The Big Picture - An 'It Chapter Two' Deep Dive, 'Joker' at Venice, and Big Winners at the Toronto International Film Festival | The Oscars Show

Episode Date: September 10, 2019

'The Oscars Show' returns to read the tea leaves out of Venice and TIFF, including the shocking Golden Lion win for 'Joker'; the divisive reaction to 'Jojo Rabbit'; and the glorious rise of Jennifer Lopez, 'Hustlers' star and Academy Awards contender (1:09). Then Sean digs into this weekend's smash hit, 'It Chapter Two,' with a conversation about the making of the Stephen King saga with director Andy Muschietti (32:04). Finally, Jason Concepcion joins to talk about the challenges of adapting King's work and what 'It Chapter Two' had to sacrifice to make it to the big screen (69:46). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Andy Muschietti and Jason Concepcion Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons from The Ringer. Wanted to tell you about our newest podcast that is exclusive to Spotify. It is called The Hottest Take. These are short podcasts. These are going to be like seven to nine minutes, multiple times per week. It's one take.

Sweet potatoes are bullshit. You're going to get takes like that. You're going to get takes about sports. If Cliff Kingsbury looked like Brad Childress, he would never work again. Pop culture, you're going to hear from me Home Alone, is that a Christmas movie? Ludicrous

This is an interesting take Because the name of the show is the hottest thing Not the worst take You're going to hear from Ryan Rosillo Mallory Rubin Jason Concepcion Chris Ryan Sean Fennessey

Shea Serrano My buddy House And many more Ringer staffers And friends of the Ringer family, some celebrities. It's going to be exclusive on Spotify multiple times per week coming September 16th from the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Sean Fenennessey.

I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the Oscars. And also, It Chapter 2. Later in the show, I will be having a conversation with the director, Andy Mischetti. He is the director of It Chapter 2. And then later, I'll be talking to our pal, Jason Concepcion, about what works, maybe what didn't work about It Chapter 2, which is the biggest movie of the weekend. But this being the Oscars show, we are, of course, talking about movies that may or may not contend for Oscars. Just before we began recording, we were discussing the Venice Film Festival's winner of The Golden

Lion. And that movie, of course, Amanda, is called Joker. Now, Joker is, for those of you who've been sleeping under a rock, Todd Phillips's, I guess you just described it aptly as a remake of Taxi Driver, but with the Joker. We think that's what that movie is going to be. Neither you nor I have seen it. Correct. And until we see it, I think it's going to be difficult for us to weigh in specifically on whether it's a problematic movie, whether it's a wonderful movie. I don't know. I'll say just candidly, I'm looking forward to it, though I think we've cited on this show a handful of times

that we're not looking forward to the discourse around the movie. We don't have to look for it. It's already here. It's here. It's here. And I'm not really a part of it. And I said that I would not be a part of it. I continue to not be, in part because, as you said, we haven't seen it. Yes, we're only citing it here because the idea of Joker entering the Oscar race, I think, is significant.

I noted this over the weekend, but just four of the previous 40 Golden Lion winners have gone on to become Best Picture nominees. Two of those four have come in the past two years. Those movies are The Shape of Water and Roma, both of which were, if not major favorites, significant contenders. So it's possible that as these things evolve, maybe Venice is evolving into perhaps a bellwether for the Academy. It's very hard to say because in addition to Joker being acknowledged, they also acknowledged Roman Polanski's new film, An Officer and a Spy, which won the Silver Lion. And it's notable that the Academy expelled Roman

Polanski last year from the Academy. So do you think that a festival like Venice, which you and I discussed a couple of weeks ago as we previewed this season, has the chance to significantly influence where we're going this season? I think that's a complicated question in the sense that you and I are having this conversation now and a bunch of people lost their minds on Twitter this weekend about Joker winning the Golden Lion. You know, I think that happened on Saturday afternoon PST and you just watched all the tweets rolling and everyone being like, oh shit, the Oscar race has changed. I'm like, fam, it is early September. Calm down. But you know, that is the nature of the Oscar race at this point. It's like a bunch of people just like hitting that retweet button and being like game changer. So I guess it's a game changer. Yeah. You know, I also saw there was instant hand wringing of being like Venice is responding to the discourse and they are saying, no, you will not shame us. We will not be politically correct, which is like they're not at all. It's Venice.

It's just like a bunch of people taking boats around and being like, we're having a nice international time. Like, I promise you that Lucretia Martel, who is the president of the jury this year, like did not read your tweets and doesn't care. So to the extent that all of this, why are you laughing? I'm just like, you're just, you're really feeling it right now. And it's great. I just like, Lucretia Martel was just chilling in a laughing. You're just, you're really feeling it right now. And it's great. I just like. Lucretia Martel was just chilling in a boat somewhere. That's what you're saying. She was in a gondola.

I hope she had a great time. Rewatching Hangover 3. She's a tremendous director. She deserves it. I hope she got some time like on a plaza somewhere with an aperitif. Because that's what you got to do when you go to Venice. Okay. It's not read stupid people's tweets about like what Joker reflects about the 21st century masculinity or whatever. She doesn't care.

They don't care. So in that sense, no. But in the sense that we are in a prison of our own making and all of the Oscar discourse is now because of people reacting and just kind of shouting each other across the void. I mean, I just did a monologue about it. I guess. And this is the Oscar show. You're participating. Of course you're participating.

We say we're not going to and then we do. I think you definitely put your finger on something very smart, though, which is that the reactionary nature of certain movies, or at least the way they're perceived to be reactionary, invariably influences the races. You know, the Green Book conversation happened in part because there was at least the expectation that older members of the Academy did not want to be told what they could or could not like. Now, Joker is not exactly the same as Green Book, even though we haven't seen Joker. I feel pretty safe in my assumption that they don't have the same posture, let's say. But I do think that there is a chance that a movie like this could sneak its way in because of what you're saying, because there is this sort of like, don't tell me what kind of a movie I'm allowed to like and not like. I'm not totally sure. Todd Phillips is not necessarily

historically known as a awards filmmaker. And Joaquin Phoenix is a bit of a circuitous personality in the world. You know, he's not the kind of person who I think is going to go to 100 after parties and kiss babies to get his nomination, despite the fact that he's understood to be master of his craft, etc., etc. We'll have to just wait and see. You know, we're not far away from seeing this movie. The only thing I would say, flip side of that, is that it would be so Oscars for them to finally recognize the superhero genre with this movie

that is a remake of and a nod to all the 70s movies that these Academy jokers grew up on. I don't think that that would be a fair recognition of what the superhero genre is in the industry. And I don't think that would be a fair recognition of this movie, which I have not even seen. But you can see them doing it. The one thing I'll say is though, there's one thing working for it and one thing working against it. The one thing working for it is the sort of like elevated 70s thing that you're mentioning, which gives it perhaps a measure of credibility in some people's minds. The flip side is this character has already been celebrated by the Academy. Heath Ledger already won for playing this character.

So we know that the Academy is maybe more open to the idea of a chaos agent in its mix. You know what I'm saying? Yes. But the Academy recognizes like the King of England in a character like every three years. So that doesn't really matter. Okay. The one thing that we can say about Joker is that it's clear that he is this week's winner of Is He Running? Because Joker is running.

It is clear that the Joker is here to stay for the Oscars conversation. So we'll get into him more. I suspect that we'll do a little bit of a deep dive on this show in October. I want to ask you about the article, The, because it's very clearly titled Joker. And calling, I mean mean I understand that the Joker is the character yeah but I think they're also trying to do something by not having him be the Joker it's a it's a wordplay because also he's a Joker because we're all Jokers right so the collective Joker and all of us what I'm asking you I want to set some intention for our Oscar

season are we going to call him the Joker or are we just going to call him Joker can we just see the movie and find out first because what if he's not the canonical Joker? I need to touch into detail, okay? Your editor brain is working well on this Monday morning. Thank you. We'll just have to wait and see because it's completely plausible that this is not operating in the traditional Batman mythology. And so thus, it's just a reference to how all leaders and men with power are the jokers of the world.

Listen, I'm just trying to respect the film and the filmmakers and engage with the text. People don't think that I'm going to do that with this movie, but I am. Well, we appreciate your candor, openness, and insight. Sure. Let's talk about the big picture's big picture. And that is the Toronto International Film Festival reactions. This is a problem in the big picture. You know what I mean?

