The Big Picture - Why ‘Where’d You Go, Bernadette’ Fell Prey to the Summer Box Office Slump. Plus: Making ‘Ready or Not’ With Radio Silence | The Big Picture

Episode Date: August 20, 2019

‘Blinded by the Light’ struggled in what was another slow weekend at the box office, while ‘Good Boys’ broke the trend of superhero and franchise-IP movies dominating 2019. We discuss that, the late-breaking news that Annapurna’s debt will be paid off by Larry Ellison, and ‘Where’d You Go Bernadette’—Richard Linklater’s latest film (2:00). Then, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, and Chad Villella—collectively known as Radio Silence—join the show to share their collaborative creative process in making their ‘Ready or Not’ (41:31). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, and Chad Villella Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by NHTSA. If you think drunk driving is no big deal, you couldn't be more wrong. You could get in a crash, people could get hurt or killed, and you can get arrested, incur huge legal expenses, or even lose your job. So next time you plan on drinking, make sure you plan ahead. Designate a sober driver or use a ride service to get home safely. Drive sober or get pulled over. I'm Sean Fennessy.

And I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation about where Bernadette went. Where'd she go, Amanda? That's a great question. There are many answers to that. There are. We're going to get into those questions and answers. Well, maybe some of the answers, not all the answers necessarily.

Frankly, I think the answer is very obvious. That's the problem, but we'll get there. Good point. Later in the show, I'll have a conversation with the filmmaking trio Radio Silence. They have a new action thriller horror comedy called Ready or Not that is a really, really fun film coming from Fox Searchlight this week. So stay tuned for that. But first, Amanda's back from vacation. Amanda, how was Hawaii? Hawaii is a great state. Yeah, you enjoyed it? It was a lovely time. We were on the island of Kauai, which is always beautiful. I recommend it. Thank you to everyone in Kauai, including Pierce Brosnan, who was there. Wow. We didn't see him, but he lives on Kauai. And we were definitely like using his Instagram to, you know, go to various beaches. And there was like a new market that opened.

You IG stalked Pierce Brosnan? Yeah, pretty much. You know who actually did was my husband because he was like, I'd like to go to this market where because Pierce Brosnan and Jason Momoa were hanging out together. Oh, my gosh. On the island, like on the North Shore where we were. And then my husband was like, we got to go see what this is about. You think those two guys are friends?

We were trying to figure this out, actually. Have they been in a movie together or is it just kind of famous people on the North shore of Hawaii kind of come together? They had played golf, which I think also sparked my husband's interest. They had both played golf, but we don't know if they had played together. No, they played golf together and then they were having drinks afterwards. This is fascinating. At PV Market on the North Shore, which is new. You know what this means? Yeah. This means Lisa Bonet was also in Hawaii, which is just fantastic. Didn't see her. What a shame. Anyhow, we're here to talk about movies and movie stars. This weekend was an interesting weekend at the box office.

And here's why. A movie that it was not a sequel and not a superhero movie was number one. And it was not Blinded by the Light, the Bruce Springsteen ode from Gurinder Chadha, who we spoke to last week. And it was not the aforementioned Where'd You Go Bernadette, Richard Linklater's new movie. It was a movie called Good Boys, which I'm almost 1,000% certain you have not seen.

I haven't seen it in part because you waved me off it. I saw this movie at South by Southwest, and I just didn't think it was great. I didn't think it was bad. I just didn't think it was great. And on the other hand, when I saw our boss, Bill Simmons, sharing his son Ben's takes on the movie, I realized that, of course, there is a huge market for a movie like Good Boys. And that market is 13-year-old boys, which is the audience of many movies. In fact, the most successful movies in the world are seen by 13-year-old boys.

So I shouldn't be surprised by this weekend's outcome. I assume you weren't either. No, I think it was very clearly not for me, which is fine. Movies are for different people. It's one of the joys of living in this current age is that there's something for everyone. It was very clearly not my interest. And it's also not surprising that the thing for 13-year-old boys made money. That's the world we live in. And this is just kind of like a very clarified version of that. Yeah. And it seemed like a particular underline beneath the struggles of Booksmart, you know, which is theoretically shooting at the same audience, but didn't quite have the same level of success. Now, there may be some reasons for that. There may have been some marketing differences between, say, they sold Booksmart versus how they sold Good Boys. There may have been some gender differences. I haven't seen the demographic breakdowns of these two movies,

but whereas Good Boys is basically super bad, but pre-high school, Booksmart was super bad, but female. And I think that that's at least notable. Yes. I read one box office breakdown that said it was over 50% men who went to see this movie, which is not surprising. Seems plausible. I don't want to, I think the numbers speak for themselves. I would not underplay the gender difference in this. And I think, I love Ben Simmons and I'm glad he had a great audience i think there's probably a number of reasons for that i it's possible that there's a little bit of a classic

rock fatigue thing happening in the afterglow of queen you know rocket man did well but not great this movie did not do well here it actually didn't do that great in england either which is notable because it's an english production it's english filmmakers english actors and you know bruce obviously does not appear in the movie, nor does a person who looks like Bruce appear in the movie. But the struggles of a movie like that too are kind of notable, even though that movie does, I don't know if it has necessarily classical comparisons.

But Where'd You Go Bernadette is where we're going to focus our energy for most of this conversation. And I did read that this is the lowest wide release of Richard Linklater's career Richard Linklater of course the director of Dancing Confused and Slacker and the Before Trilogy and a myriad of other incredible films honestly he's really one of my favorite filmmakers and I come to this movie not having read the novel by Maria Semple I come to it blind other than knowing that it was supposed to come out a year ago. And then it was supposed to come out in the spring.

And then it ultimately came out in August, which historically is never a good sign for a movie. It comes to us now. And I'm going to say right at the top, I liked it. I enjoyed it as well. I think I both understand the aura of problem or disaster movie that was surrounding it. I think there are parts of it that really work and parts of it that really don't work. You can see that you can see the struggle of adapting on the screen in real time. And we should talk a little bit about the text. It's a particularly difficult book to adapt because it's made of, it's not written in

a linear narrative way. It's emails and faxes and diary entries. And it's basically an epistolary novel, but from several different people simultaneously and in chunks and in several different formats. So you can see all of that happening. I thought it was really interesting. I spent a lot of time thinking that it was made with a lot of care and that if they made all such movies, I thought a lot about Netflix movies during this that don't seem to be made with the level of craft and thought and time that's put into this. You could see that people were really trying hard to make this work. And maybe it didn't totally come together, but I felt the effort.

So help me understand, having read the book, if you think that the things that did not work about the film, and it's a mixed bag. It was definitely more positive than negative to me. I can see that there are some sort of narrative strands that don't work. There's some tonal things every once in a while you're watching it.

What kind of movie is this trying to be? Can't quite put your finger on it. But from the book perspective, is it just because adapting an epistolary novel is so difficult in this narrative format? Or is it because they made some significant changes to the text that then kind of shunted the story? Because that's what I've sort of absorbed, that there have been some, they made some choices against the core text that

then hurt the movie they did make some major choices specifically i'd forgotten there was a whole subplot in the book about the lg character who is played by billy crudup in the movie having an affair with the uh the admin as she's called su lin who is also in the movie but has a much reduced character and she's a lot more present in the book. And that becomes an aspect of it. I had completely erased that from my memory of the book, so I didn't experience it as like a major loss. The big difference to me is that the book is a satire

and it gets to the emotional place that this movie does as well, but it's coming at it from essentially the opposite perspective. I thought I was surprised that Richard Linklater decided to make a movie about, you know, artists and creativity and finding yourself through it, because that's certainly a theme in the book. But it's at no point does anyone say, I'm an artist and I need to create, which is the worst dialogue ever said. Anytime anyone has to proclaim themselves an artist,

you are not an artist, in my opinion. But it's clear that that's what he related to and developed in the movie. The novel is much more about a family. Interesting. So yeah, I mean, let's talk just very plainly about what the movie is about. It's about a woman named Bernadette Fox, played by Cate Blanchett, who is an architect who has not really worked in 20 years. And Bernadette hasn't worked for a long time because she finds herself in what we can't quite tell is either sort of a personal crisis or she's just decided to recede from society a little bit. Has she developed agoraphobia?

