Happy Sad Confused - Matt Reeves, Vol. II

Episode Date: July 12, 2017

Yes, it is possible to make a summer blockbuster filled with drama and heart and yeah, even some super cool action. Matt Reeves has it down as evidenced by his two amazing films in the “Planet of the Apes” series. In this return visit to “Happy Sad Confused,” Reeves goes deep on his love for the franchise, where it goes next after “War for the Planet of the Apes,” and whether he thinks we’ll ever see a performance capture role earn some awards attention. Plus, Josh and Matt go back to his amazing beginnings, befriending J.J. Abrams as a kid, how he got the first “Star Wars” bootleg ever, and how his feature film career took a backseat to a little show called “Felicity” for a while. And of course Josh probes Matt about his upcoming film, the next installment in the Batman franchise, and why you shouldn’t believe all those casting rumors just yet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

D.C. high volume, Batman. The Dark Nights definitive DC comic stories adapted directly for audio for the very first time. Fear, I have to make them afraid. He's got a motorcycle. Get after him or have you shot. What do you mean blow up the building? From this moment on,

none of you are safe. New episodes every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Are you a lover of all things dark and creepy, of graveyards and monsters, haunted houses, and spooky legends? Then welcome to lore. I'm Aaron Mankey. For close to 10 years now, I've been sharing history's darkest stories with millions of listeners around the world.

Tune in each week as we explore the folklore, ghost tales, and local legends that delivered the chills you're looking for. Learn more and subscribe today over at lorepodcast.com. This week on Happy Second Fused, Matt Reeves, I'm going from Cloverfield to Planet of the Apes to the Batman. I'm Josh Horowitz. I am not Batman. Sorry, spoiler alert, Sammy. I'm not the Batman. Not the Batman. I'm not the Batman. I might be Spider-Man though. No, I'm only twice Spider-Man's age, literally. How depressing. You might be Uncle Ben, though.

That's right. There's no Uncle Ben in the new Spider-Man movie. Maybe the next time. Who needs him, honestly? Oh, my God, Sammy, what if I'm Uncle Ben? You're the villain in the next one. No, I want to be Uncle Ben with great power. No, Uncle Ben is the villain in the next one.

No, you've clearly never read a comic book. No, I'm just saying it's Twist. All right, calm down. Twist on the old classic. Okay. This week, returning guest, Mr. Matt Reeves, one of my favorite filmmakers. I truly mean that. Matt Reeves directed, it's an interesting directing progression for him.

He actually directed first a film called The Paul Bearer with your favorite actor, David Schwimmer. I remember that movie. It's like 22 years, 21 years old. Oh, my God. I remember. Gwyneth Paltrow. And then he disappeared from films and did Felicity. He co-created Felicity with JJ.

Did you know that? No. Oh, this is the podcast for you. We cover that. We talk about our haircut. You know what? I didn't ask that. I feel like it's been covered.

I don't know. There's always more to say about that. Remember, when Kerry comes in, we'll talk about the haircut. Great. But then he returned to films with Cloverfield, and since then has done Let Me In, which is an amazing film that not enough people saw. And they needed Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and now has war for the Planet of the Apes that is coming out.

You love Planet of the Apes. I do. It's a great franchise. Yeah. It is. Dawn, I think, was a step up from Rise and war may be. Many people are calling this the best of this trilogy. I need to see it again because I really.

did love Dawn. But the war is fantastic. It stars Andy Circus again as Caesar in an amazing performance, but also adds Steve Zahn to the mix. I was going to say, he plays that cute old guy. Bad ape. That's not how he sounds at all. I don't know why I said that. I'm fired from Uncle Benroll. All of a sudden, he's added like chappy. Chappie love ape. And Woody Harrelson is the bad guy, the colonel. Classic Woody Arrelson. He gives good bad guy. It's a great piece of work and, you know, the rare kind of summer blockbuster that's, um, you know, just it, it, it, it, it matters. It has artistry. It has like emotion. It's, it's, it's, it's full of something. It's not an empty vessel of, of, of, of, of crap that some movies that shall remain

nameless. What, Sammy, what? I'm not going to say it. Okay. I thought you might call someone out. I thought you were going to say it. I like to, I like to highlight the positive and not revel in the negative, okay? Okay. Okay. Everyone knows what you're talking. No. We also, we also talk about, as much as we can the fact that he's directing the next Batman film. Big deal. Any Batman fans out there? Yeah, we're fast. Yeah, so Matt Reeves recently signed on to direct the next Batman film with Ben Affleck.

The next Batflak film. No, that's not the title, thank God. I'm not seeing it. And while he can't say much about it, because there really isn't much to say, there's no script, et cetera, there is a good conversation here in terms of how he came to the project and why. it's worth doing. So that's exciting. I'm super excited that he's part of the Batman franchise because that's a tough act

to follow after Christopher Nolan and there are a few filmmakers I would trust more than Matt Reeves. So it's in good hands. I'm happy. You don't agree, but you're happy. No, I agree. With respect, I think Polly Shore should direct the next Batman film.

That would be like a biodome but Batman style. I'm here for it. Batman goes to the biodome. Stay tuned for that. and other shitty ideas from me and Sammy at the end of the broadcast. Stay through the credits. Animated series. Not much else to say except next week is Comic-Con.

Oh my God. You guys excited. I'm excited. I am freaking out. A lot of cool people. We're not going to mention who's on the docket, but I'm freaking out. But she's freaking out. So if you're a fan of Happy Second Feud and know the kind of actors, specific actors that she loves, yeah.