So a bunch of films debuted this week. Neither you nor I were there. We're doing a little bit of tea leaf reading. And the thing to consider here is that I don't think that necessarily what critics think about movies that premiere a TIFF matter significantly to the Oscars. They matter significantly to the way that the movies are received in the world because these are the people with the loudest bullhorn at the moment. But if you look back at the history of, especially the recent history of TIFF,

movies like Green Book winning the Audience Award, those movies were not rapturously received by critics. Some critics liked them. And in fact, you and I upon first viewing kind of liked that movie. But this will be an interesting test case because some movies that I saw Telluride premiered there but for the most part there's a bunch of new stuff that took place in this first weekend of TIFF the the one that stuck out to me the most by far was the reaction to Jojo Rabbit which is Taika Waititi's new movie what did you make of the way that the um I would say that the ranks were a bit split on this one I did not see them split as so much as people trying to, I guess people are not trying that hard to couch their negative reaction to it. Yeah, so let's, I love that. Let's discuss how people who want to like something entering it then negotiate the fact that they did not like it publicly.

Well, there was a group of people who wanted to like it in the sense that Teguaytiti is a director that a lot of people like and you're trying to keep the festival narrative going and also frankly probably want to be invited back and then I don't really want to get into the whole embargo kerfuffle of we're skipping that no thanks um you know do your job as best you can it's a privilege to do it exactly uh but there were those people who were trying to keep an open mind about it. And then there are like the enfantaribles of Twitter who are just like, no. And, you know, making a scene their own way. Everybody's playing their part. But it seems putting those two together and kind of triangulating seems like maybe it doesn't totally come together. Yeah.

There seemed to be at best a mixed response. And I think you're right that underneath that mixedness, there was something sour and frustrated and disappointed going on in a lot of people's reactions. And it's probably because in part this movie, which has been deemed a quote unquote anti-hate satire, is a little bit tricky to pull off. I saw a lot of Wes Anderson comparisons, a lot of Grand Budapest Hotel comparisons. There is something whimsical and I don't know, maybe a bit feet about it in a way. You know, there's something kind of like delicate in the way that Tyke is trying to tell this story that if it doesn't work, it's really not going to work and it's a bit of a risk. And so, you know, months and months ago, a movie like this was tabbed for Oscars.

To me, it's possible. And I did read a handful of the sort of awards watchers, Scott Feinberg in particular, the reporter noted that while critics didn't necessarily love the movie, the audience did. And I wonder if this is the kind of movie that can thrive with audiences, but not with critics, which, you know, we mentioned Green Book previously, that that happens. And Three Billboards won the Toronto Audience Award the year before that. Exactly. It does happen.

To me, it just seems like we knew this movie was a bit of a high wire act. I mean, the trailer is available and it does have that jokey, kind of lighthearted vibe with Nazis running around and Hitler is a main character in it. So that either works or it doesn't. And we don't actually get that many movies where it's like, well, we tried something and it just did not it. So that either works or it doesn't. And we don't actually get that many movies where it's like, well, we tried something and it just did not work. And that happens. That's valid. And I'm curious to see I'm curious to see it again. We haven't seen it. I am, too. It comes out October 18th. We'll be talking about it a lot more on this show. I found it to be an interesting

flashpoint, though, for the exact thing that you identified, which is that all weekend people are rapturously receiving marriage story and waves and my name is Dolomite. And there's so much positivity coming out of these festivals. And we talked about that high last week that you inevitably have when you experience something for the first time, quote unquote. And for someone to come out and say this didn't work usually means it really didn't work for them. So I'll keep a close watch on Jojo Rabbit. A couple of other films that premiered there, Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. We got confirmation that Tom Hanks is a supporting actor in this category and that this is the story of Tom Junot's character coming to grips with some personal issues. So it is, as you mentioned last week, a journalist movie. Otherwise though, it did get a lot of love and it got a lot of

appreciation from Ariel Heller, the director of the film, who last year made Can You Ever Forgive Me? And is considered to be a very unflashy but very empathetic filmmaker. So I think it feels safe to say Tom Hanks will be in our life for the next six months. That seems correct. I'd like to thank everyone who, all of the kind Canadians who lived up to this stereotype and wrote to let us know that Mr. Rogers was a big deal in Canada. We apologize. Well, I just, everyone was so nice. There was no one being like, you idiot. How did you not know that? So thank all of you. That's the kind of discourse that we're looking for. Should we move to Canada? Apparently also PBS

was available in Canada as well. So Mr. Rogers is a phenomenon there, which means that it certainly has some audience award appeal. I don't know. Reading through the tea leaves, everyone just it seemed like a warm hug of a movie. And how far does that take you in an era where everyone just needs to scream at each other about Joker for an entire weekend? On the one hand, nice can mean green book. On the other hand, nice can mean green book. On the other

hand, nice can mean it's nice, but I don't have to think about it ever again. And so we'll have to wait and see about that one, too. I'm going to go through a couple of others before we get to a big one. Knives Out, Rian Johnson's Agatha Christie update. Thank you, Rian Johnson. I would say that this one actually was rapturously received. And one of the reasons why it was is because I don't think there's any energy around awards on this movie. It's just, will this be the fun thriller mystery romp that we were hoping for? Sounds like it is. Cannot wait.

I basically, I just read some tweets that were like, this is hilarious. I've read nothing else. I don't want to know anything. Please don't tweet at me. I just, I need to have this pure experience. It's what I'm living for in 2019. Thank you so much. The one thing I did note that I thought was interesting was a handful of people said, don't trust the trailer. This movie is better than the trailer.

And I, you and I liked the trailer for that movie. In fact, we rewatched the trailer recently together. That's true. Though we rewatched it to show a third person in our lives who is also a huge Agatha Christie fan. And she was like, eh. She said, eh. Turns out she's more of a Miss Marple. I'm an Hercule Poirot. Daniel Craig is clearly doing Hercule Poirot. Anyway.

Nice to see a fun mainstream commercial movie with movie stars do well at a festival like this. I mentioned My Name is Dolomite earlier. Eddie Murphy also rapturously received. I think that that movie probably is not likely to compete. If you similarly read the tea leaves, though, it seems like a win for Netflix in terms of a quality film. I did see a lot of people use the phrase rewatchable about this movie. I will watch this movie two and three and four times, which is an interesting thing to integrate into award season because it's a Netflix movie. And we'll get to sort of Netflix is standing here in a little in a minute but you know I'm I guess I'm happy that it's good I I don't maybe Eddie Murphy is a best actor contender but the as we noted last week the the field is so crowded right now in

that category that's true I just saw a tremendous amount of it was like Eddie Murphy in caps and then and I and you know and I had a nice time. And that seems to me like singling out a Best Picture nomination. And I do think the actor and actor races are a bit easier to sift out sooner. They do get knighted early in the season. So you would see it. I mean, people would love to have Eddie Murphy around. The only addendum to that would be that the other thing I saw in all caps was Wesley Snipes. Wesley Snipes is back, which I am excited about. And maybe we can find a way to appreciate Wesley Snipes a little deeper on this show. Parasite Fever. Yeah. Seemed like this is

the most popular movie at the festival. And I don't yet know what to think about that because as we tut-tut A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood or Jojo Rabbit and we praise Parasite at the top of our lungs about what a phenomenon it is and how exciting it is, I do feel like we've seen this movie before. Not the movie Parasite, but this is the festival darling

of all festival darlings and it could get left at the altar at the Oscars. We're going to have to wait and see. I'm excited for everyone to see it. I'm excited by the prospect of a movie like this being a hit. But now, it's just an expectations game. The whole thing is like a thousand people getting

turned away at a Toronto International Film Festival screening of a South Korean director's thriller is weird. You know, it creates a burden that maybe a movie like this can't bear. I think that's true. I think to expect it to win Best Picture is, as you said, it's the expectations are too high. But right now, that's also really exciting, right, that we live in this moment. You know, there's all the hand-wringing about Disney and these garbage franchise movies and things that no one goes to the theaters. It is nice that there's still a world in which it's very small and often frustrating because everyone's just like yelling at each other all the time. But then everybody wants to go see Parasite.

That's great. That is like a business model if it's not the business model. It's probably also an Oscar. I think Parasite probably will be nominated if I sign up for it today. I hope so. Just because you have to recognize that frenzy. Winning is a different game. There's a little bit of recent precedent, obviously, with movies like Amor and Roma from filmmakers who are understood to be among the very best of their generation,

getting the love that they deserve, if not the win that they deserve. So we'll keep a close eye on Parasite. You know, a couple of other things that played again, I thought for the most part, Waves was very, very, very warmly received. Likewise, Marriage Story, there was a lot of rapturous Adam Driver conversation, a lot of talk about Laura Dern. You know, to the people out there who are tweeting about Marriage Story, stop giving away like the most exciting parts of it. What's going on with that? Twitter etiquette is fucking crazy. I've honestly stopped reading Twitter until I see all of these movies because it's not worth it. I gave you a big speech this week about how I'm just, I'm shuttering myself off.