Does she have mental illness? Is it more of just this kind of block around what she can do because of the disappointments of previous projects that she has worked on? And so it is a portrait of a family, mostly Bernadette. And I guess the thing that has been explained to me is that Bernadette kind of vanishes for a long stretch of the book. And she doesn't really vanish for much of this film. Yes and no. I think that's a I know that that's been the talking point. And it's a bit of a simplification. She does go missing

at the beginning of the book and technically in in the movie, she does as well, because it starts with like the Antarctica snowcaps. And it's like, I think my mom went away because X, Y, Z. And the book is framed similarly. It is primarily told as a narration from the perspective of Bea. And Bea being like, here's what happened. And here's how my mom went missing. And then as much of, there was a lot of narration and then there are also chunks of the emails from Bernadette, say to Manjula, the virtual assistant

who becomes an identity theft. And it was interesting, I went and reread some of the book last night after seeing the movie and they do take some of those emails verbatim and put them in the movie. When she's dictating, that's written verbatim. But those emails verbatim and put them in the movie when she's dictating that's that's written verbatim but those emails are in the book from the very beginning so you are in

her head throughout and then there are people writing about her contemporaneously so she's missing but it's not like she's not a character she's really present throughout the book obviously as soon as you turn that into a movie, you have to totally. That's one of those things that's really impossible to do in a movie in the same way. So they just make the choice to linear, like, narrativize it. And it's different. But I think that it's more because of perspectives than because of the fact that she's missing. I didn't think it had a major pacing problem.

It's about a hundred minute movie. It's ultimately a character study. It's a little bit of a family story, but it's mostly about this very idiosyncratic, brilliant person. And the themes are not very difficult to surmise. You already mentioned that sort of the life of a creative person is what Linklater has really brought to this story. You have just rolled your eyes at me. I think,

I thought that the collision of creativity and mental health as a conceit is interesting. I think it's a little bit of a difficult conceit to resolve in a 100-minute zippy character study. But that was a case

where I was like, maybe this should have been a six-part miniseries that would have been able to more clearly unpack some of the bigger ideas that this is going for even if that isn't necessarily what Maria Semple was driving at it's okay I mean filmmakers are obviously always identify something in in work and then they extrapolate upon it so I at least liked the idea of approaching those concepts yes I just think that you could feel that it was projected on and then not fully developed within the text. And I think the other thing that is a little underdeveloped in the movie and just because of time is the connection between the mother and the daughter and what it means to be a mother, which is a major theme in the book. And there is a lot more of the

anxiety of the other parents and what it means to fit into like a society or a community of parents, et cetera. And again, the satire really plays into that. And a lot more of anxiety about kind of how Bernadette has shaped Bea and vice versa and how the dad has shaped her. And it seems like that that kind of pops up at the end of the movie. But again, they don't have a ton of time to explore it. And I do think it's all interesting. I think that one of the ways that the book really succeeds is that, you know, it is easy to make fun of like helicopter parents and all of the moms and the Kristen Wiig character who is just as annoying in the book. But you don't often explore the other side of it. And this was written in 2012, which was kind of before the trend of mommy lit, for lack of a better word. And that sounds really pejorative. But I mean, there has been a recent outcrop of books and movies about like being a mom is hard.

And how do you lose yourself? And this came before that and did it pretty smartly, I thought, and without ever being too treacly. And this gets a little treacly, the movie. Yeah, inevitably, what you have to do is take something that happens over and over again in a book because you have this extended period to identify it. And you just have to have one big noisy scene that represents all of those other feelings. So there is this showdown sequence between Cate Blanchett's character and Kristen Wigg's character, and then Bea gets involved. And so like a little bit of an acting showcase,

there's a little bit of the like, no tears fallen, eyes welling moments. There's a big speech from a 13-year-old girl. But it's not subtle. And inevitably when you're reading a book, it starts to accumulate. And this is just kind of like, this is how we feel about this. And then they go to the next scene. Right. The other thing is that when you're writing it, the book allows for the asides and the jokes that kind of undercut the sentimentality of it. And they use those asides in certain parts of the movie, but

you can't really do it when you have to have the big thesis statement scene of like, this is what it means to be a mom, or this is what it means to be an artist, or like, I lost your mom. And so I think it's a tonal imbalance. So the reason the movie really works for me is because it's a movie with Cate Blanchett and Billy Crudup. Yeah. And obviously, in particular, she is just amazing. It's incredible. And I think we might be taking her for granted a little bit. And it's funny when you see somebody like this in an uneven movie and you're like, oh, it doesn't matter.

She just carries it. Like, I don't want to stop watching. Even if there are things about it I don't think are great. And it's pretty, she's pretty incredible. I was astonished by it. I was also uncomfortable, at least for the first third, because I was just like, it is really uncomfortable to watch myself on screen right now. I've like related to a lot of the not wanting to talk to people when she's like, the problem with the cruise ship is that there's 147 other people that I have to talk to and then the dinner table strategizing I was like I've done this in real life but it's it's a magnetic performance it's one of those things where

you watch her and you're just like oh okay so this is what presence is and this is what being a movie star but also a great actor really is yeah I mean I'm just trying to think about her career the last few years has been a little bit strange. These are her last in-person performances because she voiced two characters in Mowgli, Legend of the Jungle, and How to Train Your Dragon, The Hidden World. You know what? You got to fund those Australian theater companies somehow. She's been paying some bills lately because here are some of the other films she was in. The House of the Clock and Its Walls last year, which was a kind of a goofy Eli Roth kids horror

movie that no one saw. Ocean's 8, which I thought was kind of an interesting performance from her, but it's not a good film. It's a misuse of her. That's one of the great problems of that movie is that they don't know what to do with Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett. Should they have flipped roles? Yes. Yeah, that would have been the solution. Thor Ragnarok came before that.

Oh, she's so good in that. Immortal Role as Hela. She's really hamming it up in that movie. That's obviously a paycheck. She's in Song to Song and Voyage of Time, which are two Terrence Malick films. She's the narrator of, uh, Voyage of Time. Have you seen that film? I have not.

Okay. We had a little chat about Terrence Malick while you were on vacation. I don't know if we necessarily need to loop you back in on that one. I haven't caught up yet. I don't know need to loop you back in on that one. I haven't caught up yet. I don't know whether I will. And then just, you know, I guess Carol is probably the last truly great performance we've gotten from her. I don't think that this is necessarily going to be an Oscar-nominated film because there seems to be a lot of weird energy around the movie. I was thinking a lot about The Wife while watching this movie.

Wow. The Wife, the film we've both seen? Yes, the film The Wife while watching this. Wow. The Wife, the film we've both seen? Yes, the film The Wife. Well, an August release, a tremendous leading actress performance, and a movie that a lot of old people have seen. I would say that my Sunday afternoon screening after vacation was, I was one of the younger people in the audience, which is not something I can say usually anymore. She's also, I guess, did she win for Blue Jasmine? She's a two-time winner.

Yeah. She's won for Blue Jasmine and for The Aviator. I could just see it being in the mix. Speaking to your point of do we appreciate her enough? Are we using Cate Blanchett enough? It's a pretty gauntlet-throwing performance. This is a seven-time nominee. Yeah. Cate Blanchett enough? It's a pretty gauntlet throwing performance. This is a seven-time nominee. Cate Blanchett or Cate Winslet? Oh, Blanchett.

