Drew Goddard

24:35It's so funny, I forget, we just had somebody here and I was talking about Cameron and this kind of stuff before. And like, he's so underestimated as like a storyteller in terms of like as a screenwriter, because it's also, we're not even talking about, I'm always so impressed in how he kind of lays down exposition and pays it off. Famously, like the Titanic sequence where he's literally showing how the boat goes down early in the first act, and then that's exactly how it goes down and you in your brain know in that third act. I mean, you're absolutely right. I think it's, I may be misquoting, but I think Frank Darabont said, it took me 10 years of screenwriting before I realized that all screenwriting is set up and pay off.

25:12And boy, there's truth to that. There really is like this idea that when you can handle exposition well, it actually becomes foreshadowing, right? It becomes something that sets the audience's intrigue on alert. Totally. So I'm curious also your perspective on adaptation. So you've done that obviously quite a bit, whether it is a best-selling novel or working in the comic book genre world. You know, there's so much talk, especially in recent years, about fan service and how much to think of the fans and satisfy their expectations versus just doing your own thing. I'm curious if you have an overall philosophy when you approach adapting anything now.

25:53I do. I do. It has served me well. And the truth is I make sure that I am a fan. And not a fake fan. There's a lot of people that claim, I saw this happen at Comic-Con when I sort of spanned. We've been in a lot of Comic-Cons together and we sort of saw a Comic-Con change, right? Like there was a time when Comic-Con was just all of us with our long boxes digging through crates trying to find that old X-Men issue we really needed. and the panels were versions of just people who loved it talking about it. And slowly but surely it became profitable and then it became a big marketing endeavor and then I had to deal with a whole lot of people in Hollywood specifically that said, I'm a huge fan, I'm a huge fan of Iron Man and you're like, what's your favorite issue?

26:39And they're like, no, I've always loved Robert Downey Jr. and Iron Man. You're like, okay, so now to be fair, I love people that came on board. All good, but don't pretend that you were there when he was an alcoholic in the comics. Correct. That's right. And so I bristled. That was like my angry. Now I'm older and I'm like, I'm just happy for anyone's enthusiasm about anything, to be honest. But I've learned to do my job well, to adapt something well, because adaptation is a lot about making brutal decisions. Like it just is. Movies are short. Like we don't realize how few words you have to work with in a movie.

27:13It's, you have to be efficient. And that means you're going to have to cut some, make some really tough choices. And so I've learned that if I am sincerely a fan and I love it, then I will trust myself to protect the things that I will love. And hopefully that will sort of be the things, at least most of the things that the fans love. But if I try to just guess at what the fans are going to love, I'm going to end, I'll be wrong because I'm not coming from a place of listening to my own fan, right? I'm just guessing. And that's where you really get in the weeds. I've seen it happen. I get called in a lot to script doctor.

27:52And I realize, and you can feel it where you're like, nobody likes this project. Like somebody thought this was a good project to market or someone else was told them that this had a lot of audience, right? Or had a big, and you can feel it. You're reading it. You're like, does anyone care? Like, does anyone actually care about what this is? Or do you just think this is a good business opportunity? Do you realize what this comic or whatever was actually about? Why people love it? Because you clearly, what I'm seeing here, doesn't actually demonstrate that. Yeah, because you want somebody... The core tenets of what it is.

28:21That's part of an adaptation is you as a screenwriter are saying, let me share my enthusiasm with you. Let me tell you the thing that I love about this, that I connect. And I feel like if you come at it from that point of view, even if I'm wrong, people feel my own love. Even if we disagree. Like, Lord knows there's things about, you know, a Daredevil comic that some people can spark to that are not the things that I spark to. But the thing that I can promise is the things that I was writing about were the things I loved about Daredevil. And I hope that that comes across with everything. Because it's not just superhero, right?

28:58It's also math and science, right? It's like, oh, here's some stuff about space travel and math that I actually love. And okay, you think it's complicated? let me tell you why I think it's fun, right? Let me work through that. And that has always guided me well. All right. There's a thousand things I could talk to you about. Let's just dig in because pretty much the first very notable thing on the resume people always talk to you about is Buffy. So you're doing the math. You're probably 26 or 27. Sounds right. When you get hired as a writer on Buffy, this is, I think, for the last season. Yep.