But at this point, there's nothing that anyone is going to tell me that is going to do anything other than take away from my experience. And it's great that you got to go to a festival

and talk about the movies. And it's, I'm sure it's a boost for your career and talk amongst friends, connect, share about films. That's what it's about. But like most people haven't seen it. Calm down. Yeah, I'll be sincere. I really try hard not to give things away that spoil the movie when talking about this stuff, because I know that that can be really obnoxious. So to anybody out there who's in the biz, just stop giving away significant

highlights. I'm not even talking about spoilers. I'm just talking about things that happen in movies that people want to experience for the first time. Let's go to Stock Up, Stock Down. If it goes bust, you can make 10 to 1, even 20 to 1 return, and it's already slowly going bust. I'll tell you one movie that was really, really, really, really rapturously received, and that movie is Hustlers. Hustlers, of course, Lorene Scafaria's adaptation of Jessica Presler's story of the stripper robbers circa 2008 in New York. The piece originally ran in New York Magazine. And while I think the movie is clearly going to be a hit and it's clearly going to be a sort of flashpoint culturally, the story is J-Lo.

We've got probably two more episodes about J-Lo coming up this week on this show. I have a lifetime of episodes about J-Lo in my heart, so let's just talk about it. Later this week, we'll do a bit of a career arc dissection of J-Lo, the actress. But J-Lo, the movie star slash Academy Awards contender, is an interesting thing to arrive on our doorstep.

I just want to put this image in your head, which is Alex Rodriguez managing J-Lo's Oscar campaign and just being this cinematographer. Are you familiar with the body of work that A-Rod has already created in tribute to Jennifer Lopez? The thing is, I know all about their Instagram presence. I know all about his Instagram presence. I know all about his odes to her. Have you watched the birthday video? The 10-minute birthday video

in which he presents her with a Porsche for her 50th birthday. I haven't seen it. And she's like, I haven't driven a car in 25 years. Sounds like a scene

out of Hustlers. It's 10 minutes. He's practicing the arrival the first time around. It's so good. It's really, and then they just drive around for two minutes.

Here's a counterpoint. Bobby, what do we know about Alex Rodriguez when the spotlight is on him in a big moment? He doesn't perform. Exactly. Okay. So this is dangerous territory. This is, he just has to be standing next to her. That's like ultimately, there's no pressure on him except just to stand there.

And he's been very good at it so far. And also, J-Lo and A-Rod on the Oscar circuit is amazing. That's money in the bank. People want to see that. We're going to get a little bit more into J-Lo in just a minute. But before we do, the thing about Stock Up, Stock Down is there is some down. J-Lo is up. The down is, I think maybe Netflix and Amazon.

It does feel like the trend of the festivals defying these major streamers and the films that they bring to the festivals is starting to die down. But somebody noticed over the weekend, a very intrepid reporter pointed out that Scotiabank Cineplex, which is a 14-screen huge movie theater

that shows a lot of films during TIFF, was not showing any Netflix films or any Amazon films and a lot of other smaller films, which is very unusual. It's one of the signature spaces where they show movies at this festival. And it was officially because this Cineplex did not want streaming movies playing on their screens, even in a festival setting. And I think that that is still sort of the canary in the coal mine of this problem. And I wonder if even as we get closer with The Irishman and My Name is Dolomite and Marriage Story and all of these Netflix movies that want to contend, there's still a dug in part of the film industry complex that is not yet fully warmed to the idea of turning themselves over to these streaming companies.

What do you think about the fact that, you know, Amazon and Netflix still can't get into these spaces? Well, it's just one theater in Toronto. I mean, respect to this particular theater chain for managing its business. And, you know, the last time that we talked about this, I believe when the Irishman and all of the Netflix screening plans, the release plans in theaters were announced, someone wrote to us and we were like, it doesn't actually really matter that much. It's just kind of bluster. And someone wrote to us and was like, well, I subscribe to AMC, the subscription plan. And I if I'm going to give them a certain amount of money each month, then I would like to be able to see all of these movies. It doesn't like the bang for my buck is not there, which is true. And it's a good point. And I think that there is like a credibility thing. But for theaters to be able to say, we're still worth your money, we offer everything. Netflix not being there is still, I still think that the theaters have a bigger problem than Netflix does because people can still go see Netflix. You know, it's like these movies didn't show at one theater chain at the Toronto Film Festival.

So like what, 2,000 people had to go somewhere else to see it? I mean, how many people are at the festival? I think you're right. I think that this trend is starting to die and there's starting to be a level of acceptance happening here. I don't know if we're yet fully there. And so whether that means Marriage Story can win Best Picture or not is significant to the conversation. I don't think it's Marriage Story. I think it's The Two Popes.

Well, we got a lot of Two Popes conversation coming up. Which I still have not seen, but anyway. I was putting together a little bit of like, what are the best things I've seen so far now that I've seen probably 80% of the slate? Yeah. And I did put The Two Popes on that list. That's fine. I have a friend who shall not be named who just keeps like texting me facts about the two popes because he thinks it's very funny. It seems very charming. They eat pizza, which is literally also a scene from Green Book.

But that works. You know, I like I too like pizza. But you can just see I think that it's that kind of movie that will get Netflix over the hurdle. It's not some artistic innovation, but they have it this year. The thing is, pizza is very good. It really is. It's exceptional food. Exceptional good. Let's go to the big race. Well, mama, look at me now. I'm a star. We mentioned J-Lo and Hustlers. I believe that J-Lo should be best supporting actress. If she runs in best actress, I think it's going to be a challenging, it's a tough road to hoe is what I'll say. Okay.

Constance Wu is the lead of Hustlers, without question. Okay. That being said, this could be a tricky category for J.Lo. There's a couple of heavy hitters. There's a couple of it's time people in the mix here. A lot of movies that we haven't seen here, some we have seen. The big contenders to me right now are Annette Bening and The Report, which I have seen, which is not Annette Bening's best performance by a long shot, but it is a transformation

into a real person. And she has never won an Oscar. And she has never won. And she has been, she is in that same Glenn Close position of multiple nominations over the years, beloved by her colleagues, works the system, has kind of an old Hollywood glamour about her. And, you know, she's playing Dianne Feinstein as a person of great resolve and historical importance.

And so she'll have... It's not the moment for that. But anyway. She'll have a big chance. Okay. Laura Dern in Marriage Story. I'm sure you saw all of the hosannas for her after this weekend as well.

I did, but I just had to scroll fast until I see the movie. I can't participate in this conversation. Stop spoiling my most anticipated movie of the year. Thank you. One could argue that Laura Dern is actually playing a real person. That person will go unnamed for the moment, but it is clearly modeled on a real person. Whether or not she's a hero is up for debate. We've talked a lot about Margot Robbie, and the one movie that has been shuttled aside as we discuss all this film festival stuff is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It was the only damn movie

we could talk about on this show for two months. And now it's all quiet on the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood front. They're just resting. That's fine. They're resting.

You know, why fight with 80 other movies when you had the two months in the spotlight and then you could come back and be like, hey, remember

when Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie were in a Quentin Tarantino movie that everyone loved and went to the movie theater to see? No, that was dope. Not everyone loved, but a lot of people did. You and I did. I certainly did.

I know you did. I think a lot of Academy members are going to love it, too. And I think she's also playing a real person. And, you know, there's something unmistakable. They're also playing a real person is Zhao Shushan, who plays Lulu Wang's grandmother in The Farewell. And this is another performance that we've seen figures like this, older actresses that we're not as familiar with, get recognized for historical roles or roles of significance that we don't see coming. And that's just a lot of real people in the mix here. If we go even further,

Catriona Balfe in Ford vs. Ferrari, I would say has, unfortunately, the traditional wife role in the movie, which is a little bit underwritten, and they try to do the best they can with her, and she's a very good actress. Fans of Outlander will know her work, but this feels like the cutoff for me.

If they didn't give it to Claire Foy for First Man, then no one should be nominated for the traditional wife role ever again. I would say that she does not have the deep reserves of pain and sadness and anger that Claire Foy had in that film. A couple of other ones that I just don't think are going to happen. Okay. Jennifer Hudson in Cats. Okay.

