‘A Complete Unknown’ Director James Mangold Calls Multi-Movie Universes “The Death Of Storytelling”

Bruce Haring
·2 min read

James Mangold is working hard on his Bob Dylan movie, A Complete Unknown. But even though he’s directed installments of the X-Men and Indiana Jones franchises, he’s not bringing that sensibility to this project.

In a Rolling Stone interview, Mangold addressed a question on why star Timothée Chalamet, who plays Dylan, is seen in the teaser with a note from Johnny Cash. The interviewer mentioned that this sparked hopes of “a cinematic-universe, multiverse return–of-Joaquin Phoenix situation.”

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Mangold immediately shot that down.

“I don’t do multiverses. But beyond that, Johnny Cash was like, 30. I love Joaquin, but he’s not 30, or whatever Johnny was at this moment. They’re both young people in that moment in life. It’s weird that I’ve even worked in the world of IP entertainment, because I don’t like multi-movie universe-building. I think it’s the enemy of storytelling. The death of storytelling. It’s more interesting to people the way the Legos connect than the way the story works in front of us.

“For me, the goal becomes, always, ‘What is unique about this film, and these characters?’ Not making you think about some other movie or some Easter egg or something else, which is all an intellectual act, not an emotional act. You want the movie to work on an emotional level.

A Complete Unknown doesn’t have a release date, but Mangold hints it could come out as soon as December. It stars Chalamet as Bob Dylan, Elle Fanning as his girlfriend, Sylvie Russo, (a renamed version of Dylan’s real-life girlfriend of that era, Suze Rotolo), Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, and Edward Norton as Pete Seeger.

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