Everybody loves a murder mystery movie. Recent years have given us the arrival of super-sleuth Benoit Blanc in the Knives Out trilogy, as well as a bunch of Kenneth Branagh Poirot adaptations. And soon, a very different sort of detective story will be hitting the big screen. It has all the regular ingredients; a dead body, a knotty plot, surprises in store. But let’s just say, when it comes to the actual crime-solvers this time around, ewe aren’t ready.
The Sheep Detectives – scripted by The Last Of Us and Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin, and directed by Kyle Balda – delivers exactly what it says on the tin. Because, the yarn it’s unravelling regards the death of a shepherd, Hugh Jackman’s George Hardy, with his flock setting out to discover whodunnit. It was the unexpectedness of this combination that drew Jackman in. “It really got me because I was like, ‘This sounds pretty nutty — Knives Out meets Babe’ — and it’s intriguing because I think we’re all looking for things that are really inventive and new,” he says. It made for a very different kind of shooting experience to, say, Wolverine. “There were a couple of sheep, but mainly it was puppets that I was working with, which were incredible,” he says of his ovine co-stars. “I had something incredibly real to interact with, and beautiful and magical. It wasn’t just a tennis ball.”
Chances are, you’ve never seen anything quite like The Sheep Detectives – it’s a leap of faith, similar to the one George’s sheep take when they decide to track down his killer. “I think it’s very much about what we can achieve when we come together and when we believe in ourselves, not just individually but as a group,” says Jackman of the film. “And that takes courage.” Now, when can they team up with Benoit Blanc?
Read Empire’s full The Sheep Detectives feature in the Steven Spielberg issue – on sale Thursday April 9. Pre-order a copy online here. The Sheep Detectives comes to UK cinemas from May 8.