You're all going to be fine. You'll be happy. Everyone's going to be happy. Something for everybody next week. So we'll talk about that in the intro to next week's show. But I'm psyched. It'll be a fun one. It always is in San Diego.

But for now, a film that would be at home at Comic-Con, right? Or for the Planet of the Apes? At home anywhere. It's fun for the whole family. Exactly. That's what makes it great. Yeah. I can't recommend this film highly enough.

And I hope you guys, if you love the franchise as much as me, I think you're going to take this conversation with Matt Reeves. So without any further ado, here's Matt. My pleasure to welcome back to the podcast, Mr. Matt Reeves, good to see you, man. Good to see you. First time actually in the studio. We've talked a couple times about these films. One time, I think, you were in the throes of editing the last one. And then at New York Comic-Con.

So I'm thrilled to welcome you to our official podcast realm to talk about this great film. Cool to be here. So since we have some time, and we have talked a bit in the past, I want to talk a little bit, obviously, getting into apes, but I want to go back like a decade. So a decade ago, where was your feature directing career? I don't know what year was. I think Colderfield was 2008. So we're talking the year before it came out. So I was in the middle of making it.

Well, I guess what I'm getting at is, and we've talked a little bit about like Paul Barrier in the past, which was your feature. 96, I want to say. 96 it came out, yeah. So in those intervening years, which were obviously productive years, Felicity, a lot of television work, et cetera. That being said, like, where was your head at in terms of, like, your feature directing career? Well, so after the pallbearer, we got into TV, J.G and I created Felicity, and I never thought that we would do TV for five years. Right. But that's kind of what happened, because, you know, we didn't really understand TV.

So we did the pilot, and we did it really fast. You know, we shot it like nine days, and it was really fun to do. I thought, oh, this is pretty cool. They're giving us a show. And then I didn't know what happens. And so we didn't think the show would get picked up. I mean, that never happens. Right.

And they picked it up, and we said, so what does that mean? I mean, that's cool. Who does the show? And they're like, you guys do. And we're like, oh, really? So suddenly it was this crash course in learning what TV was and doing. and doing 22 episodes in a year and that was crazy

and we did that for four straight years in which you know your time off is basically time off for everybody but you right you're already getting up for the next season we got to figure up the next season so after doing that for about five years I really wanted to go back to features and so I took a break

and I wrote a script a movie called The Invisible Woman That's a movie that I still really want to make. We've talked to. We're always talking about still doing it, right? And I still really want to make that movie. And what ended up happening was Naomi Watts was attached. And we were about to go into prep.

And she was approached by Malcolm Hanachy, who was one of her heroes. And he said, I'm going to do a remake of my own movie, funny games. I want to do it in English. And she came to me and she said, I'm so sorry, I want to do your movie. but I love Michael Hanneke and this opportunity is just too great to pass up and I understood but my movie fell apart

and so the funny thing that happened was JJ who I'd been talking to him about Cloverfield all along not for me to do just because he was telling me oh I really want to do this handicam monster movie he said to me listen I know you're going to think this is crazy you're going to make that movie but why don't you make Cloverfield

and I was like wait a minute we've been talking about this movie and you want me to direct it and he was like yeah And I was like, but I've never done visual effects. I don't understand this world at all. And he said, I know, but that's the easy part. He said, you're going to learn the visual effects part, but then I'm going to get you to do the thing you do,

which is to ground it in character and try and do it the way you would do it, to try and make it feel for as outlandish as it is, as realistic. And I was like, okay. And so I ended up, he said, do me a favor and just meet with Drew, because at that point all they had was an outline. So I met with Drew Goddard.

I read the outline. And I said to him, well, you know, I would do it like this and like that. and I'm always looking for a reason to say no. And Drew was like, yeah, sounds good, let's do it. And I was like, well, but also I would do this. He goes, yeah, let's do that. And I was like, okay.

And so JJ's like, look, why don't you guys sit down and you can just beat out the story. So did JJ at that time have enough clout with Paramount where he could kind of help? Here's the crazy thing about Cloverfield. So Cloverfield was made for such a low budget that the studio, I mean, it's almost, it's not even real much of. an overstatement to say that the studio, as long as the events that were in it, they didn't care what the movie was. If we were going to make it for that price, they're saying, wait a minute, you're going to do giant monster movie, Manhattan, this stuff's going to happen for this price.

Yeah. The answer is yes. It's almost impossible to lose money. Yeah. They were like, there's no, this is like a crazy experiment. Go ahead. And so, and I had no idea how we were going to do that. And it was a crash course.

And so, Drew and I beat out this story. And we didn't even know if we could make it the way I wanted to because I was like, well, if it's really going to be like a handy cam, it has to be small. And at that point, the cameras that we were using, the digital cameras were quite heavy. Right. And so we had to use this mixture of, you know, real small handy cams that were light that I gave to the actors and that I filmed with. And then we would put handles on the big cameras to make them seem like they were light. And everybody was like saying, no, no, you're going to have to do this with Steadicam and then add shake later.

And I was like, we can't do that because anybody watching this will know that that's phony. Right. So anyway, we made a trailer, the point of which was for me to see if we could make the movie. And we discovered we could, and then they put it on Transformers, and we hadn't even made the movie. And I was like, going, what's this movie? And I'm going, yeah, what's this movie? And so we went off and made that movie.