Really? Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I don't know if I would have guessed that. I find, I like them both, obviously, and Cate Winslet has been in one of my favorite movies and in many movies that I really enjoy, but I- The Reader? Is that what you're referring to? Yeah. Jesus Christ. Let's not even joke about that. There's the hard edge to Blanchett that I obviously relate to and I'm inspired by. Can I tell you one thing I really liked about

this movie? Yeah. It's obviously about an architect and they do a great job of showing architecture, of showing blueprints, of showing how buildings come to life. I heard recently that there are some complicated descriptions in the book of choices that the character makes that it would be impossible to create. And Linklater actually puts the sort of bifocal, artisanal, artistic creation in the film. He actually goes out and builds some of the things that are described in the book, which I thought was kind of great. It looks really beautiful, at least until the Antarctica stuff, which is like very clear that they're not in Antarctica, but that's OK. No, they're in Minnesota there. Yeah, that's that's fine. But they really that's when I was saying you could tell that they spent time on it.

The sets are beautiful, like the decrepit house they live in. But suddenly, like certain rooms are beautifully designed and like great furniture. She dresses immaculately. They have really put a lot of thought into what this world would look like and what she would be like, which I appreciated. I assume in the book they're a little more on the nose about the house being a metaphor for Bernadette and like her brain and her creativity and everything? They're not more on the nose about it. The movie is far more on the nose than the book because the book just allows for weird diversions.

And there's a lot more time spent making fun of Microsoft. And another way that you can tell this book is written in 2012, because if it were released now, that would definitely be about Amazon. But that's okay. That's a good point. There's a Jeff Bezos joke in here. The one thing that stuck out to me that is, how do I put this, truly insane is the thing that Billy Crudup's character develops called the Samantha 2, which appears to be a decal that you place upon your skull and then reads your mind and allows you to write emails. Now, there's been a lot of talk about the paranoia of big tech companies in this country over the last couple

of years for obvious reasons. Our democracy has been utterly threatened. Nothing could threaten civilization more than a decal that can read my mind. We don't need that. The world does not need that. But in the book, again, when it's satire, he's working on something that's ridiculous, and it's supposed to be a send-up of Silicon Valley. And it is in context. It's also, think about nine years ago in terms of technology. That didn't feel as close. It still felt a little sci-fi and still a little frivolous. And they're like things we don't need. And I agree that it's also just Billy Crudup is so charming in this movie. It's like he's so charming.

He's got one of those faces where every turn is an angle. You know, he's really cut. He's got like, can you work out your face? Is there a way to flex your face? There are many actors who would really benefit from that. But I especially. There are many podcasters who would benefit from that. No, I don't think so.

But he just is also so. There's such a warmth in this, which I actually don't normally expect from him because he's so great at playing that really snaky, handsome villain. Yeah. I think he's really charming. It's not a problem because I liked watching him, but another imbalance in this movie is that he is too likable because kind of what he is doing doesn't make a ton of sense. Yeah, he's a little underutilized in general. He was originally, I think, meant to be more of a leading man. He never quite got off the ground as a leading man. So you're right. He kind of slid into that oily villain role or

sometimes just sort of an untrustworthy type. He plays a lot of lawyers, right? He was a lawyer in Spotlight. You know, that's kind of his. Oh, you like that performance? Yeah, I do. I just I he's also just really good at being like despicable and handsome, which is like it speaks to me. It reminded me a lot of uh 20th century women it's like if the guy from 20th century women grew up and invented something for microsoft and that's a good that's a good lane for him a good vibe for him um let's talk about link later okay wait can i just say one more thing that i there's one thing i really liked about this movie yeah please i really enjoyed the documentary within the movie, which was both like a formal nod to the movie itself, but to the book itself, but also really worked.

Very well done. Yeah. And I was just like, oh, OK. They really tried. I like that. I like when you can just see that someone is like working through a bunch of ideas and maybe not everything works, but that's okay. That's what I was going to say, though, about Linklater, which is that he's got a lot of ups and downs, but this guy is a fucking master. Like he is, you can see he's gotten way more moves than your work-a-day, mid-budget movie director.

He's just way more interested in a lot of different kinds of things, whether that's making a mini documentary inside of his movie featuring Megan Mullally and Steve Zahn and Lawrence Fishburne or actually executing against the architectural plans inside of a novel or creating sculpture inside with glasses. Like his mind and the people that he works closely with over what is now 30 years in the movie business are interested in trying stuff. And even though the entire movie business around the kind of films that he makes is falling apart around him, he's still going for it. And he's still looking for people that are going to help him out. I think one of the anxieties that has surrounded the movie

is that Annapurna funded the movie. Annapurna has been going through this year-long trauma of questioning whether or not it should be a company and whether Megan Ellison burned through all the cash and does she not know what is a movie that makes money, yada, yada. We talk about that kind of stuff on the show all the time, but like, I don't care, just make good movies. Ultimately, that's the thing I'm most interested in. And I appreciate an effort at adapting a great novel with a great filmmaker, with a great actress and trying to make something. It doesn't totally work, but it's the most valiant effort I think I've seen this year.

I would agree with that. Seem reasonable? Yeah. And just a lot of different things to hang on to and discuss, which is another thing that we don't get a lot of. It's just like it's a very rich text of a movie, which brings me to the thing that I want to talk about that I didn't like. Tell me. We can't cast Kristen Wiig in dramas anymore or dramedies. It's just not working for me.

It's distracting every single time. And I know that it's supposed to serve to play into the satire role, but she's kind of a satire of a satire at this point. It's just ever since The Martian, it's a no for me. What should she be doing? Comedy? Like things where she can be funny? Yeah. Because this, even though it is supposed to be comic relief in a way,

the other problem is that she's just mismatched with Cate Blanchett and the Bernadette role. They have different energies. Yeah. And it's just, it's like not even a fight. The scene when they come together is really like, this doesn't work. You know, when they finally agree to like make jokes at each other, that stuff doesn't work. You know, she's had a weird career.

She's obviously really talented. I would put her in the kind of all-time Saturday Night Live. Like, she might be a Mount Rushmore Saturday Night Live person. Absolutely. And so we can never take that away from her. But she's having kind of a funky film career. I just think also there's an association to her being in a movie at this point that it's hard to look past.

She can't just be a character. She's being Kristen Wiig as a character. And that is tough when you're, especially when you're trying to do this delicate balance of, of tones in a movie like Where'd You Go Bernadette? So one of the challenges for you as a movie fan is that her next big part is of course, as the supervillain in Wonder Woman 1984. I'm very concerned. She plays Barbara Ann Minerva. I also just don't like 80s stuff. I don't need movies set in the 80s.

I'm good. I lived through it, sort of. Wow. So I'm... That's a sweeping claim. Well, I've had enough. You know, it's like, how many seasons of Stranger Things

have we had at this point? I know that's a TV show. It's whatever. I just... It's not the reference point that I'm interested in. So I am very concerned about Wonder Woman 1984, even though I loved Wonder Woman.

I love Gal Gadot. I love Chris Pine, who is somehow still alive in this movie that's set 40 years after he died in the first one, whatever. I know that you are officially back from vacation because you are patently dismissing things right out of hand, not even really giving them very much thought. I don't know where Richard Linklater goes from here. He's now made a few movies in a row that nobody saw after Boyhood.

He made Everybody Wants Some, which is just goddamn amazing. And if you haven't seen Everybody Wants Some, you have to go watch that movie right now. You really should. Also, just a great late summer movie. Everybody Wants Some, I'm sure I've told this before. It was a movie that I didn't see because you and Chris,

Ryan, went to see it and were like, it's a real boy movie, but I loved it. Which is sometimes how I can feel about Linklater films. True.

He literally made a movie called Boyhood. Yes. And my husband said the same thing and then I watched it and I was just like, this is just a group of charismatic young men in baseball pants.

