Happy Sad Confused - Simon Kinberg

Episode Date: May 30, 2016

Screenwriter and producer Simon Kinberg joins Josh to talk about writing this year's summer blockbuster X-Men: Apocalypse and so much more. Have a Happy Sad Confused Memorial Day! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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or go to explorevolvo.com. Don't miss Swiped, a new movie inspired by the provocative real-life story of the visionary founder of online dating platform Bumble. Played by Lily James, Swiped introduces recent college grad Whitney Wolfe as she uses grit and ingenuity to break into the male-dominated tech industry to become the youngest female self-made billionaire. An official selection of the Toronto International Film Festival, the Hulu original film Swiped, is now streaming only on Disney Plus. Hey guys, and welcome to happy, sad, confused. I'm Josh Horowitz. It's summer. Sammy, it's summer.

I'm sweating. I'm schmitzig. Welcome to my podcast. We are in summer the way you can tell besides the weather here in New York, which is a little warm, but lovely-ish. It's like not even that. Whatever. We'll talk about that.

We'll talk about the important stuff. You can tell because it's summer movie season. And the movie we're talking about this week is X-Men Apocalypse, which as we speak, as you hear this, is now out in theaters, making millions upon millions of dollars. A super fun movie. I greatly enjoyed it. And the guest this week is producer, writer, kind of X-Men impresario. He's kind of the guiding force behind the X-Men movies, the Kevin Feigey, if you will, in the X-Men universe. It's Simon Kinberg.

Simon Kenberg has an amazing resume, especially for a big old dweeb like me, a geek like me. I was going to try and combine it because I'm short on time. But yeah, his credits include everything from Mr. and Mrs. Smith. He's working on the Star Wars movies as a consultant and a bunch of the X-Men movies. Gambit. Yes, he's a producer on Gambit. He's a producer on the new Wolverine movie. R-rated Wolverine movie.

That's right. I know. We're going to talk about it. that. So I hope you guys enjoy this conversation with Simon, who's somebody that I see a lot of because he's so prolific. He also produced The Martian last year, which was obviously a huge success for him. So, yeah. Busy guy, huh? Very busy. This is a power player, man. Like, take a vacate, Simon. Okay, we'll try to get him on a vacation after this conversation. What to talk about? As I was saying to you, when I walked in, I walked to work. It's a nice little leisurely walk for me. Oh, you must have been so worked up. by the time you got here. It's a little, I don't know, it's, everybody's, like, in summer garb, everybody's happy, everybody's, I don't know. It's not my speed.

Oh, God, it sounds awful. It's not, I like a little gloom. I like a little, like, gray. You like it when it's, like, you don't have to smile at people when they walk past you on the street. Yes, I don't need to. Yeah, if you take the subway, you can put your headphones in. I've gotten several.

Listen to your movie soundtracks. I certainly have to even call what I have any degree, celebrity is over the state in the case, because I don't, but on the occasions that people tweet at me saying they've seen me on the street, more than a few times I get tweets like, just Pat Josh Horowitz on the street, he looked miserable or he looked angry. Like, you kind of are resting bitch face, Josh? I do, I definitely have resting bitch face. You really do.

I have a lot of angst in here. And I think that maybe this is the summer, maybe you buy a pair of shorts. I own shorts. You do? I've worn shorts to work before. There's no way. You've worn shorts to work. I will wear shorts to work for you.

I can't wait. When Josh wears shorts, we will tweet it from the MTV official account. I promise you. You will all see. I'm Jewie. I've got herstute hairy legs. It's a little grody. It's going to be a little disgusting for all of you.

So you should be wearing shorts all the time. Well, I was intimidated. You know, Joel, our compadre, who often works on after hours. She was now out of L.A. Is the hairiest man alive. So, you know, I didn't want to show off my hairy legs because he's going to always out hair me. Joel, you will never be, there's one thing you will never beat Joel in, and it's hair. It's true.

It's supposed to be really weird for people who don't know who Joel is. That's okay. Which is probably most people. I think I really knows Joel by now. So, yes, it's, but it's a lovely. It's a lovely time of year. You're wearing your shirt. You've got your sleeves pulled up to your elbow.

Oh, you're exposing some. The guns. Yeah. Forearm. That's not my part of my body I work out every day. We use the stress balls all the time. I'm isolating muscles. And then I'm going to move on to other parts of my body once the forearms are taken care of.

Yeah, that's all people see when they shake your hand. Like, wow. Like, wow. No, but it's kind of funny because I was leaving my apartment this morning for work. And I was, you know, just checking the weather on my phone. And I'm going, well, by the time you hear this, I'm in, I'm in Ireland, guys. Oh, my God, I'm in Ireland. And so I was checking the weather there.

and, or I wasn't checking the weather there, but I programmed that onto my phone. So I walked out of the apartment thinking it was 54 degrees. And nighttime? Yeah, exactly. So I had to make a quick reassessment of my wardrobe. Can you do an Irish accent for me? No, I'll get back. Next week, I'll be going to, part of this is a research trip.

No, I want to hear your before and after. I want to hear what it sounds like before you go, and then I want to hear what you learn. I'm going to alienate my 12 Irish listeners. No, you're going to show them how much you want. it's not even a word that's that's my that's clearing my throat hey excuse me where's the closest men's room oh my god it was so good everyone should see how small he gets when he does it he like turned into a real leprica i let the character inhabit me it's a full body it comes fully from the throat too your irish accent is Throw in that throat.

