Joining Michael Pena, Lucy Hale and Maggie Q in Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island are three talented actors who round-up the principal cast: Ryan Hansen (Central Intelligence, CHiPs), Jimmy O. Yang (Crazy Rich Asians) and Austin Stowell (Bridge of Spies, Whiplash, 12 Strong).
In the film, the enigmatic Mr. Roarke (Pena) makes the secret dreams of his lucky guests come true at a luxurious and remote tropical resort. But when the fantasies become nightmares, the guests have to solve the island’s mystery in order to escape with their lives.
As director-writer Jeff Wadlow and his writing partners, Chris Roach and Jillian Jacobs, began to plot out what they wanted the movie to be, the first step (natch) was to start fantasizing. “We listed the kind of fantasies you would expect – sure, we had the deep, emotional ones, but we also had the fun, superficial fantasies. And we kept in mind that the fantasies were going to be realized, but they were never going to come to fruition exactly the way that you expected. In fact, we made a point of telling the guests and the audience that up front – so we’re not trying to trick anybody in that respect.”
Ryan Hansen & Jimmy O. Yang
Perhaps the seemingly shallowest of the fantasies is JD’s (Hansen), who has brought his adopted brother, Brax (Yang), to Fantasy Island to share his wish “to have it all.” They are almost immediately introduced to a wild and luxurious rave, surrounded by beautiful people.
“They fantasize about this baller lifestyle, ‘to have it all,’ but the truth of it is that they already had it all, which was a real connection, a real relationship, a real familial bond that they would quite literally give up their lives for,” says Wadlow.
Yang says that he was excited to join the party. “Of course, I’d heard of the show, and in the research for this, I watched a whole bunch of episodes and it’s a very cool show.
Really reminds me of ‘The Twilight Zone’ and all the great fantasies gone awry. Now we’re making a really cool version of that with a Blumhouse twist – adding the Blumhouse thriller to it.”
Austin Stowell
Austin Stowell plays Patrick Sullivan, a cop who’s always daydreamed of meeting his father, who died in combat.
But like the others, Patrick soon discovers that his fantasy goes much deeper than he was expecting. “It’s a childlike fantasy to get to run around and play with guns and shoot the bad guys, but that quickly evolves,” says Stowell. “These are real people dealing with regret and having the one chance to reverse it and come to terms with the events of their past. It’s a scary film, but it’s also incredibly relatable.”
Now playing in cinemas nationwide, Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Connect with #FantasyIslandMovie
