Happy Sad Confused - Jason Fuchs

Episode Date: December 15, 2025

As IT: WELCOME TO DERRY concludes it's first season Josh welcomes co-showrunner for some spoiler talk plus his Jason's adventures through Hollywood screenwriting, from the disappointment of PAN to the triumph of WONDER WOMAN. UPCOMING EVENTS Sam Heughan 12/15 in New Jersey -- ⁠Tickets here⁠ Walker Scobell 12/19 in NYC -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tickets here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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

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Hey guys, welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. I'm Josh, and today on the show, we are talking it. Welcome to Derry with co-showrunner, Jason Fuchs. Hey, guys, thanks as always for joining me on the podcast, whether you're enjoying this on YouTube or Spotify or whatever podcast platform you use. I appreciate all of you guys. A fun one today.

With a really talented writer, he is, as I said, the showrunner, co-show runner of It, Welcome to Derry, which has just wrapped up its first ginormous season. As I tape this, they have not announced future seasons, but put your money on it. I think they're going to make more of these. An exceptionally well-made, written, enacted show. Some spoilers later on, and don't worry, there are warnings before it. It's towards the end of the episode. We went to spoilers about It, Welcome to Derry. But overall, just a great chat with Jason, whose filmography is very impressive.

At a relatively young age, this guy came of age as a young actor, a child actor, in fact, on the stage and screen, and then transitioned into films, wrote an Ice Age movie, Pan, the Hugh Jackman film directed by Joe Wright, and then gets an opportunity to write no less than Wonder Woman. He has a story credit on the Wonder Woman film, the first Wonder Woman film, directed by Patty Jen. We dig into that. Lots of cool stuff on Wonder Woman. His abandoned lobo movie that was never made. This movie sounds bananas in the best possible way. Some really interesting stuff about that one. And of course, lots in this conversation on It. Welcome to Derry. This really wild, big swing of a deep dive into Stephen King's It universe. So yes, so that's the main event on today's episode of Happy Second Fused. As for other business, as always, I'll just mention briefly, Patreon.com slash happy, say I confused. That's your home for all things happy, say I confused. And we have so much cool stuff going, guys, right now. We have live events talking to Walker Scobe Bell in just a few days at the 9th Second Street Y.

We have discount codes for that. We have a really exciting live event coming up January 6th in New York City that will sell very fast. I'll put the information on that in the Patreon and all my social media very soon, but stay tuned. Big event with a happy, say, I'm confused, All-Star, someone you've seen a lot over the years. I think that's all I'm going to tease for right now. I'm going to let Jason Fuchs speak for himself. Please enjoy this conversation with it. Welcome to Terry's Jason Fuchs about everything Stephen King, Wonder Woman, Lobo, and more.

Enjoy. Jason Fuchs. happy, say I confused, man. How you doing? I am all happy, not at all sad, not particularly confused. I'm just delighted to be on the pod. I've been such a fan. I was telling you, I am I'm a constant listener. So this is, this is pretty cool. Well, now you're going to get to hear your own, your own voice. I hope you're good at watching or listening to yourself because it's coming into your feed very soon. This isn't just for you. Well, it's one of the good things about being a writer and a producer. I don't have to watch myself that much, but in a previous life,

I was an actor, so it's not a totally novel experience on that front. No, you are welcome here. Your filmography speaks for itself. There's a lot to talk about. First of all, congratulations on everything with it. Welcome to Derry. As we tape this, the finale is about to run. I've seen it. A hell of a, hell of a season. Big swings all around. Just talk to me just generally speaking how this experience of like bringing this out into the world, How does this compare to the opening of a film for you? How plugged into the conversation have you been? How rewarding has it been?

What's it been like from your perspective? It's in many ways quite different because, you know, as a feature writer, you are often a cog in the machine. And you feel very lucky to be one of those cogs, but you're sort of moved in and out. Maybe you're the guy rewriting it. Maybe you're the guy doing the first draft and then you come back. There have been movies I've worked on where I didn't meet the direct. director until the premiere. So the life of feature screenwriter is a very, you have a very particular role in the creative hierarchy. It depends on the movie, but you're always invested. You're always

hopeful that it will do well. And it's a little bit different, though, because TV is more of a writer's medium. I know people have said that. It's true. I can say that now, having done my first TV show. And it's also a lot scarier because I've never invested this amount of time in one project. I wrote the pilot for this in 2021, handed it in in December of 21. We're now at the end of 2025. I have press commitments on this show through the first quarter of 2026. That is a long time to devote to one thing. And so it's an amazing thing, but it's also quite scary because if you put four years, five years of your life into something that people really hate, it's not a great feeling. And so, you know, people have asked me, what does it feel like now that the show's out and

people like it? And it's gotten this good response. And truthfully, the initial feeling was not like being overjoyed or excited even. It was just relief. Totally. It was like, oh, thank God. If I've been doing this since 2021 and everyone was like, yeah, we hate it. You've destroyed our favorite Stephen King book. It would have been, it would have been a tough pill to swallow. So thank goodness. The response has been positive. And like any writer, like, you've had, you know, passion projects of different degrees that have had varying degrees of success. And, like, you know, you can only do what you can do. And especially when you, as you say, like this one, you really, this isn't, you know, a job for hire.