Jennifer Hudson has won in this category for singing a big historical Broadway number. That was really good. It was great. And she'll be doing the exact same thing when she sings Memories. Do you remember when Jake Gyllenhaal hosted SNL and did And I Am Telling You? I do, yeah. That was also great. We stan Jake here at The Big Picture.

Nicole Kidman, The Goldfinch. Doesn't seem like that's happening. Not a strong reception for The Goldfinch at the Toronto International Film Festival. I've not seen a movie get dunked on this hard in a while. We'll be talking about that movie later on the show. I can't believe I got it. I haven't even seen it. I know I'm going to wind up defending the Goldfinch.

This is going to be exciting times. Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey. Love Maggie Smith. Why not? Well, there are a lot of other people in this category. Fair enough. And she's also, how many Emmys has she won? And she never shows up for those.

Oh, I respect that so much. I do too. That's so great. Nothing but respect for Maggie Smith. But also, if she wasn't even going to come to the Emmys, is she going to campaign in order to win an Oscar for Downton Abbey? You should just do a Dowager Countess podcast. Okay.

Isn't that every podcast that I do? Meryl Streep in the laundromat. We're going to see that movie later this month. Maybe? It's Meryl Streep? Meryl Streep

in a bucket hat. Respect Meryl Streep in a bucket hat. I think the big unknown here is Little Women because there are a lot of a lot of actresses, a lot of well-known actresses.

Meryl Streep, Laura Dern, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh. I think it's pretty safe to say that Saoirse Ronan will be the lead. Everybody else seems kind of fair game. How do you know that? As someone who doesn't know what happens in Little Women.

Guess what? I don't. I've just been called onto the carpet for my complete lack of knowledge. You know, there are a lot of other potential nominees here that we'll have to wait and see. Anne Hathaway in Dark Waters. Scarlett Johansson in Jojo Rabbit. Judi Dench in Cats. Why not? You love to see it. You know, I see Ruth Nega in Ad Astra on this list. Let me just say one loved Ad Astra deeply. Ruth Nega does not have enough screen time to warrant this nomination. And, you know, we don't know what Anna Paquin's doing in

The Irishman. We don't know really what Margot Robbie's doing in Bombshell. You know, is Margot Robbie going to cancel herself out in this category while she cancels other people? We'll see. Right. Any other people that you think have a shot here on this long list that we're checking out? Well, you have Scarlett Johansson on here for Jojo Rabbit, which seems unlikely now. But I'm just curious about Scar Jo running against herself, possibly, in Marriage Story. You mean for Endgame? Yeah, sure. Maybe. Like, honestly, who knows? There's a tremendous

amount of Scarlett Johansson on screen. There's also a tremendous amount of Scarlett Johansson talking. One is better than the other, historically. Yeah. You know, we've been kicking around the idea of the uncancellables here at The Ringer, and I'm just fascinated by Scarlett Johansson's exploits. There's a phenomenal conversation about this on the Tea Time podcast. I would encourage you to check that out. Scar Jo is very free with her feelings. And we'll see if that's held against her as she competes in best supporting actress for Endgame and best supporting actress for Jojo Rabbit and best actress for Marriage Story.

I'll just say it's safe to assume she's wonderful in Marriage Story, and in theory, she'll be challenging in that category over any of these others. Any parting thoughts before we explore J-Lo more deeply later this week? No, just let me see the movies. Let us all see the movies.

That's where I am. I'm excited. We're so close. We're so close. And I'm just fighting to keep a positive, yeah, movies attitude. And like, it's everyone's chipping away every day. But if you, like me, have not seen movies, just protect your heart a little bit longer. We'll get there.

Think of it this way. In the coming weeks, we get Hustlers. And then we get Ad Astra. And then we get the laundromat. So we're in good shape. Things have cleared up. The dark waters are clearing up for us. We're starting to be able to see movies,

which is all we really cared about on this show. Let's now go to my conversation with Andy Mischetti. Delighted to be rejoined by Andy. Andy, thank you for being here. Thank you, Sean. Andy, last time you were here, I knew that there was going to be an It, and I don't think the world knew that there was going to be an It Chapter 2. And you were a little bit cagey when we talked about

it. Did you know that this movie was going to happen, or did you still have to hope against hope that it could happen? I knew I had I knew it had hidden in my mind, you know, the second part of the story and the conclusion. I knew there was a second part

in my mind and in everyone's desires. But it wasn't until the release of the first one that the studio actually gave the green light for the second part.

And we, like, you know, eventually started working on it how much more could you done mentally on it before you got that green light you know i assume there was no script but did you have a design did you have an expectation of how to solve some of the no no things from the first but things happen so fast you know that uh you can't like possibly fathom the whole of the story even though you have a like you know a slight notion of the things that

you will project to the second one in my case uh in this in this case i left open certain windows uh it was a bit of you know kicking the ball forward to catch it on later and and figure out how you're going to catch it the whole whole thing with Beverly being dead lighted, Beverly having visions of what the future is, was a big window that I opened for later using. So yeah, I didn't know exactly how that would pay off, but I decided to throw the ball so we could catch it on the second two years later. And that's how it happened. That throwing forward of the ball really helped us in terms of drama. You see Beverly, the only reason that the losers stay in town,

this is not in the book, it's a little loser in the book, the reason why the losers actually stay. They have nothing to lose there. They could turn around and go back. So in the book, they more on the those feelings of of need to close sometimes for me it wasn't strong enough for a film uh uh format you know we needed something more concrete more concise and the fact that in their bit in in product of that dead light, Beverly has been having these visions of death and suffering, which is actually the losers dying. And we use the death of Stanley, spoiler alert. I think a lot of the world has seen this movie at this point, so we're not too worried.

To tie into that idea. so now the losers have a stronger reason to stay in town and so they're more like reluctant uh heroes in that in that sense they have to stay but they don't want to but they have to otherwise they will die well did you have that same feeling did you feel like you had to stay like you had to do the second film was there any part of you that thought maybe i shouldn't do that there was nothing reluctant in my participation in the second or the first or the second one actually the you know the success of the of the first movie uh if anything uh really stimulated me uh uh into the second one um yeah it's a lot very very excited to when the green light happened. Um, yeah, it's a lot,

very, very excited to when the green light happened, he was like, yeah, now let's do it with more money. So I wanted to ask you about that because I feel like the first film caught some people by surprise. Maybe people who didn't know your name, who didn't think that adapting it could work.

Well, the first film is a little bit smaller in scale. And I presume in budget, was there something that you wanted to do in one that you couldn't make happen, but by getting this green light and obviously a bigger canvas, you were able to lean into and to? Yeah, of course I had budget limitations in the first one. You can't say it was low budget, especially for a horror movie.

But dealing with such a huge story the book is like 1200 pages it's full so full of characters and and and rich in events and uh of course you sort of like run out of money and there have to be like creative decisions that, that keep you in the box. But I knew what I was dealing with. And so we, yeah, we sort of did a movie. Of course, I, you know, I left some parts that I did want to put in the movie that meant a lot, in my opinion, in the story, like the clubhouse, which is this environment that is so important in the bonding of the characters. So I put it in the story, like the clubhouse, which is this environment that is so important

in the bonding of the characters. So I put it in the second one. So it's a running joke within the studio. Like the club's, oh, so you're going to do the clubhouse now? Yes, I'm going to do the clubhouse. Is that something you were fighting for in one and couldn't make happen? Yeah, it was a bit of, you know,

I had to cut it a bit for budget reasons, but also for narrative reasons. We just couldn't make it work in the sequence of events. Because, you know, when you turn this huge literary narrative into something that is film, you have to tighten everything, tighten everything and make one event after the other, make it consequential and sort of like, you know, lean the passage of time.

Everything happens more in a bit of a real time. So the clubhouse, I couldn't like make work. And when we noticed that, know what budget we were we were dealing with we didn't make any more efforts to actually put it in the first one uh so that was a a bit of a you know of a bummer but i brought it back in the in the second one why was that so important to you the clubhouse uh it was just like it's like a tree house is where is the physical space where this, you know, this love story, uh,

actually happens, you know, it's the bonding. Maybe you see like the, the, the place in the, in chapter one where this happens, um,

is in the first place is the quarry where, where, where Beverly joins the kids and you see them all together. The rock fight. And then later the rock fight when, rock fight with the inclusion of Mike. But there was this space where, you know, the book happens in a long time. And it's very fragmented because it's memories.