It's a bunch of hot guys. Yes. Yeah. It's also how Glenn Powell came to us. That's very true. Always remember that Richard Linklater discovered Glenn Powell. Always with an eye for talent. The actress who plays Bea in this movie, same thing.

It's like, who is that person? Emma Nelson. I've never seen her before. I think this is her first film. Instead of introducing Emma Nelson. She's wonderful. He really has that. And he made Last Flag Flying a couple of years ago and he was on the show talking about it. One, he's obviously just like such a thoughtful, interesting dude. Two, that also was an adaptation of a novel. It was the sequel to The Last Detail. Changed a couple of things, not everything. It's

kind of hard to capture the essence of a story like that. used movie stars. It kind of, it was similarly uneven, and it was similarly bought by a company that hasn't been releasing movies for the last hundred years. That was an Amazon release. He's looking to wherever he can to get sort of the Medici work of big companies that don't realize

that it's hard to sell Richard Linklater movies. You know, I mean, School of Rock is really his only true blue hit. He's just made 10 plus films that people love. You know, Dazed and Confused bombed. You know, the before movies don't have a big audience, even though they're small scale movies. They're all like DVD movies. And so it's interesting to kind of watch.

Well, once upon a time, that was lucrative. It was. It was. But for the most part, even when he's tried to work quote-unquote commercial, I guess Bad News Bears did pretty well too. Though that was a remake. But just having an interesting career. Like, I hope he gets to make 25 more movies.

I'm sure he'll find a way to do so with a small amount of money, but I hope he gets more money. I think in terms of the Medici strategy, it seems like a very smart strategy for Major Linklater, which, again, you have to admire someone who has figured out the system and figured out, I don't even want to say game it, but how best to fit in it and find people who are willing to make his particular type of movie. Because it doesn't make sense for him to do studio stuff. And this movie isn't going to make a ton of money. Do you think people will watch this at home? Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. And that might actually be the right atmosphere for it. I don't think that you lose anything. And so finding his way into that market. But here's the thing. And you've made this point so many times on this show. This is a classic movie where if I watched it at home, I'd be looking at my phone. Yeah.

Because there are some parts that are uneven. There are some parts where I'm like, are you losing me a little bit? Is this totally not quite where I want it to be? And that is usually when I'm like, what's on Twitter? You know, what's going on in Slack right now? And I like the idea of seeing movies like this, even movies that aren't perfect, that aren't great, in theaters and letting them envelop me a little bit more. It's also uncomfortable at times, which again, it might just have been Amanda feeling too close to certain aspects of it. But I was thinking a lot about it.

I want to see it by myself. And this is a particular tone that my husband can't stand. Like he, I don't think, finished Big Little Lies season one because he was just like, this is too uncomfortable. And there is something about the passive aggressiveness and the someone just losing it in real time that is hard to watch. And if you were at home, you can just like, well, I'm done. I've seen enough of this. I don't need to be in this vibe anymore. And if you're in the in the movie theater, you're just on the on the journey. Amanda, I've got some breaking news in front of this. I don't need to be in this vibe anymore. And if you're in the movie theater,

you're just on the journey. Amanda, I've got some breaking news in front of me. Okay. Annapurna update. This is on Deadline.com. Megan Ellison's company nearly out of the woods, quote unquote, last and final offer made to banks. Here's the story. Looks like Hollywood's biggest lenders are about to call off the dogs on Annapurna, Megan Ellison's tastemaker production distribution company. Sources said that Ellison's father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, has submitted a, quote, last and final offer to pay Annapurna's key lenders, offering between 80 cents and 85 cents on the dollar. This is for debt sources placed at north of $200 million that the company defaulted on

through a $350 million credit facility secured in fall 2017. Annapurna, I guess, is saved by Larry Ellison, and thus we will get Where'd You Go Bernadette 2 seeking Bernadette. I mean, this is amazing timing. There's no coincidence that this announcement is being made the Monday after this particular release and the press coverage of this particular movie. Yeah, stay tuned to this podcast as we talk more about, hopefully, Anna Perna's ability to make more movies.

A couple of things that I wanted to talk to you about before we wrap up. One, I think it's important that in our ode to people who have passed that you don't necessarily care about, but hopefully do. I mean, it's Peter Fonda. Yeah, Peter Fonda passed away. I'm not a... Respect to Peter Fonda. Peter Fonda, of course, one of the most important people in the history of American movies.

You may be overstating things by saying that because, frankly, he was not in a lot of movies that people loved. Though he was in and wrote Easy Rider, which changed movie culture forever. A movie that just celebrated its 50th anniversary. Obviously, the story of two motorcycle-riding drug dealers who traversed the land in search of cocaine and money. It's amazing that a movie with that logline changed American culture, but it really did. He was Oscar-nominated for that script. He also was Oscar-nominated for his performance in 1997, Ulysses Gold. He had an interesting movie career as an actor. He was, of course, Henry Fonda's son, Jane Fonda's brother, and the father of Bridget Fonda.

But he was mostly in car chase movies and motorcycle movies and westerns. And he made a kind of, he made an effort towards a kind of like indie masculinity that is kind of gone now. And it's interesting to think of him, I think most people our age think of him as the Ulysses Gold guy, you know, that like showed up at the Oscars in 1998 and really was hoping he was going to get that late career nod and he didn't win. He also has had some, you know, quite aggressive political opinions in the last couple of years. And I think that colored some of the way that people saw him, but just an extraordinarily important guy. And I don't think movies in America would be what they are now without him. There's several books written, especially Easy Riders and Raging Bulls by Peter Biskin,

which I would encourage anybody to read if they haven't. No, he invented a certain archetype that if anyone who was trying to copy the archetype is just the most annoying person in the world. But like as Peter Fonda, he was pretty singular. Truly. So we say adieu to him. He had a great life and a great career. Quick nod to Richard Williams, a really important animator in the history of movies. He is the guy responsible for blending the animation with Robert Zemeckis and Who Framed

Roger Rabbit. He also had a long career as a title sequence guy. He did the title sequences for the Pink Panther movies, for Casino Royale in the 60s, a number of different films. He's got this great movie from the 90s that Miramax botched called The Thief and the Cobbler. If you're interested in animated films, I would encourage you to seek out The Thief and the Cobbler. Let's close the show here, though. Did you watch the Little Women trailer? Yes, I did. And then it was shown before Where Do You Go, Bernadette, which I thought was an understanding of audiences. So I chatted about the trailer with Chris on this podcast,

and I will admit I was a little dismissive. I haven't listened to this, actually. And I think for the sake of my relationship with you and with Chris, I'm not going to listen to it. Okay, fair enough. Though I will say, I have a sense of what you guys said. What did I say? Well, I'd like to start this with a

question. I'm closing my computer for this. Can you tell me, Sean Fennessey, can you tell me the plot of Little Women? No, not at all. Okay, right. So I received a text while I was on vacation, thanks to most everyone for respecting my vacation, but I received a text from a good friend of mine who also happens to be married to chris ryan and she she was upset because chris had accused her of spoiling an aspect of little women which because there is a major uh event in little women that i guess i'm not going to spoil for you i'm torn with this thanos and little women it's it's very frustrating because little women to a certain group it's like it's like spoiling the Bible.

You know, I mean, Little Women is not as good as the Bible and Little Women has its problems as well. Not as good as the Bible. Put that on the book jacket. You know, but it's a text that a lot of people are taught. It's kind of like you can't. I was once accused of spoiling Jane Eyre in a blog post. And I was like, can you really spoil Jane Eyre at this point? There's a woman in the attic.

I don't know what to tell you. You have a different relationship to spoiler culture than most people. Sure. You are more of a spoiler nihilist. But Jane Eyre is a text that it's part of the canon. Little Women is part of the canon. Well, I know. And that's frustrating to a certain group of people.