This has been your life for several years. So the fact that it's been resonating. Yeah. Yeah, but that's also the difference in a TV scenario versus a film scenario. Although, you know, it's certainly collaborative. And I've an amazing group, you know, myself and Brad Kane, who I co-ran. with and the mischetties who are godfather the entire thing and he obviously directed the first two and the last two but you do get to have a greater sense of authorship working as a creator show

runner you have a little bit more quality control just to the extent that the final product more closely resembles the thing you had in your head which is a feature writer is is not always the case but yeah you still don't know you just just because you like the final product is not necessarily indicative that anyone else will and it's it's such a weird experience going through the process of promoting a show, you know, you go through the junket and you meet everyone and you do all these interviews and people are like, we love the show,

it's great, it's great. But none of that really necessarily means any. I've never had done a few junkets in my day. No one ever says they hate it at the junket. No one ever goes, well, you really farted that one out. So how'd you do that? Good luck with that. See you on the next one.

Yeah. People were as excited at the junket for Pan as they were for Welcome to Derry. You just don't know what that engagement means. And so, you know, you just, you wait with a tremendous amount of excitement and trepidation. And then it felt like once the review started coming out, it was very encouraging. And then you saw the online discourse about it. And then you saw the ratings.

And then you sort of went, oh, thank God. And where in the scheme of kind of relief, excitement, all the, all the emotions, does the occasional like Stephen King X tweet, whatever the hell we call it, come into play? when you see like he's like the finale is whatever he said like I mean when he weighs in that's got to be like a little bit of a shock to the system in the best way it's massive it's massive that first tweet or X or whatever we're supposed to call it now came out during the junket and we we we Stephen King was very involved in the process he had to approve everything all the scripts all the you know major casting pieces but we had not really I certainly had not

heard his final verdict on it the final cuts of the the pilot or the show until that that response came out on his social media. So you sort of just don't know. And the cool thing about Stephen King is he is not someone who will just praise an adaptation because it's an adaptation of his work. He will call it out. He called out Stanley Kubrick. He'll call out anybody.

He famously did not have a great reaction to The Shining. So there's a fairly high bar to succeed in the eyes of Stephen King when it comes to an adaptation of his work. And that's both scary but also pretty extraordinary. when he comes out and says nice things, which when he did, that was one of the highlights of the entire process, frankly. I grew up reading Stephen King. Stephen King was one of the formative forces in shaping my imagination and really, I think,

played a big role in me wanting to be a storyteller. And so, yeah, to see that kind of response from him was a career highlight, for sure. War is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel.

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podcasts. Okay, so we're going to circle back around to it if you're okay with this because I do want to get a sense of like your background. I was saying before we started, I always like talking to a fellow weird New York City kids somehow both of us have come out semi well adjusted. I don't want to speak for you, but I think I'm a very high praise. Thank you. Well, we'll see. We'll assess at the end of this too. But give me a sense that like, so grew up in the in the city itself and were you like plugged in? I mean, I know you were a child actor. So you must have been plugged into the arts through family. I mean, give me a sense of sort of like where film, TV, theater was in your, in your life in the city.

I was plugged into it all really just as a New Yorker. My dad worked on Wall Street. He was an institutional bond salesman. He's retired now. My mom was a vocational rehab counselor, but stopped doing that when she had me. I'm an only child. We got to spend a lot of time together growing up, which was awesome. But they're both theater lovers.

My dad in particular is a huge cinephile, huge genre guy. Had a very expansive comic book collection growing up. And so really my introduction into the kind of stuff that I'm passionate about and the kind of movies I make now and the kind of TV I'm involved with was Aaron Fuchs was my dad. My dad would show me, you know, the movies that I fell in love with like Terminator and Planet the Apes and Superman, but he'd show them to me at an age where most kids, at least kids with responsible parents, could not see them. And what he would do, this story will not make sense to our younger audience who will not remember VHS tapes. But we would get the VHS tapes of these movies, which ostensibly, you know, a seven, eight-year-old should not be seeing. And we had a dual-deck VHS player. And you could take the little thing and tape it.

It was like a little prong that you had to tape on there to be able to edit. And my dad, who knows, you know, he's a creative guy, but he's not involved in the business in any way, would sit there and edit out the, the, you know, super violent scenes, the nudity. That's amazing. I could see a version of these movies that I was dying to see. And so some of the movies I saw almost unedited, you know, I remember seeing Richard Donner, Superman, with just a little bit of the destruction of Krypton edited, which is a little too intense for Baby Jason. But then there were other movies like Terminator, which there was so much stuff to edit out. I think the cut I saw of Terminator was like 45 minutes. The G-rated Terminator.