It's flashbacks, basically. Stephen King did, you know, like this, basically fresco of a summer in the lives of these characters. I couldn't do that because I wasn't telling it in a two-timeline fashion. So we had to tighten everything, and that's when I lost the clubhouse. Did you know going into two that you were going to have a 2-hour and 50-minute run time, that you were going to be able to make something this big and epic? No, I think my impression was that they would grant me more budget and more resources.

So I felt that I wouldn't struggle so much or cut corners the way I did in the first one uh I mean all of this that I'm saying actually didn't did not have a negative impact you know the budget every every time you face a limit it just like turns you into like solving the problem in a creative way and sometimes you find a solution that is better than you know whatever you were expecting did this have the adverse effect then? Did having more money and more time hurt you? No, not at all. Because you, you know, your ambition grows with the budget. And of course, you know, well, my ambition is set by the scope that this story has in my heart.

You know, I grew up with this book. And there is a scope that the story implies that is epic. It has an epic scale, and it's fruitful with environments and events and magic. So it's never enough. I'm very curious about King's involvement. Obviously, he cameos in the film. His cameo is very clever for those of us who have maybe some thoughts about the endings to King's book and Bill's character as a novelist who maybe struggles with endings. I know that he really appreciated the first film and liked the first film. Was it your idea to get him to appear in this movie?

And then also, what feedback was he giving you about how to make chapter two well that happened in two in two uh punches people like at first uh i well you know after the first movie we started like writing to each other so our relationship became closer uh you know he got excited with the first movie and got curious about the second one uh but not not from the writers, not from the creator's perspective. He was more like weirdly like a fan. And that was what I loved so much about it, his involvement in the second one. I wanted to keep him in the loop with what we were doing, so I sent him a draft, asking him to basically like all the thoughts or ideas that, you know, that every feedback of him would be like, you know, priceless for me.

And so he came back very like humbly said, look, don't take this as a mandate of any sort. I'm just like giving you a little list of of things that i would like to see in the movie um did those things make it in uh paul bunyan make it in yeah oh that came from king paul bunyan yeah i had i think i want to see that in the movie in the draft we we had a we had the second part of that scene already which was uh bill hader versus uh versus Pennywise, who's standing on the shoulder of giant Paul Bunyan. But when Stephen King said, oh, you know, I'd like to see Paul Bunyan chasing young Richie. And I said, yes, I would like to see that too.

So that's the push that I needed to insert it in the script. Of course, when you make those decisions, at a certain point, you have to balance the other things, because a budget is being made as you're writing the script, as you're refining drafts and stuff. So the budget goes in, over, and then you have to, OK, we're going to add. It's just like, let's not be so over with the budget and visual effects.

So let's, you know, let's make this scene, this other scene that was bigger, let's make it smaller. So it's a juggling act. So we can, I can get away with Paul Bunyan in all its glory. I have to maybe reduce the scene or just like lift it. It's constant, you know, juggling. You have to sort reduce the scene or just lift it. It's constant juggling. You have to sort of pick your battles. I have a couple of interesting questions about King's relationship to the endings. And since that's such a significant part of the character that he plays and his relationship to Bill in that sequence, obviously you've changed the ending somewhat here.

And there's this understanding that King was going through a very strange time in his life, some challenging, maybe some substance issues. And he was writing some of these books. And the ending of this saga is wild. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe untranslatable to the screen. Absolutely. So I think you made some wise choices in changing it. But what was his reaction to it?

Did he have a real clear sense of even what this story was some 30, 40 years after he wrote it? I didn't dig too much on like that because, you know, everybody knows like his struggles back then. Probably it wasn't a struggle back then. He was like, you know, you can see his work and it's so rich, you know. Deep, wide. Yeah, wide, creative. so rich, you know? Deep, wide. Yeah, wide, creative. So I'm not the one that blames him for doing that kind of ending.

I enjoyed it a lot, actually, the first time I read this thing. It was crazy, but it wasn't, you know, that's the story. You get engaged in a story that is uh you know fascinating and that's the ending and you can't complain he's been using like the same kind of you know is uh you're captivated by by by the world and he's using everything just he just like becomes a little more you know expressionist at the end. Very much expressionist.

And he tosses you to the other side, that side that he implies and he's very cryptic about, the macroverse, the other side. And then you're thrown into that, and yeah, it is crazy. Did you think that that was too much perhaps like fantasy, the way that he was telling that story? Exactly. When you translate this huge into into a film narrative you have to um

make some choices and one of my choices was to keep the perspective uh in the two movies uh perspective uh from the character you know the point of view. In the first movie, it's through the characters when they are children. The second one is characters when they are adults. The moment you start, like, dealing or being, you know, seduced by the other side, you run the risk of making a fantasy movie, which I didn't want to. At some point, it sort of clashes a little bit with the human drama that you're telling.

So I wanted to avoid the fantasy element of it, even though it's there. I'm not denying that it's there. It is an interdimensional evil who came millions of years ago. But yeah, I wanted to be very cautious about how to present it. And in the second movie is presented through, through a vision induced by,

you know, psychic psychoactive, some substance, um, called the Turin. But during is the name of the turtle for those of you who didn't read the book. It's a nice nod to the mythical turtle from the book.

Yes. I wanted to keep it, you know, know uh as human as possible and uh yeah keep them the the other side of mystery bill hater was here a few months ago we talked a little bit about the production of the movie he's great he's great he's great in your movie hi sean is that your bill hater yeah he he he does an impression of me, so it's only fair. Well, he mentioned to us that, one, you had two things. One, a very clear vision for what you wanted and were very precise. But at the same time, you were willing to kind of try things in the moment that was different than what was on the page. Yeah.

Which is, you know, we hear about that a lot in comedy. And obviously, Hader is very flexible when it comes to that sort of thing. Yeah. But for a big, epic story like this, I don't hear about that a lot in comedy, and obviously Hater is very flexible when it comes to that sort of thing. Yeah. But for a big epic story like this, I don't hear about that as much from filmmakers. Yeah. There's several, you know, layers of that. I don't have a long, extensive, like, career in film,

but I started, like, doing films, like, 10 years ago with Mama, or nine years ago. And one of the things that I really learned is to be open to what the elements are bringing on the day. I used to be, I'm a storyboarder by nature. So for me, it's very important to design every single shot and plan everything that the characters are doing in the shot.

And I still do storyboards. And every morning I show up with my, you know, little storyboards, but I'm not like imposing that on, on anyone. I just want to, to have like me to have a notion of what I,

what I like to see. And if what, what, you know, but then comes the blocking in the morning, you have, you know, six adult actors,

uh, six characters. And no matter how the morning, you have six adult actors, six characters, and no matter how much you rehearsed or how much you talked about the characters separately and collective, there's a magic that happens on the set, which is, this is the moment, this is it. And on the blocking and the rehearsal, some ideas are generated. Magic out of the combustion of all these things happens something that if you're like paying attention you can you can

judge you can decide if it's better than what you were thinking so sometimes you just like have to okay this actually what what what this guy is like suggesting right now it's actually i hadn't thought of that you know every actor is thinking the scene from was this guy just a grip or an actor yeah

yeah grips no mostly actors yeah grips also tell me ideas but it's like you know less a little less

who sees your storyboards every morning is it your DP and is that it or did the actors see them I put it on a board uh and it's for me and for the for for the dp and for the cameraman and for especially for the ad and everyone who wants to get close to it actors can she can see it if they want uh i'm not like

running to like rub the storyboard on their faces. My experience is that, you know, normally when you come up to an actor with a storyboard, they immediately feel like you're like, you know, like chopping their wings in some sort. Especially when there's a camera, you know, a choreography involved. So I learned how to deal with that, uh, by, you know, talking, uh,

and, and during the blocking and the rehearsal talking about what's the motivations of the actors, making sure that they, they trust me in what is, what's important for the scene. So it's not that easy. It's not like,

okay, the camera will go around and you're gonna like turn around and you're gonna go to the back of the room and then the other guy is in the close up and the other guy does a Kinski screw and suddenly

he's in a so I do want to get to that but you have to approach it from a from a different perspective you can't

approach an actor with a technical scene unless it's like you know it's like a you know like camera storytelling masterpiece moment where it's like, you know, it's like a, you know, like camera storytelling masterpiece moment

where it's like, this is more important than your performance, you know? That happens sometimes. But you have to balance this very well, especially with adult actors. With kids, it's easier, you know? Because kids want to play, you know?