I will also say after receiving this text, I asked my husband if he could recite the plot of Little Women and he could not. And then I asked him to name, can you name the four Little Women, Sean? Joe. Okay. Can I just say, when I asked, I prompted my husband, what about Joe? And he goes, is that Timothee Chalamet? No, I know Joe is one of the women. Joe, Mary?

No. Little Rhonda? Okay. Bernadette? Okay. So here's the thing is that obviously this is not a formative text for you and that's okay. Yeah. That's fine because we all, as we have learned, as we discussed at the beginning of this podcast and throughout these podcasts, different formative texts for different people. Little Women is a pretty formative text for a lot of women. And then the 1994 movie was a pretty formative movie for a lot of women. I forgot when we were doing our Sense and Sensibility podcast that in the diary, the shooting diary that Emma Thompson wrote, the success of the 1994 Little Women is one of the reasons that people were so keen to make Sense and Sensibility in all of the Austin movies in 1995. This movie being made in general is a big deal.

Greta Gerwig doing it with her Greta Gerwig sensibility is a big deal. The cast, Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Timothee Chalamet, all in one. Emma Watson. It's that Emma, right? Not into Emma Watson, but okay. Me either. That's why I was like, is it that Emma? I don't think.

But Meg is the throwaway character. By the way, their names are Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. Cool. Yeah. And like Mary Jo Beth Williams, the actress. Yeah, sure. Okay. And it also just looks fantastic.

Yeah. What I said on the podcast was not mean-spirited. It was just, if I could have had my choice, I would have preferred Greta would make a movie in contemporary times. Because I think she has a keen sense for contemporary times. And Little Women is not a book I've read, and it's not a text that is that important to me. I will watch the movie, certainly. I suspect we will talk about it like 400 times here. It was more just like, I saw the trailer and I was like,

that looks like an adaptation of Little Women to me. I wasn't like, that looks like a Greta Gerwig movie. Right, but that's like me saying like, I wish that comic, they, instead of making a comic book movie, they just made like a real life movie, which I feel all of the time, but you know. Sure, though the context that we're describing here, I think is, was Oscar season.

And it was sort of like, what are the films that are coming up that we're really excited about? It wasn't like the mitigating emotional reality of, is Endgame going to be actually good? Or is it going to be comic book movie good? It was like, this is Greta Gerwig. She made Lady Bird. You and I both, that's like a top three movie of the year when it came out. So the scales are different to me.

Sure. I think you should just open your mind to the fact that it not being contemporary or it being set in, it's the Civil War is when Little Women is set, just because you don't know that because you've never read it. I don't. But that is not a discriminating or like a deal breaker for a lot of people. Also, by the way, like Spielberg made Lincoln and it's like it's just there are the circumstances in which right the final thing that I would say is that I heard more about this trailer from people in my life than I have about anything it was very well received but but not even people who like my friends who don't listen to this podcast or who don't like really read the internet were texting

me to be like this looks so good I'm so about this. And they are all women and they were all very excited about it. So I. Sounds good. I'll check it out. Okay. Which is not how I want it to feel, but it doesn't really matter what I think because I am but a barnacle on the ever-moving ship of Greta Gerwig's career. Great. Fair enough? I accept that. Let's put that on your Twitter profile. Amanda, it's good to have you back.

Thanks, Sean. Now let's go to a conversation with the gentleman from Radio Silence. Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by M&M's. Watching a movie is nothing without a bag of your favorite treats. And what better way to take your treats to the next level than with the new M&M's Hazelnut Spread Chocolate Candies. M&M's Hazelnut Spread Candies bring you a delicious combo of hazelnut spread and milk chocolate in every bite-sized piece. M&M's Hazelnut Spread is going where no hazelnut spread has gone before, right inside of M&M's Chocolate Candies. If you love M&M's Chocolate Candies and you love Hazelnut Spread, just wait until you try these together for the first time. They've added a delicious spread to the center of smooth M&M's Milk Chocolate and Crunchy Candy Shell. Enjoy

them on their own or use them to dress up your favorite treats. Just imagine them baked into a cookie or sprinkled on top of your favorite ice cream. I, in fact, have had hazelnut spread M&Ms and I have loved them. I had them recently while I was watching the movie Where'd You Go, Bernadette, which we're talking about on this week's episode of The Big Picture.

So go hazelnutty and try the new M&Ms hazelnut spread chocolate candies today. I'm delighted to be joined by Radio Silence. They have a new film called Ready or Not in theaters tomorrow. I'm going to let them introduce themselves since they are in fact a trio. Let's start with you, Tyler.

I'm Tyler Gillette. This is what I sound like. And I'm Matt Bettinelli-Alpin. And this is what I sound like. And I'm Chad Villella. And this is what I sound like. I was a little smoother than you. It'll be a higher pitch and we're excited.

I have not done many three-man interviews. And I like that you guys wanted to come in as a team. You operate as a team. You've made films as a team over the years. There's other members of the teams that you have worked with over the years too. Can you just give me like how this happened, how this came together? Because you guys have been working together for 10 plus years. You've been a group for since what, 2011 now? So how did you all meet and come together to become creative partners?

We actually started working together in the digital space and we had designed this kind of DIY film school. It was, it was first, it was a foursome and then it was a fivesome. And we started just, um, shooting, shooting everything, using the money that what little we had in our pockets and the friends that we had, you know, who were willing to come out and any cold pizza and, and play with us for a few days. But we learned the filmmaking process together from, from soup to nuts, everything from the writing to the sound mixing to the, to the craft service. And it was this, um, all hands on deck process that, um, certainly, certainly we over the course of, of working together for 10 years have, um, have learned how to, how to continue to collaborate

and evolve and do bigger things. But, um, yeah, we, there was, it was almost 11 years ago, 10, 10 years ago that we first started working together. And,

and, um, it's that, that alchemy has, has lasted and has been a part of our creative careers ever since. Was the goal long-term to be studio filmmakers? Was that what you really wanted? It was.

We like wanted from, from day one, we were like, we want to make movies. And we actually stopped making stuff on YouTube right when YouTube became very profitable. So we made no money there, and then we're a team, so we continued that. I had some questions about that.

It's not good for your pocketbook when you have a big group, but it is a lot of fun. Yeah, and if you look at our early YouTube stuff, it wasn't like traditional YouTube stuff. We weren't just talking heads. We actually tried to get some production value into our shorts. Even though they were only like three minutes long or four minutes long, we wanted to be able to tell like a well-structured story in that space.

And I think that's what we did, right? Like we had exactly. and I think that's what we did right like we exactly yeah the first real like thing that took off was a comedy alien prank that had like everybody the reaction was really great because everybody was like holy shit I was laughing and then also I got really scared and I almost fell out of my seat this is a legendary youtube video this is a like for a lot of people the first youtube video that they saw I think think, that you guys made. It was very early. Right?

Yeah. So was the goal there, was it sort of like we're doing these things because they entertain us? Was it more like this is a reel so that somebody will give us money to do something? Why were you using YouTube? They were entertaining us. And I think at the time we wanted to like capitalize on a lot of the prank videos that are out there because they're just like people pranking their friends. And it was like, okay, cool. Like that could be, you know be so entertaining for only so long.

And then actually having something real happen in it was, I think that sent us on one trajectory, which led to VHS, because we did the alien prank, we did the mountain devil prank, and then Brad Miska reached out and we were able to be a part of VHS and just stay in that space of these bumbling guys walking through and on a house. I don't think that, I mean, while certainly making features was always a goal on the horizon for us, we were never,

the stuff that we were making, we were always making it because we loved it. And it felt like we couldn't not make it, including VHS, by the way, which we had no idea was going to get into Sundance. Like we produced our short just like we produced everything we had before it, you know, just on a dime and really fast. And it was just about kind of getting together and hanging out with our friends ultimately. Our litmus test has always been, do we like this?