29:32I assume you were a fan by the time you got there. It was my favorite show of all time. It still is, I gotta pass it, it still is my favorite show of all time. And it really was, oh my god, it was so exciting, but it was also terrifying. Sometimes you don't want to be working on something that you're a huge fan of, because you're like, ah, if this goes bad, it's going to be my fault. The blood is going to be on my hands. I don't want to ruin what I love. I don't want that. That's right, that's scary. But looking back, it was the best thing that could happen to me, because I was in a place where I was comfortable writing what I loved, right?

30:07And if I really look back now, with the benefit of time, it's set me up for everything I've done since. Because both in terms of the structure and the lessons I learned there, but also just knowing that like, oh, going back to what we were talking about, writing is always going to be really hard. But if you pick areas that you genuinely are connected to, whatever those reasons are, you don't even have to know why you're connected. it will get you through that forest. Did you have a particular kind of like, I don't know, expertise or kind of corner of the writer's room for what your specialty was?

30:42I mean, I think you were credited on seven scripts. Conversations with Dead People is probably the one that people really pick out the most. Does that also hold a very special place in your heart? Well, the first one I wrote was called Selfless, and it just worked. It just connected. I just was ready. I love writing characters that everyone sort of dismisses, You know, like finding a character that, in that case Anya, who everyone had overlooked or hadn't had a chance to shine yet is a better way to say it. Right. That's delightful for me. Like I really love when you widen the cast, if that makes sense.

31:16Everyone gets to step forward to the spotlight. And also that episode was full of like, I mean, frankly, as I'm thinking about it right now, a lot of the things about Hail Mary that that it connects to of like really heartbreaking, there's heartbreaking things that happen within that story. And then there's silly comedy. Like there is very like we're jumping around, same with conversations with them. I mean, truthfully, that was all of Buffy. Like the thing that I learned about Buffy is be fearless in your storytelling. Be fearless. You could actually, these things that you put, you separate, generally speaking, actually can go together.

31:49Vee, butter and chocolate sometimes work together. Yeah, and every episode can be wildly different. Right? Right, like we would swing for the fences, both in genre and in emotional stakes, and yet because we were true to the characters, the audience would go with you. And that has been a lesson I've always held, of character first, emotion first. If you do that, you can go to some bananas places. So just in the last couple of days, as we tape this, the reboot, or I guess continuation, that Chloe Zhao was going to direct, I guess they're not picking up, which is bumming out a lot of Buffy fans, of course.

32:23I mean, over the years, have you been approached or had any talks about potentially doing a continuation or something with Buffy? I mean, certainly never formally. Sometimes the question comes up, and I never rule anything out, right? But I also, part of the ending of our arc was that you pass this on to the next generation, right? Like, that was the ending of the seven seasons of Buffy. And I actually believe that. I believe that that's important, you know? So it's always like, I've let it know, I'm always here to help if I can be helpful, but I shouldn't be running with this. It's time for a new generation to be running with this.

33:01I do understand that, but they always have my support if they ever need it. I'm also kind of surprised, of course then also on the resume is Lost where you knew Adam, my brother. And that's one that, I don't know if it's that JJ has some control over it or not, but I can't imagine that ABC hasn't tried to do something with Lost over the years. If there's one thing we can be sure of, anything that was successful in the past, somebody is going to try, right? They're just going to try. And I hope that they just, if they're going to, they find people that really love it. You know, that's really the key.

33:34Don't just do it for the sake of doing it. Do it because somebody is excited to tell stories of that world in a very pure, real way. So you talked a little bit about learning under Joss and Buffy and like what you could do in Buffy that really was impactful in the rest of your career. When you look back at Lost, what are the lessons of working with Damon and Carlton and the whole gang there? Yeah, I mean, it's sort of like, Buffy at the end of the day was, even though the stories went to crazy places, it was a small show. And I just mean that in the sense of, it was almost like a handmade, bespoke quality to the show, right?