And I never saw myself as a genre filmmaker. But the making of that movie was an eye-opening experience, because how do you do anything, right? You have to put yourself emotionally in the position to understand it. And the movie ended up for me, despite, you know, it being, aside from making people nauseous, hopefully a, um, you know, a fun ride. For me, it was about my fears, you know, about the fear of being at the center of something you didn't understand and feeling powerless and not having all the information. And, and I realized, I was like, oh, this is so fun that we get to do this. And yet I'm

exploring something that for me feels personal. And that for me, even though I'd always love genre films, became this thing where I realized, okay, so I can't make the movie I want to make yet, but these movies that I'm starting to make, I can still find myself. in them. And that was a big lesson and let me in became the same thing where it was like here was this opportunity to do this movie which felt very personal to me. Yeah. And

so given that I couldn't again I was trying to make my movie, the Invisible Woman, the independent film world was falling apart at that moment and like you know, Vantage was closing up and all this stuff right at the moment I finished Cloverfield. I thought Cloverfield was going to slam dunk it from me. I was like, hey, I made Cloverfield, now I get to make this little movie. And

weirdly I couldn't. I couldn't get the movie made. And at that point I was trying to make it with Carrie Russell. And we couldn't raise the financing. And so the thing that grabbed me the most was let me in. And I wrote to John Lindquist and I said, look, I've really, I turned this down initially, but it feels like this is, your childhood reminds me of my childhood. And he was like, dude, I love Cloverfield. I want you to make it. And he was really gracious. And so I did that. And then that weirdly opened this door to apes. And it's been, you know, it's just bizarre. Well, the interesting thing to me is that, you know, if you're looking for some kind of links in terms of the, what you're attracted to, I mean, Culverfield's all about perspective, right, in terms of like the POV.

And that's kind of like one of the areas. Literally. Yeah, literally. I mean, it is the camera. Right. And then, let me in is very much in the shoes of that kid. And sometimes in the shoes of unlikely people like Richard Jenkins in that car. And then, you know, going all the way through apes, you're, you're, you're, you're.

letting the audience identify with unlikely protagonists very often. And is that's, that's always my approach. I mean, if you look for those people who would, who maybe wouldn't look back at that, but if you look at Felicity, that's how I tried to do that. Like when we were doing the pilot, the visual style, the approach was all about getting inside of her head and being this young woman as she was going and doing this sort of crazy thing that ended up being sort of a, a, a grasp at liberation for her, you know, trying to break free of kind of the plans her had been laid out for her and that exploration it everything i do

i mean even as weird as it sounds the pallbearer has that too like it's i always try to approach everything with the idea of movies having to do with empathy and that the power of cinema is to put you in the shoes of a character that you're not so that you can have that experience so we can extend your sympathies and um that's what i do every time so people will look at my filmography and the stuff i've done the tv stuff and they'll say this is incredible disparate. Who is this guy? And yet my approach is exactly the same every time. Totally. It's, it's, I have to find a personal way in or I don't know where to put the camera. So just, just on a nuts and bolts question, because I would be remiss not to follow on

Cloverfield, because I've talked to you many times. And I was always asking up until 10 Cloverfield Lane, when's the sequel like everybody else? And I know you guys talked about a lot of different angles in. Did 10 Cloverfield Lane kind of like closed the door on kind of the alternate angle one? I mean, who knows that that would ever happen. But what happened was J.J. and Drew and I would always talk about what we wanted to do. And we kept trying to figure out what it would be and to get us all to fall in love with the same thing. Because we each had ideas about what it should be. But also, each of us was incredibly busy.

Like, JJ was doing a little thing called Star Wars. I started doing the Apes movies. And Drew was making The Martian. And he's got, you know, he's, he's, and he's up the cabin in the woods. Like, he was doing all the stuff. So it was like, well, one of these days we'll find the way to do it. And then one day, JJ called both Drew and I up and said, listen, I have an idea. And the idea is that what if Cloverfield isn't just the idea of a follow-up to Cloverfield,

but it's actually a kind of movie. What if it's like The Twilight Zone? Right, which I know is close to both of your hearts growing up. And so we got really excited about that. And he said, this is an opportunity. We could come up with movies. any of the three of us could come up with we could hey here's an idea let's do this as a movie let's explore this this becomes an opportunity to do that and he said well here's the thing if you guys

think that's an exciting thing then i have this movie that we've been making and i actually think it fits really beautifully into that and it did it was this great movie and so we were like well that's really great and it was a typical jj brainstorm like just a brilliant idea and the great thing was we were saying you know i mean who knows that we ever would or will but it was like it doesn't really close off the possibility that one of those movies could be the sequel that we always talked about if we ever find the one that we all really want to do and the time to do it. So, you know, who knows, but it doesn't, it doesn't close the door. What it does is it opens a lot of doors. And it creates an opportunity for a lot of interesting stories

to explore. You were actually attached to a Twilight Zone project at one point, weren't you? I was. I was developing it at Warner Brothers. That's been a tough month to crack for a film. It was really hard and it was. one of those things where it's funny because I was flirting with a lot of franchises and a lot of big sort of blockbuster films at that time. And I never got to a place where I would ultimately commit to any of them because I didn't think that they quite were something I could find myself in. And weirdly at the moment where they were asking me to decide about Twilight Zone, I was approached about Apes. And I was like, I don't think we've cracked Twilight Zone, but I'm very

interested in apes. And I'm always looking for the reason to say no, as I were saying. So when I came in with them, I thought, okay, Rupert White made a terrific movie. Why is he not making this movie? And it turned out that he couldn't come to terms on the one he wanted to do. He couldn't get the story that he wanted to tell, that they also wanted to tell. And so they couldn't agree. And they spent a year doing that. And I talked to Dylan Clark, who I'd met because he offered me another franchise earlier that I didn't want to do. But what we had connected on, that he had a planet of the apes poster on the wall and I was like oh I love planet of the apes and he remembered that and so he called me and I went in and I said all right so what's the other shoe here because you know this is a