Don't make that sound. That's going to hurt people. What else to mention? Oh, I should mention, speaking of X-Men, there's a great new after-hours that we shot the other day that is up on the interwebs right now on MTV News's YouTube page. Shot it with the youngens, the new young folk. Evan Peters, who's actually, you know,

it's his second X-Men film, but also the new Jubilee, the new Storm, the new Cyclops. They were all super charming and willing to do my kind of silly. in a sketch called X-Men Anonymous. So check it out. It's very fun. I was very happy with it. Was there a cameo in that one?

Like, there is in the movie? You know what I mean? You'll just have to check it out for yourself. No. No, I don't want to disappoint you. And Tom Hiddleston shows up. He always shows up. No, sadly not.

But look, they had enough star power and charisma to make it work. No, I'm very excited. And also check out. I think I did a Q&A last night with that same group. plus Simon Kinberg and plus James McAvoy at the Apple store in Soho, New York. And that should be up on iTunes. And that was a super fun chat because we love our James McAvoy, of course. MacAvoy is a friend of the show, friend of the family.

We talked a lot about it in the green room before about how he's a veteran and how he's done three now. Oh, I thought you meant of happy, sad, confused. No, no, no. He's a veteran of after hours. Got it, got it, got it. He fondly maybe recollected our first sketch in which he kissed me. And apparently he does too. He thinks of it often.

How special is that? Apparently very special. So, yeah, if that doesn't pique your interest, guys, go Google James McAvoy after hours and my little name. And you'll find some fun stuff out there. But yeah, X-Men on the brain. Let's talk to Simon Kinberg. As I said, he's got a lot going on. So a lot to chat with him about.

And if you haven't already, go check out X-Men Apocalypse. Everyone has already. Go see it again, guys. There's so many characters. Yes, man, we love it. That's her loving X-Men voice. We love it. Enjoy this conversation with Simon Kingberg.

No formal introduction, but I'm excited to have Mr. Simon Kinberg in my office. Excited to be here. Simon, good to see you, man. So it's been a busy, I feel like I see you every few weeks because you're working like a crazy person. Yes, that's true. Talk for a good. cause. I hope so. But it's been an interesting, even in the last year, the Martian Fantastic Four, X-Men Apocalypse, does it feel like you've kind of had every kind of different possible experience

there is for a writer-producer? The last year, year and a half have been actually, definitely ran the spectrum for me. I mean, last year, 2015 started with Chappie. And then literally, I think, like, a week later, Cinderella opened. And then a few months later, Fantastic Four opened, which was A disappointment, and I think we were at the Toronto Film Festival with the Martian a couple weeks after that. Crazy. So it was a lot of up and down roller coaster ride. And the truth is, you know, you put as much effort into the ones that don't work as you

do the ones that do. Sometimes you put more effort in. So you just never know. Do the, like, the balancing, and we'll get into specifics of the highs and the lows, but like, does it all kind of balance out in a way, like, in terms of like, do you find yourself not enjoying the highs as much and not getting as bummed out by the lows as much? It depends. I mean, the truth is, it's a little bit like there's certain movies you invest more emotionally in.

For me, it tends to be the ones that I write and produce. So I feel a little bit more vulnerable in the ones that I'm, especially the first writer of. Sure. And I didn't have any of those last year, actually, interestingly. All of those were projects either came into rewrite or I was just a producer of. So it depends from movie to movie. You try not to let the lows linger for too long, and you try to enjoy the highs because you, you don't know when the next one will be.

Well, I guess the good thing about where your career's at, and it's been like this, I guess, for the last while, as busy as you are, you don't have time to kind of revel too much and psych yourself out in a way. It's true. You get right back to work. I mean, interestingly, I was on the set of, I was on the set of apocalypse when Fantastic Four came out. So it was like, you know, I could mourn for a day or two.

And then on Monday, I had to get right back to shoot in a movie. and dealing with actors and having a crew of a few hundred people that had no interest in Fantastic Four so they just were like, we're making another movie here, let's get to go. Totally.

So for this, when you're talking about, you know, feeling a little bit more invested in certain ones just by the nature of how, you know, if you were involved from the start, you know,

you think of these X-Men films as such massive endeavors, as you say, hundreds of people working on them, Brian at the helm, big studio concerns. Is it possible for you to feel kind of proprietary

and, like, make it feel like a personal kind of project when it's that large, a film? It is when I write it. I start everything I write no matter what it is from a very very personal place. And like, I mean, the first movie I ever wrote was Mr. Mrs. Smith and that was like my version of sort of therapeutically working through a relationship I was in at the time where my girlfriend said I was better in conflict than I was in stability. And I was like, oh, that's kind of an interesting idea for a movie. I'll turn it into something. And I don't

write Kramer versus Kramer, ordinary people or straight dramas. I grew up on action movies in the 80s. So that's just sort of what comes out of me. Yeah. Um, so like as an example, days of future past was, I was at a place in my life where I was, uh, in a tough moment and feeling kind of hopeless. And so I made Charles Xavier at a tough moment where he felt hopeless. Yeah. That movie became, um, this sort of personal expression for me. Uh, and we don't have, I mean, it then goes through a lot of different hands. It goes to the hands of Brian. It goes to the hands of, of the actors themselves that I work really closely with. But we don't have a lot of interference, um, from the studio on the X-Men movies. To be honest, they kind of leave us alone. And, and. trust us to do it until we completely screw it up and then then they will come in and step in and discipline us but however it works it's working just fine um talk to me a little bit about like what are the unique challenges you think of the x-men franchise there's a lot i mean i think the biggest challenge is it's an ensemble movie and so you have like you know anywhere between five and 10 characters that you really need to service and and a good four or five of them are main characters

and actors who are used to being number one a call sheet and you look at our call sheet and i don't i don't I don't remember what the order was this time, but I think Jennifer Lawrence was like number four on the call sheet. You know, Oscar Isaac's like number six on the call sheet. These are people that whole movies revolve around, obviously. So that's the biggest challenge as a writer and as a producer. Producurially, it's a challenge because just like matching up all of their schedules, the checkerboard of that is insane.