34:09Part of that was our budget, part of it was the approach, right, it wanted to feel, whereas Lost was like, oh no, we're opening this canvas, right? We are, especially then, it's easy to forget now, but when that pilot dropped, there had been nothing like it ever on broadcast television. JJ, first and foremost, said, I am going to treat this like a feature. I am not going to treat this like network television at all. I don't care if people are telling me I can't do it. We're gonna start with this plane crash. And you just never see anything. Now, I think because TV has elevated so much, it's not as insane to see sort of spectacle on that scale, but we had never seen spectacle on that scale.

34:54And then what Damon sort of brought to it was the character that we're talking about, right? Mixing that spectacle though with, oh my God, we're gonna see people from all across the globe and we're gonna explore all of these characters in a way that, again, it sounds quaint now, but at the time, subtitling our Korean characters was a huge battle. It's credit to everyone of saying, no, no, the world is different. We can open this world up, and they're going to go with us. We take it for granted now, but at the time, putting that on network TV, people were not. The studio did not know people were ready for it.

35:36I also can't abide by the whole, the lingering digs at the end of Lost, the finale of Lost, which I'm biased, I know, but I find very moving and very effective. I'm with you. And look, it's been fun because I left after season four because I went to go do the cabin in the woods. So I actually got to experience it as a fan. So I say that just so you don't think I'm biased. I loved it. There's a heartbreak. That final scene between Jack and his dad is everything lost. Every episode in Lost that you love, the core of that episode is being discussed by Jack and his father. That is a conversation that is about the soul of the show.

36:18And when I watch that show, that conversation in particular, you realize, no, this is the only way it could have ended. More Happy Sag Confused coming up.

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37:32Let's talk Cloverfield. Let's do it. Cloverfield, does that begin as like a loose idea from JJ, essentially like Godzilla, but from like the POV of like the people on the ground? Yes. I mean, it really was. We were sitting, I was sitting in my lost office and the phone rings and JJ. He's like, I just got back from Japan. And I just keep thinking about Godzilla. What, here's an idea. What if we did Godzilla, but like, like in the style of the Blair Witch Project? because The Blair Witch was a big movie then. And I remember sitting up and going, oh, that sounds good. Like that just – I was like, I just got it right away.

38:09I was like, okay, let's do it. And this is what it's like working with J.J. He hangs up, and then like two weeks later, I'm in a room with Brad Gray at the time, pitching it, right, just pitching that idea. And they're like, great, how fast can you write it? And I'm like, well, we're about to break for the holidays. Right? At Lost. I got two weeks off, I can write you an outline of it. I wrote the outline of the Hollies thinking, this will get me through, then I can finish the season of Lost and I can write over the summer. Right. And JJ, this is where he just does not take no for an answer. He turns it in, they love it and they go, great, you're Greenland.

38:47You gotta be shooting by March though. So I was like, oh my God, I gotta write this while I'm doing my day job at Lost. Poor Matt Reeves. Every day, Matt Reeves, our director, just exquisite director, I apologize to him every time I see him because he didn't get a script for Cloverfield until two weeks before. So he was prepping off my outline that entire time. And now that I've directed, I realize how badly I hosed him. Like I just hosed him so badly. And yet that whole process never felt like we were like doing, quote, unquote, a big Hollywood movie. It felt like it was just our friends in the backyard goofing off like it did.

39:28Everything about that is like a miracle for those that lived through that time and remember of like how it was marketed. There was no title. The trailer like drops and no one knew this movie existed. I mean, the fan theories, that was like the birth of like, I mean, Lost was doing it on the TV side. But like what a gas it must be for as like a screenwriter to like see this whole like, this whole phenomenon of everybody having a theory of what your film is even about, the larger mythology. Do you remember, were any of the fan theories at the time really exciting for you to hear, how people extrapolated off of what you came up with?

40:03It's always exciting to sort of hear people's enthusiasm and wanting to sort of play more in the sandbox, right? Letting them play more. I mean, what's interesting about Cloverfield is I think because we were going so fast and because I came from an emotional background in terms of how I approach story anyway. I look at that movie now and I go, oh, that's me trying to process 9-11. Right, that's obvious, I mean, we talk about it, but it's like, the sort of, and that part of processing that sort of level of destruction was, there aren't easy answers. Like, that's, it was actually intentional that there weren't easy answers, because it was about connection.