I'm kind of fascinated. I kind of want to see that version. I had a lot of continuity questions about that movie when I first saw it. It didn't really all make sense to me. But what it did was expose me to the kinds of stories that I guess my peers wouldn't see for at least another few years and did it in a relatively child-friendly way. And yeah, that was my first exposure to the world of movies and TV and storytelling. And I became an obsessive very, very quickly, so much so that when I was really little, all I would want to do is watch TV. And my parents actually took me to a doctor because they couldn't understand why I was not interested in, you know,

sports or other kids. And the doctor sort of just said, he just seems to really like movies. Maybe just dial it down a little bit on how many you allow him to see on a daily basis. But it was that experience of just falling in love with movies and TV that led me to want to do this. And initially, you know, being seven years old, or actually I was even younger when I first wanted to act, it was acting because I didn't have any understanding of what a writer

or a director or any of that was. But I just knew there were people in the box doing interesting things. And I kept telling my parents, I want to, I want to be. in the box. Right. And they asked around. Someone knew someone who, I guess, was an agent or a manager, and I went to meet with an agent, whoever that was at a fairly young age. I must be like three or four. And I'd always been taught never to speak to strangers, which is good advice for a child growing up in New York City. And I refused to speak to the agent. And the agent said, well, he's cute, but bring him back when he will, like, talk. And so I realized that

I realized I'd messed up. Minute seven, I begged them to take me back. And we went to another agent who said, yeah, well, let's try this. I do want to say, my career and our same again. Before we get into the acting, I do want to say, I'd love to see your dad's recut of Welcome to Derry, the six-minute version of the G-rated season coming soon. I think the Aaron Fuchs cut of it, Welcome to Dairy is about five and a half minutes. Yeah.

It's a quick one. So you get started quite young, as you say, some theater at first. I mean, you're working with like Sam Waterston, like seven years old, like an institution. Come on. And then relatively soon after you start to get into film and TV or, you know, you're in Flipper. I mean, this is a claim to fame. What are your memories of Elijah Wood of Crocodile Dundee himself on the set of Flipper? This is too good a story to pass up.

It was it was sort of an idyllic childhood. I mean, I was pursuing this because I loved it. I hadn't been pressured into it. There were no financial responsibilities, which might seem obvious as a kid, but it's not. I had other child actor friends who very clearly were doing it because their parents wanted them to do it, or their parents needed them to do it. There was pressure, and if you didn't get that role, there was some very talented actors I knew as a kid who fundamentally just didn't want to be doing it. And I had the blessing that my parents were supportive, but not in any way needing me to do this. This is not their idea.

It was completely mine. And so it was a really wonderful experience. And I got to spend a lot of time with my mom because you need a chaperone on set. So Lillian Fuchs was there with me, you know, whether it was Flipper or any movie I did. But yeah, it all started with A. Blinken in Illinois. I got cast in the revival of the Robert Shorewood play at Lincoln Center. It was a four-hour play with two intermissions. Yeah, it was a long one.

And I didn't really know what I was doing. I remember being shocked that we got paid. that was a total it was revelatory I didn't understand it to me it was just playtime but it was this extraordinary thing where suddenly I was on stage with the Vivian Beaumont

and doing eight shows a week it was pretty eye-opening and made me realize at a very young age oh this is absolutely you know what I want to be in this world I want to be I want to continue doing what I'm doing it was

yeah I was sort of shot out of a canon into it I booked that role relatively early into being a professional actor and it was also I think just partially because I looked so young you know I was right I was seven and a half or eight when I booked that but I probably looked you know like four I was very not not a tall man now Josh I'm not standing in this interview but I assure you not not known for my height nor my athletic prowess so it was great because I could always play younger parts growing up

and so there was a niche for me to sort of fit into and got it able to know it was the first time I got to explore that it's so funny you say that because I literally just saw rag time. I think it was at that same theater a couple days ago playing at Lincoln Center here. And there are some key child performers that, and I was watching when they come center stage. And I was just feeling so much pressure for them. I couldn't, I couldn't relate in any way of like feeling that like that degree of attention and pressure to like carry the weight of a show like that as a kid. So it really resonates when you're talking about your own experiences. But when you're working with good collaborators, there's no pressure at all. You know,

when you're working with, in case of A. Blinken in Illinois, it was Gerald Gutierrez, who's since passed, but was an acclaimed theater director. It's Sam Waterston. It's all these luminaries and Titans. And they just made it such a safe, fun experience that it never occurred to me. There was anything to feel pressure about. And that was true, really of all my childhood acting experiences from A. Blinken to I did a Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden for three seasons, which was Yeah, also huge theater. They literally called it the theater. At the time that started, it was called the Paramount, but it was the theater in MSG by the time we finished.

Right. You never felt a sense of pressure. It was just play. And so it was a very warm welcome into what is not always a welcoming or warm industry for me. So when does, when do you get serious about the shift of any, and you're acting, look, I mean, you were in Lalo Land, you know, TV in relatively recent years. So it's not like totally gone from your life. But obviously at a certain point, you got serious. about being a screenwriter.