great opportunity and this is a great franchise rise was terrific and he said well nothing really and then they gave him the outline and I didn't want to tell that story and I thought okay so this is the no and he said no don't say no and then Peter Turner called me up in the studio they were like no don't say no tell us the story you would do and i'm like you're not going to do my story that's never going to happen also in the time frame and the time oh well that was that was that was that was part two so the first thing was you're not going to tell my story the second part is you guys want this movie to come out in two years and i've never done a mocap movie so what happened was they said listen just spend some time and figure out the story you would tell so i thought about it and i went

in and i thought they'd try to make me some kind of faustian bargain and the faustian bargain was going to be a no too i'm always looking for the no and i went in and instead of saying okay listen you can do 30% what you want to do and 70% you know what we want they just said okay emma watt said uh that sounds great are you in and i was like you know in a way like please can we get going and um i was like wait a minute let me just be clear on this you're saying i can make that movie and she said yeah and i said okay so what what's the other shoe on this and then she said well there is another shoe the other shoe is that we spend a year and we have a release date and so you have to make that movie starting right now and come out on the release date, which is two years

from now. And given that there was no script at that point, that was crazy. And I'd never done mocap. But I figured, you know what, if ever I'm going to dabble in this area, if ever I'm going to do a blockbuster, I just pitched on the story I would want to do and they said yes. And it's in a franchise that I love. And I'm like, okay, this could be suicide, but I'm going to try it. And so that's what happened. How much does Godfather ever come up in conversations about Caesar, about like the comparisons for him in. Yeah, all the time. He's Michael Corleone.

Kind of. Well, yeah, there's a way in which he's Michael Corleone. Sure. You know, I think the idea for the franchise is that because it's about holding a mirror up to our own nature, we're looking at these apes

and we're seeing how they are, but really we're looking at ourselves. The idea is to try and be ambitious with the storytelling and do the kind of storytelling that you probably couldn't do if it weren't for the fact that these are photo-real apes. And so we try to be ambitious and we look at a lot of different, you know,

to me what's interesting is this idea of the collision of the old and the new, like using the cutting-edge technology but marrying it with a kind of classical story. So we're looking at like Kurosawa films. We're looking at like John Ford Westerns. And so there are a lot of classical mythic forms that we're looking at for inspiration and then trying to ground it in something personal.

I mean, truly my deepest connection in coming into dawn was my son, that when I saw, we may have talked about this, but when I saw Andy speak his first words, my son was just speaking his first words. And there's something about that look behind Andy's eyes that reminded me of my son, which is this idea that for a year he's been wanting to say no, but he didn't have the tools yet to do it. And then finally when it came, it came with such emotional urgency. And I was like, you know, this is a reminder of how we are animals. My son was such an animal, and I was like, you know, this is being a father is a really profound experience. And I thought, you know, what could be better than exploring that aspect of ourselves through these apes? And it was a very personal thing. It was really an exciting gift.

I mean, the performance that, I mean, all your mocap actors and your live action actors give are remarkable. But, you know, we've talked before and we should talk again about Andy and what he brings to this just amazing arc of a character. It's such a unique opportunity. that he's got into play Caesar from infant to this kind of, like, king status. Well, the thing that was great about this movie was that I got to work with him on Dawn. So when Mark and I were writing the script, to know that it was going to be Andy, it's one thing to know that it's Caesar, right? You feel like you know a character. But to know that it's Andy means that you know that that well you're going to is bottomless.

Like, my experience with Andy was, first of all, I just love him so much, person. He's just such an incredibly generous, wonderful person. And he's the kind of person who, if somebody has a close-up at 4 in the morning and he was on the other side, he's going to stay until 4 in the morning, and we're shooting outside in the rain, and he's freezing cold,

and he's sitting there in a wet mocap suit. And he'll do it because he really wants to give to the other actors. And that's how committed he is. But also, he is just one of the best actors in the world. I mean, he's amazing, and he goes there right from the rehearsals, you know. And so there was just an excitement in knowing that I was going to come back and get to work with Andy again and to explore this character and to push him into places that we hadn't seen him go yet and to know that it was going to be Andy. And so I just think he's incredible in the movie. So we're not going to reveal sort of how this trilogy concludes and if we can call a conclusion because it doesn't necessarily go right up.

until Planet of the Apes, the original. Oh, no, there are more stories in between. Should the movie do okay? Right. Well, I hope we see some more. And at the same time, at the same time, I worry that I won't get to see you direct it because you're going to be busy at least for the next two or three years with Batman. Well, I'm going to be busy for now, but who knows?

Okay. So have you mapped out now that you kind of, like, after dawn, you know, you see the huge success and you know they're interested in having you back, there's probably an opportunity to think about, okay, this is now, you know, two films in, this is a franchise. And we have some buy-in from the audience and from the studio. if this goes well. Do you map out with your collaborators, like how many films more you would want?

I don't know if it's a number of films. That's more a trajectory, you know? Like, I certainly see in my mind where the story goes. And that was part of where bad ape came from, was where the story goes, which is this implication that there are other apes out there. And the whole idea for me that was exciting and coming on dawn was knowing that the originals were there

as a trajectory and that the, we're not in the same precise universe. because rise changed the timeline and evolution that is the reason the apes have evolved the way they have in the original planet of the AIDS in the 68 movie has been superseded by this viral delivery system

the Alzheimer's drug and I think that what's interesting is knowing that it is a kind of world you're going to and then the story stops becoming about what it becomes we know that answer you can't do the Statue of Liberty ending again that's already been done

You can't fool an audience again. So the great Serling thing, you do it once, and that's what it is. What is great is knowing that this story is about how we get there. So that's like the big ape Russian novel that takes you chapter by chapter exploring these characters about what is it about these characters that turns this world that we're seeing into that world. And I think that there are some grand stories to tell about the characters that we know that take us and new characters that we don't. know that take us toward that world. Is it without revealing too much, safe to say, we would see more of, you know, Caesar's family factors into this?

