Happy Sad Confused - Drew Goddard

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

From BUFFY and LOST to CLOVERFIELD and THE MARTIAN, Drew Goddard is lowkey one of most important contributors to pop culture in the last 25 years and now with PROJECT HAIL MARY the Oscar nominated screenwriter is back with another celebrated hit. He joins Josh to talk about all of it including his famous abandoned SINISTER SIX film and his upcoming MATRIX movie. SUPPORT THE SHOW BY SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! Rula -- Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.rula.com/happy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ #rulapod #sponsored NordVPN -- EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nordvpn.com/hsc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Saily -- 🌎 Get an exclusive 15% discount on your first Saily data plans! Use code HSC at checkout. Download Saily app or go to to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://saily.com/hsc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Limited Time Offer–Get Huel today with my exclusive offer of 15% OFF online with my code happy15 at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://huel.com/happy15.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ New Customers Only. Thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting our show! Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Happy Sad Confused patreon here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes, video versions of the podcast, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now. Hey, guys, it's Josh. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Our coverage of Project Hail Mary. One of my favorite movies of the year continues today with screenwriter Drew Goddard. Thanks, guys, as always, for checking out the podcast,

for enjoying us on YouTube, on Spotify. However you're doing it, I appreciate you guys. And I also appreciate Project Hail Mary, if you couldn't tell already by my conversations with Ryan Gosling and Phil Ward and Chris Miller. if you haven't checked those out, they're waiting for you in the archives. But today's all about Drew Goddard. This is a writer and director who has a hell of a resume, Cloverfield,

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cabin in the Woods, Daredevil, and those are the ones that were made. We're also talking all things, Sinister Six in this one, The Matrix, which he's currently working on. For any genre fan, this is a deep dive you're going to really want to enjoy and savor. I should also mention spoilers for, Project Hail Mary. If you haven't seen it already, probably best to check it out and come on back for this conversation with Drew Goddard. Before we get to Drew, a quick reminder, as always,

patreon.com slash happy, say I confused. You get early access to all our episodes. You get merch, autographed posters, you get discount codes for our live events. We've got Stanley Tucci coming up in May and more that are going to be announced very, very soon. Check it out, patreon.com slash happy sad, confused. But like I said, today, the name that we're talking about, the resume we're talking about, it's Drew Goddard. This is one of those conversations with a filmmaker that I love because research is not required for me. I know and love everything about Drew's work. He's easy to talk to. He has all the same reference points as me as probably you. So I think you're going to enjoy this one. Please enjoy the screenwriter of Project Hail Mary and so much more. It's me and Drew Goddard.

we're doing this. This is not a Project Hail Mary podcast. People might think it is by now. I've kind of become the unofficial Project Hail Mary podcaster. We're happy that you have been. Drew Goddard's on the podcast. First-time guest. How are you, man?

I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled. Look, we talked before, but never the long form. And if any resume demands a long conversation, look him up on the IMDB guys. This guy's been contributing to pop culture for, 20, what are we at now?

It feels like, yeah, 25 years. Yeah, and we've known each other about that long, so it really means a lot that you would have me and that we can sort of look at this big, the big scope of this. It means a lot, thank you, Josh. No, no, of course. And look, I think it's a great excuse.

Obviously, we're going to start with Project Hail Mary, which is such a great accomplishment. I've now seen this movie three times. I love this movie. It's one of those things that you can talk about in so many different capacities from the writing to the production to the acting. But I'm curious, like, for you, look, you're the screenwriter of this.

You're adapting Andy Weir's material once again. You're also an executive producer on this. I'm curious, like, do the responsibilities of executive producer and writer ever kind of, like, come at odds? Or, I don't know. Is there like an overlap? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, it's a good question. Because I do think writer is the one that's the most difficult.

It's most difficult to deal with the writer. The producer's fun. Producer Drew is a lot of fun. Writer Drew gets very, it's so internal. The act of writing, you really have to lock yourself in a room and sort of be antisocial. So it's, in some ways for me, it's sort of like changing personas. Like once the writing's done, producer Drew can just be helpful. Yes.

You want to hang out with him more than you want to hang out with writer Drew. Are you tough while you're in the thick of the writing process? Yeah. If I ask friends and family, is like, Drew, is it a different Drew? I, absolutely. And you know, can we talk about how your brother and I work together? Yeah, my brother, Adam Horowitz. You could ask your brother about that, because I remember we used to work, we wrote together on Lost, and I'm going to quote him.

I was, I like to, you know, when I'm really struggling with a script, it's a lot of pacing around looking haggard, you know, and I remember once I was pacing around the Disney lot where we worked. And Adam and his partner, they came up to me, and they said, is this what giving up looks like? Oh, no. which I always talk about that. That quote has stuck with me because because now it's become like the thing my wife says. Like, oh, we're in the giving up stage here of writing. But, you know, you just sort of hack your way through the forest

and get there eventually. It's so cruel that it never gets easier, does it? It's like you start at page one, the blank page. It doesn't matter how many Oscar nominations, how many billions of dollars of box office. If anything, it gets harder. in some ways. But the part that does get easier is you recognize, oh, I've had this feeling before. You know the process. This is part of it. This is part of the process. It's not going to go

away. So just step by step, work your way through it. So if you'll indulge me, I know you've told kind of the origin story of this one, but you know, you're on this quite early on. You obviously have this great relationship with Andy Weir, the brilliant novelist who wrote The Martian, wrote Project Hail Mary, and correct me if I'm wrong. He comes to you, this is not a book yet. This is a manuscript. What's the conversation? there and how quickly does it develop into an actual partnership again? Yeah, I mean, we've always stayed in touch, you know, through the march, just checking you both on how work's going and also how life's going, right?

So it wasn't like out of the blue, but we hadn't spoken a while because, and I tend to not ask Andy about whatever he's writing because I know as a writer, sometimes you just want to be left alone, like give people the space to actually write. So, but he, two weeks after the pandemic shut everything down, I remember it because it was, April 1st, 2020. Is that when the pendulum? That would be, yeah, yeah. My birthday, by the way, April 1st.

Oh, happy birthday. Well. Happy birth of your collaboration. That's right. That's when that, now we will celebrate two things. There you go. Project Dalmary and you. But he sent me an email that said, I've finished my new book.

I'm a producer now. He was very happy that he was a producer. It's like, I've already attached Ryan Gosling. I'm like, you're killing it as a producer. By the way, that is the, you're, you're, Like, you are running. Smart's such that you can make as a producer. You're running circles around all the other producers in Hollywood right now.