40:45Like, going back to like themes I now see with the benefit of time in everything I do, Cloverfield is just about these characters trying to reach out for each other, right? That's what like, it's like, oh, I keep writing about this theme, right? I keep writing, I don't mean to be, it's not conscious, but it is about characters reaching out for connection amidst a crazy backdrop. And the fact that it is actually weirdly militant that way, saying like, you know what, we're not going to get into like an elaborate alien, you know, conspiracy, because that's not what this movie is. This movie is about people on the ground, right?

41:20I think that carries over now that we're talking about it. I mean, that's Hail Mary, right? Like, that's what we're talking about. It's like, oh, that's a schoolteacher in space. Like, these are the things I am clearly drawn to. So for nearly 20 years, I feel like I've been asking Matt, JJ, probably you, about Cloverfield continuations. Obviously, there's been 10 Cloverfield Lane, the Cloverfield Paradox, but I know for a fact from past conversations, like, you guys have talked about it. You've had different ideas. Even as late as, I think 2018, JJ said at CinemaCon, we finally, we've got a continuation in mind.

41:53What happened? Yeah, I don't know. Well, I think part of what happened is we all got real busy. Sure. And we also, again, didn't want to do it for the sake of doing it. I kind of feel the same way about Cloverfield that I felt about Buffy, which was, the end of Buffy, which was, oh no, this is a world where because it's not about some plot, I actually don't feel ownership of what everyone else wants to do. It's a wonderful umbrella for letting other artists put themselves and come up with something, and I actually think that's great. I want them to go do that because it's not like they're going to screw up the alien invasion story that I had set up.

42:31That wasn't the point for you. It wasn't about that. No, we didn't set up anything. So you should, Godspeed. So was there ever an idea that you were kind of close to really pushing? Yeah, I always have had ideas and weirdly, I could see before the end of things for me, returning to that universe. It's just a wonderful, I loved it. I loved that style. It really opened up, combining those two genres, the sort of found footage and big spectacle really allowed some wonderful things and I could see myself returning. We should give some love to Cabin in the Woods, which what a directing debut. I mean, that's, which again, like very, I mean, your filmography is all over the place in the best possible way.

43:13Like there are like kind of two sides of Druid that I see. It's kind of like the deconstructionist and kind of like then like the loyalist of the genre. And this is like the deconstructionist side. The Cabin in the Woods is kind of like kind of fucking with the things you love and hate about horror. Fair enough? Is that fair to say? It certainly is the most deconstructionist. Because I, it's funny because I don't know that I set out to deconstruct. Maybe on Cabin. Cabin was definitely one where the question of why do we feel the need to watch teenagers be butchered on screen. Like what is it about, not the horror genre big picture, but it was very specifically like butchering youth, right?

43:52Was something that clearly was in my head of watching kids go to war. You know, like it was, I was of that generation where we were starting to see people sent to war for reasons we did not understand at all. And I think that was part of it and understanding like this is speaking to a much bigger question. And yet we also, I also love horror films. So you also want to do both like play around in it. I think the Deacon Circus happened a little bit, but then by the end, it sort of becomes a statement of, oh no, we love this genre. right? It does. So, which I think is probably anytime I'm ever working in a genre, it's because I love the genre.

44:31I'm always amazed when I see like a first time feature, like from a director, obviously you had a ton of experience as a writer, but like that had such a sure hand, like you could feel, you feel a sure hand as a director in that one. And especially as I recall, I'm correct if I'm wrong, I feel like it sat on the shelf for a bit. There were some studio issues, like the ending I could see being a bit controversial. Like, was there pressure to change the ending? Did you? No, we never had pressure to change anything but what did happen was MGM went bankrupt and got bought right and so they got sold so suddenly or in the process of selling a studio or buying a studio takes years yeah so we were like oh no like this is going to take a while because if you don't if a studio is you know bankrupt they can't pay for marketing you need marketing to release a film like it's just not coming out it's not as simple as like well just put it out at the time there's no streaming even And so you couldn't even put it anywhere.

45:24You just had to wait, which I think the thing that got me through was I knew like, well, sooner or later, this will come out. But the worry is though, and I remember like even I was covering stuff by them. It was like, there's the stink of something when it's been sitting around. You're like, there's a problem. I know. There's something. And look, weirdly, I kind of liked that. You'll set low expectations. Yeah, I love a low expectation because - You should not be working on anywhere projects then. Well, that's the problem. at the time, but Martian was very low expectations. So yeah, I'm way more comfortable in that because it's also more delightful.

