‘Devotion’ Trailer: Jonathan Majors and ‘Top Gun’ Breakout Glen Powell Battle in the Skies
Jonathan Majors became “sick as a dog” while filming war drama “Devotion” because, well, Dramamine didn’t exist in the 1950s during the Korean War, when the film takes place.
Majors stars as real-life U.S. Navy aviator Jesse L. Brown in the 2022 TIFF-selected film “Devotion,” directed by JD Dillard (“Sleight”) and based on true events. The film centers on the friendship between Brown (Majors) and fellow pilot Tom Hudner (Glen Powell) before entering the Korean War together.
“Top Gun: Maverick” breakout Powell began developing the film five years ago after reading Adam Makos’ 2014 nonfiction book “Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice.” The film is written by Jake Crane and Jonathan A.H. Stewart, adapted from Makos’ book and will premiere in theaters November 23 from Sony.
“A couple of different people had mentioned the book,” Powell, who executive produces the film, told Entertainment Weekly. “I ended up going on a fishing trip with my family and everybody was reading ‘Devotion.’ My uncle had read it, my cousins were reading it, my dad was about to read it, and I picked it up. We got to talk about this story, and what it meant, and the fact that this was a war that no one knew about, a relationship that no one knew about.”
As for the on-paper similarities seemingly between “Devotion” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” Powell added, “Really, these movies could not be more different. But at the same time, I think they pair quite wonderfully together in terms of the legacy of naval aviation.”
“Devotion” used real 80-year-old planes for the production, with director Dillard calling the aviation vehicles “flying museums” that reached over 10,000 feet in the sky. Lead star Majors admitted he called it the “dog shit reality” of filming while flying.
“You know, getting in the plane, trying to hold your lunch down, your breakfast down, sweating bullets, blacking out in the flight,” the “Creed III” and “Lovecraft Country” star stated. “I refused to take Dramamine because they didn’t have it [back then]. I refused to come down. They were like, ‘Are you sick?’ ‘Yeah, I’m sick as a dog.’ ‘Do you want to come down?’ ‘No, I don’t want to go down. Keep going!’ Because you want to experience it.”
He continued, “All the men in my family have served in the U.S. armed forces. Navy. Army. Airforce. I myself haven’t. But there’s something about the soldier archetype that’s always kind of been with me.”
Joe Jonas, Thomas Sadoski, and Christina Jackson also star.
“Devotion” premieres at 2022 TIFF and will be released in theaters November 23.
Check out the trailer below.