What does that happen? Well, it slowly occurred to me I was not yet a movie star. That definitely dawned on me. So I was thinking, that doesn't seem to be happening. And I thought, well, maybe maybe the key is writing myself a role. And so I wrote myself a script. I guess this was right after senior year of high school, I wrote a screenplay called The Last First Time,

started working on that and I thought I'm going to write myself something to act in and so I wrote this script about a teenager that I was going to play who is on the verge he's just turned 18 and it takes place in the 48 hours before a meteor hits the world and is going to destroy it and he's determined to lose his virginity before that happens and I didn't know quite how to put that together but I reached out through IMDB pro which I had subscribed to to one of my favorite directors Jonathan Lynn who directed my my cousin Vinnie and Clue in the whole nine yards. But for whatever reason, Jonathan, who is a lovely, brilliant man, had his direct contact info on IMDB Pro.

I think that's since been taken down. But if it hasn't, Jonathan should get on that. But I just thought, let me take a shot. And at that point, I'd written a short film that I'd acted in called Pitch. And so I had a piece of tape to send him and say, look, I act. I write, here's something to look at, which you consider this script. And he read it and said, let's go make it. which as so often happens when someone says,

we're going to go make this, that did not happen. But it was through no fault of his. It was just a crazy process of trying to get this independent film made. And that script, although it was never shot, really changed my whole career. Because at that point, I was still thinking, I'm going to write for myself to act. I'm going to go be, you know, Steve Martin. I'm going to go be, you know, Ben Stiller. And through the process of that screenplay, it bounced around a lot of talent agencies,

because we got so far as to the part of the process we were casting, and it wound up on the desk of an agent at what was then Endeavor, what's now William Morris Endeavor, and that agent reached out, and it set off a chain of events that ultimately led to me being signed as a writer. So jumping ahead a bit, when you look at the IMDB, and I know, look, obviously the nature of the businesses, I'm sure there's like a thousand things that aren't on there

that came close to happening, specs or whatever, ghostwriting, etc. but like I guess the first major like that people would recognize is an Ice Age movie that you have a credit on and I guess I'm curious about something like that like what what does that do for you you know you're you had a credit on like this ginormous movie it's an animated film does that equate into real work real opportunity does that is that a shift at all or is it just another decent paying gig at the moment definitely not decent paying because I say it's well animation's non union so So, you know, when you're doing animation, it's, in some ways, they look for younger writers who are starting out because they know that it's a writer's guild approved deal. But because animated films used to be primarily composed by the storyboard artists, the union that covers it is the union that covers the story artist. So they're not, for the most part, animated films are still not guild covered because they are covered by this other union. So it's not lucrative in the sense of, you know, you're writing these movies that make a billion dollars. you're not really exploiting that aspect of the financial success. But you don't need to because that was a life-changing job.

I went from being an actor who was trying to convince people, maybe I was a writer, to the last first time that rom-com that I'd written, landing on the desk of an executive at Fox Animation, who then brought me in, this is, gosh, I was 23, turning 24, so I was just out of college, brought me in to meet on it, said, we're making another ice age. Are you a fan of the film?

I said, of course I am. I at that point had not seen the Ice Age films. And she said, well, we're making another one and there's got to be pirates in it. And I went, great. I don't know a lot about the Ice Age, but best of my knowledge, there were not pirates. And he went, the science isn't settled. We don't know that. We don't know that.

And so I went home and I watched all the Ice Age films, which at that point were the first three back to back to back and actually fell in love with them and found them charming and smart. And I just, I actually ended up loving them and came back the following week and said, here's how I would find my way into an Ice Age sequel. And I think they'd read the rom-com and liked the sort of romantic comedy elements and wanted to find a way to, to imbue an Ice Age film with some of that energy. And so, yeah, my life changed. It was a two-year exclusive deal. There was no, it was not going to be any acting involved when you're sitting at Blue Sky Studios and then Greenwich, Connecticut, working on those movies. So it really was a point of departure.

it was, do you want to continue on this route that is primarily focused on acting, where writing is a part of your life, or do you want to go be a real writer? And I was very aware of how hard it was to break into screenwriting. And I was very aware in looking at some of the IMDBs of my favorite screenwriters, that even really successful screenwriters oftentimes did not have a lot of produced credits. And so the fact that I was standing at the beginning of my writing career with an opportunity, not just to get paid as a writer and write something fun that I could care about, but also we had a release date before I'd ever started writing on the film.

This was a movie that whatever I did, whether I played out or not, the movie was coming out by hook or by crook, the summer of 2012. So it was a life-changing opportunity, and I said yes and leapt in with both feet and really never looked back. So this next thing I want to talk about is probably like a six-hour conversation, but I want you to summarize a little bit for me because the emotional roller coaster of Pan must be huge for you because I know this is a passion project

that you want to do for a long, long while and look, the stages of excitement and disappointment perhaps or whatever must have been massive. Wait, wait, wait. Is it not well received? I've not yet read your... Am I the one breaking?

