MAN'S BEST FRIEND
“Miguel, I’m flattered, but stop trying to be me.”
EVEN IN A POSTapocalyptic world, dogs naturally remain man’s best friend. That special bond lies at the core of Miguel Sapochnik’s sci-fi flick Finch. The movie explores the touching relationship between the last adult male on the planet, his beloved four-legged friend, and the robot he constructs. The Game Of Thrones director admits he’s “not a very sentimental person,” but the premise, which tugged at his heart strings, proved impossible to resist.
“Every time I would read the script, in spite of myself I would find myself quite upset at the end,” Sapochnik tells SFX on the Albuquerque set. “And not upset in a bad way, but upset in a way that made me think about my parents and my relationship to them and what happens when you grow up, and what happens when you grow old.
“You can’t ignore that repeated thing,” he continues. “If you only feel it once, you break it down and think, ‘Oh, I was just being manipulated.’ But when you feel it multiple times… For me, it’s always been this movie about growing up and growing old. The two things are synonymous with each other. Young people should really spend time with old people.”
ARE “FRIENDS” ELECTRIC?
It’s early May 2019 and SFX is in New Mexico visiting the set of Finch. The film comes courtesy of Amblin Entertainment, and producers Robert Zemeckis and Kevin Misher, with a script by Craig Luck and Ivor Powell.
Finch – originally titled Bios – unfolds in the near future when a massive solar flare has torched the Earth’s surface, annihilating most of the population. Tom Hanks stars as the titular character, a terminally ill engineer and owner to his furry pal, Goodyear. But as his condition slowly worsens, Finch decides to build an android named Jeff (Caleb Landry Jones) to protect his beloved dog after his death. Together, Finch, Goodyear and Jeff form an unlikely family as they embark on a cross-country road trip.