Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is following up his Oscar-nominated film Birdman with another equally ambitious project. The Revenant tells the true story of a hunter (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) who is mauled by a grizzly bear and left for dead by his companions. But he survives, and embarks on a 200-mile hike to find the men who abandoned him (played by Tom Hardy, Will Poulter, and Domhnall Gleeson). But the crazy part is how Inarritu is filming this: he and his Birdman cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity) are "shooting with only natural light in remote locations left untouched by mankind," which sounds like it would put a lot of pressure on everyone to capitalize on the few hours of filmable daylight they have to work with out there in the elements.
EW has a couple first look photos from the production, as well as a brief interview with Inarritu, who spoke about his decision to shoot the film this way:
"It's a fun ride...It’s a very experimental thing that we’re doing here…I’m now addicted to doing things that can fail horribly or maybe that can give us a surprise. We are all into it."
I admire the director's passion, and hopefully this will turn out to be an amazing film. The Revenant arrives in theaters on Christmas Day.