You're telling me people didn't like that movie? I appreciate your humility. This is devastating. No, the sequel's still in development. But look, I mean, getting Joe Wright signing on. What a moment. Getting Hugh, I'm going to be in your movie. Amazing.

And then you make it. And then this passion project, it doesn't do what you wanted it to do, obviously. So I don't know, perspective now, decade later, what do you look back on for Pam? Great experience, truly. Yeah. Truly a great experience. I think that one of the things I've gotten good at, and maybe to some degree always had an ability to do, was appreciate the wins. The business is hard, life is hard, and I know that there are certainly, you know, I watch the last dance, and I'm a huge basketball fan, and you listen to Michael Jordan, and it's, you know, nothing mattered until it was the championship, right?

you know, all that matters is the ring and everything else is suffering and pain and there's one win and that's it. I can't, you know, much as I love Michael Jordan, I was raised a Knicks fan. I had to find the wins where I could. You made it to the playoffs. That was a win. Got to the conference finals. That was a win. And I actually think being a Knicks fan was a fairly healthy way to grow up because it did make you, it taught you to appreciate that there are different moments in the journey, even if the journey doesn't go to the destination that was initially your target that are still valuable and fun and worthwhile. And so, yeah, you sit down and come up with something like Pan and your hope is let's go make something really successful that people can

like. And we started that journey and there were many wins along the way. You get your script sold. That's a win. They're making it. That's a win. You get Joe Wright. Hugh Jackman's doing it. When, win, when, you know, by the way, now you're having a movie made, but that doesn't necessarily mean you'll be involved. Oftentimes, as we hinted out earlier in this conversation, there's a, you know, a rotating carousel of writers. And who knows if I get to go to set?

I get to go to set. I get to go be a part of the making of my first live action film. So along the way, there were just all these wins. And then the outcome not being something that any of us would have wanted, which is say a movie that was a big old flop. You just go, in the moment, you go, that's a bummer. But I would also say that it was the feeling of frustration was muted by not just how much I'd enjoyed the process, but it was muted also by the fact you could see it coming.

I think that if that movie had had all the good buzz and all the vibes heading into opening weekend and then out of nowhere, the thing crashed and burned, I think I would have been much more jarred by it. But we all look at, you know, with tracking, and you all look at sort of the buzz. And so it was a far more slow-moving disaster where over months and months of leading up to it, you go, oh, this is not going to work. This is not going to work. And so by the time it didn't work, it was almost a relief to be done with it not working

because you went, okay, that happened. What can we learn from this? How do I approach my next project? And that's what I did. And I learned a lot from it. And it's, I don't look back really with any regrets about it. it because it changed my life in some ways even more than I staged it. It really opened up a series of new opportunities remarkably despite the fact the film was was poorly received and I made some

some really important professional relationships in the context of making that. I love Joe. I love Greg Burlante and Sarah Schechter who produced it. So yeah, I think you kind of have to be able to accept that not everything will always result in the outcome you've initially envisioned. But I also think it's part of what it's part of what set me on a path, frankly, to making welcome to Derry because I think

that most writers have the experience of seeing the thing they've written in their head and whether it works or not it's harder when the finished product does not as closely resemble what you had in your brain. And being a showrunner, being a creator, you have a greater ability

to shape the thing and to sort of force it in the direction of what you first saw in your head when you were writing it, when you're envisioning it. So I don't know that show running or any of that was on my radar back when I made Pan, but the idea that I wanted to have a greater level of control, whether it's producing or show running

or whatever that position is that allows me to guide something and deliver for better or for worse, the things I saw. For good or for bad, this is what I wanted to make and judge it on your terms, but at least it's mine. It's very close to what I wanted to make. And that's, there's some reassurance there. totally yeah so that that's really what i took from pan when you're flying emirates business class

sampling our range of vintage wines from the largest selection in the skies you'll see that your vacation isn't really over until your flight is over fly emirates fly better from the darkest corners of our imagination comes a game show that's more ridiculous than terrifying. Welcome to Tickled to Death. I'm your host, Roz Hernandez, and I'll be guiding guests through the creepy questions and chaotic games, all to win the ultimate title of horror movie champion. Listen to Tickled to Death, wherever you get your podcasts, and hit Follow, unless you want

the show to follow you. So, Wonder Woman is obviously, that's a win. We got to take that as a big win. So you have a story credit on Wonder Woman. There are a few writers on that one. Give me a sense of the history of that. Did you write the initial treatment or script that then evolved? So Wonder Woman came directly out of Pan.

So if not for Pan, I would not have written Wonder Woman. And up until Welcome to Derry, if anyone asked me, what is the thing you're proudest to have been a part of in your career? It would have been Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman stemmed from, I was at Warner Brothers Making Pan. They had an executive there, a lovely guy named John Berg, who was in charge of the DC universe for a time. They were working on Batman v. Superman, and I asked to meet John, because I am a DC fanatic, and I really wanted to make a Wonder Woman movie. Wonder Woman is maybe my favorite superhero.

