Overlord (2018 film)

Overlord is a 2018 American war horror film film directed by Julius Avery and written by Billy Ray and Mark L. Smith. It stars Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, Mathilde Ollivier, John Magaro, Gianny Taufer, Pilou Asbæk, and Bokeem Woodbine. The film was produced by J. J. Abrams, through his Bad Robot Productions banner, and Lindsey Weber. The plot follows several American soldiers who are dropped behind enemy lines the day before D-Day and discover secret Nazi experiments.

Overlord was released in the United States on November 9, 2018, by Paramount Pictures. The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed over $41 million worldwide on a budget of $38 million.

Plot
On the eve of D-Day, a paratrooper squad is sent to destroy a German radio tower in an old church. Their plane is shot down and crashes, and most of the squad, including the squad leader, are killed either in the crash or by German soldiers. Five survivors remain: second in command Corporal Ford, and Privates Boyce, Tibbet, Chase, and Dawson, the latter who is killed by a landmine shortly after regrouping.

The team of four continues onward and meet a French woman named Chloe who agrees to take them to her village where the radio tower is located. They take refuge in her house, where she lives with her 8-year-old brother Paul and her aunt, who has been disfigured by Nazi experiments taking place in the church. After Tibbet and Chase depart to check the scheduled rendezvous site, a Nazi patrol led by SS Hauptsturmführer Wafner visits Chloe. Wafner sends his men away and proceeds to coerce Chloe for sex, threatening to send her brother to the church to be "fixed". Boyce, being an idealistic new recruit, cannot ignore this and interrupts the Nazi officer. Ford is forced to follow suit and restrain Wafner.

Attempting to reach the rendezvous point to look for Tibbet and Chase, Boyce witnesses the Nazis burning disfigured village residents. He is chased by a dog and is forced to hide in a truck carrying dead bodies inside the church. Sneaking out of the truck, Boyce discovers an underground base which houses not only a radio operating room, but also a laboratory where the Germans perform various experiments on the villagers involving a mysterious serum and a large pit filled with black tar. Boyce takes a syringe containing the serum and rescues Rosenfeld, another member of the paratrooper squad who was captured alive. They escape through the base's sewers.

When Boyce and Rosenfeld get back to Chloe's house, Tibbet and Chase had already returned. Wafner refuses to explain what the serum does, even as Ford tortures him. As the squad prepares to assault the church, Wafner attempts to escape and fatally shoots Chase. Boyce, having seen a dead man supposedly resurrected by the serum in the lab, injects Chase with the syringe. Chase is resurrected, but soon mutates and turns violent. A scuffle ensues ending with Boyce bludgeoning Chase to death. A patrol responding to the carnage arrives, and a shootout erupts where the patrol is killed and Ford blows half of Wafner's face off, but he escapes with Paul as a hostage. Back at the lab, Wafner injects himself with multiple syringes which quickly stop the bleeding.

Although they only have a short amount of time left to destroy the radio tower, Boyce proposes infiltrating the base and destroying the tower from the inside, which would also destroy the laboratory. Chloe takes off running to distract a part of the squad that Wafner was previously with to steal a BMW R75 and rig it with explosives. Rosenfeld and Tibbet launch a frontal assault when the bike is ridden in and detonated, distracting them from the actual main purpose of the attack. Ford, Boyce, and Chloe enter the base using the route Boyce previously used to escape. Boyce and Ford plant the explosives while Chloe looks for Paul. Chloe narrowly escapes an encounter with a disfigured test subject, sending Paul outside the church and killing the subject with a flamethrower. She returns to the village where Tibbet and Rosenfeld are caught up in a fight. Tibbet is wounded shielding Paul from gunfire, and Chloe kills the remaining Germans before treating Tibbet’s wounds.

Wafner, now mutated and possessing superhuman strength and resilience, overpowers Ford and impales him on a meat hook. He reveals that the serum was made by using the villagers' bodies to distill the ancient power of the black tar, which had been running under the village for centuries. The aim was to create immortal and invincible soldiers to serve the Reich. As Boyce distracts Wafner, Ford manges to unhook himself before injecting himself with the serum to heal his injuries. He holds off Wafner long enough for Boyce to set off an oxygen tank, which sends him falling into the tar pit. As he begins to mutate, Ford orders Boyce to leave him behind and detonate the explosives, believing neither side should possess the serum. Boyce complies and narrowly escapes as the church and radio tower collapse behind him. He rejoins the others as a radio announces that the D-Day invasion concluded in a victory for the Allies.

