors — Danny Boyle, Marc Webb, Joe Wright and Michael Apted — tackle Post's SWOT questions and air their views about the year ahead. DANNY BOYLE Trainspotting, T2 Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire, Steve Jobs, Sunshine and 127 Hours After getting his start in theater and TV, Boyle exploded onto the big screen with 1996's Trainspotting, which stuck a heroin- and adrenalin-fuelled needle into the jaded veins of pop culture, electrifying audiences everywhere with its terrifying, fever-dream tale of Edinburgh junkies and shocking, provocative imagery (visions of dead babies crawling across ceilings and the scene of Ewan McGregor slipping down the disgusting toilet in search of his drugs still pack a vicious punch today). Since then he's continued to make kinetic, often controversial stories that explore memory and time, and to push the cinematic envelope as far as he can. STRENGTHS: "The biggest strength of post for me is that, while I love shoot- ing and all the excitement of the set and locations, post is where you finally sit down and see what you've got and then start building your film. And it's al- ways the same huge change of environ- ment in post — after the massive beast of the shoot with all these people, you end up in a little room where you actually make the film. Every DP hates hearing that, but it's the truth. You make your film in the editing and post. The other big strength for me is that I have a very well-oiled post machine now. I always post in London, wherev- er we shoot, and we do all the visual effects with my usual guy, VFX super- visor Adam Gascoyne at Union Effects in London. He's done all my films for a long time now, and it's a great relation- ship and he's very much a key partner in building it all. Same with sound. I have a great team and we do all the sound mixing at Pinewood, with Glenn Freemantle and his team at Sound 24. So even though you have to deal with all these other variables in production, I know I can rely on the post end." WEAKNESSES: "When I started making movies, you didn't have all the choic- es you have today in post. And all that choice is great. But it can also be a bad OUTLOOK 2018 — DIRECTORS WEIGH IN ON THE YEAR AHEAD DANNY BOYLE, MARC WEBB, JOE WRIGHT AND MICHAEL APTED ADDRESS THE INDUSTRY'S STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS IN POST'S ANNUAL SWOT FEATURE BY IAIN BLAIR T2 Trainspotting