And if we do, let's do it. Like that's been from day one till now, you know, and it's like, it's something that we hope we can keep doing because that's why we like it. Can you guys take me back to that period in particular, the sort of VHS period? Because there was a, I guess, indie horror, for lack of a better word, moment that was identified, codified in a way. Was it good to be a part of that? Was that exciting? Were there downsides to kind of coming up into the moviemaking business at that exact time? I mean, it was definitely exciting because we were sort of like the last guys on the team for VHS,

you know, like Brad, Chad was saying, Brad brought us in at the very end. We did this thing that we had no idea that it was going to become what VHS became. And so we didn't even meet all the other like filmmakers until we got to Sundance. And then it was like, oh, now we're like hanging out with all these like people. Yeah. Really look up to. People we love. And we're like, wow, this is, this is wild. Um, and then those people have all become our friends.

And like, they're the people that we still use as like, Hey, can you check out the movie and tell us what sucks so we can work on it? You know what I mean? They become a sounding board for us. Um, but to But to answer your question about that time, I think it's weird because that was a found footage thing

which, you know, VHS was sort of viewed by the people who made it as sort of like a, okay, let's have fun with found footage and like kind of flip it on its head and like, yeah,

kind of fuck it up now, you know? It was kind of like almost an expiration date by that point. Exactly. And then when we got our next movie, it was kind of like an almost an expiration date by that point exactly and then when we we got our next movie it was found footage without that

so we tried to kind of go into it being like how do we still make this interesting in a way that that is that after having done VHS

we're still sort of like okay fuck fuck what found footage was let's go somewhere new with it and whether or not that worked is up to the viewer but I mean

it was it was an interesting time because I think everybody was really experimenting that's something we've just always loved yeah I think the other strange thing about coming up at that time specifically and in the genre specifically is you know it's it's one of those and the genre and what is a genre film and it's kind of reach has has grown and has evolved over the last few years you know it feels like horror movies have become more mainstream again, which we're so excited about and just so humble and grateful to be a part of. But, you know, having come off of VHS,

we certainly, it's easy to be pigeonholed as like genre filmmakers, which is a great pigeonhole to be in, by the way. But I think for us, you know, because our tone was always a mix of different things, we were getting a lot of, we were reading a lot of scripts. We were getting sent a lot of projects that felt like, um, there was, there was automatically like just in the story phase, some friction between what we would ultimately do and what, and what the, you know, these like hard sort of down the middle

genre, genre concepts were. So that was, that was interesting for like a great, yeah. But for a few years it was like, It's not our style. Yeah, we're like not reading ourselves in a lot of this stuff. So a lot of things that we were developing really required a ton of work

to infuse those stories with our point of view. What did you guys bond over originally? What were the movies that you loved that made it seem like you should work together?

Indiana Jones. You know, all the popcorn movies. Big action adventures. Even the more 80s comedies like three amigos romancing the stone romancing the stone john hughes spies like us yeah yeah where john landis john hughes exactly where you're sending like people who aren't really equipped to deal with any situation in these like extraordinary situations and and we like

always been drawn to just bumbling through it a little bit. Like even in our shorts, we are always like in an office, mainly because we had an office to shoot at. Matt was office manager at New Line. So we'd go in on the weekends to shoot our shorts so we could have production value. Can they fine you retroactively for that? I mean. Right.

So it was always like these like guys who were just like, you know, dredging through their day at their day job at a desk and then something crazy would happen. Like there's a time machine in the copy room or, you know, they're playing prison break on their lunch break and just having a good time with just average guys going through the extraordinary. How does that go to horror then since you guys just named nine classic comedies? It's funny. It's we would we would always, especially when I think of our earlier shorts, it's like we had the prank videos and then we had

Happy Halloween and we had Treasure Hunt and we had Birthday Party and all of these have one major horror element. All of them. There's always monsters. Happy Halloween was

the whole office gets murdered. That was a pretty dark comedy. That was a different era. We always had a genre element that we loved. It was always like one part comedy, one part adventure, one part horror. And it's just what, even if you look at our VHS short, it's like, it's essentially a comedy that then these, until it's very much comedy get pulled into a horror movie.

And that's what was always so fun to us. And then honestly, the more we got to explore that, especially in something like Ready or Not, it was like, oh yes, this is like exactly what we want to be doing because now we can go further with the laughs, further with the scams. And like just really amp it up.

But the skill set that got honed early on for us was, you know, the conventions of that digital space are different. And so you're allowed, you're given more permission as a creator to pivot between tones because it's short format. Things have to have, have to happen fast. Like the structure is a little bit weird and all over the place. So there's a bit of leeway just with the storytelling tools that you have. But I think what we learned is that, um, for, for those tones to work and for the pivot between those moments to work,

you have to be with the characters. You have to be with them. You have to believe their reactions. You have to see yourself in those reactions. And we never actually talked about it as a pivot. It was just, here we have a character. This is the character's story. And these are the awful things that are going to go through. These are the obstacles.

And it would be like... And maybe there's a monster. And maybe there's a gag. Exactly. And it would be exactly that. It would be less genre-y and more, how is this character going to get through this wildly ridiculous nonsense? And Ready or Not is no exception to this.

I mean, what we learned doing our stuff way back in the day has absolutely transported us to this project. And the ability for Ready or Not to kind of pivot tones and be a sort of mashup of different things, it's all about walking into the world with grace. Before we get too far into Ready or Not, you mentioned that you don't get to make the money that you would get to make on YouTube now. And on the other hand, you did get a chance to really experiment a lot on YouTube. And you indicated that maybe, Matt, things have changed in terms of what you can and can't do now.

Is there like a relief that you were there at that time? Because I think there's a lot of sort of fear of reprisal, fear of cancellation for anybody that is trying to do something that is a little bit different. Yeah. Are you guys happy that you entered at the period that you did?

Is there anything you would have done differently about those early stages? YouTube was wonderful for us. Like, as I was, it was the early days. It was like, I mean, we were making stuff like 2007 to 2011, I think, roughly, is like that time there. And it was still when, like, people

went to YouTube to see things they may or may not like, and then to either just not watch it or be supportive. So it was like, it was when it was still, I know this sounds shocking now, but it was still like people were like, hey, cool. Good work. It was a genuine

interaction it was really supportive and it was and that goes for actually YouTube itself too like they would put our we had this interactive adventure series

and they would put that on the front page all the time and that's also when the front page was like a thing on YouTube but I think it allowed us not only to

you know kind of keep making stuff but it encouraged us to be like oh something about this kind of keep making stuff, but it encouraged us to be like, oh, something about this kind of weird swing we're taking is connecting with people. That's cool. So you guys made a couple of films, you contributed to another anthology. As you're going along, do you have a sense of sort of like what kind of a career you want to have? Is the idea to say, we are genre filmmakers, we want to stay inside of genre, we want to collide those three different types of films that you're talking about through everything that we're doing or you're like

we're actually more of a company and a brand because once you give yourselves a name like this and you become a unit there's an expectation that you can do more than just make a movie right i mean we we think we think of it like creating and this is why we're so excited about right or not is that creating like a voice that someone can go to this is like the best version i have no idea if we're going to accomplish this i'm just saying like pitch away yeah is like if you can go and say oh i'm gonna go see a ready or not i mean a ready radio silence thing and you kind of know what you're getting into in the way that like with all of our favorite filmmakers you're like okay it might not be what i'm expecting but i know it's gonna have something that is specific that I could only get here. Like that's always been kind

of our goal. Like let's have our own voice. Let's kind of have our own little niche. And the fact that Ready or Not is not really classifiable was really important to us in a lot of ways. I mean, I think we will always make genre movies. We love making genre movies, but Ready or Not presented an opportunity for us to kind of walk the tightrope in a different way and show people the skill set that we had honed earlier on in our kind of bigger action adventure stuff. That certainly opens us up to maybe some other projects and some other ideas that we have always loved and have always felt a kinship with. And so I think that for us, there are so many things that we love and are interested in. And that variety is something that we are, it feels like we're just now at the beginning of really getting to explore and Ready or Not is kind of the entry point of that. I was very surprised to see that

this is a Fox Searchlight movie. But we are thrilled that it is. Obviously a great company that puts out great films. How, can you explain to me how this movie happened? The script, I assume, came to you guys in some form. Yeah, so it basically

came around to us twice. The first time we didn't get it and the producers, Tripp Vinson, Jamie Vanderbilt, went down the line with another director and it came back around

and they chose poorly the first time and when it came back around. They chose poorly. They chose poorly the first time. And when it came back around, we were like, let's really get this because we love the tone. Guy Busiek, Ryan Christopher Murphy wrote a fantastic script. It was a lot of things that we loved in it. And then we were debating whether to go out to Starz first or to Studios first.