In his report, Boyce credits Ford for the decision to plant the bombs inside the church. The commanding officer questions Boyce on talk about an underground lab in the church, Boyce denies everything, remembering Ford's final words. The commanding officer seemingly accepts this story and informs the soldiers that they will be reassigned to Charlie Company as the war continues.

Cast

 * Jovan Adepo as Private First Class Edward Boyce, a paratrooper who uncovers the Nazi experiments below the church and radio tower.
 * Wyatt Russell as Corporal Lewis Ford, a paratrooper and explosives expert who is vehemently against swaying from the mission to destroy the radio tower.
 * Mathilde Ollivier as Chloe, Paul's sister and a French civilian who aides the stranded paratroopers.
 * John Magaro as Private First Class Lyle Tibbet, a paratrooper and sniper.
 * Pilou Asbæk as Captain Wafner, an SS Hauptsturmführer/Captain.
 * Gianny Taufer as Paul, Chloe's younger brother
 * Iain De Caestecker as Private Morton Chase, a paratrooper and photographer.
 * Dominic Applewhite as Private First Class Jacob Rosenfeld, a paratrooper.
 * Jacob Anderson as Private First Class Charlie Dawson, a paratrooper.
 * Bokeem Woodbine as Sergeant Rensin.
 * Erich Redman as Dr. Schmidt, head of the experimentation on French civilians and dead German soldiers.
 * Patrick Brammall as American Officer.
 * Mark McKenna as Pfc.Murphy

Development
The initial story for the film was conceived by J. J. Abrams and screenwriter Billy Ray, with Ray penning the script. Paramount acquired the film in 2017, and Mark L. Smith was brought in to polish the script. On February 1, 2017, Bad Robot Productions and Paramount Pictures announced that Julius Avery would direct the film.

Cloverfield rumors
On January 18, 2018, the film was initially reported as being the fourth installment in the Cloverfield film series, though Abrams denied this at CinemaCon on April 25, 2018.

Casting
In April 2017, Jovan Adepo and Wyatt Russell were the first actors to be cast in the film.

In May 2017, Mathilde Ollivier, John Magaro, Gianny Taufer, Pilou Asbæk, and Bokeem Woodbine were also cast in the suporting roles.

Filming
Principal photography began in September 2017 and wrapped January 2018.

Visual effects
Visual effects for the film were provided by Industrial Light & Magic, Pixomondo, Rodeo FX, Southbay and Nzviage. Mark Bakowski, Julian Foddy, Dan Seddon, Stefano Trivelli and Pauline Duvall served as visual effects supervisors.

Release
Overlord was originally scheduled to be released on October 26, 2018. However, in July 2018, it was pushed back to November 9, 2018.

Home video
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on February 19, 2019 and is available on Digital HD from Amazon Video and iTunes on February 18, 2019.

Marketing
Footage premiered at CinemaCon in April 2018, and the first trailer was released on July 18, 2018. The film premiered at Fantastic Fest 2018 on September 22.

Box office
Overlord grossed $21.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $20 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $41.7 million, against a production budget of $38 million.

In the United States and Canada, Overlord was released alongside The Girl in the Spider's Web and The Grinch, and was projected to gross $8–13 million from 2,859 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $3 million on its first day, including $900,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $10.1 million, finishing third at the box office. The film fell 62% in its second weekend to $3.9 million, finishing eighth.

Critical reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 80% based on 179 reviews and an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Part revisionist war drama, part zombie thriller, and part all-out genre gorefest, Overlord offers A-level fun for B-movie fans of multiple persuasions." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 60 out of 100 based on 28 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it three out of five stars.

Amy Nicholson of Variety wrote "Even at its most suspenseful, when Jed Kurzel's cello score stabs at the eardrums, Overlord feels familiar, a collage of cinematic nightmares checking off its influences: a woman wielding a flamethrower like Ripley in Aliens, a cruel SS officer (the terrifically hissable Pilou Asbæk) who grins like a Batman villain, and enough of a Castle Wolfenstein video-game vibe that its fans may find themselves reaching for the controls out of habit." John DeFoe of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a positive review, writing: "As the team moves in on the laboratory and the radio tower above it, Avery balances the truly disgusting with more comic-book-like action...Still, the movie's tone holds together, with the lurid colors of opening scenes (the cinematic equivalent of a gory, pre-code war comic book) setting the stage for heightened action to come."