And immediately they understand things in a different way. They don't have so many concerns about the layers of character and arcs. Probably fewer ideas the kids than what the adult actors should be doing? I talk to them the same way. To the kids, I mean,

they're 13, they're not 5, so there's a rational, you know, exchange about what the characters, you know, they're thinking, they want what they want and the arcs and stuff. But once that talk is over, they just want to do it, you know? Did any other significant changes come out in the film

because of this process that you're describing? That maybe you hadn't planned for, but you arrived at something? There's a little deepening on the Bill Denbrough plot. All the scene with Dean and him trying to save his life in the funhouse came from a concern that Jamie had, James McAvoy, about his character not really having a substantial payoff uh considering that you know and i i sort of agreed you know considering that uh that bill was a was a bit of a prominent character in the first one because he was the leader of the losers uh he was like uh bill on this one was a little overlooked

so we agreed you know on that and so we sat down. We were already in production when that happened. And we sat down with James, me, and Jason Pukes, who was writing at that point. And we figured this out. It's one of the best sequences in the movie. Thank you. The whole, the scares and the composition and all the mirrors and all of that. Yeah, it really brings some tension to the, you know, to the second part of the whole the scares and the the composition and all the mirrors and all yeah it really brings some tension to the to the you know to the second part of the second act um i

think um it was like like james uh instinct was good but then you know like the idea of the of the fun house and everything just came from from me and jace jason. And it's really brutal, you know? And it really turns the screws of detention in Bill's journey, which is a journey of guilt. So he not only finds that, he finds in his memory that he is responsible for George's death because he wasn't there to protect him. But now Pennywise is basically robbing him,

like dragging him more into that trip guilt by recreating the tragedy with a new kid. It's the kid that lives in his house now. Yeah, and there's a brutality in that sequence that is pretty intense and there's like a brutality in some of the themes of the movie even more so than the first film a lot of ideas about sexuality abuse body horror hypochondria all of these things that people really are dealing with is there ever a time when you got us got the sense that maybe you were pushing it too far or that it was too mature or too complex? No.

Not at all, Sean. What are the powers that be? How do they interact with a movie like this that is trying to push it a little bit? Well, it's a very dark story. It's a story that, like in the book, it deals with very profound themes as, you know, as abuse, neglect,

like every palette of horrible human behavior, homophobia and hate and bigotry. And so I didn't want to be shy about it. And especially now that we're telling the story of the adults, I felt like the you know the perspective should switch even though like the tone of the movie lives in the same world with this with the first one as in terms of emotion and and humor and horror um there's a perspective that is you know a little ripple effects of of trauma uh and people trying to basically open that uh that closed box which is a childhood trauma and facing it in order to you know basically to move on um yeah it had to i think it it's that's that's's what's specific and unique about the story. You know, it's not a horror movie only.

It's a story about characters facing up their real-life fears. What was the most challenging sequence to shoot here? They were, like, you know, very, like, different kind of challenges. Like, technically, probably the blood scene with jessica and the bathroom because it implied like the you know the execution uh of a scene with a lot of technical like difficulties uh and that scene is is divided in like three different sets three or four different sets actually i couldn't figure out how you did any of that yeah i mean either i just erased you from my mind after it's like i like the waiter effect you know you're right you have all this these commands and you you remember the 21 things and

then you after you're you deliver you forgot now i you know it was like it was it was a lot of fun to design and of course uh because you have this scene in your mind, and then you storyboard it, and then you say, okay, this shot and this shot and this shot are made on stage one because that's what we need, but this shot definitely is shot on stage two, which is the same bathroom, but it's built upside down or vertically.

So that transition shot where where beverly like kicks the door and finds ben being buried on the other side is is shot in a vertical uh set which is nothing like the set that is that gets flooded with uh with blood that is one of the most technically challenging scenes and then there were other scenes that were difficult just because of the of the drama you know they were like like more challenging emotionally stressing emotionally uh probably the one in the the quarry after they after all the losers, you know, just after their odyssey against the battle against Pennywise,

they all gather in the quarry. And it's, well, for the people that are listening to this that don't want to spoil it, I won't say what happened, but they just like have a very intense emotional moment in the quarry. And yeah, it was taxing. It was stressing from an emotion for the, for the actors emotional point of view, because they all had to get into that moon.

And also like we're shooting in water, you know, and it wasn't like precisely like a hot, a super like, you know, warm day. So everybody was like uh you know warm day so everybody was like you know sort of like shivering in a lake inside a lake and it was getting uh late so started to be a little cool and also like you know the dramatic intensity that was probably if you ask uh the losers uh they will bring up they will bring that one up you still referring to them as the losers your cast well they're losers in real life man

no i love them it's it's just you know a loser doesn't have like a bad connotation anymore thanks to it chapter one you've redefined it um can you just tell me a little bit about putting peter bogdanovich in as the uh? I enjoyed that one. Yeah, yeah. Where did that come from? Why Peter? Well, I'm a big fan of Peter and his movies, especially Paper Moon is one of my biggest, you know, I'm just a big fan of Paper Moon, favorite movies of all time. And we have a mutual friend, Axel Kuszczewski, who is an Argentinian producer and film, you know, buff. I've known Axel foruszczewski is an Argentinian producer and film buff. I've known Axel for a long time.

And one day he said, I know Peter. We're working on something together. Maybe you should guys meet because you're such a fan. So I was a little scared, of course, because it's such a hero and such an eminence. But we did it. So we went for dinner in a very, very quiet place. Uh, it was a Japanese restaurant on sunset and we had the best time. And, uh, of course I asked him everything.

He regaled you with all the stories? Yeah. To his Orson Welles, did he do all that? Orson Welles wells the cigar in the pocket of the of the robe you know silver shepherd and uh they all laughed and uh paper moon you know and he's like you could go talk you can go for hours with him and precisely because of that i kept like you know getting together with him um and uh one day he's like, well, you don't happen to have a role for an all-director, do you?

Because he's an actor too. Peter, he's an actor. He's great. And I said, you know what? Yes, I do have a role for an all-director, which is the role of the director in the set where Bill Dembro is writing a screenplay. And that's how it happened.

And the scene grew, of course, once he was a little, you know, a couple of lines and then he grew more. And having him on set was just incredible. He came to Toronto. We didn't have to change his costume at all because that's what I wanted. What I did was put him on a crane. So you see him like coming from the heavens, landing there, having like this little conversation. And then, no, take me back to one.

And he goes up again. I loved that. That's fun. Are we going to see the six-hour supercut? Are you going to do that? Yeah. I probably like oversold that one. You know, I got some pushback.

But I think, you know, it's more of an expression of desire than a reality. But I think it will happen. If you don't do it, someone's going to do it. Yeah, that's a great thought, actually. So maybe you could do it under a pseudonym and pretend somebody just uploaded it to youtube you know just think about that well it needs more work than that you know that i want i want like no i want support i want like uh like financial support for it because it's not just like putting the two movies together it's actually it got it's it's editing the two movies back to back but also like uh finding a place for all the

deleted scenes uh that were taken out for the only reason uh they were taken out it was for pacing and length uh so imagine we had a i had a four hours cut of chapter two so that's a you know substantial amount of scenes that are like you know interesting character moments um that i don't i think people won't won't like to to miss now that they know they were shot well so you're the only person that can do this now yeah and i also you know because i get excited with these things i want to shoot a couple more scenes and see the movie the way it is now i imagine like this big big picture of what the whole story is and and make some you know some notes to myself and say oh you know what this scene would be great and this scene so i already have a couple of scenes

of extra scenes the way that uh same way that that spielberg did on close encounters where he had a you know he had a chance actually to reshoot stuff after the movie was uh was uh was released so let's bring it back are you i read on the internet that you're in talks for two very big potential movies one of them is the flash and the other is attack on titan so you're you're a big deal now last time you were here you were a guy who had made Mama, a scrappy, exciting horror movie. Now you made this massive, successful franchise, and so you're much in demand.

One, are you eager to get away from the horror background on the next thing to show you can do something else? I have many interests. Horror will haunt me for the rest of my life, I think. I still think that I have more interests like horror will will haunt me for the rest of my life I think and I still think that there's like I have more to say

in the genre where I I want to have fun exploring it but I have other interests you know as you can see in the movie

in these two movies I you know I lean towards comedy a lot you could probably make a pretty fun The Flash movie. So The Flash, we're talking. We're still in talks with Warner Brothers and DC. And it's a great story.