46:00Like there was always my favorite moment in Cabin where the movie you kind of think, okay, I'm getting it, I see it as a slasher film, they're doing a send up or something. And then about halfway through, it's just a click of like, oh no, that's not what this is at all. And there's a moment, I mean, anyone who was in the theater, when those kids decide to open those elevators, you could feel every single time, you could feel the audience just start to cackle. Like you could just feel before it happened, like, oh, the anticipation of what's about to happen. And that was every time we screened it, we'd feel that same thing.

46:34So I always knew we had that in our back pocket. Like no matter what, I got that. We just got to get it out there when at the right time. Because you also want people to get it. And Lionsgate finally came in, saw the movie and goes, we don't want to change a thing. We love this movie. And I was like, thank God. Great. It's worth waiting for. I'd much rather wait and be with the right partners than rush something. Here's a film I'm fascinated by. Correct me if I'm wrong. You were part of the brain trust that kind of got World War Z to the finish line, which is, for those who don't know, this is a very unusual circumstance.

47:07I'm sure movies are rewritten. There's additional photography. But the whole ending, the whole third act of that film basically changed, and you were one of the key people that kind of came in to help salvage it, essentially. They, so they, you know, and I do this a lot. I love, anytime anyone asks me, can you take a look at film, tell me how to make it better, I'm always like, sure, if I have time, you know, it's fun and try to be helpful. And you learn a lot, too, from these things, because all movies struggle. I don't care what the movie is. I don't care what filmmaker that you love and are positive.

47:42There was a moment in that process where that filmmaker was terrified, right? And so it's part of the process. This is to just look at it. I think World War Z for a variety of reasons that I don't even know, right? By the time you got there, stuff had happened. Well, Damien Lindlof had lost, he had called me and said, they asked me to come look at this movie and I think they wanted to do some pretty drastic things to it, will you come look at it? And I said, of course, but we watched it and I remember thinking, oh no, I actually don't, usually I have some ideas, but I looked at this one and went, the only idea is we have to change the whole back half.

48:16I don't see how to... And I said that, and he's like, that's what I think too, and that's what they think. And I said, there's no way that's possible. Because what we're talking about... Is it very expensive? 50 pages. We ended up writing 50 new pages, which it's a page of minutes, so it's 50 new minutes of stuff to shoot. That's a lot. And Paramount at the time got a lot of grief for that. But I was like, no, the story's wrong here. this is a this this story should be a studio said we're going to invest what we need to invest to make this movie work yeah right because they're all messy like you need the easier thing would be to dump it and move on to the next like really encouraging like you know 10 years later marvel sort of adopted this into their style they said you know what it is going to be rough on that and we're going to learn something let's just plan to shoot make an additional photography it was so smart because it's like and you could see how that really changed and made their movies better And I remember at the time being just grateful that they did.

49:14And so it became like, let's just be helpful and write new stuff. And luckily it worked out. Did you work on the Fincher sequel? No. Okay. No. I'm fascinated. I know, I'm fascinated. David Fincher was close to directing a World War Z movie? Come on. I mean, come on. That's got to be one of those great, like, what ifs. Speaking of what ifs, this is a good segue. Sinister Six. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if this is a sore point or it's a happy memory. I mean, was it a completed script? I mean, how cool. No, we were in prep. We were in deep prep. I had a whole art department. My, Martin Wist was my production designer who did Cabin with me, who did Bad Times at the All Around, did Cloverfield.

49:51Like we had a whole operation there at the Sony lot. And it was a definitely a, it was a very Drew approach to a Spider-Man movie, I would say, in the sense of like, I was swinging for the fences. Like we were going for it. You said it was kind of a heist movie, you would describe it as that? No. Well, maybe I did. I mean, what I thought of it as was a summer annual. And if you're a comic book reader, especially at the time I was making it, I felt that comic books became very much about the serialized story. The movies became so much about like, well, this movie is just about somebody gets a jewel to get to the next thing, to get to the thing.