I mean, it's literally like a Jenga, Rubik's Cube nightmare of how do you get people in and out of TV shows and other movies and they're doing press for some other film. Creatively, it's a bit of a nightmare because, you know, you want to be able to tell fully fleshed stories for each of these characters. But in truth, if you really do the math, you have like 15 to 20 pages at most to tell an entire story for that character. Right. And they all have to also coalesce into something that's ultimately, hopefully coherent. And what about the fact that you kind of allude to this? Like, you have these actors that, like, you know, even outside of the franchise kind of like are on the rise.

You got Jennifer at the precise, perfect moment. I think she had just signed on for Hunger Games at the time, too, right? And by now she's, like, arguably the most famous movie star on the planet. And, you know, and she has certain needs and wants as an actor, as they all do. I mean, she's not been shy about talking about how much she hates the makeup and hates the, you know, like having to get into the blue get up and probably nobody would love it. Right. But that's a whole other level that you have to address as both the producer and a writer. And you have to serve the character, but you also have to serve the actor.

Yeah. I mean, I think the thing that's lovely about this particular cast in truth is, is that they're, they all grew up together. I mean, over the span of the last five or six years, we've spent, you know, three years of that almost together. We've made three movies. And Jen was a kid when we started the movie. She was 17 years old and completely unknown

and had a problem with the blue makeup then and has a problem with it now, and it's understandable. Like, I'd have a problem with it. I made a deal with her. I think it was like, on this last movie, I can't remember what the number was, but it would be no more than something like 14 days in the blue pane.

And any day past that, I would have to be in the blue as many days as she was. So I get it. Have you been in blue? No, no. I was very, it was a smart move. She's a very, very intelligent woman. She knew how to negotiate her way down on the days. But the truth is there's not a lot of ego involved. It seems like there would be because they're huge movie stars. And Michael Fassbender blew up since the movie started. Nick Holtz, you know, doing really well in this career. James always has done well. And yet there is not, there is not a sense of ego. There is this sort of family

familial almost summer camp vibe to the way we make these movies. And I think also because they're not the sole lead of the film, there's a certain pressure that's taken off their shoulders. And they're a little more relaxed. Is, you know, coming off of, oh, you know, we did an Apple Store Q&A last night and alluded to this a little bit. I mean, Days of Future Pass was such a bold move in many ways for you guys in terms of, again, just a level of complexity. I can't even imagine. That was tough because it also had time travel, yeah. You have time travel. You have 25 name action. actors from different casts. And then, like, you know, the fanboys going crazy about continuity and all that stuff.

How much does continuity and all that stuff matter to you at this point? It does matter to me a lot, actually. I keep a chart of it going forward. And I felt like one of the things we did with Days of Future Past was we kind of blew it up. And yet, everything found its way back to something resembling X1, 2, and 3 by the end of the movie. I mean, Wolverine wakes up in Xavier School that is a school for kids, that Storm is teaching in, that you see a lot of the familiar students in. So it's not like the world has so radically changed, you know, that that school has become

whatever, like a dance club, or whatever it would be. And there's a line in that in the movie that I sort of take to be almost like our philosophy or religion now. It's when Hank, Nicholas Holt's character, talks about the immutability of time. And it is actually a real scientific theory that you can alter time, but you can't really change the general current of the way history is going to flow. It'll edit its way back. It'll go back to where it's supposed to go. Yeah, exactly. And so we sort of take that to be the rule, which is we can make changes and yet ultimately, you know, it will find its way for the most

part back to the original movies, which were based on the comics. So we just don't ever want to stray too much from the comics. It's also just a fascinating thing, just looking at like your career and like, you know, the fact that I think last stand was the first of the ones that you worked on. That was a huge commercial success that, but as you well know, there were some critical response. And again, fanboy response that didn't necessarily love what you did with the Phoenix storyline at the time. Stop it. I have to get the internet. I have to check to make sure your sources are correct. He needs to remind you about these sort of things, right? No, I'm well aware of that. But I mean, the funny thing is, like, you kind of like have

a second chance at doing the things that maybe, I don't know if you regret or in the wake of seeing how people responded to it, you have that rare ability to kind of correct maybe it's too strong a word, but get a second shot at some... Yeah, I think everything you just said is true. And the truth of it is, I do regret the way that we handled the Dark Phoenix story in X3 because it wasn't the A plot of the movie.

I mean, originally when Zach Penn and I co-wrote that script, and we were writing it actually ironically for Matthew Vaughan to direct, and when we were doing that, the A plot of the movie, meaning the primary plot of the film, was the Dark Phoenix story. And sort of as a deep B story, was the mutant cure plot. And then somewhere over the span of development for reasons

that I need to get into. They sort of flipped, and the Mutant Cure became the primary driving plot of the movie, and Dark Phoenix became a little bit more of the background character story of the movie, and we didn't do a lot of the things that we originally wanted to do. So I regret that we didn't have a chance to do it the way we wanted. And, yeah, I mean, now that we have a young Gene Gray, and we have a lot of room between there and wherever she, you know, ends up 20, 30 years from the 1980s, we can potentially tell that story again and do it a way that's more loyal to the essence of the comics.

