Key Takeaways
- New Adaptation: A fresh miniseries adaptation of Treasure Island featuring David Oyelowo as Long John Silver is set to stream this fall.
- Historical Representation: Oyelowo will be the first Black actor to portray Long John Silver, highlighting the historical diversity of piracy.
- Unique Perspective: The upcoming film Clarissa is a modern retelling of Virginia Woolf‘s classic novel, set in Lagos, Nigeria.
- Notable Cast: The film also stars Sophie Okonedo and Ayo Edebiri, and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Treasure Island‘s Long John Silver is the most iconic pirate in the literary canon; all of his buccaneer successors stand in his tall shadow. Now, a fresh take on Robert Louis Stevenson‘s salty sea dog is headed to streaming this fall in a new miniseries, courtesy of David Oyelowo. Collider’s Perri Nemiroff caught up with Oyelowo at the Toronto International Film Festival, where he’s promoting his new film, Clarissa. One of Stevenson’s most iconic creations, Long John Silver introduced many elements of the canonical ur-pirate, from his squawking pet parrot to his peg leg. Walt Disney’s live-action adaptation of the novel, released in 1950, likewise influenced the popular image of the pirate; actor Robert Newton exaggerated his own native West Country accent for the role of Silver, creating what is now popularly known as the “pirate accent.”
To follow in the peg-leg footsteps of an icon is an intimidating thought, but Oyelowo relishes the prospect of breaking new ground for Black actors. “What we spend a lot of our time doing as Black artists is, we’re still in a time where what we do tends to be groundbreaking in some way, especially if you’re trying to move the art form forward,” Oyelowo told Collider. “Clarissa is that; I don’t think you’re going to see a film quite like this anywhere else, given all the elements these guys put together.”
Silver has been played by notables like Orson Welles, Tim Curry, and Charlton Heston, but Oyelowo will be the first Black actor to take on the role. He sees it as a way of acknowledging the historical truth of piracy in a way that previous productions were lacking. And, of course, he also enjoyed inhabiting the role just as much as his predecessors:
“What was amazing about Treasure Island for me was an acknowledgment of the fact that about 1 in 4 pirates back in the golden age of piracy were Black, and we haven’t really seen that reflected appropriately in movies and TV shows. This isn’t a token piece of casting. He actually was from that place. A lot of the pirates were ex-enslaved people who found a kind of autonomy on these ships where it was one man, one vote. They actually were kind of forward-thinking places, these pirate ships. And so, I just love that. I love the fact that even though Robert Louis Stevenson didn’t put that in the book, this version of it acknowledges that truth. And, you know, I also get to sort of have one leg and a parrot, so what’s not to like about that?”
03
How do you like your story told?
Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different.
BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi,
all in one ride.
CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines,
building a mosaic of cause and consequence.
DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I’m living it in real time,
no cuts to safety.
ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
What makes a truly great antagonist?
The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
AA system — invisible,
structural,
and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face.
BThe self —the ways we sabotage,
abandon,
and fail the people we love most.
CThe industry —the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance.
DThe unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect.
EThe self —the ways we sabotage,
abandon,
and fail the people we love most.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
<p
What do you want from a film’s ending?
The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
A
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Shock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it.
B
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Earned emotion — I want to cry,
laugh,
and feel genuinely hopeful,
even if the world is a mess.
C
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Devastation and grandeur —
an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after.
D
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Ambiguity —
something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later.
E
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Bleakness —
an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is.
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06
<p
Which setting pulls you in most?
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Where a film takes place shapes everything —
mood,
stakes,
what's even possible.
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A gleaming modern city with a hidden underside —
beauty masking rot,
wealth masking desperation.
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A collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite —
the multiverse of a single ordinary person.
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The corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point —
where decisions echo for decades.
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The grimy,
alive chaos of New York and Hollywood —
fame as both destination and trap.
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Vast,
indifferent landscape —
desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason.
What cinematic craft impresses you most?
Every great film has a signature —
a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
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Production design and mise-en-scène —
every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface.
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Editing and tonal control —
the ability to move between registers without losing the audience.
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Score and sound design —
music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching.
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Cinematography as performance —
the camera not recording events but participating in them.
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Silence and restraint —
what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could.
What kind of main character do you root for?
The protagonist is the lens.
Who you choose to follow says something about you.
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Someone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure.
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Someone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary.
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A brilliant,
tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other.
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A self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing.
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A quiet,
principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense.
How do you feel about a film that takes its time?
Pace is a choice.
Some films sprint;
others let tension accumulate slowly,
deliberately.
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema?
The best films leave a mark.
What kind of mark do you want?
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result-reveal
The Academy Has Decided
Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others.
This is the film that was made for how your mind works.
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result-cards
PARASITE
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously—
that begin in one genre and quietly,
brilliantly migrate into another.
Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is about desire,
and architecture inequality—
darkly funny,
deeply suspenseful,
and genuinely shocking across its extraordinary running time.
Your instinct is for cinema hiding its true intentions until ready.
Parasite rewards close attention—
punishes assumptions—
right up until its devastating final image.
EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE
You want it all—
this film gives you all.
The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one maximalist films ever made:
action comedy,
multiverse sci-fi,
family drama,
existential crisis—
genuinely earned emotional core sneaks up amid chaos.
You respond ambition—
don’t want cinema choose between entertaining meaningful.
This film refuses choice entirely—
overwhelming by design—
feeling crushed infinite possibility exactly what it's about.
OPPENHEIMER
You are drawn cinema grand scale—
films understand history not backdrop but force—
place characters inside force watch happens.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer terrifying gap between what can do should do—
told full weight one most consequential moments human history behind it.
You want films feel important without feeling self-important—
earn ambition sheer craft gravity subject.
Oppenheimer does exactly—
enormous,
complicated—
refuses easy comfort.
BIRDMAN
You are drawn films foreground own construction—
make how filmmaking part what it's about.
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman shot appear single continuous take—
cinema examining itself cracked mirror fading actor’s ego.
You respond formal daring—
feeling film doing something probably shouldn’t possible.
Michael Keaton’s performance Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create genuinely unlike anything else—
film simultaneously creativity,
relevance,
self-destruction impossibility ever truly knowing work means anything at all.
NO COUNTRY
You are drawn cinema trusts silence—
refuses explain itself—
treats dread form meaning.
Coen Brothers’ No Country Old Men arrival new kind evil—implacable,
arbitrary utterly indifferent moral frameworks use make sense world.
It one formally controlled films ever made—controlled restraint makes terrifying.
You want films haunt comfort—
not interested resolution resolution would dishonest.
No Country Old Men honest way most cinema never dares be.
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