And we were peddling around with both of those ideas and we decided to go out to studios and uh we went into fox searchlight on the day after the election of 2016 and we pitched it so it was like a dire mood in the room and we were able to get we still don't understand how that worked yeah no it was just everybody's baffled, and then we go in to talk about this crazy movie about the 1%, and the original ending, and it was even more on tone for what actually happened, is basically the original ending was, I don't want to give away any spoilers,

but Dan Tram was dire. It was dire, very dire. Dan Tram and Richard Ruiz were very, they were thrilled by it. And they got on board right away. Yeah, I think the challenge was always finding a place that was as weird as the script and as the group of people who were bringing the script down. And those guys are fucking weird, man.

In the best way. The notes that we kept getting from them in the development process were, make it weirder. Let's go crazy. Make this crazier. The notes that we kept getting from them in the development process were like, make it weirder. Let's go crazy. Make this crazier. They were so supportive of just making something that was outside of the box. Well, they didn't want it to feel like a Fox Searchlight movie,

but they wanted it to be a Fox Searchlight movie. Because I know we made a couple choices that were sort of like the cliche Searchlight choice. And then they'd be like, guys, not right. What would that be? Like the slightly more like, you know, I don't know how to say it without sounding like a dick, but the slightly more like arty choices. You know what I mean?

They're like, don't, you guys do your thing. Don't try to do our thing. Like, and you know, it's really empowering when someone tells you that. Like, just trust yourselves. Like, don't try to find something. So when you're working on a project like this, how do you work together as a team? Is there one person that is better at something than something else? How do you collaborate? I'm curious how it mechanically works. No, 100%. I mean, that's exactly right. I think that over

the course of working together, we've all come to have specific specialties and recognize those specialties in each other. And there's a Venn diagram, right? Which is also part of why we started working together. You know, it was like, hey, like. And there's a real Venn diagram. So we all know enough about all of the processes that we can call bullshit on each other. If, you know, if there's a choice that's being made or if there's something that's not working,

we can actually have a really productive, collaborative conversation about it. But for us, it's all about creating friction with the material really early on, but way before you're ever in production so that you are, by the time you get there,

everyone on the team has a really clear idea of what the right, of what the right thing is. What is that? What the target is. What does that mean? Friction with the material?

Preparation. Yeah, preparation. We sit there, we talk all weekend. And we spend a lot of time being like, okay, well, how are we going to shoot this scene? What's the scene about for the characters so that when we all go on on set

it's like everybody we're all aiming at the same target and that's really ultimately the goal and then yeah there's no shoot where there's not going to be some problem you have to solve and we've been we're all on the same page and we know how to solve it and the best idea wins because we know what what the bullseye is how did you go about getting this cast? This is a very interesting cast. Isn't it? Yeah. We are very lucky that we got this cast because this cast

came together over a very short period of time right before we were starting to shoot. I mean, up until like a week before. Yeah, like the office wall we had, you know,

like all the cast, you know, the character names and then, you know, so you put like a headshot there as you kind of fill it out and we were like, we're up in Toronto. We're like a week from shooting. And we're like, why do we only have Sam Samara? And it's a whiteboard. So it's just like glaring. You can't not see how empty it is when you walk into the office. But it is. It's it's it's I think we got really lucky. We cast, you know,

they're almost all Canadian. We did a lot of casting up there, except, of course, Andy McDowell and Adam Brody. And the casting directors up there were great. And to their credit, I think Melanie, who plays Emily, Christian, who plays Fitch, Nikki, who plays Helene, and Helene.

And Elise. And actually, maybe even John were all the first or second audition we saw and Henry well we never saw Henry

Henry did not audition you just hire Henry when you hire Henry he's incredible but they were the first audition we saw and it was like this thing where like

oh my god this is great like she's perfect or he's perfect and then you know you watch two more days of auditions and you're like, wait, am I crazy?

But that first person we saw was awesome. And that was for at least four or five of the cast members. And then everybody, once everybody met, it just felt like they'd all known each other. And some of them had, like Mark O'Brien, who we chased for a while.

Mark was like a real, he was the key for us because that character and I mean, how spoilery should I get? I would say not too spoilery, but how much can we trust everybody isn't under question. Well, that Mark O'Brien role of Alex is like,

he has a lot to play with that I think, you know, someone who's not really thinking about it on a deeper level might go a little more surface with. And he really brought something that was like, oh, I can, you know, someone who's not really thinking about it on a deeper level might go a little more surface with. And he really brought something that was like, oh, I can, you're with me, but, you know. He's kind of the most complicated character in the movie. Yeah, I mean, we were incredibly lucky.

And I think the other kind of, the other thing that we had on our side was a really tight script that had really specific characters written in it. So if you read the script and you liked the script, the chances are you loved it for the same reasons that we did. And all of the characters had really interesting perspectives. And there was a lot of collision and debate

between the characters that there was a lot to play. And so the piece of writing, this amazing script, definitely helped us attract the level of talent that's in the movie. There's no scene where somebody is just present. Like, they're always doing something. Whether that's intellectually or physically, but there's always something happening for every character, which is just wonderful to shoot.

Yeah, so much so that there were many moments on the shoot where we'd be set up on a shot on someone specific and you'd look around the room and like Henry was this, was always doing this. He was always doing something in character off camera that I was like, fuck, if we had another camera, we would just have it on Henry all of the time. He's always doing something interesting.

I mean, it's just everyone had so much to play with. And I think the exploration for them was a real fun opportunity for everybody. I'm very excited to see everybody tonight. It'll be the first time we see the whole group together again since like maybe January. We haven't guys ever come here. The premiere night. So it'll be a lot of fun to see everybody. What was challenging about this?

I assume this is the biggest production you've had it is oh no I guess Devil's Due is bigger the size of the production yes but the budget

of the production no that's right more sets certainly more cast shooting it conventionally obviously more tools

at your disposal but that means more crew and you know the apparatus just was much larger on this I would say that the challenge was really just time and money. Time, yeah. Which is probably true on every movie

ever made. Sure. How many days did you guys have? 26. Okay, that's not a lot. Not a lot. And it was, and our 26th day was a day that was not on the original schedule. We had a 25-day schedule. And then our producer, Tripp Vinson, was like, we're going to get a 26-day.

Don't you guys worry about it? And we were like, well, we are definitely worried about it because we are putting scenes on that 26-day that the movie needs. But what he told us was

to get that 26-day, we have to literally not go over a single minute in the first week. The first 10 days. No, the first two weeks. And we were like, oh my God.

So how do you do that? You just shoot like hell. And we did it. Like crazy. The 10th day of. And we were like, oh my God. So how do you do that? You just shoot like hell. And we did it. Like crazy. The 10th day of shooting, we were shooting the car flip scene and it started snowing and stuff just wasn't working. And we did technically go over like seven or eight minutes, but I think because it was the end of day 10, we still got our 26 days.