50:27And it worked really well. But I felt like what I loved about summer annuals in the comic book world is you had the serialized story. And then every summer there would be a giant size issue that had nothing to do with the serialized story, where the main character usually got yanked out of the normal life and thrown into an insane situation. And that's what I wanted to do with Spider-Man. I just felt like that would be fun and let's go for it and let's sort of throw all the things that I love about Spider-Man in there. And they let me do it. And the problem was I remember sitting there with my script the Wednesday before Thanksgiving when the FBI swarms up to the Sony lot.

51:06And I'm like, what's going on? And I remember I saw Michael Linton walking past it. I'm like, Michael, what's happening? He's like, this is the FBI. All the computers are down. I'm sorry, I gotta go. He didn't have time to talk to me. But I remember thinking, oh, this is bad. Because I called my assistant and go, I think you can go home for the day. It seems like we should probably, we're done. I don't think any of us realized how bad it was going to be. But over the course of the next few weeks, you saw the damage that happened to Sony. We were one of the casualties of it. So was the six, was it Doc Ock, Vulture, Kraven, Mysterio, Sandman, Electro?

51:46Is that what my six are? No, but it may have been at different versions that was the case. Like we've changed, like, as one can imagine. Of course. One of the fun parts of any Sinister Six story is picking who the six are. Right. And, oh, my God. I mean, that alone, when you ask like, am I sad? I'm obviously sad I didn't get to make the movie, but I did get to make the movie for myself. I'm just sad no one else got to see it. I got to spend, when I think of it like this, is I spent a year of my life playing with Spider-Man, right? Like that was my job. So I'm not angry about it. I'm actually, I'm grateful.

52:23I'm always grateful that anyone pays me to do anything, like anyone that gives, that I can make a living doing art. And if you told me I could just come up with Spider-Man stories for a year. Yeah. Great. Speaking of that, was there, correct me if I'm wrong, was there a moment after that that you were close to actually doing a Spider-Man film and was that the next at a rate? Was that Spider-Man 3 of Andrew or was that the next new Spider-Man? I mean, I don't know that...

52:52The truth is I've been fortunate to be asked to do a lot of different superhero films and I don't... We're now talking about it so long ago, I don't know what's official and what's not. But I always am grateful that people want to talk, and I'm always, it's all about timing. So much of this stuff is about timing and the right fit, because I don't like to just do it for the sake of doing it. I like to be able, like, no, like any of these movies that we're talking about, we're talking about three years of my life, right? It's three years, and so I have to sort of, that has to line up with what they want to do and make sure it's the right fit, and when it's not, we just realize, we'll do it later.

53:25We'll, like, nothing ever really dies. Like, I'm a patient person, And it's more important that we do it right than we do it. Well, like every actor at some point will play Hamlet and Batman. And every writer-director will do a Spider-Man movie. That's how it feels. That is how it feels, yes. I mean, yeah, Dove's Tale's, like, the X-Force movie was essentially that, right? That's a casualty, essentially, of the merger. Yeah, I mean, I have been in the middle of so many mergers that at a certain point I'm starting to wonder, is it me? Is this me? Can we just settle down? I'm doing to cause these things because bad times with the LRL happened too.

54:03Like we were at Fox and then Disney bought it, you know? And like suddenly we're like in this situation where they're like, if you don't just rush this out, it's going to be the first thing on a streaming service that doesn't exist yet. We didn't even, they didn't, Disney plus didn't exist yet, but they knew like, Oh my God, they're where they're, it's a fire sale going on. And so again, similarly, I just knew like, well, as long as they don't make me change the movie, I can, we'll be okay. But it has happened enough times to me that I'm now a little bit, because it happened on Hail Mary. I mean, that's the thing.

54:33So Mike DeLuca and Pam Abdi bought Hail Mary for MGM. They greenlit it, and then MGM gets bought by Amazon. So now, and then Mike and Pam go to Warner Brothers. Luckily, Courtney Valenti and her crew saw what we were doing and kept it going. But there was a point where on the call, I'm like, with my agent, I'm like, yep, here we are again. yet again another studio has been bought while we're in the middle of something. Oh my God, I got a few more things to hit you up. Your resume's too long, sorry. That's okay. I mean Daredevil, obviously, which was something you were obviously on the ground for that one for the Netflix iteration.