I grew up reading, as I said, my dad's comic books, many Wonder Woman editions among them. especially the late 80s, George Perez run, and those are some of the more formative comics I read when I was growing up. And I said, hey, could I meet with you guys about Wonder Woman? I don't think they realized what a disaster pan was going to be yet, so I had a moment. And I sat down and said, how do I get involved? How do I be a part of this?

And so that started the Wonder Woman journey. I wrote a bunch of drafts on that. And then it was a pretty unique process because they knew that they had to have the film out by a search, window. And so they ultimately had multiple what they would call it bakeoff, where we had multiple writers writing on the script at any given time. And so it was totally neat. I've never done anything like it before. I've never done anything like it since where you, you know, I'd be writing a script at the same time. Another writer is writing a script. That writer would go away. Then someone else

would come in and it would be up to you. I think at its peak there were probably four drafts being written simultaneously and being handed in in pieces. Here's the first act. And it was a little like the NBA playoffs. First act delivered. All right, someone goes away. Now there's, now there's three. And now there's two. And so it was, it was a totally unique but thrilling process because I was working in a really intense way on a character that meant so much to me. And in a universe that I really loved and with collaborators who were just terrific. You know, Zach Snyder was so involved, such a great guy. Multiple directors who I thought were,

you know, Michelle McLaren was initially involved and I had really happy memories of working with her on it. She stepped away. Patty Jenkins stepped in. She obviously, you know, delivered such a spectacular film. And so, yeah, it was, it was the most complicated writing process

I've ever been a part of, but also maybe the most rewarding until Derry because it was a movie that I just was so proud to be a part of. And what Patty built, Alan Heinberg, who wrote the story, screenplay and Zach, who co-wrote the story with me and Alan. It was just a talented, extraordinary group of collaborators. And it was, again, a career-altering thing because now I had been a part of, in this capacity,

you know, a success, which was really needed after the panic. So two-part question on Wonder Woman before we close that chapter. Proudest contribution, whether it's a scene or aspect of the story that made it to the finished product. And is there a scene that you loved in a version that you wrote that didn't make it that you still loved? Oh, that's a really good question. I think that I think the thing I am the proudest of in terms of my contributions to Wonder Woman probably fall into two categories. One is thematic and the other is structural. I think the basic structure of that first act, which is such an ode to and a love letter,

not just to the original Wonder Woman mythology, but it's Little Mermaid. You know, it's, it has that sort of fairy tale quality. I'm really proud of the work I did on that aspect in particular in setting up that journey. And I would also say, I would also say on a thematic level, trying to do something that was about a character who is fundamentally good, who has a fundamental innocence about the way they look at the world, that I think we imbued and that I was able to imbue from an early stage of the process

and that Alan and Patty and everyone were able to carry forward throughout the rest of development. I'm really proud of those aspects. In terms of a moment or a scene that didn't make the cut, I think there are two things. We had, well, there's a few. We had an initial draft that took place in the Crimean War and there was a great encounter

between Diana and Florence Nightingale right before Diana participated in the charge of the Light Brigade that was a pretty cool moment. There was also a version of that script that ended with a post-credit sequence that included Calabac, a great deep cut DC canon character

which I always really liked. I think the thing that I most wish we'd done, I just there wasn't time to do it, but the thing I most wish we'd done in the film is in that third act, when the final battle is going on between Diana and Ares and obviously the fate of World War I hangs in the balance, there was a version of the third act I had written. I was trying to find a way to involve regular human women in the success and not just Diana, who is, of course, a Themiskearian and has powers.

And there was a version where, because the war has restarted, there was a draft where both the high commands were sort of in trains, which was based on the real history of it. And they're both saying to their respective commands back home, the war's back on. There's fighting. There's explosions, like the armistice is off. And the male generals are telling their assistance at a candy on one side of it.

And then their other telegram operators on the other side who are all female, telegram back, the war's back on. And Etta Candy cooperated with the German women to both sabotage the telegram systems, knowing that Diana just needed 10 more minutes, 12 more minutes to defeat Ares, and then the war the armistice could hold. And so there was a great extra scene where you saw the way Diana inspired these women to help sort of save the day in that moment that I really, I really loved that beat. There was no time to shoot it. It just didn't ultimately practically work in the final context in the movie. But that was a pretty cool

beat, I wish we could have preserved. All right. I do want to jump back to Welcome to Derek, because the time is flying by, and I want to get some love to how you wrapped up this season. And it's an epic first season. Do we know officially? You're going to make more. You're going to make another season. Are you working on the second season? Hey, as

someone who, you know, we're talking about Wonder Woman in D.C., the level of secrecy in the world of it and Stephen King is no less dire. It's, you know, D.C. And then the CIA are the two most secretive places, I think, in the country. I don't know what I'm allowed to say. I think, you know, I think we can read between the lines.

I hope as we have this conversation, it's not yet Sunday when the finale will air. I am very curious to see people's reactions to the finale and hopeful that there is enough positive reception to it that justifies some continuation of the story. But I probably already said too much. in which we're going to drop from behind. Look, there's some big ideas in this season, big questions you're answering, big questions you're posing.