And he's like, well, you take a look at this. And I'd be like, and at first I thought, well, I'm so flattered and honored. And I was. I was so excited. I was also a little scared because Martian went so well that I just didn't want to let Andy down. Quite honestly, like I wanted to make sure I could be there for him, you know. And so I was a little worried. Then I opened it and read the book.

And I remember about halfway through the book, I was like, oh, crap, I got to do this. It's funny because, like, people have said, like, there are surface level kind of comparisons you can make that, like, that would seem like, oh, these are of the same cloth. But you dig under the hood, it's a much, it's a hugely different story, hugely different structured story. Did that kind of allay some fears of, like, I don't want to go to the well, the same well again? Yes, absolutely. I think there was sort of some surface comparisons, but very quickly you realize that.

Patrick Hillery is a very different text, right? And I think that was both, and then it was suddenly became scary for the other reason. I was like, oh, no, and now it's this. There's no. I can't use my old tricks. Yeah. Like, I have to actually do what's right for this movie. Of course.

But that was thrilling, and that's part of why I was in. So what do you, okay, so you read the book, you're in, your first kind of steps are, is it kind of like, you know, I can only imagine the dog-eared copy of the book you have? Like, is it circling? lines, scenes, are you writing down themes, like the big picture, like mission statements? Like what, like, how do you even approach something like this?

I have a process that is very, it actually is similar, no matter what kind of adaptation I'm doing, but it also sort of applies to, um, an original idea too. I want to be just in the space where I'm just in love with it for as long as I can be before I start worrying about the problems,

if that makes sense. So I'll just read, I read the book, all I do is write down the things I love. It could be a scene. It could be a moment. It could be a line of dialogue. It could be a descriptor.

You know, like, I don't, there's no judgment. I just write it down and put it on a little board I have. And then don't talk to anyone, right? I just do that and then maybe read it again. Don't talk to anyone because I don't want anyone else's opinions to start to cloud my, at least my core opinions, because I know that the act of adapting something, you start to second guess everything. You yourself.

It's not even other people. So I just want to clean record of when I first experienced the book. It's only going to be pure for a certain amount of time until everybody else. And they have great ideas, but it's going to muddy up what you loved. And me too. Yeah. I also will start to muddy it up, you know, just as when I start to think of the logistics. So I want to have a clean record of like, what did I love?

You know, like, what are the things when I first read it? How did what did I respond to? And that gives me a roadmap, you know, because it really, you have to make really hard decisions. And I would keep coming. back to that list. Okay, so what did you love? What was like top of the list? All right, so without, I mean, we're giving a spoiler.

Yes, so the movie's out, it's made a billion dollars. Stop listening now, right? If you haven't seen it. There was a long list, but the first one was the big reveal that Sondra's, Huller's character that forces Grace to go on this mission. When I got to that moment in the book, the hair stood up on the back of my neck, I thought, oh my God I didn't see this coming yeah my job is to see things coming like I'm that's what I'm always reading or watching things just in the back of my mind

thinking about where the where the twists are sure and in this case I I didn't see it coming so I knew like oh that's really special wait can we can we dig into that and then we'll go down the list because that's such that I want to talk about that that anyway because that's like something that you know I would imagine is a big talking point like in the board room with the executives or whatever it's like how do we not lose the audience, like when you reveal that your hero is a coward? Yes. It wants out.

How much of a discussion, like, there's never a scenario where that wasn't a part of it, where you kind of, like, backed off of it? Oh, no. It was under fire for the whole time. Now, again, nobody, we, everyone always supported just us and our vision, right? Like, but anytime you have something different, they do question it. Yeah. They do.

And they question it. This isn't like a Drew's going to battle. Sometimes you have to go to battle. it's more just they're afraid. They're afraid because we haven't seen that before. So often the things that I love are the very things that make everyone afraid because they're different, right?

And so I've just learned to sort of, you have a lot of tricks, right? But first of foremost, your main trick is to explain, hope to inspire them to see what you see. Yeah. Right, that's really the main, because it doesn't really work. You can win the battle but lose the war.

Right. Like that's such a big move that if they go with it begrudgingly, later they're going to second guess and it'll get cut out of the film. So you have to really sort of build consensus and build, you know, build it with everyone so that it will work. Otherwise, it's not going to work. So how close did it come to not even being included? Jumping ahead.

So there was a point where, because I'm going to list a couple of other of my favorite things. The ending of the book. Right. right? I love the way the book ended. That was another thing that I didn't see coming and thought, oh, not only is this a wonderful ending, it actually speaks to the journey he's been through and speaks to some of the deeper themes of the book. And I felt like, oh, actually, when I got to the, my favorite kinds of endings are the ones that when you reach them, you realize you have to reevaluate the entire story you just watched. Because you're like, oh, this is where

we were heading. Okay, now let me look at the beginning. Now remind me, because I have read the book, but it's been a minute, is that the, in fact, the very ending where he's, he's like literally teaching again on the planet? Yes. The last sentences, and I could get the exact wording right, but it's something like 12 claws raised their hands. Right. And it was, or no, 12,

12 claws raised in the air because they're not hands. It's something like that, but it's good. It's wonderful, you know? And so that was one I think, I really loved that they watch each other sleep. Yes. Right? It's like, okay, you know, I love Stratt, just the character of Stratt in general.

I thought it was a spectacular opportunity for a character. I love that he was a teacher. Like, these are on the list. Yeah. But there was a point on a conference call with a whole bunch of people. Like, and I don't want to point the finger at anyone. This was just, but it was just the second guessing. Sometimes you just, there's just things where everyone second guesses everything.

And I remember it was all a conference call, so I was looking at my desk, just watching them check the things off the list. and going, oh, no, oh, no, slowly, but surely. And they were all for different reasons. Some of them were just like pure logistical reasons. Luckily, I had, Chris and Phil were right there with me. Like, they loved the same things I loved. So there were strength in numbers. And again, no one, like, put the hammer down.