55:09And I think that you left that, I guess, was it El Royale? Was that, I'm trying to remember that? Or was like... That one, I think that was one just to correct the record on because I think it was a time where I wish I had talked about more. I was like, oh no, I was always planning to. Get it going and then peace out. Never peace out. There's a difference between who's the showrunner. You were never going to be the showrunner. I was not going to be the showrunner. We had talked, but I don't know that that was clear to everyone. Understood. Right? And part of it is you're just making the show at the beginning.

55:44And I also don't want to come out and say I'm not, because then people start to think, wait, why isn't he? It becomes a story where we're like, let's just make our show. But I think what happened was The Martian then gets greenlit, right? And at the time I was going to direct that. This is a whole complicated time in my life. But I was like, okay, great. Well, this is going to be fine because I'll just, you know, we have wonderful writers. Like Steve Deneight comes aboard and he, you know, Steve and I go way back. And I was like, there's nobody better to do Daredevil than Steve Deneight. Like I'm here to be helpful.

56:16Like let's, we'd mapped out the whole seasons already. So it was like, now it's just about Steve making it his own. So it was, I mean, that's why I'm still credited on all of those, because we just kept working. I think it was, looking back, I think we should have just been more clear with the public. Was that initially a pitch as a film that became the series? Yes. And what was the film? So, yeah, I guess that's fine. So I remember, because I love Kevin Feige. I am. There's no producer that I have more respect for in this space than Kevin. We don't need to explain why Kevin's going, but he is.

56:55And I remember we were sitting and just, probably because I was around when they were doing one of the Avengers, just hanging out, talking about other things. And I was always like, why aren't you making Daredevil? I don't understand. And I think there was concern by that it was to adult, like to do Daredevil right. Yes, if you're gonna be true to the comic. Which I actually understood. I was like, and the Marvel model at that time was definitely not a play to adults. Or I mean, play to adult adult. Yeah, I mean they still haven't done an R-rated film yet. But I said, I remember saying like, well here's my vision.

57:36My vision is that the first one would be the Kingpin because it just felt wrong to me too. Like don't overthink it. Like find a way to make that special. It's more about the tone because we hadn't seen that kind of tone. But then I was like my second, the second movie, the idea was I think the villain of the second movie should be the Punisher. And I remember that everyone in the room was like, oh, that's exciting. Like that's what it should be, you know? Like rather than do like, oh, because I love anytime to quote unquote heroes go to battle with each other. And to be fair, we got to do it. That's what happened.

58:15So we just did it on Netflix, which I think was the right fit for that. You have a relationship with James Gunn as well, right? Yeah. I mean, it's a small town in a way. And James, I think, has said that you were part of that initial writer's room that kind of helped hatch the initial idea of what his DCU would be. I mean, do you remember what that was like to kind of, I mean, I know enough about how the sausage is made that it's like often just can be a few days. It's a week. It's a retreat. Is it one of those things where you're just literally there's a whiteboard and like, what would you do with all these heroes?

58:46It's not unlike what I just described when I'm starting out adapting a book. Yeah. What do we love? What do we love? Like, just start there. Don't overthink it. You know, if anything, I just went in there and listened to James's passion and said, you should just do that. I think sometimes, you know, I think we need, I think as artists, we are, especially in the film business, we are constantly under siege from sort of people telling you why something's a bad idea or why you can't do something or why this won't work, right? Sometimes it's just helpful to hear, you know, all I did on there, I'm happy to know James thinks I was helpful.

59:26I don't think I was helpful. I think all I did was say, James, your ideas are wonderful. Just do those ideas. That sounds great. But to be fair, I think that is valuable sometimes to just have somebody come in and say, is this good? Because I don't know if it's good yet. And in that case, it was good. He pitched the Superman movie that you guys have now seen. But I remember him talking through and how in the tone he was chasing. And I remember thinking, oh, that's exactly what Superman needs. Is there anything on the DC side that you're just as a fan, whether you participate or not, that you're excited, that hasn't been realized yet that would be cool to see?