And one, just like on a basic level, I think for managing audience expectations that was probably, imagine a big conversation was the use of Pennywise and how much to hold Pennywise back or not. Because I feel like at first there were people, I heard a little concern at the beginning was like,

oh, wait, when are we going to get, when's Pennywise coming in? So like, how much of a debate was that like? And clearly the, folks that were patient our patience was rewarded but give me a sense of what that well the first thing was just getting bill to do it because we're bluffing the whole like when we started writing this thing we knew we couldn't do the show with that bill but bill hadn't said yes because there was no scripts to say yes to you i think bill you spoke to bill i think the first time bill publicly talked about it

was in an interview with you and and it did not seem like he was going to be involved he was on the he seemed it yeah was he playing hardball was he no no he was not he was being totally genuine he'd done this role twice, brilliantly. You delivered these iconic performances. And so the question was, what else do I have to stay with this character? How do I come back and do something fresh or interesting? And our answer was, give us a few months. We're going to send you some trips. We didn't have the drafts yet. So at the same time that we're cracking that and talking to Bill, we're also trying to make sure the network understands, we're going to get them, but also what if we don't? And the answer is we didn't have a backup plan. Had this gone sideways, we were

on a whole world to trouble. But thankfully, once Bill read the scripts and understood he wasn't just playing the It manifestation of Pennywise, but he's actually going to play a second role. He's playing Bob Gray, the very real human behind Pennywise, the dancing clown in 1908. That I think is what spoke to him and where he saw opportunity. So yeah, we knew that we wanted to build up to his entry into the season. There was never a conversation about him being present early in the season. It also felt very, in keeping with the canon and the lore, you know, it obviously takes so many different manifestations. We've not really seen a ton of them in the movies. There's a little bit of, you know, in non-penny-wise manifestations, but it's limited. And so it felt like, well, if we're

going to do this in a long-form storytelling way, given that it's TV, let's really explore these other uniquely personalized horror manifestations and then build up to that reveal. So we knew he was coming in at the midpoint. And it was a less as more approach. And then, and then, and then more is more where you see an awful lot of him. I think you see more, yeah, from episode five on, you're, you see more of Pennywise on a percentage basis, I think, than perhaps you even saw in the film, so. Never enough Bill Scarsgaard drooling just randomly during a, during a Pennywise speech. And you know what's great?

He's even in the, yes, there's the Bob Grave-Da-all, which is a different thing for him. Literally, it's a different character. But even within the Pennywise, it manifestation, it's a different set of challenges. He's encountering Dick Halloran. We've never seen Pennywise go up against another entity or person with special abilities. That's a brand new thing. We've never seen him up against grownups who seem very aware of his existence other than the losers. But to speak about, you know, the military who are after him and trying to weaponize him or whatever

Shaw's plan ultimately is revealed to be. All that felt like fresh stuff for Bill to play with. And he dove in and I think turned in some pretty special work. Well, okay. Spoiler alert for those that haven't seen. seen the finale. By the time this is out, you, you've had your opportunity. So, you know, get to it and watch the finale. Now here's the question. The Cota, when did that, when did that arrive? When was that? Late. That was very late. It was us sitting around trying to understand how do we

how do we connect this in one additional way to the film? And how do we find another beat that changes and elevates your understanding of the movies? That's, I think, one of my favorite things about a good prequel is that you can go back and watch the original. and have an understanding of aspects of it that you did not before. And so you think about the Beverly and Mrs. Kirsch beat in Chapter 2. When you watch that originally, why is it in the form of Mrs. Kirsch? Well, if you think about it, seemingly it's just because Beverly has this traumatic relationship with her dad, and he's praying on that connection.

In fact, Beverly met the real Mrs. Kirsch at least once on the worst day of her life, the day her mother committed suicide. And so you watch that scene again, you go, oh, it knows that. It is actually scratching at this deep, buried trauma, connecting the dots between this manifestation in the most horrible traumatic day of Beverly's life. And that's what I think is one of the special things about the show or one of the things we hope certainly would be special

is they can go back and watch the movies and see something you didn't notice before. You go back and rewatch Chapter 1, think about the opening scene with Leroy and Mike at the, with, you know, the sheep in the, in the slaughter pen, when Leroy says to him, you're either in there, essentially in the cage, or you're out here, you better decide before someone decides for you, he's talking about the cage. He's talking about the cage of Derry when he's interrupted by Mike, but he says, you know, when your father was your age and he's,

he's quickly interrupted, what was he about to tell him? I think he was about to tell him more about the story of it. Welcome to Dairy Season 1. So that's there, it was an effort to find one more of those beats, and that's where that moment came from. Any other permutations beyond using Sophia, any other actors that were in play or any other characters that you were tempted to use towards the end of the season? No, we used the ones we wanted to, and we used obviously Finn, although Finn is not, you know, did not act in this season. You see the missing children's poster of Richie Tozier in the finale episode, which, of course,

is another, I think, important beat because we've resolved so much mystery. part of the fun of a Stephen King story is the mystery that's unresolved, that you get to go home and chew on it and think and talk to your friends and tweet and all the things. We wanted to make sure there were additional mysteries that crept in even as we answered some other ones. And so there is this additional mystery, given that Pennywise has shown Marge of missing kids poster of Richie Tozier from the future. What does that mean? He says he gets tomorrow and yesterday and past and present all confused. Clearly, Pennywise, it has a unusual relationship with time

and where that goes and what that means I can't say much beyond it is part and parcel of the reason that the story is told backwards anthologically for season to season. But I think that's to me that's one of my favorite mysteries that's set up in that final episode. Okay, a couple random things outside of

