What comes to your mind when you think of Paul Feig? For most of you, it likely involves imagery of lighthearted comedy fronted by some of the industry's funniest leading ladies. However, in Feig's latest film, A Simple Favor, he has taken an entirely new approach to tone, and the trailer for the upcoming thriller features Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick in one of his darkest projects yet. Check it out, below.
It's reasonably clear that we have come a long way since Ghostbusters or Bridesmaids. With A Simple Favor, Paul Feig has firmly ventured into thriller territory, and it looks awesome. The film focuses on Stephanie (Anna Kendrick), a video blogger who embarks on a mission to find out what happened to her best friend Emily (Blake Lively) after her strange disappearance in their small town. Along the way, Stephanie finds herself ensnared in a bizarre mystery full of deceit and death.
One specific thing that's easy to see in this trailer is how much A Simple Favor seems to want to keep the audience off-balance. The trailer is cut in such a way to continually bounce all over the story and keep us on our toes, which definitely appears to mirror Stephanie's own journey into this mysterious disappearance of her friend.
More than anything else, the folks at Lionsgate seem particularly aware of the tone that Paul Feig has aimed for with A Simple Favor. The film's trailer actively acknowledges that this story stems from a darker side of his filmmaking sensibility than anything that we have seen from him before, and there's an obvious promise of a film that uncharacteristically leans closer to a thriller sensibility than his well-honed comedy chops. Although Paul Feig has directed action sequences throughout his career, as a master of comedy (particularly in films like The Heat and Spy), A Simple Favor will allow him to play with tone and brooding atmosphere's in a way that his previous directing gigs simply couldn't do.
This trailer isn't the only piece of promotional material that we have seen from A Simple Favor in recent days. In fact, Blake Lively seems to take a cue from her husband, Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds, by applying some interesting social media tactics to the marketing campaign. Specifically, Lively briefly deleted all of the content from her Instagram profile earlier this month, and as of right now the only two profiles she is following are Reynolds' account, and the account for someone named Emily Nelson, which is presumably the same Emily from the film (although at one point she was following more than 30 people with that same name). "What happened to Emily?" We're just going to have to wait until A Simple Favor debuts to find out.
Paul Feig's A Simple Favor will debut in theaters later this year on September 14. Check out the film when it finally premieres and make sure to take a look at our 2018 movie premiere guide to see what else is coming this year!