It was just, are we sure we need that is a way that this gets phrased? Right. And you just, you start to get sad because you're like, I think I am sure. Yeah. But I don't know, because there's enough people. that are worried about it. Luckily, it all worked out. Well, I mean, look, and it's not without validity to question it because, I mean, look, you have Gosling. That's kind of your superpower also, right? In the hands of someone else,

maybe you lose the audience, but he's got such an inherent charm and relatability that you kind of forgive what's like a real decision and is a relatable decision. And it makes you question what you would do in that situation. Well, that's the thing of like, through the course of making your movie, you second guess everything yourself too. You, it's not just, you have to get my job, especially as a screenwriter, is to inspire other people to do their jobs, right? And so I have to get 300 people to believe, right? And so in order to do that, you second guess yourself all the time. Right. So it is, it becomes this, when it's working well and you're with people, you trust, you're, it's okay to air these things. It's okay to, you know, and that's why I had that list so I could

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Use our code HSC at checkout to get 15% off your first purchase. Check it out. I mean, there's so many layers of challenge for you here. I mean, we haven't even addressed the fact that also there's the aspect that it's almost like, you know, this is like E.T. meets Memento. It's like you have a lead character that doesn't remember much of anything. And you have to kind of build his history through these flashbacks, but also like I love like all the context.

clues, especially in the first act of the film, having seen it now a few times. You know, the t-shirts, I like, when you were talking about your whiteboard, I'm thinking about his whiteboard, which is like the funniest thing to me, which is like the like, I think it's like, okay, cilantro, always muscles, question mark. Can you talk a little bit about, like, I don't know, the challenge and opportunity of like, yeah, like building a character and teasing at like who they were through, without dialogue, without. I mean, I have to say that's one of the things that changed the most from the first draft

to subsequent draft. I turned in the first draft. And I think I used a lot of my old crutches for the first half of the script, you know, or at least until Rocky shows up, you know, first third of the script, where I had him talking to camera and recording video diaries. And it made sense and it tracked. Because we needed to explain all of the things. It's a very internal problem we had to solve, which is you have a main character.

who is, does not know what's happening. Which can be confusing. You need to, the audience needs to hear that you don't know what's happening. Otherwise, you're just behaving like a lunatic, right? And so, the first draft had that, Ryan read it, and his big note was, I don't buy that my character would do this. I am not, you know, an astronaut who's there to, you know, preserve knowledge, especially once you've seen the movie through once, you realize he's, he, he, he, he,

He's not on board this mission. He's not going to be recording this. Like he's not, he's just trying to survive. Yeah. It was false to the character. And as soon as he said it, I knew, oh, crap, he's right. Like, he's absolutely right. And so we pulled all of it out.

And I remember Chris Phil and I sitting there after sort of, he gave that note and thinking, he's right, but let's figure out how we do this. And I think Chris and Phil came up with the whiteboard idea. Oh, right. I'm just working things out. Also, you just want to give Ryan things to play with and work things out. would you do? A lot of those conversations were, what would you do then? Yeah. And let's see if there's something useful. And if we don't spell it out entirely, maybe that's okay. Yeah. You know, maybe it's okay if we're not, I think we're all sort of accustomed to making sure it's clear.

Yes. But then you, you can start to pull that back and you, and it, you realize, oh, it's more clear than you realize. Totally. And then once we did that, we thought, well, maybe we can get with this for the entire movie. And then Rocky showed up and Ryan had the opposite note, which is, well, obviously I would film now. Like, obviously, it's an alien. Like, if we all, if an alien walked in this room, we'd all start filming. Like, that's what would happen.

And so it was a good lesson of just, like, trust your characters. And trust your actors when they really are bumping on something, there's usually a good reason behind it that you're not thinking of. So is there anything, any scene, any aspect that you were sure it was going to be? make it all the way to the end that through the development process just fell away at some point? No. Boy, that's a good question. No, I mean, there was a couple things on my list that I was on board cutting, right?

Just because it's hard. There's a lot of the book, there's these wonderful scenes of what Earth is doing to combat, you know, the sun dying. And one of the things is that there's this great sequence where they nuke Antarctica, right? To help buy themselves time. And it was such a bold idea. and it was on the list. Like I thought it was really thrilling in the book.

But I got to that point in the script and you realized there's no fast way to do this. That's a seven-page scene to make you understand it. And we don't have time for a seven-page scene. We just don't for that's kind of off-theme, you know? So that one were hurt, but yet we all kind of agreed. Do you think about like, I mean, again, having seen the movie a few times and being a setophile, look, I can't help but think of reference points for me, things that it reminds me of. And yes, I think of things like everything from ET to 2001.

Big comes up to me, especially like in the goodbye. I'm thinking of big. I mean, did you have reference points? Is that something that's helpful for you? Or is it just sort of so ingrained it kind of comes through if it comes through? Yeah, if anything, I try to avoid reference points. Because you can almost, in trying to react one way or another, you're not being true to the craft. But there's stuff that is definitely ingrained.

I mean, for a movie like this, James Cameron's. structure is deeply ingrained in me like the sort of lesson of it always has to be emotional. Right. Always you and I don't mean when I say emotional I don't mean everything has to be crying. You just every- But it's tied to emotion. Right. There's no difference between plot. There's no difference between plot and emotional journey. They're the same thing, right? Yes. The cleanest example is they kiss, they hit the iceberg, right? Like that's it, though, but the abyss was very much in my head the sort of you, you're a divorced couple or a out soon to be divorced couple, trying to figure out how to live and die for one another

and come back together. That structure isn't through the whole movie. And so I just knew it's important that we structure this movie around whatever we think the soul is. And the rest will all the other things will fall into place if we do that. It's so funny. I forget we just had somebody here and I was talking about Cameron and this kind of stuff before.

And like he's so underestimated as like a storyteller in terms of like as a screenwriter because it's also, we were not even talking about. I'm always so impressed in how he kind of weighs down exposition and then pays it off. Famously, like the Titanic sequence where he's literally showing how the boat goes down early in the first act. And then that's exactly how it goes down. And you in your brain, know that third act. I mean, you're absolutely right. I think it's, I may be misquoting, but I think Frank Deribon said it took me 10 years of screenwriting before I realized that all screenwriting is set up and pay off.

Yeah. And boy, there's truth to that. There really is like this idea that. when you can handle exposition well, it actually becomes foreshadowing, right? It becomes something that sets the audience's intrigue, you know, sort of on alert. Totally. So I'm curious also your perspective on adaptation. So you've done that obviously quite a bit, whether it is a best-selling novel or, you know,

working in the comic book genre world. You know, there's so much talk, like, especially in recent years about, like, fan service and how much to kind of, like, think of the fans and kind of satisfy their expectations. versus just doing your own thing. And I'm curious if you have kind of like an overall philosophy when you approach adapting anything now. I do. I do it.

It has served me well. And the truth is I make sure that I am a fan. Right. And not a fake fan. There's a lot of people that claim, I saw this habit at Comic-Con when, you know, I sort of spanned. We've been in a lot of Comic-Con together

and we sort of saw Comic-Con change, right? Like there was a time when Comic-Con was us, just all of us with our long-con, boxes, digging through crates trying to find that old X-Men issue we really needed. And the panels were versions of just people who loved it talking about it. And slowly maturely became profitable. And then it became a big marketing endeavor. And then I had to deal with a whole lot of people in Hollywood specifically that said,

I'm a huge fan. I'm a huge fan of Iron Man. And you're like, what's your favorite is? You're like, no, they're like, no, I just, I've always loved Robert Dandy Jr. Iron Man. You're like, okay. So, now, to be fair, I love people that came on board. All good, but don't pretend that you were there when he was an alcoholic in the comics.