Welcome to Derry. I want to hit before I let you go. You spent a lot of time with Andy, Andy Musgetty. How much Raven the Bold Talk have you had with Andy? Are you the secret writer of the Raven the Bold movie, Jason? Absolutely not. No, my feature time right now is pretty much 100% dominated by writing a My Hero Academia movie for legendary in Netflix. So I'm very much, my brain when it's not in Derry is on the UA campus with Deku and Bakuggo and Iraqa and the rest. So, no, I'm very much not the secret writer.

We really didn't talk about it much. It's funny. There was so much to do on that set in terms of. of running show with Brad that it didn't it did not come up often I'm I'm as a DC fan I'm as excited as anyone to to see what comes of it I'm really excited to see yeah Lobo finally make his his appearance in the Supergirl trailer because Lobo I'd written a Lobo script many years ago for DC which of all the things I've written that didn't get made I think that Lobo script is my favorite because it was the tone of that Lobo was Guardians the Galaxy if Quentin Tarantino had directed

it was tell me more tell me more yeah hard R he said Hard art, psychotic movie, very violent. It made Deadpool look like a Disney family film, which is probably why it ultimately didn't get made. But that was one of my favorite projects we didn't get to see across the finish line. But it was a fun one. Who was your logo in your head?

You must have had a casting idea in your brain. Mo MoMA. It was Moa. Who could play that role but Mo Mo Moe? It was always, we never got to the stage we were talking to him. But it was always, it was always in my brain, Mo Mo Mooa. and Michael Bay was going to direct it which would have been equally insane

and it was just it was a weird time in the DC universe where it didn't quite fit into what they were doing but yeah I loved I loved writing that script and there was a green lantern involved there was there was all kinds of fun DC characters you popped up in the context of that

but I'm sure at some point they will I don't think they'll make my Lobo but I'm sure that at some point you'll see a Lobo film come together because it's just one of the great characters. And yeah, there was a real, there was a real fun dynamic between Lobo and Jack T. Chance. Jack T. Chance was a huge part of that story. So is there any, okay, Lobo may or may not come back around? Who knows? It's a long life, Jason. We never know. But there's a lot. There's a lot of Lobo stories to tell. And I'd used a lot of, I'd used a lot

of Legion also. It was definitely a Lobo movie, but it was also in some ways a first film in what could have been a legion series. So it was, yeah, it was a pretty nutty, pretty nutty movie. And very sort of, I mean, I remember there was a moment early in the script where there's a bad guy who pleads for Lobo's forgiveness by saying that he's got a mother to think about and says, you know, please, what would become of my mother? And he says, what would become of Martha?

And Lobo goes, what did you say? And he goes, Martha. He goes, it's my mom's name. He goes, no way. He goes, your mom's Martha? My mom's Martha? He goes, yeah, and the bad guy's like really hopeful. And then Loeb would just, boom, blows his brains out.

I guess what the fuck was that about? And so it was a very, it was just a fun, it was really a love letter to the comics I loved and even to the DC universe. I love the Snyderverse. I was so lucky to be a part of it. And I just, it was fun to momentarily play with what that could be. A Marvel guy at all? Who would you raise your hand to take?

a swing out in the Marvel universe. I mean, have you ever had a meeting with Feigey and company or anything? I've met those guys over the years. I've never locked into a specific thing. But, you know, I live here in London. I'm an anglophile. I love this city. I think Captain Britain is an interesting character to play with. I don't know that they'll ever pursue that, but I think that would be a fun. Captain Britain is definitely, I think there's a cool mythology there. You've never really explored the sort of Arthurian legends and Excalibur stuff. within the context of a Marvel movie or Marvel show. So, yeah, as a fan, I don't know that, I don't know that as a non-Brit, I'm the right person to take that story to the screen,

but as a fan, I'd love to. And, you know, never, you're living out there. You've got some entitlement now. I'm an honorary Brit, at least. There you go. There you go. Man, thanks so much for the time. I really appreciate it.

And I'm happy that we got a chance to talk at this kind of like the end of this exciting run of this first season, which we're going to see more of this guys. We're going to see more of it. Welcome to Derry. I'm going to put some money on it. Congratulations. My lips are still, but I appreciate the kind words, and it's just, it's so much fun to finally get to talk to you. This has been a total blast. No, thanks, man. Next time in person. Good to connect. I love that. I would love that. Thanks so much, Josh. 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

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