Yeah. So, I mean, what do you think as someone that's written a fair number of these, produced many of these and is a fan of these films? And by that, these films, I mean, comic book movies. Is there a key mistake you think that people generally make, whether it's you yourself have made or seen other filmmakers make in approaching adapting comic book films? Well, I think it's not that different than the mistakes people make in making any tentpole movies or action, big sort of spectacle movies,

which is, I think when the movies rely too much on spectacle, when it becomes too much about visual effects and action and blowing stuff up, you sort of lose what is valuable about the source material and what was valuable about comics

as the characters. People came back week to week for the characters. They didn't come back for the stories because the stories changed every week. It's the characters that they became enamored of and committed to. So I think in comic movies where you feel, and I won't name names,

and some of them are successful. So I'm just speaking sort of creatively. Sure. I think where they go wrong is where they start to rely on pyrotechnics and not realize that these are really dramatic, operatic, emotional character stories. Yeah. You know, where people have powers, but the powers are more often than not a metaphor for something else. Well, I think that's, I mean, and for me and watching what you guys have done with this latest trilogy of movies, if we want to talk about it that way, it's like, I think for many why a lot of the, the Eric scenes, the Magneto scenes are the most powerful. There's such like an emotional component.

You combine that with Fastbender's performance, and it feels like, you know, it can be plucked out of a quote-unquote superhero movie and feel like a high, amazing drama. Yeah, well, that's the high. I really appreciate that. That's very high praise, and that's certainly the hope.

And Michael is one of the actors who I feel a lot of pressure to write drama for. Sure. I mean, all of the actors, you know, we have so many great dramatic actors, including Oscar Isaac in this movie as well. Classically trained, classical actors, have done Shakespeare, and Michael and I have become very close friends,

as we all have. but but he he has this sort of ability um so supernatural ability to go to very dark emotional human raw places and it would be a waste to not um go there with him um this podcast is out now that people have had a chance to see the movie and go back and see it three or four or five times um this isn't necessarily a spoiler thing but i know you've talked about this um but the whole taylor swift dazzler thing which like exploded on like instagram and whatever was it concert. It's kind of my fault. That is actually my fault. I will claim responsibility for it only in that I love that album. And I really love Taylor Swift's music, which is not totally aligned with

maybe being a comic book geek, but I do love that album. Who doesn't love Taylor? I especially love that album because I grew up in the 80s and it has a sort of 80s vibe. Obviously, it's called 1989. So I, through a friend who is actually a huge fan boy, Kyle Newman, who you're going to Yeah, yeah, yeah. He directed a few videos for Taylor. And so she was coming to Montreal while we were shooting Apocalypse. Right. And I said, hey, will you get me a ticket to the show?

And so actually, well, you get like four or five tickets, I'll bring some of the cast maybe or whomever from the movie wants to go. Right. So he said, and then he said, and I emailed or texted her and said that you guys were going to be there. So, you know, why did you go hang out afterwards? So that's what we did. We went to the show as fans.

We went out to hang out with her afterwards as, like, really geeky fans. Nicholas Holt took a photograph of me, her McAvoy and Sophie Turner together, which I and or, well, Taylor Swift, more importantly, put it on her Instagram and it had like millions. Yeah, yeah, I haven't checked recently, but it's, yeah, there's definitely, some of the numbers are the same. There's just more numbers in hers. And then rumors started about her being an X-Men, but she really was just passing through for the night to do a concert.

But here's my question. Is this one of those things that could, like, actually turn into reality? it's one of these like silly fun stories of like I'm sure someone at I mean I'm sure Fox of all whatever would be like yeah that'd be cool with us like if you'd be cool with me I mean like I think she's awesome so and you know Dazer plays a big role in a lot of different storylines that we're talking about doing so it would be uh yeah it could be cool had there been any official or unofficial offerings or talk about it no no there hasn't okay okay fair enough we know from if you haven't seen the film even from the latest trailer that a very familiar character perhaps

the most beloved X-Men character, makes an appearance in this, Wolverine. Was that something from the get-go, or was that something that kind of evolved in the process or even while filming that you added the series? No, from the get-go, from the conceptual phase, we wanted Hugh to be a part of the movie, Wolverine to be in the film. It felt, I don't know, I think, Brian especially, but me as well, feel like he's such an integral part of the movie. Like you say, he is one of, if not the most.

He really is the most beloved, at least of the film characters. Yeah. He's the most beloved and best known. And we, what did evolve over the span of developing the script was what role he would play, how big a role. I mean, there was a moment where he was in sort of half the movie. Oh, wow. And there was, there was, I wrote a whole outline that was him sort of coming in around the middle of the movie and becoming the sort of drill sergeant for the kids and becoming a leader once Charles has taken. And then I felt like that stole out of thunder from Mystique story.

Right. And also wasn't necessarily the sort of the character you wanted to see Wolverine play. So we went through lots of different permutations of it. And then Brian and I were in London, I think, the Christmas before last, whenever it was. And we had this idea that we had already in the plot that they were taken prisoner by Stryker. So we thought what if he takes them to, you know, Alkalai Lake to Weapon X facility. And they there run into a very bestial, full-on Weapon X. Yeah, Wolverine.