Correct. That's right. And so I bristled. That was like my angry. Now I'm older and I'm like, I'm just happy for anyone's enthusiasm about anything, to be honest. But I've learned to do my job well, to adapt something well, because adaptation is a lot about making brutal decisions. Like it just is. Movies are short.

Like we don't realize how few words you have to work with in a movie. It's you have to be efficient. And that means you're going to have to cut some, make some really tough choices. And so I've learned that if I am sincerely a fan and I love it, then I will trust myself to protect the things that I will love. And hopefully that will sort of be the things, at least most of the things that the fans love. But if I try to, if I try to just guess at what the fans are going to love, I'm going to end, I'll be wrong because I'm not coming from a place of listening to my own fan. Right? I'm just guessing. And that's where you really get in the weeds.

I've seen it happen. I get called in a lot to script doctor. And I realize, you can feel it where you're like, nobody likes this project. Like somebody thought this was a good project to market or somebody else was told them that this had a lot of audience, right? Or had a big end. You can feel it. You're reading it. You're like, does anyone care?

Like, does anyone actually care about what this is? Or do you just think this is a good business opportunity? Do you realize, like, what this comic or whatever was actually about? like why people love it because you clearly what I'm seeing here doesn't actually demonstrate that. Yeah, because you want somebody. The core tenets of what it is. That's part of adaptation is you as a screenwriter are saying, let me share my enthusiasm with you. Let me tell you the thing that I love about this, that I connect.

And I feel like if you come at it from that point of view, even if I'm wrong, people feel my own love. Yep. Right. Even if we disagree. Like, Lord knows, there's things about, you know, a dare-down. comic that some people can spark to. There are not the things that I spark to. But the thing that I can promise is the things that I was writing about it were the things

I loved about Daredevil. And I hope that that comes across with everything because it's not just superhero, right? It's also math and science, right? It's like, oh, here's some stuff about space travel and math that I actually love. And okay, you think it's complicated? Let me tell you why I think it's fun, right? Let me work through that. And that has always guided me well.

All right, there's a thousand things I could talk to you about. Let's just dig in because pretty much the first very notable thing on the resume. People always talk to you about is Buffy. So, I mean, you're doing the math. You're probably 26 or 27. Sounds right. When you get hired as a writer on Buffy, this is, I think, for the last season. Yep.

I assume you were a fan by the time you got there. It was my favorite show of all time. It still is. I got a bastard. It still is my favorite show of all time. Yeah. And it really was, oh, my. God. It was so exciting, but it was also terrifying, right? To know, like, sometimes you don't want to

be working on something that you're a huge fan of because you're like, ah, if this goes bad, it's going to be my fault. The blood is going to be on my hands. I don't want to root what I love. That's right. That's scary. But looking back, it was the best thing that could happen to me because I was in a place where I was comfortable writing what I loved, right? And if you really, if I really look back now with the benefit of time, it set me up for everything I've done since. because both in terms of, you know, the structure and the lessons I learned there, but also just knowing that, like, oh, writing is going back to where we were talking about, writing is always going to be really hard.

But if you pick areas that you genuinely are connected to, whatever those reasons are, you don't even have to know why you're connected. It will get you through that forest. Did you have a particular kind of like, I don't know, expertise or kind of corner of the writer's room for what your specialty was? I mean, I think you were credited on seven scripts conversations with dead people is probably the one that people really pick out the most. Does that also hold a very special place in your heart? Well, the first one I wrote was called selfless, and it just worked.

It just connected. I just was ready. I love writing characters that everyone sort of dismisses, you know, like finding a character that, in that case, Anya, who everyone had overlooked, or hadn't had a chance to shine yet. It's a better way to say it. Right. That's delightful for me. Like, I really love when you widen the cast, if that makes sense of, everyone gets to step forward to the spotlight.

And also that episode was full of, like, I mean, frankly, as I'm thinking about it right now, a lot of the things about Hail Mary that it connects to of, like, really, heart to heartbreaking, there's heartbreaking things that happen within that story. And then there's silly comedy. Like, there is very, like, we are jumping around. Same with conversations with them. I mean, truthfully, that was all of Buffy. Like the thing that I learned about Buffy is be fearless in your storytelling.

You could actually, these things that you put, you separate, generally speaking, actually can go together. Yeah. And you put her in chocolate sometimes we're together. Yeah. And every episode could be wildly different. Right. Right. Like we would swing for the fences and both in genre and in emotional stakes.

And yet, because we were true to the characters, the audience would go with you. And that has been a lesson I've always held of like character first, emotion first. If you do that, you can go to some bananas places. So just in the last couple of days as we taped this, the reboot, or I guess continuation that Chloe Jao was going to direct, I guess they're not picking up, which is bumming out a lot of Buffy fans, of course. I mean, over the years, have you been approached or had any talks about potentially doing a continuation or something with Buffy?

I mean, certainly never formally. Like, sometimes the question comes up, and I never rule anything out, right? But I also, part of the ending of our arc was that you pass, you pass this on to the next generation, right? Like that was the ending of the seven seasons of Buffy. And I actually believe that. I believe that that's important, you know? So it's always like, I've let it know. I'm always here to help if I could be helpful, but I shouldn't be running with this.

This is, it's time for a new generation to be running with this. I do understand that. But they always have my support if they ever need it. I'm also kind of surprised, look, of course, then also on the resume. is lost where you knew Adam, my brother. And that's one that, I don't know if it's that JJ has some control over it or not, but I can't imagine that ABC hasn't tried to do something with Lost over the years. There's one thing we can be sure of.

Anything that was successful in the path, somebody is going to try. Right. They're just going to try. And I hope that they just, if they're going to, they find people that really love it. Yeah. You know, that's really the key. Don't just do it for the sake of doing it. do it because somebody's excited to tell stories of that world in a very pure real way.

So you talked a little bit about learning under Josh and Buffy and what you could do in Buffy that really was impactful in the rest of your career. When you look back at Lost, what are the lessons of working with Damon and Carlton and the whole gang there? Yeah, I mean, it's sort of like Buffy at the end of the day was, even though the stories went to crazy places, it was a small show. And I just mean that in the sense of it was almost like a hand-man. made bespoke quality to the show. Right?