I think so. I mean, I have, yeah, I have, I have very specific thoughts about where I think it would go. But, you know, we're just finished this and nobody's asked specifically, you know, to do that yet. And we'll see. Do you think we're going to, you know, this conversation happens on every, seems like every Andy Circus mocap performance, but it's worth having in terms of recognition. Do you think we're going to see any awards recognition at some point? Do you think that's a huge hurdle still to jump over?

It is a hurdle because I think that, you know, you have to keep in mind that one of the largest voting blocks in the academy, of course, are actors. And I think that, you know, actors are understandably afraid of things like this because they worry that they're going to be replaced by avatars of some sort. know, of these characters, but what we've been trying to do, and Andy's really been at the forefront, is to educate people to understand that actually what it is, it's really freeing to the actors, that these performances, they come from the actors, and it frees them from their physicality. You can play something that you don't look like at all, but the essence of what

you're playing can be put into these photoreal characters, and that is amazing. I mean, for me, especially having done Cloverfield and knowing what it's like to do, a CG movie where you're performing to something that isn't there. Here, the CGI is all at the service of performance. It's not taking emphasis off of the actors. It's actually taking the CG aspect of the film and focusing it specifically on the actors. And when I was doing all the scenes I was doing, this was as much like an independent movie as anything I've done in terms of how I shot the scenes between the actors. It was all about performance

and we could explore and improvise. There's tremendous amount of improvisation. So I think that as it becomes clear what performance capture is, and as more actors

try it, I mean, what was so cool was to have Steve Zon come in and have him have that experience and have him say, this was the most like experimental theater of anything that I've done

since I did experimental theater when I was young. He goes, it's a pure acting experience and to have Toby Kebill come in who's great. It was amazing as Kobe. But these guys are a great actors and as they come in and they start playing around in that world, it starts to spread the

message, hey, you know what, there's something exciting to be done here. And I think then the stigma or the fear about what it is may start to dissipate. And then hopefully people will recognize just the amazing performance that you get from Andy. And to trust in the technology that it brings out, as you say, kind of more humanity, not less. I mean, with all due respect to some of your grand vistas and your larger shots, I always find, and you have some close-ups, like you start and end these films with like really intimate shots into those eyes and it's just and and I forget so quickly if at all of what I'm watching right well that's good I mean look I wanted to shoot the movie on the Alexa 65 for a specific reason one was that I wanted to

be epic right I want it to be like a lean movie and so for the Vistas it's a 6K camera and we have you know it's absolutely stunning but the flip side of that was that when you're using a 65 million camera, it's a larger film plane size, so it's like using a medium format portraiture camera. What that means is that not only does it look great wide, but when I move in for really tight close-ups, it's some of the most beautiful, intimate, like, soft focus shots you could possibly get. So I knew that the close-ups would be amazing, and I wanted that juxtaposition. The context was the grand, right?

The big kind of lean John Ford moments, the Kurosawa scale. But then what really mattered was the juxtaposition of those really interesting. intimate moments. And without that, without what was going on in the foreground, the big background vistas didn't matter. And so that was what was exciting about trying to do this movie. And actually, this is the first time of the three where we've been able to do what I've wanted to do from my coming into the series, which is to make a full ape point of view movie where the idea is that the audience goes along in this journey where, in essence, they become Caesar. Do we know, by the way, what happened to Jason and Kerry's characters, were they

ever mentioned in a script? Oh, yeah, they were actually a specific Specifically, Jason's character was, and it was a disturbing discovery. Yeah, the colonel had revealed some information about a man who'd come to him when he first got to the city and impressed upon him how important it was to find Caesar and to tell him that he needed to create peace with this man, and that this ape was not just an ape, but was a great leader. and he thought that this guy was crazy and now he said in the scene he goes I see what he meant and then Caesar says well what happened to him and he says I killed him and then he's perplexed as to why and he says his ideas were very dangerous because the ideas were like a virus they could

spread to others and right now this is a fight for humanity so that's what happened and that scene actually might be yeah because the movie's so light otherwise and then the The scene didn't work because Mark and I had written it in this way. He's in this kind of fugue state. Oh, when does this come out? I think this is a spoiler. I won't. Okay.

So we revealed enough. Okay. Okay. Spoiler. We've got enough. Don't worry about it. Well, let's talk about something else that we can't talk about, which is Batman. So let's have a conversation about this.

Did you say something we can't talk about? Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So you've talked about how in several projects you kind of like look for reasons to say no. Yeah. So when this opportunity comes around. I said no.

Did you really? No. But do you make a list of kind of like pros and cons? No, it's purely instinctual. What happens is I go in on everything that I've ever gone in and I talk about the version I would do. And this is truly how I feel about it. I'm happy not to do anything because I accept that the people who are putting up these tremendous amounts of money have the right to do whatever they want to do with those projects. and if they want me to get involved, though,

then I have to do it in a way that I feel like I understand or I won't do a good job. I have to understand it from emotionally so that I know where the camera goes so I know what the story is. And so what I do is I always talk about the perspective from which I want to make it, which has a lot to do what we're talking about

with that kind of this sense of putting you in a character's shoes, a very point-of-view-driven, sort of empathetic, Hitchcockian kind of approach, right? And I talked less about exactly what I wanted to do, let's say, story-wise, and just talked to, ambition-wise, what I was going after emotionally and what I wanted point-of-view-wise. And I figured they're either going to go for that or they're going to say, you know, next and we'll look for somebody else. And they were excited by it. And so that's how I said yes. Are you working off of the existing script that Ben and Jeff did?

