Daisy Ridley addresses behind-the-scenes difficulties while filming her $13 million sci-fi flop co-starring Tom Holland, three years after the movie’s release. Ridley was red-hot in 2021, coming off her performances as the heroic Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and its pair of high-grossing sequels. Holland, meanwhile, was equally incandescent after becoming the MCU’s plucky Peter Parker beginning in Captain America: Civil War, and continuing through a series of appearances both in Spider-Man standalone films, and Avengers blockbusters.

Life outside the franchise bubble has been difficult for Ridley and Holland, however, as both young stars have seen their non-Disney projects meet with lukewarm critical and commercial response. Ridley’s starring vehicles Sometimes I Think About Dying, Magpie, The Marsh King’s Daughter, and Young Woman and the Sea came and went without much fanfare. Holland, meanwhile, has found equally tough sledding when discarding his Spider-suit, with misfires like Cherry and The Devil All the Time on his ledger.

Ridley Addresses The Difficulties Of Filming Chaos Walking

Doug Liman Directed The Troubled Production

Ridley and Holland’s Chaos Walking flopped hard in 2021, grossing just $13 million domestically on a budget of $100-$120 million. It was a disaster that was easy to see coming, as the YA adaptation threw up nothing but red flags all throughout its production. Principal photography on the film began in 2017, with the notoriously difficult Doug Liman as director. The film was ultimately pulled from its 2019 release date, as budget-swelling reshoots were ordered with Fede Alvarez taking over for Liman.

Given all that has been reported about Chaos Walking, from delays to reshoots to the director being replaced, it seems the film was indeed a chaotic experience.

Ridley is now getting candid about the tough job of filming Chaos Walking, three years after the movie’s delayed release, and ultimate box office failure. Speaking to Empire magazine, she addressed Liman’s unusual working methods, while singling out a particularly difficult scene that saw her literally panicking:

"The filming of this was... not without its difficulties. Doug [Liman] works in a way that is different to most people that I've worked with. Very off-the-cuff. But this scene, I feeling the abject terror of playing someone who cannot swim, and going out into quite a fast running river. I can swim, but when you're playing someone who can't swim, the panic gets to you. But I love that outfit, love that wig, and we take what we can from these things."

Our Take On Ridley’s Chaos Walking Comments

It Seems She'd Like To Forget Making The Big-Budget Flop

Ridley and Holland have both taken stabs at making smaller, edgier movies away from the soft landing spot of Disney, and missed the mark more often than not. Chaos Walking, in theory, should have been a safer proposition, being an adaptation of a popular novel, directed by a filmmaker with a lot of hits on his resume. After all, novelist Patrick Ness, who wrote the book trilogy on which the Chaos Walking movie, is a bestselling novelist behind multiple successful books. Dedicated literary audiences can boost their adaptation films, but this did not happen with Chaos Walking.

Ridley's new thriller Cleaner is set to release on February 21, 2025.

But the big-budget movie was not such a solid play, in hindsight. The dystopian YA sci-fi cycle had run out of steam by the time the film even went into production and was beyond over by the time it was released. Ridley and Holland’s theoretical bankability was supposed to be another factor in the movie’s favor, but it seems it’s their big, Disney-funded franchises that are bankable, not their star power. This could change in the future as the actors expand their careers, but for this to happen, they will likely need to have successful non-franchise movies first.

Given all that has been reported about Chaos Walking, from delays to reshoots to the director being replaced, it seems the film was indeed a chaotic experience. Ridley’s recollections only add to the litany of bad reports from the movie’s set. In some cases, feeling solidarity with one's character could lead to a gripping performance, but even that could not save Chaos Walking. It seems she had a terrifying experience on the movie, so it’s no surprise she has less-than-fond memories. Thankfully, she at least enjoyed her hair and costume.

How Chaos Walking's Failure Relates To A Broader Adaptation Trend

YA Adaptations Often Struggle

Chaos Walking is not the only Ness-based movie adaptation that failed to connect with audiences. The film adaptation of A Monster Calls, one of Ness' most beloved books, underperformed at the box office, grossing just $47.3 million on a reported $43 million. The monster may have been calling, but he did not speak to audiences in the same way that the book did, despite largely positive reviews of the film. It seems that, despite the success of this author's books, film adaptations have not quite gotten them right yet.

The low performance of Chaos Walking and A Monster Calls also exemplifies the inconsistent results that YA book adaptations are getting nowadays. Megahit franchises such as the Twilight and The Hunger Games movies have become the exception, not the rule. The Divergent series, for example, had a theoretically similar audience to The Hunger Games, set in an intense dystopia. The films were critical failures, however, and the box office underperformance of Allegiant led to an alleged Divergent 4 being canceled.

So, while Chaos Walking may have been a difficult project for its actors and team, it is not an uncommon experience. As Hollywood continues making adaptations, it will be interesting to see whether they can revive the YA film genre. If not, they will risk falling into the same painful patterns that Liman's failed project did in 2021.

Source: Empire Magazine