And as you well know, that kind of that type of Wolverine that we haven't necessarily seen, and I know the fans have been kind of clamoring for. And dovetailing in a different kind of way with what's going to be the last Wolverine film, at least the last Wolverine one for Hugh, an R-rated Wolverine film. Was that something, I mean, you produced, of course, Deadpool. Is that something that a decision was made after you saw the returns on Deadpool, that we could definitely do this and there'd be an audience? No, there was an instinct to want to do Wolverine.

movie that was more like the comics. And it had always felt like it wanted to be R-rated, even the previous one. So that wasn't related to Deadpool. Gotcha. Does there, is there a, you know, without revealing too much, I know you guys just started production. Is there a finality to this one? I mean... I don't want

to reveal anything, because actually, I think one of the things that's really cool about the movie, as we've talked about it, is that all of the filmmakers and Hugh wanted to feel special, and part of it feeling special is that we don't talk tons about it before it comes out. So, Fair enough.

Yeah, I'm going to honor that. But the prospect, though, have you guys even entertained the thought looking past Hugh at this point? Can you envision a, like, do you have to wait a few years before you even imagine recasting a Wolverine? Or is that something? Is there even a chart on a wall of potential actors at this point? There is no chart on a wall of potential actors. And I think we're ways away from thinking of a different Wolverine. If in fact, this is the last time Hugh plays it, I would want to see the character again in movies.

And I think you himself would want to see the character get in movies and would feel okay passing the mantle on to someone else. But it's we're a ways away from having to contemplate that. And there's something that makes me sad. And my soul sort of like crumple up inside. Okay. We don't want to make you cry on this podcast right now. Do you have a favorite of the characters that you get a chance to write for? Yeah, without exception, Magneto.

And not because of Michael. I mean, Michael is an extra bonus. And Ian McKellen did an amazing job of them as well. It's just a character that was my favorite comp character growing up. I just think he's the most complex villain. And even I wouldn't necessarily sort of describe him as a villain, even though he does villainous things. His philosophy is so complex. His background is so empathic.

I think as a Jew, there's not a lot of us in comics in primary roles. So that also appealed to me. And I just, I've just always loved him as a character. Yeah. What's the, is there a big takeaway? I mean, from the Deadpool experience and seeing sort of like, I mean, it must exceed everybody's, like, imagination in terms of how big it became and how it worked with an audience in

every level. What's your takeaway from that if there is one? My takeaway certainly exceeded all of our expectations and I mean all of ours meaning the studio Tim, Ryan, I mean we were all sort of in shock the weekend that it opened and even had a sense obviously that it was going to do well

but had no sense that it would do as well as it did or that it would actually surpass any X-Men movie ever which is kind of insane to say. I think the takeaway is it's not about being our rated. It's not about being foul mouth. It's not about breaking the fourth wall. It's just about being fresh. And I think what happened with that movie was at a time when there is a saturation to almost oversaturation of these kinds of comic movies in the marketplace.

It was one that came along and just was completely different and fresh and original and bold. And so that's what we've tried to sort of take into the Wolverine movie and the Future X-Men movies and all these movies that we're talking about. And I think for me, any movie that I work on is that you will be rewarded. for being a little bold and fresh and risky. Is that part of the excitement of new mutants for you in terms of while it's some familiar characters, it's a slightly a different angle, different kind of feel? Yeah, it's a different tone.

And I think part of what's fun about New Mutants and Deadpool and Gambit and Future X-Men movies is that each time the attempt or intent is to almost sort of work within a subgenre of the genre. Yeah. So, like, first class was in some ways Matthew Vaughn doing a James Bond movie. And the Days of Future Past was obviously a time travel movie. And Apocalypse is a disaster movie. And Deadpool to me, actually, is weirdly kind of like a romantic comedy.

And so each time and New Mutants would be a Y-A kind of movie. And Gambit would be more of a heist movie. And so it's an opportunity to play in these different genres that are really rich genres, but add sort of superpowers to them. So what is that? I'm curious what that means to? you when you say YA in terms of like what totally what does that reflect well it's it focuses really most primarily on teenage characters yeah i mean the x-men movies have teen characters in them but

they tend to be the secondary characters not the primary characters right um and there's just a certain angst and different um i don't know like sort of set of issues exactly teenagers have and you know and when we talk when josh boone who's directing the movie and directed um fault no stars when we talk about models and paradigms we don't talk so much about superhero movies we talk more about like John Hughes movies. Right. And so that is just a slightly different defining paradigm. It's interesting because it's kind of sounds similar and it's, I think it's a smart move.

I don't know if you would agree, but like what Flagie and everybody are doing with Spider-Man too and maybe making that next Spider-Man movie not about, again, the end of the world because we've seen that a lot and we'll always see that and that's great. But sometimes you can have just as dramatic a storyline when it's, you know, about prom, whatever personal issues. Yeah, you know, I just saw Civil War for the first time. I mean, it's, I should have seen a, a long time ago, but I was really busy working and I sort of wanted to see it when I had a

clear mind that I saw it here in New York last week by myself. And I loved it. I thought it was actually fantastic. And part of what I mean, I loved so many different things about it. I loved Spider-Man in it. I thought he was a home run. But what I really loved about it is that it was a massive movie in scale, obviously. I mean, just absolutely as big as it gets and that that's the way they make movies. But in the third act, it really telescoped down into this very, very personal fight. Yeah. Both for, I mean, for all the characters. characters, really, but obviously for Iron Man and Cap America, especially. And I just thought that was bold. I thought in a movie that had the kind of scale that that movie had, instead of

expanding and escalating into the third ad, it actually contracted and it became very personal. And smart and kind of, again, playing with audience expectations. You get to that third act and that base or whatever, you're expecting the super soldier crazy mayhem. And it turns into just like this such personal betrayal. And it's, you're right. In my mind, of those, that of the Marvel universe and among those movies, it's probably one of the most emotionally powerful scenes. I think they've done. I was amazing. And to me, it also, like, and I think movies in general, especially action or genre or superhero movies, are best when they have a coherent theme, especially