Part of that was our budget. Part of it was the approach, right? It wanted to feel, whereas Lost was like, oh, no, we're opening this canvas, right? We are especially then, it's easy to forget now. But when that pilot dropped, there had been nothing like it ever on broadcast television. JJ, first and foremost, said, I am going to treat this like a feature. I am not going to treat this like network television at all. I don't care if people are telling me I can't do it.

We're going to start with this plane crash. And you just never see anything. Now, like, I think because TV has elevated so much, it's not as insane to see sort of spectacle on that scale, but we had never seen spectacle on that scale. And then what Damon sort of brought to it was this, the character that we're talking about, right? Mixing that spectacle, though, with, oh, my God,

we're going to see people from all across a globe. And we're going to explore all of these characters. Right. In a way that, again, it sounds quaint now. Yeah. But at the time, subtitling our Korean characters was a huge battle. Like, you know, it's credit to everyone of saying like, no, no, we can, the world is different. We can open this world up and they're going to go with us.

Right. We take it for grand now, but at the time, putting that on network TV, people were not. The studio did not know people were ready for it. I also can't abide by like the whole, the lingering digs at the end of loss, the finale of lost, which I'm biased, I know, but like I find very moving and very effective. I'm with you. And look, it's been fun because I left after season four because I went to go to the cabin in the woods. So I actually got to experience it as a fan.

You know, so I say that just so you don't think I'm biased. I loved it. There's a heartbreak. That final scene between Jack and his dad is everything lost. Every episode, it lost that you love, the core of that episode is being discussed by Jack and his father. That is a conversation that is about the soul of the show. And when I watch that show, that conversation in particular,

you realize, now, this is the only way it could have ended. More Happy Say Confused coming up. TV is messy. Pop culture is louder than ever. And the internet completely unhinged. Welcome to Roxanne and Chantelle. The podcast where cousins Roxanne and Chantel break down reality TV, celebrity drama and the stories everyone's texting about. We recap the shows, spill the headlines, and sit down with the stars themselves. No filter, no boring takes, just the tea. New episodes every week. If it's trending, we're talking about it. This is Roxanne. And Let's get into it.

Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural. It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride.

We've got writers, producers. composers, directors, and we'll of course have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers. It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Dukovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural Then and Now.

Let's talk Cloverfield. Let's do it. Cloverfield. Does that begin as like a loose idea from JJ, essentially like Godzilla, but from the POV of like the people on the ground? Yes, I mean, it really was. I was sitting in my lost office and the phone rings and it's JJ. He's like, I just got back from Japan. And I just keep thinking about Godzilla.

Here's an idea. What if we did Godzilla but like in the style of the Blair Witch project? Because the Blair Witch was a big, big movie then. I remember sitting up and going, oh, that sounds good. Yeah. Like that just, I was like, I just got it right away. Right. I was like, okay, let's do it.

And this is what it's like working with JJ. He hangs up, and then like two weeks later, I'm in a room with Brad Gray at the time. Right. Pitching it, right? Just pitching that idea. And they're like, great, how fast can you write it? And I'm like, well, we're about to break for the holidays, right? At Lost.

I got two weeks off. I can write you an outline of it. I wrote the outline of the hall. He's thinking, this will get me through, then I could finish the season of loss and I can write over the summer. And JJ, this is where he just does not take no for an answer. He turns it in.

They love it and they go, great, you're Greenland. You've got to be shooting by March, though. So I was like, oh, my God, I got to write this while I'm doing my day job loss. Poor Matt Reeves. Every day, Matt Reeves, our director, just exquisite director. I apologized to him every time I see him

because he didn't get a script for Cloverfield till two weeks before. So he was prepping off my outline that entire time. And now that I've directed, I realize how badly I hosed him. Like I just hosed him so badly. And yet that whole process never felt like we were like doing quote unquote a big Hollywood movie.

It felt like it was just our friends in the backyard goofing off. Like it did. Everything about that is like a miracle. that lived through that time and remember of like how it was marketed. There was no title. The trailer like drops and no one knew this movie existed. I mean the fan theories, that was like the birth of like, I mean, loss was doing it on the TV side.

But like what a guess it must be for as like a screenwriter to like see this whole like, this whole phenomenon of everybody having a theory of what your film is even about, the larger mythology. Like do you remember like were any of like the fan theories at the time like really exciting for you to hear like how people extrapolate? off of what you came up with? It's always excited to sort of hear people's enthusiasm and wanting to sort of play more in the sandbox, right?

Letting them play more. I mean, what's interesting about Cloverfield is I think because we were going so fast and because I came from an emotional background in terms of how I approach to it anyway, I look at that movie now and I go, oh, that's me trying to process 9-11. Right?

obvious. I mean, we talk about it, but it's like, yeah, yeah. And that part of processing that sort of level of destruction was there aren't easy answers. Like that's, it was actually intentional that there weren't easy answers because it was about connection. Like going back to like themes I now see with the benefit of time in everything I do, Cloverfield is just about these characters trying to reach out for each other, right? That's what, like, it's like, oh, I keep writing about this theme, right? I keep right. I don't mean to be. It's not conscious,

but it is about characters reaching out for connection amidst a crazy backdrop. And the fact that it is actually weirdly militant that way, saying like, you know what? We're not going to get into

like an elaborate alien, you know, conspiracy because that's not what this movie is. This movie is about people on the ground, right? I think that carries over. Now that we're talking about it, I mean, that's Hail Mary. Sure.

Right. Like, that's what we're talking about. It's like, oh, that's a school teacher in space. Like, these are the things I am clearly drawn to. So for nearly 20 years, I feel like I've been asking Matt, JJ, probably you, about Cloverfield continuations. Obviously, there's been 10 Cloverfield Lane, Cloverfield Paradox. But I know for a fact from past conversations, like you guys have talked about it.

You've had different ideas. Like, even as late as, I think like 2018, JJ said at CinemaCon, like we finally, we've got like a continuation in mind. Yeah, I don't know. Well, I think part of what happened is we all got real busy. Sure. And we also, again, didn't want to do it for the sake of doing it. Right.

I kind of feel the same way about Cloverfield that I felt about Buffy, which was the end of Buffy, which was, oh, no, this is a world where because it's not about some plot, I actually don't feel ownership of whatever one else wants to do, right? It's a wonderful umbrella for letting other artists put themselves and come up with something. And I actually think that's great. Yeah. I want them to go do that because it's not like they're going to. screw up the alien invasion story that I had set up. That wasn't the point for you. It wasn't about that.

