From the Continental in John Wick and the Park Hyatt in Lost in Translation, to The Shining's Overlook and the hostel in Hostel, big-screen hotels range from the five star to the two-thumbs-down-on-TripAdvisor. Bad Times at the El Royale isn’t the headline of a disgruntled mini-break review but the new film from Drew Goddard — director of Cabin In The Woods, Oscar-nominated screenwriter of The Martian, and scribe of some of your favourite Lost, Buffy, and Daredevil episodes. The film’s mystery-packed first trailer has just exploded online in an instant blast of glossy genre intrigue, and Empire checked in with Goddard – concierge, writer, and director – to delve a little deeper into what he calls “the movie I’ve always wanted to see”.
1) Get into the groove
The trailer kicks off with a 7” vinyl record spinning in a jukebox — and while wax is making a comeback, it’s an instant hint that El Royale is a period piece. “The movie is set in 1969, and the music of the era is incredibly important to the film,” Goddard reveals. “The late ‘60s were very much a time of transition for the country. You had the optimism of the early ‘60s washed away with assassination after assassination, and then the darkness came creeping over the country. 1969 was where you really felt the beginning of that transition starting to take hold.”
2) Dual states
The El Royale is built across the divide between California and Nevada, a split represented visually within the hotel decor. “I love state borders. I grew up in New Mexico, notable because we have Four Corners where you can stand in all four states [New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah] at the exact same time,” says Goddard. “I’ve always been enamored with the different personalities of states and I love California and Nevada for entirely separate reasons. When I think about California I think about this warmth and sense of opportunity. There’s this sort of hope, people always travelling to change their lives — ‘Go West, Young Man’ — and bask in the warm golds of the sunshine and the ocean. Nevada is very much the gamblin’ town, the mining town, with this idea that in one single day you can change your life, that you can strike gold or hit it big at the casino. One big win, and you can have a brand new life. I love the duality of that. The setting is very much one of the characters of the movie, we took where everything was happening very seriously.”
3) The man of god
First to check in in the trailer is Jeff Bridges — and with his clergy get-up he looks like one the good guys, right? Except, a similarly bearded masked man seems to be pulling off some kind of heist later in the teaser. “Jeff Bridges plays a character called Father Daniel Flynn,” says Goddard, refusing to confirm if they’re one and the same. “At the end of the trailer we do see him say that he’s not really a priest — that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not really a priest, it might mean that he’s lying. Clearly there is more to Jeff Bridges in this movie than appears at first glance.”
4) Suited and booted
One of the other arrivals at the hotel is a typically dapper Jon Hamm. “One of the tricky things about this movie is the less you know the better, and nobody is who they appear,” Goddard admits, conceding a few tidbits after some prodding: “Jon Hamm plays Laramie Seymour Sullivan, he’s a vacuum cleaner salesman and he’s checking in to the hotel on the same day that all the other characters are. We were very conscious of this big idea of wanting each person to have their own individual style, and one of my favourite parts of this whole process has been working with our costume designer Danny Glicker to create iconic looks for each character. Boy, Jon Hamm is fun to dress — he has that quality where it’s hard to find something that looks bad on him, quite frankly. The loud, rumpled salesman comes across in his coat and his suit.”
5) Fifty shades of mystery
Next up it’s Dakota Johnson, done playing Anastasia Steele — here instead she’s… well, we’re not entirely sure. “I can’t really tell you too much,” Goddard repeats apologetically. “She’s walking into the lobby, everyone is showing up at the hotel — you can read into that whether they’re a guest or not. Her name is Emily Summerspring, and that’s about all I can tell you. I take naming characters very seriously. I’m a fan of crime fiction and a lot of this movie was very much inspired by Jim Thompson and Dashiell Hammett, Flannery O’Connor, James Elroy. All of those authors very clearly take pride in their character names. I’m a big believer that when you go to an actor, if you show care and love in character names it’s a good sign that you’re going to show care and love in the characters themselves.”
6) Two sides to the story
Here’s something you (hopefully) don’t get in a Premier Inn — a corridor of one-way mirrors to spy on the guests. So the hotel itself is packed with secrets? “I think that is a very fair assumption,” Goddard laughs, elaborating no further. “I agree with everything you said.”
7) Buried secrets
Bridges looks set to lose his entire deposit, seen ripping up the floorboards in his room. Is it fair to say that the hotel takes a real beating through the film? “It is fair to say that the hotel itself takes a real beating through the film, absolutely,” agrees Goddard succinctly. “The hotel and the characters.”
8) The songbird
Cynthia Erivo may be a relative unknown on the big screen right now, but she’s poised for big things in the latter half of the year — she’s also in Steve McQueen’s Widows, and reportedly plays a major role in Bad Times at the El Royale. “Cynthia Erivo is a staggering talent that I’m so glad I have in this movie,” Goddard raves. “She was spectacular in [Broadway musical] The Color Purple, she’s one of the great voices of our time. Her character is called Darlene Sweet, and she was a singer in the 1960s. It was very important to me that the character sing live, which you see in the trailer. I didn’t want to lip-sync — and when you see the film you’ll understand why. We did an extensive search, and Cynthia came in on an audition and started singing and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. The song is ‘This Old Heart of Mine’ by the Isley Brothers, which was recorded in the ‘60s. It’s a song I’ve always loved, and you hear their version in the first half of the trailer.”
9) A peek of pecs
In a move that will upset precisely nobody, every glimpse of Chris Hemsworth in the El Royale trailer finds the actor topless. “I kept trying to make Chris keep his shirt on, but every time I rolled camera he’d just whip it off,” Goddard jokes. “I kept trying, ‘Can we cover Chris up?’ And I’d turn around and next thing you know he’s shirtless again. His character name is Billy Lee, that’s all I’ve got for you. I’m really excited for the world to see what he does in this film, it’s a colour of Chris that audiences have not seen. We shot up in Vancouver, where we shot Cabin in the Woods, it felt like going back to a high school reunion or something where we’re both a little better at our jobs, but we’ve still got the same old sense of fun. I think that comes across immediately in the trailer, you just see Chris smiling and dancing and having a good time, and a lot of that was just genuine feelings of what was going on on the set.”
10) Listening in
At most hotels, complaining to management might get you a discount or a free stay. At the El Royale, ‘Management’ sounds far more ominous. “There’s more to this hotel than meets the eye,” says Goddard. “Certainly as they’re talking about the bigger picture, there’s an insidious nature to some of the goings-on. The reference to ‘Management’ is certainly meant to imply that this is not necessarily a great place.” The notion of hidden authority figures pulling the strings will be familiar to fans of Cabin in the Woods. “At the end of the day, I’m still me — so a lot of the things I’m interested in will show up in the film,” Goddard says of the possible similarities. “Some of those are thematic, some of those are cosmetic. At the end of the day, I take the audience experience very seriously. I want to give them something they’ve not seen before. That has been true of everything I’ve done.”
11) In the driving seat
The bad times have very clearly begun by the end of the trailer, with Erivo holding a gun to Bridges in the car. “Working with Jeff and Cynthia is one of the great joys of my career,” Goddard enthuses. “I would make jokes occasionally that watching the two of them on screen together is like Godzilla vs. Mothra, two heavyweights who occupy two very different worlds. Watching them at the same time on screen felt epic to me.” Is there anything else Goddard can tell us before his lips are sealed for good? “If it was really up to me, I’d say the less you know the better,” he repeats. “I take very great care in giving the audience something they’ve never seen before and surprising the audience, and taking them to places that they do not expect to go.” We can’t wait to visit them.
Bad Times at the El Royale is set for a UK release on 10 October