because there's so many characters to service that you can't really have, like, there's not one emotion that you're dealing with. There's sort of a larger theme. And I felt like, at least my experience of Civil War was so much about friendship. And at the end of the movie, to really turn these friends against each other. And yet have the, have the, them come back together in a really elegant way in the last letter that he writes to Tony, I just thought was really, really well done. Again, having been through all the highs and lows that go along with films that are scrutinized in this way, when you see something like Batman versus Superman, which does

well commercially, they probably would have wanted a little bit more, but it did quite well. I will take that. Yeah, exactly, right? But kind of lambasted, frankly, by critics and especially the fanboys out there. are you kind of more sympathetic and understand kind of the how hard it can be or do you also have that critical eye and when you're watching it see like the the changes you would have made or what you would have done differently I have my own taste and and I watch every movie from that perspective and it's not necessarily from the like what I would do better or different

I learn a lot from movies both the good and the bad and there's movies I like that are super random movies that people don't like and then there's movies that I that I don't like that you know, we're huge massive success of successful movies and maybe even, you know, win awards and stuff. So, I mean, you know, that's separate from my understanding or empathy with when you have a movie that's as big as that and the profile is as big as that movie is. And, you know, the fans speak. It's, it is, we live in a very loud echo chamber. And the internet is that echo chamber. And one person yelling or a thousand, people yelling can feel like a million people yelling sometimes. And I have felt that. I have felt

the sort of all of those voices. Right. So I have a lot of empathy for any movie that gets sort of attacked, partly because I know how hard it is to make movies. And nobody tries to make a bad movie. Right. And everybody sweats and toils and does, you know, the 14, 18 hour days and they're in some country they don't want to be in because there's a tax incentive there. And, you know, there's no light at the end of the tunnel. It feels like most of the time. And it's just a miserable process making a movie. That's the truth. And I think people from the outside think that it's a very glamorous process because they see

like the movie premiere and they read about the grosses and everything seems, you know, like you're living in the high life. But when you're making a film, it's really, really hard. So I feel bad for people, any movie, whether it deserves it or not, that gets hit. Well, you give them the perfect segue, because we have to talk a little bit of a Fantastic Four. Okay. So what's the, when you look back, is there, is there a. day a decision where you feel like if you had gone down left instead of right that the outcome

would have been much different? I don't think that there is in any movie that doesn't work a single decision that is the reason that that movie doesn't work. I think there were many, many decisions were made along the way that led to a movie that people didn't like in a movie that I would do differently next time. I think the biggest takeaway for me, and there were many, many takeaways. I mean, this could be a whole other segment. But the biggest takeaway is that I think the tone of the movie, while really interesting and ambitious, ran counter to the DNA of the source material. Right.

I think the source material of Fantastic Four is bright, optimistic, poppy in tone. There's a sort of, you know, sort of plucky spirit to those characters. And we made a darker sort of, you know, body horror kind of version of Fantastic Four, which, again, even as I say it now, sounds really interesting. and cerebrally ambitious but isn't necessarily Fantastic Four. So I would,

it's a lesson that I would learn not just for Fantastic Four, but for any movie going forward is to... Being true to the material. Be true to the material. Yeah. And like, it's like, you know,

when they say shave with the grain instead of against the grain, you know, write and direct with the grain. Right. As you're telling what you were saying, it's tough enough to do it when all the ships are in line,

but don't make it harder on yourself than you have to. Yeah, and I think especially the truth is the fans of the comics are fans for a reason. And they love the fundamental voice and tone of the source material. And so if you're adapting, you know, the Bible, don't make it funny. Is there a much better or different film in the raw material than we saw that you would ever want to reconstitute? There's a, I mean, not in my estimation. I mean, I feel like, you know, the truth is on any movie, any early cut of a film, middle cut of a film, late cut of a film, even in Deadpool, we had lots of different cuts of that movie.

It changes and it evolves as it goes. I'm too close and too inside the process of making that movie to really have perspective on it, to be honest. All I really think about is the final product, how we got there, and how it was received in the world and the lessons learned from both. Is there any active discussion in terms of what to do with that group? Yeah, absolutely, all the time. I mean, it's a big part of the plan going forward. And I think, like I say, the biggest lesson learned was that Fantastic Four is a great comic book that has its own tone and voice. We need to honor that.

And I know you've talked about it, and I think virtually everyone would agree, the problem, if there was one, wasn't with the cast, you guys assembled an amazing group of of guys. So the intention would be to hopefully continue and... I would love to keep making movies with that cast. I think they're an amazing cast if I were to tell you that I got Miles Teller and Michael B. Jordan and Kate and Jamie for a movie that you'd be excited about that cast. And I think they can play those parts

brilliantly. I just think that, you know, and it was everybody. It wasn't just Josh and I know Josh gets a lot of the blame for the movie. And it was everybody. It was writing, which was me. And other writers. It was the producing, which was a bunch of us.

It was we just, like I say, on the good movies and the bad movies, you put the same kind of effort in and they don't always work out. And on that one, it didn't work out, but the hope would be we get another shot and it would. I mean, to many, you know, your resume like is like the fan boy, the geek's dream come true, right? It's my dream come true, to be honest. Well, and I want to talk a little bit about sort of like what your, where your head was at as a kid and what kind of films you were into. You alluded to that a little bit. But first, I do want to ask about, again, and I know you can't really say much about it because it's like the most. taboo subject on the planet, but Star Wars.