It's a great property. It's a little too soon to talk publicly about it. Okay. And what else? What's your dream that you've always wanted to do that feels far away for you right now? Could be just genre. It doesn't have to be a property in particular.

Oh, no. I always fantasize about making a musical. So many people here say that. So many filmmakers. Is it just harder to get made? It's not. But, you know, Damien Chazelle made La La Land, and now it's harder to come up with a, oh, I'm going to do a musical.

Because you've got to reach those heights? Yeah, and also, like, he did it first. So it's like, oh, so it's like La La Land with horror. No, no, it's not La La Land with horror. It's a, you know, start this from scratch. It was always love musicals. No, so that's a bit of fantasy. We'll see where it lands.

Because I love musicals and I happen to love horror too. But everything, like mainly anything that makes you, that makes the audience have feelings, intense feelings I love. And, you know, I like to be moved by movies. And, you know, ironically, when I'm watching it too, I can't scare myself because, you know, I know everything that is coming.

But everything that is emotional emotional all the emotional beats uh they still get me you know still at the end of it too i still get goosebumps on that shot on that shot which i'm not gonna say what what it is but it's richie hugging another character it's funny how it works you know it's like um you can't laugh because you know the joke so it doesn't like get you uh uh it doesn't surprise you same with jump scares and you know tension but watching it with an audience is so refreshing you know so gratifying because you finally see the the effects of this thing that was you know created by by your instincts uh and and the work with the writers and everything um but yeah but the you know the feeling that you chase all your life which is like

you know maybe you were imprinted by movies as a kid. It certainly was. That meant a lot for you. Like made you feel things like what, for instance? Jaws. Jaws. Uh,

did you have a strong emotional experience like growing up with another movie? Of course. Oh, with a different movie than Jaws? Yeah. Yeah. With a different one. Sure.

I think I'm, I'm probably not so dissimilar from you. I, The Shining and, uh, and Star Wars and. Yeah. different one sure i think i'm i'm probably not so dissimilar from you i the shining and uh and star wars and yeah indiana jones and did you see the uh black stallion oh yes black stallion is incredible movie like stallion definitely uh left an imprint on me and that's a beautiful is that caleb de chanel has shot that one yeah yeah that's a great one uh Never Ending Story meant so much to me and I you know those these are not horror movies but you know the the I remember the feelings uh the emotions you know uh the goosebumps and like

you know when something goes straight to your heart so that's something that i still like still motivates me whatever it is horror or comedy or musical whatever i think that that that is something that you should include in your story uh because um it's just incredible to feel that magic you know from something that was made by hand, like handmade. That's why I like movies. Well, let me ask you as a segue, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen? You've been traveling the world, pitching your movie all over the place, but have you seen any movies recently? No, you know, that's, well, it's tricky because post-production is like 10 hours a day

watching a screen. And that takes you away from watching films for, you know, as a recreational activity. So, no, I didn't stop watching but I definitely watched watched less have you seen anything that wowed you I saw Midsommar

not too long ago it was great yeah from one horror guy to the next what did you make of that movie it's great it's like I appreciate so much

his like twisted sense of humor I see the humor there people can probably say that there is no humor in it but every he's he combines like on the on the on the most savage moments and brutal moments there's always like a you know there's a wink there that i that i appreciate and uh yeah and you know i i appreciate that he built up you know how he builds up tension in very unorthodox ways. So he's very original in that sense, Harry.

Hereditary was the same. I think it was phenomenal. What else did I see lately? I'm blank right now. I'll get you back. I'll get back to you like in three hours. No worries.

I think Midsommar in chapter two double feature would be fairly intense. So thank you for coming back, Andy. Sean, thank you so much and let's see you soon. Thanks to Andy Mischetti.

Let's go to my conversation with Jason Concepcion breaking down It Chapter 2. Delighted to be rejoined by Jason Concepcion. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Did you see a movie It Chapter 2 this weekend? I did, and it was punishing. Well, that can be perceived in two different ways. Let's start here. What did you think of It Chapter 1? it was punishing. Well, that can be perceived in two different ways.

Let's start here. What did you think of It Chapter One? It was okay. You know, the jump scares, I thought, were the most effective part of the movie. I kind of like the stand-by-me, kind of like coming-of-age vibe, and the scares were decent. I liked it much better than it chapter two, which carries the burden of having to land the arcs of these characters, not just as adults now,

but also as children and seemingly has to do that sequentially in order. And it just becomes a slog. let me ask you this. Do you have fealty to Stephen King stories? You do love Stephen King. So you've read it. I have. Was it many years ago?

Was it recently? Many years ago. And I went back when it chapter, when it one came out, I checked back in with it just to kind of see where it was and, and recall the infamous scene in which all the characters as children have sex in the sewer yes um did you anticipate that scene the child orgy coming in this movie i didn't i think the thing to remember about it is stephen king was in the throes of a decades-long

alcohol and drug addiction at the time he was writing this. This is towards the end. He cleaned up like late 80s, like around misery era. But he was absolutely deep in it when he wrote it. He's famously said he couldn't remember writing Cujo at all. So in that sense, you could look at it, a story about these kids who call themselves losers and then beat a demon clown and then return years later as adults to the same town to do it all again. As really like an extended therapy metaphor, you know, it's like reframe your trauma.

That's the way they beat the clown spoiler at the end is by essentially reframing his evil and his terrifyingness so that they then have the power and the ability to destroy him and it's and it's about taking that thing that hurt you and returning to the scene of the crime and conquering it and going on with your life in that sense that's kind of an interesting idea but like a three-hour extended metaphor for for therapy with like a demon crab clown chasing uh bill hader around it's not that it's just not that great a movie on the one hand i thought this movie is actually not weird enough because it's not as loyal to the core text because you know in the in the book there is this mythical turtle right that is significant to the storytelling and some of the

things that they lean on in this movie to kind of explain the mythology the mythos of pennywise the dancing clown i found to be a little bit rote a little bit too sort of like obvious horror movie tropey. Yeah. And on the other hand, it is a movie that features a giant CGI crab clown fighting Bill Hader, which I don't think we can underestimate as an absolutely bizarre thing that happened at a mega blockbuster. I gotta say, I agree with you with not weird enough. And then the places where the movie is strange

kind of like undercut its ability to shock you. Example, I had a hard time, like a lot of the themes of this movie deal with like disorientation and like these characters don't have their memories of childhood anymore. They're trying to regain them. So they don't quite know where they are. And the return to Derry is a journey for discovery where they're all of a sudden recalling things that happened. But like stuff that happens in the real world, seemingly there's like no consequences.

You know, like Richie kills a guy in the library and no police. No one wants to talk about it with them. Nothing. It has the feel of a lot of Stephen King stories in that respect, which is that almost every story kind of feels like a fever dream or maybe a kind of a hangover dream, you know, where because of what you're saying that a lot of those King classics were written in the depths of addiction. There is a kind of like mania and anti-logic happening in

a lot of the stories. Inevitably, what happens, though, is when you make a movie and you literalize something on screen, people say, this has to make sense. I have to understand why this happened. And I think you made a really smart point, which is that one of the struggles of the movie, and this is a function of its two hour and 49 minute runtime, which is quite long, is that it sequentializes those problems. And so inevitably, you have to look at every single character, and they all have to overcome their fears individually in order to overcome Pennywise. And that just means you get the same scene six times in a row. You get an adult person reflecting on a scary part of their childhood and then facing down a CGI monster.

But then there being no ramifications for whatever happened with the CGI monster showdown. In fact, it's a little hard to understand even what's happened. The rules are very obscure. How to defeat this clown is something I was trying to figure out up until the very end. Mike has stayed in Derry and has just been researching the issues there, the clown. And he comes up with this like Native American kind of like dream catcher box that they then have to use to perform some kind of ritual where they're all together.

And then that ends up not mattering in the slightest bit towards beating the clown. Yeah, there's a lot of like weird, uh, leaps of logic and I haven't beating this clown is like an absolute mystery until the very end. And then it's know just about the obviousness a lot of times of his plot and i think that's the strength of stephen king's writing is that he can take the dumbest premise it's stupid premise you know cars come to life uh rabid dog traps you in your car haunted house makes writer go crazy like travel back to in time and stop the jfk assassination through like a time portal in the back of a restaurant unexplained he takes these really simple premises and absolutely devotes um everything to committing to the realness of them and i think that's hard to do on screen without it seeming kind of cheesy sometimes. And I think that's why maybe some of King's horror adaptations are really not bit in which Stephen King appears and says, this lamp is evil. You got to trust me. It's an evil lamp. That's the bit.

