(Left) Andrew Garfield arrives on the red carpet for the 89th Oscars on February 26, 2017 in Hollywood, California.Photo: Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images. (Right) Jude Law prior to the Academy’s 13th Governors Awards on Saturday, November 19, 2022, in Los Angeles. Credit/Provider: Blaine Ohigashi / ©A.M.P.A.S.
Copyright: ©A.M.P.A.S.
Preview:
- Andrew Garfield and Jude Law are set to play performers Siegfried & Roy.
- The Apple TV+ limited series ‘Wild Things’ will chart the duo’s career.
- John Hoffman is involved behind the scenes.
Jude Law and Andrew Garfield have signed up to executive produce and star in ‘Wild Things.’
No, don’t do a double-take: this does not mean they’ll be getting steamy in a remake of the pulpy 1998 thriller that saw Neve Campbell and Denise Richards as sultry students.
Instead, the actors are attached to play Vegas legends Siegfried and Roy, the flamboyant famous performers known for big-scale magic tricks and the inclusion of animals in their shows –– hence the name of the new series, ‘Wild Things.’
Related Article: Jude Law Talks ‘Skeleton Crew’ and Joining the ‘Star Wars’ Universe
Who are Siegfried and Roy?
(L to R) Roy Horn and Siegfried Fischbacher in ‘Siegfried and Roy – Superstars Of Magic’. Photo: NBC.
Not to sound morbid, but it’s more apt to say who were Siegfried and Roy.
Siegfried Fischbacher (who died in 2021) and Roy Horn (born Uwe Ludwig Horn, who passed in 2020) were German-American entertainers who performed an animal-based magic show together as Siegfried & Roy.
They met in 1959 while both were working on a cruise ship and then began to perform together on ships and in European clubs and theaters.
In 1967, they were invited to begin performing in Las Vegas. Starting in 1990, they headlined a show at hotel and casino The Mirage. Romantic partners as well as professional, they become best known for their flamboyant, Liberace-style costumes and use of white lions and tigers in their acts; Siegfried was the magician, Roy the animal trainer.
By 1999, the show had grossed $500 million and they were the highest-paid entertainers in Las Vegas. After 5,750 performances, their career ended in 2003 when Horn was critically injured by a tiger during a performance.
Horn died from COVID-19 and Fischbacher passed from complications pancreatic cancer.
What’s the story of ‘Wild Things’?
(L to R) Tina Fey and Director John Hoffman on the set of ‘Only Murders in the Building’ season 2. Photo: Craig Blankenhorn/Hulu.
Written, showrun and executive produced by John Hoffman (‘Only Murders in the Building’), the eight-episode, hour-long series tells the wild ride relationship tale of two of the greatest showman-magicians in history who, along with their white tigers, are tasked with turning Sin City into a family-friendly destination.
The duo push the concept of illusion versus reality to the extreme, personally and professionally, until tragedy reframes and opens a mystery surrounding their last fateful Las Vegas show.
Law will star as Siegfried and Garfield will star as Roy, and the series is set to go into production this fall.
‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ director and executive producer Matt Shakman. Photo: Apple TV+.
Matt Shakman (director of ‘WandaVision’ and the upcoming ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’) will direct the pilot and also serve as executive producer. Law and Garfield are aboard to produce alongside Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment.
This new show is drawn from Apple Original Podcast ‘Wild Things: Siegfried & Roy,’ which premiered in 2022, and was the first, compelling in-depth podcast series about the most famous, controversial magicians in history, who were widely misunderstood, frequently satirized and feverishly criticized.
The podcast goes behind the velvet curtain to examine the pop culture icons, lionized by a global fan base for more than 40 years, to deconstruct the illusions they created, the empire they constructed, and what really happened on the night that a tiger attack ended their reign.
Documentary filmmaker Steven Leckart, who wrote, narrated, and executive produced the podcast, will also produce the series alongside Tony Leondis, Kathy Ciric and Will Malnati, who conceived the original podcast.
Where else can we see Jude Law?
Jod Na Nawood (Jude Law) is closely examined by security droid eyestalks while his young partners stand back in Lucasfilm’s ‘Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’, exclusively on Disney+. ©2024 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Law was most recently seen as the scheming Jod Na Nawood in Disney+ ‘Star Wars’ series ‘Skeleton Crew.’
On the big screen, his last couple of acting gigs included ‘Firebrand’ (in which played Henry VIII) and ‘The Order,’ which saw him as a grizzled FBI agent looking to take down white supremacists who have begun robbing banks.
Upcoming, he has Ron Howard’s thriller ‘Eden,’ which follows a group of people fueled by a profound desire for change. In order to turn their back to society they leave everything behind and set their futures on the harsh landscape of the Galapagos.
‘Eden’ will be in theaters on August 22nd.
He’s also worked on ‘Black Rabbit’ opposite Jason Bateman, with the pair playing siblings who clash over a New York hotspot. That’ll arrive via Netflix but has yet to land a date.
Likewise movie ‘The Wizard of the Kremlin,’ focusing on a young Russian filmmaker who becomes an unlikely advisor to Vladimir Putin as he rises to power in post-Soviet Russia, navigating the new era’s complexities and chaos. Law plays Putin.
What else is Andrew Garfield up to?
Andrew Garfield in ‘We Live in Time’. Photo: StudioCanal.
Garfield was last seen opposite Florence Pugh in romantic drama ‘We Live in Time.’
Next up for the actor in terms of release is Luca Guadagnino’s latest, ‘After the Hunt,’ featuring Julia Roberts as a college professor who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star pupil levels an accusation against one of her colleagues and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come to light.
The movie is due in theaters on October 17th.
In addition to that, Garfield has worked on a new movie adaptation of Edith Blyton’s children’s classic ‘The Magic Faraway Tree,’ about a modern family who relocate to the countryside where the children discover a magical tree with eccentric residents.
That one is awaiting a release date.
When will ‘Wild Things’ land on Apple TV+?
Apple has yet to specify when the new limited series will land on its streaming service.
Andrew Garfield arrives on the red carpet of the 97th Oscars® at the Dolby® Theatre at Ovation Hollywood on Sunday, March 2, 2025. Credit/Provider: Kyusung Gong / The Academy. Copyright: ©A.M.P.A.S.
Discussion about this post