It wasn't about that. So you should, Godspeed. So was there ever an idea that you were kind of close to really pushing? Yeah, I always have had ideas. And I, weirdly, I could see before the end of things for me, returning to that universe. Like it's just a wonderful, I loved it. I loved that style. It really opened up combining those two genres, the sort of found footage.

and big spectacle really allowed some wonderful things, and I could see myself returning. We should give some love to Cabin of the Woods, what a directing debut. I mean, that's, which again, like, very, I mean, your filmography's all over the place in the best possible way. Like, there's, like, kind of two sides of Drew that I see. It's kind of like the deconstructionist and kind of like,

then like the loyalist to the genre. Yeah. And this is like the deconstructionist side. The Cabin in the Woods is kind of like kind of fucking with the things you love and hate about horror. Yeah. Fair enough? Is that fair to say?

It certainly is the most deconstructionist because it's funny because I don't know that I set out to deconstruct. Maybe on Cabin. Cabin was definitely one where the question of why do we feel the need to watch teenagers be butchered on screen? Like what is it about,

not the horror genre, big picture, but it was very specifically. Like, butchering youth, right, was something that clearly was in my head of watching kids go to war. you know, like it was, I was of that generation where we were starting to see people sent to war for reasons we did not understand at all. And I think that was part of it and understanding, like, this is speaking to a much bigger question. Yeah. And yet we also, I also love horror

film. So you also want to do both, like, play around in it. I think the Deacon Circuit can happen a little bit. But then by the end, it sort of becomes a statement of, oh, no, we love this genre. Right. It does. So, which I think is probably any time I'm ever working in a genre, it's because I love the genre. I'm always amazed when I see like a first time feature like from a director. Obviously, you had a ton of experience as a writer, but like that had such a sure hand. Like you could feel a sure hand as a director in that one. And especially as I recall, I've correct you mind wrong, like I feel like it sat on the shelf for a bit.

There were some studio issues, like the ending I could see being a bit controversial. Like was there pressure to change the ending? Did you? No, we never had pressure to change the ending. But what did happen was MGM went bankrupt and got bought, right? And so they got sold. So suddenly, or in the process of selling a studio or buying a studio, it takes years. So we were like, oh, no, like this is going to take a while.

Because if a studio is, you know, bankrupt, they can't pay for marketing. You need marketing to release a film. Like it's just not coming out. It's not as simple. It's like, well, just put it out. At the time, there's no streaming even. So you couldn't even put it anywhere. You just had to wait, which I think the thing that got me through was I knew like, well, sooner or later, this will come out.

But the worry is, though, and I remember, like, even I was covering stuff by them. It was like, there's the stink of something when it's been sitting around. You're like, there's a problem. I know. There's something. And, and look, weirdly, I kind of liked that. It was that low expectations. Yeah, I love a low expectation because you should not be working on any weird projects then.

Well, that's the problem. At the time, but Martian was very low expectations. And so, yeah, I'm way more comfortable with that in that because it, it's also more delightful. Like there was a, there was always my favorite moment in Cabin where the movie, you kind of think, okay, I'm getting it. I see it as a slasher film. They're doing a send-up or something. And then about halfway through, it starts a click of like, oh, no, that's not what this is at all.

And there's a moment. I mean, anyone who was in the theater, when those kids decide to open those elevators, you could feed every single time. You could feel the audience just start to cackle. Like you can just feel before it happened. Like, oh, the anticipation of what's about to happen. And that was, every time we screened it, we'd feel that same thing. So I always knew we had that in their back pocket. Like, no matter what, I got that.

We just got to get it out there when at the right time. Because you also want people that get it. And Lions, Lionsgate finally came in, saw the movie and goes, we don't want to change a thing. We love this movie. And I was like, thank God. Great. It's worth waiting for. I'd much rather wait and be with the right.

partners then rush something. Here's a film I'm fascinated by. Correct me if I'm wrong. You were part of the brain trust that kind of got World War Z to the finish line, which is for those who don't know, this is a very unusual circumstance. Sure, movies are rewritten, there's additional photography, but the whole ending, the whole third act of that film basically changed. And you were one of the key people that kind of came in to help salvage it, essentially.

They, so they, you know, and I do this a lot. I love, anytime anyone asks me, can you take a look at a film? Tell me how to make it better. I'm always like, sure, if I have time, you know, it's fun and try to be helpful and you learn a lot too from these things because all movies struggle. I don't care what the movie is.

I don't care what filmmaker that you love and are positive. There was a moment in that process where that was going to be terrified. And so it's part of the process is to just look at it. I think World War Z for a variety of reasons, I don't even know, right? By the time you got there, stuff that happened. Well, Damon Lenn Laffat-Loss, he had called me and said, they asked me to come look at this movie,

and I think they wanted to do some pretty drastic things to it. Will you come look at it? And I said, of course. But we watched it, and I remember thinking, oh, no, I actually don't. Usually I have some ideas, but I looked at this one and went, the only idea is we have to change the whole back half. I don't see how to. And I said that, he's like, that's what I think to, and that's what they think.

And I said, there's no way that's possible. possible because what we're talking about is it very expensive 50 pages I we ended up writing 50 new pages which it's a page of minutes of 50 new minutes of stuff to shoot like yeah that's a lot but I and I and they got a lot of Paramount at the time got a lot of grief for that right but I was like no the story's wrong here this is a this this story should be a studio said we're gonna invest what we need to invest to make this movie work yeah right because they're all messy Like you need to do.

No, the easier thing would be to dump it and move on to the next. It was really encouraging that like, you know, 10 years later, Marvel sort of adopted this into their style. They said, you know what, it is going to be rough on that. And we're going to learn something. Let's just plan to shoot new stuff. Bake in additional photography. It was so smart because it's like, and you can see how that really changed and made

their movies better. And I remember at the time being just grateful that they did. And so it became like, let's just be helpful and write new stuff. And luckily it worked out. Did you work on the Fincher sequel? No. Okay. No.

I'm fascinated. I know. I'm fascinated. David Pinscher was close to directing a World War Zee movie. Come on. I mean, come on. It's got to be one of those great, like what ifs. Speaking of what ifs, this is a good segue.

Sinister Six. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if this is a sore point or it's a happy memory. I mean, was it a completed script? Oh, yeah. No, we were in prep. We were in deep prep.

I had a whole art department. My Martin Whist was my production designer who did cabin with me, who did Bad Times of the All were out, did Cloverfield. Like, we had a whole operation there at the Sony lot, and it was a definitely a, it was a very drew approach to a Spider-Man movie, I would say, in the sense of, like, I was swinging for the fences. Like, we were going for it.