It's an evil lamp. And everything that he pitches could potentially be perceived as ridiculous or absurd or kind of thin, but by over committing to it, you buy into it and you get connected to it. You know, the other thing is we're a couple of guys approaching middle age yeah and um we read those books when we were young and we have a sense memory an emotional connection to a lot of king's work and inevitably when you try to translate the wonders of your childhood you get disappointed i think we've had that time and again you know you obviously have committed so much time to game of thrones and understanding it and these things often let us down then the other thing is the first film had a different kind of expectation.

The It miniseries that aired on ABC back in the day, or maybe it was NBC, I can't recall, was beloved, but it's kind of tacky. Yeah, you look back at it, it scared the life out of me at the time. And I look back at it recently, I was like, oh man, this is not scary. It's not scary. It's not even very good. Yeah. But the new film, the first chapter in the first film, is scrappy and creative, and it's got a pretty modest budget for a film of this size. And it went on to have this extraordinary success, the most successful R-rated movie, I think, of all time.

That's amazing. And the King revival is in full mode right now. And so I think even though there are some things in the first film that don't necessarily work, it doesn't have a lot of CGI in it. The scares are pretty effective. It's faithful enough to the text while also shedding some of the things

that would be really hard to put on screen. And unfortunately, I think it really stood alone. It felt like a standalone story because the writers and the director took the two parallel parts of that book and separated them. So the first film is just all kids and the second film is 15 to 20% kids and 80% adults.

And inevitably, you then get this comparison between the kids and the adults in the second film that is a little bit of a struggle. I wanted to know what you the anal retentive one who's now does insurance. And then. Ziggy, James Ransom. Who we remember from The Wire. And then Bev, Jessica Chastain, who's dealing with issues of abuse and trauma that stem from her childhood. Mike, who's like the crazed loner who just wants to solve this on and on. And it's only Hader who like kind of breaks out and is able through his comedian character to kind of like comment on how absurd things are at the time you know whatever is going on and he really injected a lot of life into every scene that he was in and the rest of it is just kind of laid there lank um unimpressive which is

unfortunate you know you wanted more from there's that scene in the Chinese restaurant when they get together for the first time and they're all kind of like regaling each other with memories that are kind of coming to the surface and laughing about things they did when they were kids. And it's so unimpressive. And it should be great. It's pretty faithful to the book too.

I feel like the book has a sequence that is very similar to that one. And on the one hand... That should be the heart of It Chapter 2, should be that connection, these characters back together, the warmth they feel for each other, the memories they share,

and that one kind of golden but also tragedy-tinged summer, and just appreciating that. And it feels kind of soap opera-y and not great enough. Were you distracted at all by the inequity amongst the cast? Because on the one hand, you've got James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain, who are huge stars. Huge stars. And you've got Bill Hader, who obviously we love.

He's in the ringer hall of fame for myriad reasons but also is now as the star of barry award nominated and considered to be like one of the most exciting creative people in hollywood right now that's a really strong trio then you have the james ransomes of the world who's a really good actor who's done a lot of good work on series television and independent film. And then you have two other people. You've got Isaiah Mustafa, who was the old Spice guy. Yeah. And you've got the other guy whose name I don't know.

Ben. Jay Ryan. Played by Jay Ryan. It's just distracting when we have to credibly believe that Jessica Chastain is potentially in love with Jay Ryan, who's a person I've not seen before and I have a movies podcast, and Isaiah Mustafa, who actually I thought is not bad in the film, who gives a pretty good performance, but does not have the same level of credibility that somebody like James McAvoy has. Regardless of how you feel about James McAvoy, he's the star of Split. It's a little bit elementary to say these guys aren't as famous as these guys,

but I couldn't get out of my head. Yeah, I think there is something to that, especially with the kind of weight that particularly J. Ryan's character, Ben, like had to carry in the arc. There's this kind of like love, light love triangle thing with him and Bill. And then there's, you know,

I think a good symptom of what you're talking about is the moment, again, spoiler, towards the end of the film in the midst of that like interminable battle with Pennywise in the sewer where Ben like recites his poem that he wrote as a child. Your hair is like winter fire embers, January embers, something shades of the red woman. And he's like, your hair is like winter fire and real laughter in the audience at the arc light dome.

And not, I think what they were going for. And I think that is a symptom of the thing you're talking about. There's just not. It was hard to buy into a chemistry between these two characters. And I think that went all the way down to the casting. You couldn't buy them together. What is the King movie that you think got his tone the most right? Oh, well, it's not a, like, Stand By Me is amazing.

Shawshank. Like, his non-horror short story stuff is, for any of the King heads out there, his best stuff. Best, best, best. Like, incredible characters characters understands the importance of that one special summer to like kids like stand by me is an is incredible to read number two on my list and shawshank is incredible to read i think those two are my favorites and then it's like the shining is amazing not at all faithful to the book yep um but gets the vibe and the metaphor of like madness of of like diving so hard into a thing and isolating yourself from your family that you

lose it is there any of them that are supernatural that you think work because that is the thing that i have been thinking about a lot with it chapter two is not it's not just that you read a book when you're 11 and you can imagine the entire world and you can accept the mythical turtle and you can buy into Pennywise the Dancing Clown. It's that this stuff is just really hard to translate. And the scariest movies often don't show you the thing. And this is a movie that has to show you the thing over and over and over again.

I think Carrie really nails it, but much easier. You know, De Palma, like, throwing fireballs, a really bracing story about coming of age and being an outsider, and just the acting is, like, off the charts by Sissy Spacek. And a really shock ending. I think that's the one that really nails it. And then the rest of them, well, you know, The Mist is very good. Yeah, we talked about that last week.

We love The Mist. The Mist is very, very good. Again, not really faithful to the King short story, which is in Monkey Shines, I believe. Yes. And opening story in Monkey Shines, that story is kind of like the end of it. Actually, the end is very similar

in which the characters are kind of like going down the highway and they just see these massive creatures like roaming the landscape and no one knows what to do. The Mist movie is more of like a shock twist ending, which is a gut punch. Incredibly, it works really well. Yeah, but that one. So it would be Carrie, The Mist, Shawshank and Stand By Me for me. These are all those are all on my top five. Those are the ones that work best for me. With the exception of The Mist, those movies are mostly not deeply supernatural.

Is there a King story that you've always wanted to see on screen that you've never seen? Allow me to pitch you now, Hollywood executives. Eyes of the Dragon. I don't know this one. Eyes of the Dragon, 1984 Stephen King fantasy novel. This is why I don't know this one. Eyes of the Dragon, 1984 Stephen King fantasy novel. This is why I don't know it. In the kind of stand universe, Randall Flagg is not explicitly the villain, but there's enough detail in there that you're like, oh, it's about a character who it's set in this kind of like medieval fantasy world who gets accused of a crime and locked in a tower and for years and years and years very

shawshank lots of shawshank vibes and he engineers a daring and incredible escape from that tower to bring down the people who uh who out. And it's a brisk read. It's 326 pages and it is like any king goes fast. So it goes really fast. And listen, fantasy is bigger right now. Turn this into a one or two season Netflix show. Get at me. It's very, I love it. It's very, very, very good. It's like shades of Rapunzel meets Shawshank. It's great. Okay. I love that recommendation.

If you're not already subscribed to Binge Mode, you got to do that right now. Star Wars season coming soon. We won't put a date on it. Won't put a date on it. If you are not subscribed to the Ringer's YouTube channel and not watching NBA Desktop every week during the NBA season, you're a fucking moron.

What else do you have to pitch? NBA Desktop. Let's see. Coming soon. What else do you have to pitch? NBA desktop. Let's see. Coming soon, that's it. That's really it, man. I'm deep in Star Wars research right now. Okay, maybe we'll have you back to talk a little bit of Star Wars soon. Just watched The Last Jedi, and it's good.

I got to say, Adam Driver is good. That guy kicks ass. Listeners of this podcast know that The Last Jedi and Adam Driver are both very high on our list. Jason, thanks for being here. Thank you. Thank you to my trio of guests today. Of course, Amanda Dobbins

on The Oscars show, Jason Concepcion, and director Andy Muschietti. Please stay tuned to The Big Picture later this week. Amanda and I will be breaking down the career of one Jennifer Lopez, And then after that, we'll have a conversation

with the director of the very exciting new movie Hustlers, Laureen Scafaria. So stay tuned.