Absolutely nothing. I can say absolutely nothing. I literally would get a dart in the back of my neck. But you can ask me the question. Well, I'll ask the question. Can you say, like, how you got involved? Yeah, I can say that. Found the one way in. Yes, Kathy Kennedy was hired by George to come in and run Lucasfilm.

There's actually before they sold to Disney. And Kathy, somebody I wanted to work with forever because she's obviously a hero of mine and has produced many of my favorite movies of all time. And she and I had over the years, she'd sent me things to write and consider, and we never had a chance to work together. But I heard through a mutual friend that she had gotten this job. It was very hush, hush. And my friend told her that I was a huge Star Wars fan, which, you know, I'm not unique in being. But she and I had a meeting, which is a general meeting to talk generally, but also within that specifically about Star Wars.

And it was just one of those meetings where you're like, oh, my God, I have to work with this. for me, I have to work with this person and P.S. Star Wars. And she felt, you know, similarly enough to say, you know, let's engage, let's keep talking. And then I went up with Kathy to meet George at Skywalker and Marin. And again, I think this, I think I have to go back and look at a calendar, but I think it's before they sold to Disney. Oh, wow. Yeah. And he said, cool. Well, got a lot of ideas. and love for you to be a part of it.

And that's how I got hired initially. Here's what I wonder will ever come to light. And you're probably one of the very few that know this, judging from when you came into the discussion, is as much as I love Force Awakens. And I think what JJ and everybody involved did is astounding, given the degree of difficulty and expectation. But George had a different idea for a next trilogy.

It sounds like a pretty, it sounds maybe drastically different kind of storyline. Were you privy to that? Do you know what Georgia's take was? I don't know how to answer that one. Yes. I mean, yes, this is the short answer. And there's a lot of things in George's ideas that JJ honored.

Okay. And day to day or month to month, like, what is your, like, do you have an official capacity? I don't know what my official capacity is. Day to day, it can change. I mean, officially I'm writing and producing one of the movies that I can't talk about. And I'm a consultant, I guess, on, on, I was on episode seven, and I am on Rogue One. And so I'm just sort of part of the family. And part of, and I created and he's like produced this animated show, Rebels, which is the first thing I think that Lucasfilm did is the new entity of Lucasfilm for Disney, which is great fun.

And it's one of the things that's really extraordinary about Lucasfilm is it is this family environment. It's a sandbox they create for the artists that make their TV shows and films. And we all interact with each other. So it's like I'm talking to Gareth and Ryan and Michael Arndt's involved and JJ. And we all sort of are playing together. Well, it sounds like, I mean, you mentioned Arndton, I think, of Pixar. It sounds like they were kind of modeling it in a very smart way out of what they've done in their model. Yeah, I think that's true.

And they have an amazing core group they call the Story Group, which is the sort of creative development executives that you would call them in a studio, led by Kerry Hart, who's a former writer and understands writing and has an immense amount of empathy for writers and herself is a great writer, actually. So it's just a, it's a very story-first writer-driven community. A lot of the filmmakers they've chosen are writer-directors, like Jay as a writer-director, essentially, even though Larry co-wrote a movie with him and Michael was the first writer. Ryan is a writer-director, Collins, a writer-director. So it is just a group of people to love Star Wars.

And one of the first things that we did when we all got together, and I won't tell you in what configuration of who the people were, but when a bunch of us got together and we just started embarking on what are these movies going to be, she had a whiteboard and said, what do you want to see in a Star Wars movie? And then there was another whiteboard, and it just said, how do you define Star Wars? and the tenets from that I think have remained pretty solid throughout

and not coincidentally because she's such a brilliant producer such a brilliant gatherer of artists and supporter of artist Kathy the tenets and the things that people we all wanted to see in Star Wars movies tend to be pretty consistent so even though we're very different people

all of the different men and women involved with different perspectives there's a sort of group love for the object of Star Wars Wars. Well, does it reveal too much to say, like, what your personal tenants are? Like, the one kind of things you put up on that whiteboard or the ones that you feel are important to a Star Wars well, I, I mean, it's a lot. And I think that's part of the value of Star Wars is like, I think it's, this is super pretentious, but there's an article by, or an essay by Ombardo Echo called

Travels and Hyper Reality. And it's about, I'm going to misquote it, but it's something like one cliche, gosh, makes us laugh, but a hundred cliches make us cry. And that one of the things that's so amazing about Star Wars is it combines so many elements from so many of our favorite source texts, not just movies, but art and literature and philosophy and religion. So, I mean, when I define Star Wars, it's a very long list of things that don't feel like they belong together. It's humor. It's religiosity. It's, you know, family. It's things that feel like they should be discordant. Yeah. And yet within Star Wars somehow, George, found a way to create a tone that could encompass all of it.

And last thing for you on this front, which is, I know, difficult something to talk about without revealing anything. I'm pretty good at talking around it. You are actually quite excellent. I feel we're actually getting somewhere, even if we're not getting any specifics. But in tackling like these kind of,

if you want to call them the spinoff stories or the anthology stories, it's fascinating. I think what Rogue won, even in the early footage, I think it got people just very hardened and excited about that you could see. see something in the same universe that does have a little bit of a different angle on it, a different feel to it.

Is the task that much different? Has it been for you in trying to tackle one of these and writing and producing one of these versus doing one of the quote Skywalker stories? Does it feel like apples and oranges? I don't think it's apples and oranges, but I do think that each of the different standalone movies, anthology movies, Star Wars story movies, if you want to call them going forward, will have their own requirements that are different than the mainline, you know, episodes.