No, we're starting, it's a new story. I mean, it's starting again. Yeah. And it's going to be, I'm excited about it. I think it's going to be really cool. I know there's almost literally nothing to say about it, but like there's been, I've talked to Josh Gad,

who's created like this like internet sensation when he like posted photos of himself. That's so funny. Like, have you talked to anybody about casting? No, no, no, no. No, no. Because the whole thing is just, look, truly, I have not been doing anything

but working on plenty of years. No, I believe it. These are not films you can phone in. Yeah, they're, they're, You know, I was there up until the very last day at about midnight. You know what I mean? It was the kind of thing where you work, I've been working on this movie for three years. And when it stops, it's like falling off a cliff because it's all I've been doing for three years.

So I had this one, they came to me and they said, we want to meet you. What actually happened is, it was funny, this thing about the Warner Brothers thing is they said, we would love to have a general meeting with you. And they kept talking about this general meeting. My agent kept framing it as a general meeting. And I was like, well, that's fine. Let's have the general meeting once I'm done with the movie. And they kept saying, well, we'd like to have it sooner.

and then finally one day my agent called and he said okay so you know that general meeting I said yeah I should do it after I'm done with the movie he said wait a minute it's not a general meeting and I said well what is it he goes well they want to talk to you about this and I said oh okay well I'm sure I could find some time to have that so the crown jewel of the superhero so I had I did I had the meeting but I said to him here's you know not only did I say this is the perspective from which I want to come which is really about a personal perspective for how I want to do it. But I also said, but you also have to understand this. I'm not free. I can't start on this. I am working on a movie that I've worked on for three years that I certainly am not going to

drop the ball now. This has been an incredible journey for me. And everything is in this movie for me. Everything that I put into this and I couldn't do that to everybody who's been involved. And so we'd have to start. And not only that, but I'm going to need a short break because I'm working on this movie for three years. So we are just starting. So there's really, there's really nothing to say about anything. You was one of the, because you met with Warner Brothers about Superman, I think, way back when. Was that one of the ones that you actually turned down? Or was that just something about the conversation?

No, I actually didn't meet with Warner Brothers about Superman. That was one of those things where there were. You're on a list and there's whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And that was right after let me in. Gotcha. Were comic books a big thing for you growing up?

I would say comic books were and also really more, you know, for me, it's, you know, like Planet of the Apes. I was really into from the TV series and that found my way back to the movie and then I started collecting all the dolls and I have to say it was that way with Batman I start you know the Adam West TV series I know it's the point of entry for most of us I just loved it and I started collecting all the

I had those same that same company Migo that made the Apes dolls they made the Batman dolls they also made Shazam which I had as well and so I came to it that way and then started collecting comic books and that kind of stuff but I was really

I really came to it through the TV shows, to be totally honest. So you're using the big Biff, bow, pow. Oh, sure. That's the way you're going. Well, that's what I said. I said, here's the personal way to do it. Blam! In honor of the Great Adam West, why not?

So, you know, and for those that don't know, you've mentioned your collaborations with JJ. I mean, you've known JJ for a long while. Since we were 13, yeah. 13. So, and that's an amazing story, which we may or may not have told before, but it's worth talking about just because it was your, friendship, but then an immediate kind of weird collaboration with both Spielberg and I guess Kathy Kennedy probably, right? Was Kathy? Yes.

Because Kathy was his assistant at the time. Kathy was his assistant at the time. What happened was I met JJ because I saw his 8mm films on a public access channel on Theta Cable television. And

I was like, wow, I want my eight millimeter movies to be on this show. And the thing about this show was it was a guy who wanted to air people who made eight millimeter movies, and it turns out that most people who made eight millimeter movies were kids. So JJ had made these horror movies, and he was on the show, and I was like, I had this detective movie that I wanted to put on the show, and so

I put it on, and the guy who ran at this guy, Gerard Ravel, introduced us. He said, oh, you should meet this guy, JJ. I said, wait, wait, let's just be clear. Are my shorts going to be on the show? He was like, yeah, I said, okay, so who's this kid? And he introduced us, and he goes, he's your age, man. You guys are going to hit it off, and we became really good friends. We started making movies together, and that festival, Gerard brought to the New Art Theater in West L.A.,

and it was written up in the calendar section of the L.A. Times, and Steven Spielberg saw the article. The article was called Beardless Wonders, and it had a picture of me and JJ, my friend Mark and Gerard, were all crowded around this little tiny 8-millimeter camera trying to look professional. And he saw it, and then Kathy Kennedy called Gerard. said, well, I really want to see these movies. So we got the movies to her. And then we got the movies back a few weeks later. And she said, Steven said, thank you very much.

We really enjoyed seeing them. And I was like, wow, that was really cool. Steven Spielberg just saw our movies. Then I got a call about eight months later from Kathy Kennedy. And she said, is this Matt? I said, yeah. She said, it's Kathy Kennedy. And I was like, okay.

