INTERVIEW: ‘Phantom Halo’ becomes ‘Sleep No More’ for 10-year anniversary
Photo: Thomas Brodie-Sangster stars in Sleep No More, which was released in 2014 as Phantom Halo. Photo courtesy of the artist / Provided by Foundry Comm with permission.
Director Antonia Bogdanovich has revisited her 2014 thriller Phantom Halo and edited a new director’s cut for the movie’s 10-year anniversary. In fact, she also changed the title to Sleep No More. The film, starring Sebastian Roché, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Luke Kleintank, Tobin Bell and Rebecca Romijn, follows a group of people who fall into a world filled with gambling, pickpocketing, drunkenness and even Shakespearean-influenced street performance.
“My father loved the film, and he would always say when I showed him several drafts of the script, ‘Great script. Terrible title,'” Bogdanovich said in a recent phone interview about her father, Peter Bogdanovich, the late director of masterpieces like The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon. “So I said, ‘I would really like to change the title,’ and then I was working with this producer on another project I was attached to direct. He tinkered with the ending because he does some editing. I was like, ‘Oh, we should just go back in and edit the whole thing.’ … And then he’s like, ‘Well, why don’t you just put out a director’s cut?’ I was like, ‘OK,’ so that’s how it happened.”
Bogdanovich said this 10-year anniversary release is a celebration of the film and both her parents. Peter Bogdanovich helped shepherd the movie’s original release; he even served as an executive producer. Her mother, the late Polly Platt, was in the film industry for many years and offered helpful guidance throughout this cinematic venture.
“When you lose somebody, it just puts a different perspective on everything, so that was the impetus,” she said of this director’s cut. “The change of the title and tinkering with the ending and cutting some scenes I really didn’t think worked.”
Bogdanovich said most of the movie remains the same, but approximately 10-15 percent has been changed. There has been some trimming, and the ending is refocused in a different manner. “There was nothing that we shot that we didn’t use,” the director said about there being no additions to this release, only cuts.
“The rights reverted back to me and the investors, so I have access to the hard drives,” she said, adding that those hard drives didn’t contain anything substantial enough to add to the feature. According to press notes, this slimmed down version is Bogdanovich’s true vision for the movie, which is now playing in theaters and VOD.
When the film was finished in 2014, the Hollywood and indie scenes looked quite different than the landscape in 2024. For starters, back then there weren’t that many streamers, so there was an unbelievable amount of competition to get one’s movie in theaters or on Netflix.
“I don’t think as many eyes got on it the first time, no fault of anybody’s specifically,” she said. “My mother, the late, great Polly Platt, she worked in the studio system. I don’t think she ever made a movie outside the studio, and she said, ‘We spent twice as much on marketing.’ I remember that distinctly stuck in my head. If we spend $80 million on this, we need to spend $160 million on print and advertising. … For an independent film, that’s really tough to get. It was tough then, and it is tougher now.”
Bogdanovich said was extremely lucky with Phantom Halo / Sleep No More because the assembled cast was able to bring her vision to life. “I knew Tobin’s work, and I knew he amazing,” said Bogdanovich, who co-wrote the film with Anne Heffron. “Rebecca’s as well. I had confidence they could do the roles. Luke Kleintank and Sebastian Roché auditioned. … These guys they were so talented. I really understand actors on a very deep level. Why? My father was an actor. He started as an actor. I grew up around actors. I was taught how they think by my dad. … There’s some fundamentals that my father taught me about actors. Always encourage them. There are just little subtle things that I was taught that we were able to get great performances. To be honest, Thomas Sangster and Luke and pretty much everybody, they needed minor adjustments. When Luke auditioned for me, I was like, this is the person that I saw in my head when I was writing the film, so I think I got lucky.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Sleep No More, formerly known as Phantom Halo, is now playing in movie theaters and VOD.