You said it was kind of a heist movie? You would describe it as that? No. No. Well, maybe I did. I mean, what I thought of it was a summer annual. And if you're a comic book reader, especially at the time I was making it, I felt that comic books became very much about the serialized story.

the movies became so much about like, well, this movie is just about somebody gets a jewel to get to the next thing, to get to the thing. And it worked really well, but I felt like what I loved about summer annuals in the comic book world is you had the serialized story. And then every summer, there would be a giant-sized issue

that had nothing to do with the serialized story where the main character usually got yanked out of the normal life and thrown into an insane situation. And that's what I wanted to do with Spider-Man. I just felt like that would be, fun and let's go for it and let's sort of throw all the things that I love about Spider-Man in there. And they let me do it. And the problem was, I remember sitting there with my script the Wednesday before Thanksgiving

when the FBI swarms up to the Sony lot. And I'm like, what's going on? And I remember I saw Michael Linton walking past. And I'm like, Michael, what's happening? He's like, this is the FBI. All the computers are down. I'm sorry, I gotta go, like he didn't have time to talk to me.

But I remember thinking, oh, this is bad, because I called my assistant and go, I think you can go home for the day. It seems like we should probably were done. I don't think any of us realized how bad it was going to be. But over the course of the next few weeks,

you saw the damage that it happened to Sony, we were one of the casualties of it. So was the six, was it Doc Doc, Voltcher, Craven, Mysterio, Sandman, Electro? Is that what my six are? No, but it may have been at different versions that was the case. Like we've changed, like, as one can imagine.

Of course. One of the fun parts of any sinister six story is picking who the six are. Right. Oh, my God. I mean, that alone, when you ask, like, am I sad? I'm obviously sad that I didn't get to make the movie, but I did get to make the movie for myself. I just said no one else got to see it. I got to spend, when I think of it like this is I spent a year of my life playing with Spider-Man. Right. Like, that was my job. So I'm not angry about it. I'm actually, I'm grateful.

I'm always grateful that anyone pays me to do anything. Like, anyone that I can make a living doing art. And if you told me, I could just come up with Spider-Man stories for a year. Yeah. Great. Speaking of that, like, was there a question if I went wrong? Was there a moment after that that you were close to actually doing a Spider-Man film? And was that the next at a rate?

Was that Spider-Man 3 of Andrew? Or was that the next new Spider-Man? I mean, I don't know that I, I, the truth is, I've been fortunate to be asked to do a lot of different superhero films. And I don't, as we're now talking about so long ago, I don't know what's official and what's not. But I always am grateful that people want to talk. And I'm always, it's all about timing. So much of this stuff is about timing and the right fit because I don't like to do, I don't like to just do it for the sake of doing it. I like to be able like, no, like any of these movies that we're talking about, we're talking about.

three years in my life. Yes. Right? It's three years. And so I have to sort of, that has to line up with what they want to do and make sure it's the right fit. And when it's not, we just realize, we'll do it later.

Well, like nothing ever really dies. Like, I'm a patient person. And it's more important that we do it right than we do it. Well, like every actor at some point will play Hamlet and Batman. And every writer-director will do a Spider-Man movie. That's how it feels. That is how it feels, yes.

I mean, yeah, I mean, Doves tells, like the X-Force movie was essentially that, right? that's a casualty essentially the merger. Yeah, I mean, I have been in the middle of so many mergers that there's when I'm starting to wonder, is it me? Is this me? Can we just settle down? Is there something I'm doing to cause these things?

Because bad times as the LRL happened too. Like we were at Fox and then Disney bought it. You know, and like suddenly we're like in the situation where they're like, if you don't just rush this out, it's going to be the first thing on a streaming course that doesn't exist yet. Right. We didn't even, they didn't Disney Plus didn't exist yet, knew like, oh my God, they're where, there's a fire sale going on.

And so again, similarly, I just knew like, well, as long as they don't make me change the movie, I can, it will be okay. But it has happened enough times to me that I'm now a little bit, because it happened on Hail Mary. I mean, that's the thing. So we, Mike DeLuca and Pam Abdi bought Hell Mary for MGM. They green let it and then the MGM gets bought by Amazon. So now, and then Mike and Pam go to Warner Brothers.

Luckily, Courtney Valenti and her crew saw what we were doing and kept it going. But there was a point where I'm like with my agent, I'm like, yep, here we are again. Yet again, another studio has been bought while we're in the middle of something. Oh my God. I got a few more things that hit up. Your resume is too long. Sorry. I mean, Daredevil, obviously, which was something you were obviously on the ground for that one for the Netflix iteration.

And I think that you left that, I guess, was El Royale? Was that I'm trying to remember that? No. That one, I didn't, I think that was one just to correct the record on, because I think it was a time where I wish I was talked about more. I was like, oh no, I was always planning to get it going and then. Well, it just either. Never, never peace out. Yeah. Like that's, I, it just, there's a difference between who's the showrunner. Right. You were never going to be the showrunner. I was not going to be the showrunner. Like, we, we had talked, but I don't know that that was clear to everyone. Understood. Right. And part of it is you're just making the show at the beginning and you don't,

I also don't want to come out and say, I'm not, because then people start to think. Yeah. Wait, why isn't he? What, you know, it becomes a story when we're like, let's just make our show. Yeah. Everything, everyone, but I think what happened was the Martian then gets greenlit.

Right. Right. And at the time I was going to direct that. Yeah. Yeah. So this is a whole complicated time in my life. But I was like, okay, great. Well, this is going to be fine because I'll just, you know,

we have wonderful writers. Like Steve Tonight comes aboard. Yeah. And he, you know, Steve and I go way back. And I was like, there's nobody better to do Dead Devil than Steve Tonight. Like, I'm here to be helpful. Like, let's, we've mapped out the whole seasons already.

So it was like, now it's just about Steve making it his own, right? So it was, it was, I mean, that's why I'm still credited on all of those because we just kept working. I think it was, looking back, I think we should have just been more clear with the public. Was that, you know, was that initially a pitch as a film that became the series? Yes. And what was the, what was the film? Was that, did that?

So, yeah, I guess that's fine. Like, so I remember, because I, you know, I love Kevin. I get, I am. There's no, there's no producer that I have more respect for in this space than Kevin. Like, we don't need to explain why Kevin's, but he is. And I remember, like, we were sitting and just probably because I was around when they were doing one of the Avengers, you know, just hanging out, talking about other things. And I was always like, why aren't you making Daredevil movie?

I don't understand. And I think there was. by that it was too adult, like to do devil, daredevil right. Yes, if you're going to be true to the comedy, you're not doing a P.O.G. Which I actually understood. I was like, and the Marvel model at that time was definitely not played to adults, you know? Or, I mean, played to adult adult. Yeah, I mean, they still haven't done an R-rated film yet.