And she goes, listen, I wanted to talk to you about something. Stephen used to live in Arizona and the people who live in the house where he grew up not connected in any way they just live there now they found something that was hidden in the basement and it was a box and the box on the side said Stevie Spielberg and inside were eight milleramy movies that Stephen Spielberg had thought that he lost

and had lost but now had been found and she said these have been in a hot basement in Arizona since he was a kid, they're falling apart. And Stephen said to me, oh, my God, can you have these repaired? And I said, Stephen, who's going to repair eight millimeter movies? And then he said, well, those kids would know how. And so I was like, what are you saying? Because I'm saying that we would like to hire you and JJ to go through the movies

and fix them up, you know, repair any splice holes or repair any splice breaks or any kind of stuff. And I was like, yeah, of course we would. And the movies, there was a movie called Firelight. Sure. Basically, Escape, I mean, Close Encounters. And it even had a little, you know, the Firelight was this little red glowing ball, which he did with this effect,

an in-camera, you know, 8-millimeter double exposure effect. That actually, when he made close encounters, there's that little red ball that follows them. So he actually has firelight is in it, which is really weird. And then he made a movie called Escape to Nowhere, which was kind of like a World War II adventure movie that was weirdly, of course not exactly,

but weirdly like Raiders of the Lost Ark. So it was this weird thing where he had these movies and was great as they were 8mm movies. And when they're 8mm movies, they're pretty crude, right? This was very encouraging to JJ and I because we looked at him and we're going, this is Steven Spielberg, who was like our hero.

And the movies, they look like our movies. And I was like, there's hope. Maybe we could do this. And so that's what happened. It feels like there's a fictionalized version, slightly fictionalized version. It's called Super 8. I was going to say I'm a TV series or a film that's of just boy wonders than meet like the Wizard of Oz essentially.

Like that's just mind-boggling. Did you, did you, I mean, do you have a relationship with Kathy and Stephen Sealberg to the stay? I mean, are they? A little bit, yeah. I mean, Stephen, I met again after Cloverfield. And he was really great. He said, JJ, he was on, he came onto the set of Star Trek while JJ was filming. and Brian, who's my childhood friend as well, Brian Burke,

and was JJ's producing partner on that movie, called me and said, you have to come over now. And I said, why? He said, because Stephen is asking where that director of Cloverfield is. And I was like, what? He goes, come over to Paramount right now. So I went over, and he's talking to everybody. And I was like, oh, my God, there he is.

This is so cool. And then he goes, are you Matt? And he said, yeah, he said, you scared the shit out of me. And I was like, oh, my God, this is the greatest day of my life. So he was really very generous. And since then, I've called on him to ask him questions, and he's been very generous. Like when I was doing Let Me In, I said, I really want to talk to you about directing children. And I came to his office, and he talked to me about that.

And it was really helpful and great. And then actually, on war, I talked to him about Previs because it's funny. I was talking to JJ, and I said, you know, I'm having a hard time with Previz. I find that process really hard. He goes, yeah, you know what? I hate Previz. I said, oh, okay. Is it just wrapping your brain around what it's going to come out?

It's because, you know, what's hard is is that with Previz, see, I'm a very, I'm driven by my instincts, right? So I usually find things by seeing, right? I need to be in the space. I look through the lens, and then I find the angle, the actor standing in a place. I say, oh, wait, stand over here. Here's the shot.

And it's very tactile. The thing about pre-vis is the way it's mostly done is you have pre-vis artists take maybe boards that you've worked on with a board artist, and then they do their interpretation of them. So what happens is you get this version that you didn't really direct, and you're like, well, this is useless.

And I threw out literally almost every piece of pre-vis on Dawn that we did, And that cost a tremendous amount of money, and it was really not useful. So on this one, I wanted to see if there was a way to tackle it better. And so I actually ended up calling Stephen again, and he talked to me about how he had done BFG, and it was really helpful. And then I ended up cracking it in this particular way, which was really great, which was I started treating the virtual environments as if they were real environments. And instead of having them interpret the boards, I said, let's explore this environment as if I have a finder. and we're going to go through, and I worked with an artist and found the shots.

And so it was like we were walking on the set. So we'd walk into the set, and I'd say, ooh, there's an angle, and then he would grab the angles. And then he would grab all these angles, and then they would start to animate based on the angles I'd chosen. And that was the most like being on the set. So that was something that was a breakthrough for me, previous-wise on this. It reminds me, speaking of that kind of technique, that's on the pre-vis side, but, like, I'm thinking about mocap. Like, I've seen stuff of, like, the way James Cameron works, like, in that kind of, like, box. He's able to literally move that camera around.

Now, we had a volume like that, and I did have that too, but we didn't have, we didn't have that on our set, and we had it limited in some of our volume capture. So it wasn't one-to-one, and he would go back. The great thing about the way that he did it and the way I'm sure he's going to do it is, you know, he goes in there and he does it one way, and then he's like, oh, wait, let's go back and we can change it again. And he keeps getting the capture and refining it and ends up over the course of this long period of time making this. incredibly refined version of his movie, which is purely out of his head, right? He's able to really get in there and do it. Now, I did choose shots like that,

but we had much less time in the volume because most of our movie was really shot on location. And so I still found that aspect of it to be, for the most part, because it wasn't one-to-one. Like when I'm on a set and I pick up a finder and I look at the shot, it's the shot. But there's something about the responsiveness right now,

at least, or the volume that we had set up. It's more primitive. and so it's a little bit like a video game interface and I just do better with something that feels more tactile than real so that's always the biggest struggle for me is doing some of that virtual stuff

I know it was a huge deal for JJ obviously to take on Star Wars it was something so close to his heart did you have the same kind of affection with Star Wars big for you growing up yeah you know it's funny because we just showed the movie at Fox in the theater that I saw Star Wars in

The Zanic Theater on the Fox lot is actually, my dad knew somebody. My dad was an executive for ABC, so he worked in business affairs, and he had a friend who worked at 20th Century Fox. And so when that movie came out, he was like, we're going to go see a movie. It's called Star Wars. And this was before it came out, probably like a week before it came out. And I was like, well, what's that?