59:59That's a good question. I'm sure the answer is yes, but I'm hesitant to say it because then the story will become not that, oh, Drew's doing this. There's so much. I mean, again, I still am the boy who had this stuff on his walls as a kid. So I'm sure the answer is yes. Okay. The last topic, which I'm sure you know is coming, is the matrix. Sure. Drew, the matrix. I mean, come on. You're not taking on easy assignments. No. And I know you probably don't want to divulge much yet, but we know that you've been on board to potentially write and direct a Matrix film. Tell me what you love about The Matrix, first of all.

1:00:38I mean, it's a seminal work. It threw all our brains apart 25 years ago. Yes. What did you respond to? What do you want to capture? I mean, I think anyone who was alive in that time when it came out and saw The Matrix in the theater, right, remembers cinema as before and after The Matrix, right? They're just, it was not, I remember how it felt when Empire Strikes Back came out, where Star Wars came out. I was probably four when, two when Star Wars came out. So I don't really, I feel like I remember. I remember being obsessed, but I remember that. And then it becomes the Matrix, right, where you just go, oh, somebody did something I didn't even realize was possible, right?

1:01:23And there's so much. But to me, the sort of existential questions, right, the existential questions of The Matrix really moved me. I think it doesn't get, I don't think Lana and Lily get enough credit for the emotion and the emotional side of that story. And all of their work, I find their work profoundly emotional. You're talking to a Cloud Atlas fan here. Yes, right? I'm like, you're in a safe space. One of my favorite things about Cloud Atlas is that there are times where I start crying in Cloud Atlas and I have no idea why I'm crying. Like I actually don't know what it is. Like usually you know, oh, this is why.

1:02:05There's times where I'm watching Cloud Atlas. And I love that feeling. I love that feeling when emotion is welling up in me and I don't quite understand it because it suggests we're digging deep. Like we're looking at something. And I feel that with Lana and Lily's work so strongly. So that's it. And it's the thing that all of these things that we're discussing have in common, right? Whether it's Andy Weir's writing, whether it's Daredevil comics, right? Whether it's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the thing that they all have in common with me is all of them moved me profoundly. And I was lucky enough to get to work in that, right?

1:02:39And so... Like, does this... Can you say at least that... Did this start as just like an unsolicited pitch? Were they looking for ideas for The Matrix and you said, hey, I got something? No, it's a lot of, because again, I've been doing this a long time. So a lot of this is just people ask, hey, would you ever be interested? Yes. Would you ever be interested in this, right? Like, would you ever be interested? And I really appreciate it because I like to talk because it's really, sometimes you come up with your best ideas when you don't think you're ever going to do something, right? When you just think, oh, but what if I did do, James has mentioned it, it's like what if I did do a detective chimp movie?

1:03:15What would that, like, let's just pretend that I had. Let's just go down that road for a second. Let's just enjoy that. Let's not think about like, how would you actually do? Just go like, well, let's, you'd be amazed at what can happen. And I think that's kind of what happened where I was like, well, no, they don't. I don't know that they need me, you know, but oh, let's think about it. And then you just keep having conversations. And that's still where we're at. It's like, I see the headlines because I'm on this press tour and I'm like, oh, I mean, I wish I didn't have to say anything, but to be fair, it's a reasonable question.

1:03:47And the truth is, though, we're still figuring it out. I'm still in that, I call it the writing cave. And that's why I'm hesitant to say anything, because I may change my mind in a month. There may be no Warner Brothers in two months. Like, we don't know. And so it's a little premature to be talking about any of this. And yet, to be fair, I understand why people want to. Again, tip of the iceberg. Your resume speaks for itself. But I'm so glad we had a chance to catch up and use Project Hail Mary as a good excuse. The movie's fantastic. You know I'm a fan. Very good, Josh. Everybody should check it out.

1:04:23Again, because if you're listening or watching this, you've watched it, I'm sure. But support it. Support Drew. And thanks, man. Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate you. This has been a joy. Thank you. Thank you for these conversations all these years. It really means the world to me, Josh. Anytime. And so ends another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. remember to review rate and subscribe to this show on itunes or wherever you get your podcasts i'm a big podcast person i'm daisy ridley and i definitely wasn't pressured to do this by josh

1:04:55this episode is brought to you by chat gpt hey it's bill simmons from the bill simmons podcast have you guys heard about chat gpt work it's the new way to use chat gpt for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give chat GPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plans.