I mean. But I said, I remember saying like, well, here's my vision. My vision is that the first one would be the Kingpin because it just felt wrong to me too, like don't overthink it. Like, find a way to make that special. It's more about the tone, because we hadn't seen that kind of tone. Yeah. But then I was like my second, the second movie, the idea was,

I think the villain of the second movie should be the Punisher. And I remember that everyone in the room was like, oh, that's exciting. Like that's what it should be, you know? Like, rather than do, like, oh, because I love, I love anytime to quote unquote heroes go to battle with each other, right? And to be fair, we got to do it. Like, that's what happened. So we just did it on Netflix, which I think was the right fit for that.

You have a relationship with James Gunn as well, right? Yeah. I mean, it's a small town in a way. And like James, I think, has said that you were part of kind of that initial writer's room that kind of helped hatch the initial idea of what his DCU would be. I mean, do you remember what that was like to kind of, I mean, I know enough about how the sausages made that it's like often just can be a few days. week, it's a retreat. Is it one of those things where you're just literally there's a white

board and like what would you do with all these heroes? It's not unlike what I just described when I'm starting out adapting a book. Yeah, what do we love? What do we love? Like just start there, don't overthink it, you know? If anything, I just went in there and listened to James's passion and said, you should just do that. I think sometimes, you know, I think we need it. I think as artists, we are, especially in the film business, we are constantly under siege from sort of people telling you why something's a bad idea

or why you can't do something or why this won't work, right? Sometimes it's just helpful to hear, you know, all I did on there, I'm happy to know James thinks that it was helpful. I don't think I was helpful. I think all I did was say, James, your ideas are wonderful. Just do those ideas.

That sounds great. But to be fair, I think that is valuable sometimes to just have somebody come in and say, is this good? Yeah. Because I don't know if it's good yet. And in that case, it was good. He pitched the Superman movie that you guys have now seen.

But I remember him talking through and how in the tone he was chasing. And I remember thinking, oh, that's exactly what Superman needs. Is there anything on the D.C. side that you're just as a fan, whether you participate or not, that you're excited, that hasn't been realized yet, that would be cool to see? Oh, that's a good question. I'm sure the answer is yes, but I'm hesitant to say because then the story will be good. that, oh, Drew's doing this. There's so much.

I mean, again, I still am the boy who had this stuff on his walls as a kid. So I'm sure the answer is yes. Okay. The last topic, which I'm sure you know is coming, is the Matrix. Sure. Drew, the Matrix. I mean, come on. You're not taking on easy assignments.

And I know you probably don't want to divulge much yet, but we know that you've been on board to potentially write and direct a Matrix film. Yeah. Tell me what you love about The Matrix, first of all. I mean, it's a seminal work. It threw all our brains apart 25 years ago. Yes. What did you respond to?

What do you want to capture? I mean, I think anyone who was alive in that time when it came out and saw the Matrix in the theater, right? Remember cinema as before and after the Matrix. Yeah. Right? They're just, it was not, I remember how it felt when Empire Strikes Back came out, where Star Wars came. I was probably four when, two when Star Wars came, so I don't really, I feel like I remember,

I remember being obsessed, but I remember that. And then it becomes the Matrix, right, where you just go, oh, somebody did something I didn't even realize was possible, right? Yeah. And there's so much. I mean, but to me, the sort of existential questions, right? the existential questions of the Matrix, I really moved me.

I think it doesn't get, I don't think Lott and Lilley Lilley get enough credit for the emotion and the emotional side of that story and all of their work. I find their work profoundly emotional. You're talking to a Cloud Atlas fan here. Yes, right? Cloud Atlas is a safe space. One of my favorite things about Cloud Atlas is that there are times where I start crying in Cloud Atlas and I have no idea why I'm crying.

Like I actually don't know what it is. Like usually you know, oh, this is why there's times where I'm watching cloud. And I love that feeling. I love that feeling when emotion is welling up in me and I don't quite understand it because it suggests we're digging deep. Like we're looking at something. And I feel that with Lana and Lily's work so strongly. So that's it.

It's the thing that all of these things that we're discussing have in common, right? Whether it's Andy Weir's writing. whether it's Daredevil comics, right? Whether it's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the thing that they all have in common with me is all of them moved me profoundly. And I was lucky enough to get to work in that, right? And so...

Like, does this... Can you say at least that... Did this start as just like an unsolicited pitch? Like, were they looking for ideas for a Matrix? And you said, hey, I got something? No, it's a lot of... Because again, I've been doing this a long time. So a lot of this is just people ask,

hey, would you ever be interested? Yes. Would you ever be interested in this, right? Like, would you ever be interested? And it's, I really appreciate it because I like to talk, because it's really, sometimes you come up with your best ideas when you don't think you're ever going to do something, right? When you just think, oh, but what if I did do,

James has mentioned it? It's like, what if I did do a detective chimp movie? What would that, like, let's just pretend that I had. Let's just go down that road for a second. Right, let's just enjoy that. Let's not think about like, how would you actually do? You just go like, well, let's, you'd be amazed at what can happen. And I think that's kind of what happened.

where I was like, well, no, they don't, I don't know that they need me, you know, but oh, let's think about it, and then you just keep having conversations. And that's still where we're at. It's like, I see the headlines, because I'm on this press tour, and I'm like, oh, I mean, I wish I didn't have to say anything,

but to be fair, it's a reasonable question. And the truth is though, we're still figuring it out. I'm still, you know, in that, I call it the writing cave, because, and that's why I'm hesitant to say anything because I may change my mind in a month. there may be no Warner Brothers in two months. Like I don't, like we don't know.

And so it's, it's a little premature, it's a little premature to be talking about any of this. And yet, to be fair, I understand why people want to. Again, tip of the iceberg, your resume speaks for itself. But I'm so glad we had a chance to catch up and use the Project Hail Mary as a good excuse. The movie's fantastic. You know I'm a fan.

Thank you, Josh. Everybody should check it out again, because if you're listening or watching this, you've watched it, I'm sure. But support it, support Drew. And thanks, man. Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate you. This has been a joy.

Thank you. Thank you for these conversations all these years. It really means the world to be, Josh. Anytime. And so ends another edition of happy, sad, confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pressured to do this by Josh.

The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a night. not so dark, not so stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming. Follow Sonic and the Intrepid Chaotic's detective agency as they take on their biggest case yet. This high-flying action-packed adventure will take them across the world, fighting for every quill they can fight. It's one heck of a tale, which is good because this story might be the only thing that can save. There, lies. Well, if that's all, I can just dispose of you. Wait, what?

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