I don't know what that is. And my head exploded. And so I became obsessed. with that movie, and I saw it, I don't know how many times in the theater a lot, but an interesting thing, my dad, for Christmas that year in 1977, gave me a Betamax because at ABC, they would watch pilots on Betamaxes, but they weren't commercially available yet. So it wasn't like you could buy a movie. There was no such thing. Like now everyone's like going, oh, I get a Blu-ray, I can stream it. There was no such thing.

You saw it in the theater or you didn't see it. And so he gave me this thing. listener. Sorry. Yeah, they're like, they can't imagine. They're going, yeah, so you had a movie. You don't have every movie on your phone? Yeah, exactly. But this was not the way it worked, right? And so the way it worked was he, so he gave me this thing, and I was like, what's this big box? And he goes, well, this thing's called a Betamax. And I was like, well, what's it for? And he goes, well, you can play movies or you can tape things off of television. And I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. And then I was like, what's this small box? And he goes, that is Star Wars. And it turns out, I guess I can say this now. I had a bootleg copy of Star Wars when I was 11 years old and it was the only movie I had and I watched it every day when I came home from elementary school it was the only movie I had I memorized every line

and I was obsessed with that movie and one day by mistake not realizing what I was doing I taped a part of Laverne and Shirley over it and it devastated me as it should yes I'm not sure that I ever quite got over do you have a bootleg of The Last Jedi on your phone that I could sneak a peek at? I don't know what you're talking of

about. No. I can only talk about 1977 bootlegs. Oh, got you. That's your sweet spot. And by the way,

even if that turns out not to be legal to have done, then I, everything I just said is made up. Yeah, it's a good story. You're a good storyteller. I'm willing to bet big money, though, that you've had a meeting,

at least, with Kathleen Kennedy at Lucasfilm. Uh, what? What was that? What was the question? I said, I think you can hear me. What? You were so good at pivoting.

I did not get a pivoting. I did not get a, A bootleg of Star Wars. I don't know what you're talking about. Would that hypothetically interest you to ever take on something like that, to take on a Star Wars story? Oh, who knows? I mean, look, I love that world, obviously.

I was obsessed with that world. I was so excited when, I mean, I was, JJ called me and I was one of the first people to show it to him who wasn't involved in the thing, and I remember going, I was just so excited to sit there and go like, oh my God, you made a Star Wars movie. This is so, it was so exciting. I went over to Bad Robot and watched it.

I think that world is so rich and exciting, and it certainly connects in a powerful way. to my childhood. And who knows? Do you guys still show each other like early cuts? For sure. Yeah, I showed,

JJ showed me Force Awakens and I showed him this. And I remember distinctly going over to, I showed him to a bad robot. And, oh, wait, that's another thing I'm not supposed to say. I wasn't supposed to do that. But anyway, I did that.

And no one's going to come after me now. But in any case, look, you do what you, here's the thing. The thing you have to do is you have to show things you make to people you trust in order to see, to check your math, right? And so obviously we do tests at the studio.

We showed versions of this movie. We test screen versions of this movie of people in their mocap suits. Like, it's a crazy thing. Oh, it was so scary. But it was so cool as how because of how good Andy is and how good the actors are, it actually worked for them. Like, they kind of got it when you said, okay, to keep in mind

these are going to be apes. But right now it's Andy Circus. And isn't he amazing? And they actually did think he was amazing, which was so great. But the other thing you do is you show it to people, you know, I showed it to Drew Goddard. I showed it to a lot of really close friends of mine just to make sure that we were on the right track and one of them was JJ.

Yeah, I've always shown everything I've ever done and he usually shows me what he's doing as well. I know you've talked about it. You need to someone put on Blu-ray or something just side by side of the... Yeah, I hope we will. I think we definitely have talked about it. I can think of a bunch of scenes that I would do it with

and I think it would be really fun to potentially do it with the whole movie, but we'll see what's possible. Well, I always enjoy catching up with you because, I mean, you know, we started talking, I think, when Let Me In came out, and I think you know that was my favorite film of that year. And since then, and for those that, by the way, I haven't seen that one, because it didn't get the platform, the, whatever the kismid of the universe, that it didn't hit in the right way.

And it's just such a beautiful piece of work. Well, thank you. And since then, with Dawn and now War, it's a tough act to follow your own act on Dawn. But you certainly lived up to it, and in fact may have succeeded it with War for the Planet of the Apes. and I hope we keep chatting on each and every film in the future, man. Thank you. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks, ma'am. Thanks, man.

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. This episode of Happy Sad Confused was produced by Sherry Barkley, Michael Katano, Kasha Mahalovich, and Mukta Mohan for the MTV Podcast Network. You can subscribe to this and all of our other shows on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever else you find your podcasts.

Goodbye summer movies, hello fall. I'm Anthony Devaney. And I'm his twin brother, James. We host Raiders of the Lost podcast, the ultimate movie podcast, and we are ecstatic to break down late summer and early fall releases. We have Leonardo Caprio leading a revolution in one battle after another, Timothy Salome playing power ping pong in Mari Supreme. Let's not forget Emma Stone and Jorgos Lanthemos' Bougonia.

Dwayne Johnson, he's coming for that Oscar in The Smashing Machine, Spike Lee and Denzel teaming up again, plus Daniel DeLuis's return from retirement. There will be plenty of blockbusters to chat about two. Tron Aries looks exceptional, plus Mortal Kombat 2, and Edgar writes, The Running Man starring Glenn Powell. for Raiders of the Lost podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.