Out of those 25 days, I think we put Samara through the ringer 25 of them right out of those 26 days she was there for 25 and there was always a gag or a stunt going on with her and

she was just fantastic through that entire process there was never a day where it was just characters talking to each other no never it was insane man but when there was

it was like oh fuck yeah can we shoot this for like three hours we never had more than I think it was a two or three take show. And occasionally we'd go, obviously, but for the most part, it was like, if we got it on the second take, we were moving on. Wow. So tell me about Samara.

I feel like she's developing a little bit of a reputation as like a Jamie Lee Curtis type. She has an amazing ability to work in these movies. It's a crazy good performance in your movie. Why her? Why is she the star? I mean, she's, she,

we could go, how long do we have? Like she, she blew us away from the first time we sat down with her to talk about it. We had one really awkward Skype call with her. Yeah. She was in her makeup from, from Guns Akimbo.

So she didn't have, she didn't have eyebrows. She had tattoos on her face. And we were like, oh, this is an interesting choice for Grace. And it was Skype around the world. And it was cutting in and out. I just remember the three of us were like, well, that was awkward. But then we actually sat down with her.

And she got that the character couldn't just be one note. It couldn't be just, I'm scared and I'm running and I'm screaming. You know, it was like, we got to make it more. It's got to be, we need that vulnerability, but we also need like a real core foundational power and strength. And she kind of just embodies both of those as well as one of our favorite things, a sense of humor. And so she brings her sense of humor to it that it just, like, for me, at least, her sense of humor ties the whole thing together. How she's able to be, like, in the most dire moment and still find something funny, whether it's big or little.

It was like, it just makes it alive. And sometimes not intentional. It's just, like, a little texture that pokes through. Yeah, just something to make the character not one note. You know what I mean? And she was so conscious of that every single day of the shoot like how can we make this scene not the most basic version for her character there were there were a lot of opportunities or moments where characters where where she could have been

self-conscious too and she's just the least she's so just fearless about how she approaches the work and was so down to just like do the weirdest most fun thing to make the craziest choice and be totally comfortable in it and it's it's why feels like such a singular unique performance she's really great she's great i should also say she she also she does her homework i mean she works really hard you know and she cares and then she does the same and this is true for all of our cast they then they still they have fun with it you know what i mean it's not just like this is live or die crap it was like let's let's do our work and then let's go in and make it something that's entertaining what are you guys gonna do next do you know it's a great question chipotle yeah uh yeah no we don't we don't know right now. No, I mean, I would say that this movie is definitely focused our...

It's focused our attention on a tone that we love and that we have returned to, honestly. So I think our compass has gotten more specific, which is great. And, you know, hopefully whatever's next is going to, you know, be, have some of the similar elements. I can say what we hope to bring on to the next project is the amount of fun that we had making this one. It was such an incredible, we'd love to do something with the same group of people. I mean, cast or I know we're trying to work with the producers and writers right now to find

something else to do together. This is a kind of a practical question, but how does it work with the DGA and getting credit the way that you need to get credit? I only ask because I had Chad Sahelski and David Leach in here earlier this year. And of course they made films together and didn't get credited together. And, you know, I'm sure there's only so much you can say about arbitration and things like that. But as a team, it's rare that there are teams that are not brothers or sisters working together on films. Was that a challenge for you guys? Yeah, it was a huge challenge. I mean, so Matt and I are in the DGA as co-directors.

And to get that status, you have to get a waiver from the DGA. And it's a pretty insane trial by fire. You have to sit in front of the board of directors, which for us was, I don't know. It was also during Academy Week when we went in. So it was... Taylor Hackford. You're sitting there like, oh my God, I'm so nervous just being in this room,

let alone having all these people ask us very specific questions. And they dug through all of the history of all the stuff that we'd made. And thankfully, we had made so much together and it was so clear. We could speak so specifically to our process having co-directed for, I mean, it was like seven years at the time or six years at the time.

So it was pretty nuts. It was pretty nuts. But you made it. And they were very great. They were very great. And we had a very tense hour after it where we were like, don't know what this is.

And honestly, we didn't know what we were going to do if they didn't give it to us. You know, it was one of those things where we were like, if they don't do this,

saved our asses. Yeah, Jon Favreau was really, really wonderful. We were, it was kind of going off the rails. You know, we were one of those things where we were like, if they don't do this... Jon Favreau saved our asses. Yeah, Jon Favreau was really, really wonderful. We were... It was kind of going off the rails. You know, we were getting grilled on like, well, you did this digital thing and you did this digital thing

and you guys weren't working together and Jon Favreau was like, wait a minute, guys. Like, I'm a director. I came up doing, as an actor and as a writer and doing all this stuff. Like, these guys just want to make

stuff together. Like, let's just hear them out. I mean, and I think ultimately he sort of steered the ship in our favor. Yeah, and then as far as the trio goes, we've just, we've just made a really strong, like choice of loyalty to be like, we are working together. We are continuing to, you know, do our process the way we've done our process. And, and it is what it is. And like, sometimes it's, it feels weird to people, but as soon as people actually get in there with us, they're like, oh, okay.

This is not unlike most things. This is fairly normal. It just feels a little differently, I think. And a lot of that is just perception of how things should work. And then when you get there, you're like, oh, wow, could we have like eight more of us? There's a lot to do. No, I really admire that. I admire the loyalty and collaboration.

It's really cool. Guys, I end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing that they've seen? I've got three of you here. So you have to each share one thing that you've seen that was great. Who wants to go first? Me right now, I'm watching a series called Black Spot on Netflix. I haven't seen it.

I'm really enjoying it. It's a French show. It's in season two. It's a small, small village in a remote forest somewhere in France and there's like Twin Peaks element to it. There's a girl

goes missing and the cops need to try to find her but then when you get into the forest a little bit deeper there's a mystical pagan like magic

that is existing as well. I'm just, I love it. And it's subtle. Yeah, Black Spot. Okay. Yeah, it's great.

I watched the first episode and a half of Mindhunter season two last night. I did the same thing last night. Yeah. Did you watch episode two? The first two, yeah. So I'll get really specific then. The scene where, and this is not a spoiler of any kind, but the scene where they're in the truck in the parking lot having that conversation, the three of them. I was sitting there like just being

I was so tense and I was like how is this conversation about something that happened years ago making me as tense as anything ever has

it blew me away yeah Fincher unbelievable I forgot Fincher is the greatest director of all time I'm deep in the third season

of Glow right now and that show is just you guys are riding for Netflix I know I know man they have specifically not

bought like five pitches of it I know okay goes to show you're being objective that show is just fantastic

it makes me laugh it makes me cry it's Mark Maron's incredible Betty Gilpin's amazing it's just an incredible ensemble right well thank you guys

for being here I really appreciate it thanks for having us thank you for having us thank you again to the fellows from Radio Silence for coming in to chat about Ready or Not

and thanks of course to Amanda Dobbins please tune in later this week where I will be joined by my old pal Wesley Morris to talk about whatever's going on in later this week where I will be joined by my old pal, Wesley Morris, to talk about whatever's going on

in movies and the world at large, hopefully. And then I'll also have a conversation with Ben Berman, who is the director of what is clearly

one of the most fascinating and strange documentaries of the year. It's called The Amazing Jonathan Documentary. You can watch that movie on Hulu right now. So if you want to watch it

before we get to that conversation later this week, I would highly recommend you do so. And then we'll see you then. Today's episode of The Big Picture was brought to you by NHTSA. If you think drunk driving is no big deal, you couldn't be more wrong. You could get in a crash, people could get hurt or killed, and you could get arrested, incur huge legal expenses, or even lose your job.

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