And the mainline episodes will also vary. I mean, with the filmmakers. Ryan's a very different filmmaker from Jay and, and Colin is from Ryan, and they're all doing very different things. But it is ultimately the Skywalker saga. What we can do in like what, you know, the guys are doing on the Han Solo movie. And what Gareth is doing with Rogue One is there is a little bit more play or wriggle room

to try some different tonalities and certainly obviously focus on different characters. So yours is an erotic thriller, is what you're saying. You said that. The first Star Wars. You said that, I will see it as a headline somewhere that came out of your mouth. We are two Jews.

We have similarly nasally voices, but that came out of your Josh's voice. Okay, fair enough. It was not. Not mine. So what is on your to-do list right now? What are you working on as we put to bed of X-Men Apocalypse? a little bit of rest and figuring out what the next of the X-Men movies is going to be

to write and working on the Star Wars movie. Is in terms of New Mutants versus the next X-Men movie in this, you know, continuing saga, like continuity-wise, can you tell me, like, are they in the same, I mean, they're the same universe because there are going to be some overlapping characters, but timeline, like, when does new mutants take place versus... I will take a pass on that one. But they do exist within the same continuity. and it's something Josh Boone is very aware of sort of plans for future X-Men movies

and where New Mutants would fit into that. And you're right, they do have overlapping characters with, I guess, what I would call our version of the episodes, the sort of mainline X-Men movies. Right. So the Xavier who would see there is going to be McAvoy, presumably. That's Josh. Potentially. Potentially.

My money's on that. I said to McAvoy last night, he was like, he asked me about New Mutants, and he was like, what is New Mutants? and I told him a little of that, and he's like, am I going to be in it? And I was like, I can't tell you that. Okay, I'm glad that I'm in the same camp as McAvoy then at least. And just backtracking as we kind of like tie up everything.

You know, when you were growing up, like what were, what was your bad? Like, what were you obsessed with? Man, honestly, the stuff I do now. No joke. I grew up on the Star Wars movies. Empire Strikes Back was the reason I wanted to work in movies. And I read comic books. So, you know, I grew up in the golden age of,

action genre movies. I grew up in the 80s, so I grew up on Lethal Weapon movies and The Terminator movies and Star Wars and so many great films and, you know, action comedies like Beverly Hills Cop in 48 hours. So I, those to me were great

films growing up. I didn't differentiate between those and whatever movies were nominated for Best Picture. Those were great films. And that's just, that was sort of my vocabulary. That's the way I learned to speak as an artist and as a human being. Those were my reference points in life.

You know, like I had a top gun. This is what I had in my room growing up. I had a huge swatch watch on the wall. I had a top gun poster. I had an Empire Strikes Back poster and a flash dance poster. And that was, that pretty much defined my childhood. And it pretty much defines me at 42 years old. I was going to say, it's actually not that much different than the office that you're sitting in right now.

No, it's not. It's back to the future. And color of money. Yeah. A color of money, I didn't notice. That's interesting. I mean, Cruz is an underrated one. You know, the only time I've ever been nervous around an actor, and I get nervous around

other kinds of people, but the only time I've ever been nervous around an actor was Tom Cruise. And I continue to be nervous around him, even though I've worked with him on a bunch of movies, because he to me is, I learned how to be a man, an American. He's the personification of movie star, America running past away from something. 100%. So when I'm with him, I'm like, you just did a Tom, no, you are Tom Cruise. so yeah no that was that was me growing up not to be greedy but like you've done so many different franchise kind of things and genre things is there another franchise that even just as a fan like

you don't need to like like you know list out your resume right now but what would you want to in your mind's eye i'll tell you i mean honestly and and i'm not campaigning for it i got plenty of work and i'm going to keep myself busy for the next few years but the one that i the other franchise that i love and i grew up on and um and um and uh And continue to love, and I love the way that they're evolving it, is the Bond franchise. James Bond was a, was a favorite of mine, as much as comic book characters were. And I love the Sean Connery Bond, and I actually really love the Pierce-Prosnin Bond. And I really, really love what they've done with Daniel Craig.

So I'm always interested in what they're doing. I'm curious just as like, okay, two like, again, film nerds talking about James Bond. Like, what do you think they should do in this next, whether it's right now, if Daniel's stepping away, which may be, depending on if you believe London tabloids or not, or in a movie or two, because I've debated this. Like, what kind of bond did they get next and where do they go next? Because if you look at history, I feel like they've done a good job of kind of mixing it up. Like, I don't think you necessarily, personally, I know, like, for instance, Tom Hardy's been mentioned, and I love Tom Hardy, obviously. But I feel like if you get Tom Hardy, you're getting

another young Daniel Craig. He's another kind of brute force, right? And I feel like you should maybe go a different way. Do you vote on... I don't know. I haven't thought about it. But I think you're right, which is that you don't want to repeat. You don't want to just basically recast Daniel Craig as a younger version of Daniel Craig.

I think what might be interesting and what I loved about Sean Connery and about Pierce Brosnan, I feel like he gets short shrift. And I liked Roger Moore, too. But I think there's a couple of Pierce Brosnan's that are really good. Though I will say Casino Royale is my favorite modern Bond film. I absolutely adore that film. I go back to watch that movie quite a bit, actually. It's a few scenes I just love.

I think maybe if you added a little more of this sort of highbrow elegance to him, and I don't know how you do that in casting or that's in the writing or directing or whatever, that might freshen it up a little bit and make it feel throwback in a way that could be kind of cool. Exactly. Well, we'll be discussing Bond for decades to come because it's one of those things like, never die, nor can X-Men. It's going strong. Congratulations on the new one. And always good to see us on. Yeah, you too. Thanks for him. Bye. Thank you. Thanks, man.

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