‘Project Hail Mary’ Will Amaze! Amaze! Amaze! With Phil Lord and Chris Miller

21:51Sean Fennessey:And in the original deadline report, there was a note that said, The Adventures of Cliff Booth was coming out in August. that has since been scrubbed, so we don't know, even though I have felt like it feels like a summer movie. And Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was also a summer movie. And then there was also some insinuation about what the theatrical plan would be for Narnia, the magician's nephew. Correct. The forthcoming Greta Gerwig adaptation of that novel. And it kind of feels like Netflix is like six months away from announcing that they do theatrical. Maybe that's just wish casting, but this was kind of a weird story.

22:28Sean Fennessey:And you don't drop those little morsels and hints the way that Lynn does if you're not thinking about making some changes. Did you follow this at all? I read some of it and I did see the Cliff Booth stuff and that it was then deleted. You know, I interpreted it as the fruits of a lot of prep over the last six to nine to 12 months to try to buy a theatrical release studio in Warner Brothers. Yeah. And, you know, they said that they had different intentions were they to buy Warner Brothers because that's a business that works for Warner Brothers and it's different from their business. But you do kind of wonder as they're looking at what owning a theatrical distribution and studio would mean that it maybe gave them a couple ideas as well.

23:20Yeah. Of how to make money. you know and it is also just all hypothetical like corporate presentation speak so some of it is floating it testing to see what the reaction will be because they are a publicly traded company so so much of it is like what do the shareholders think about this uh you know some of it is also just you you say things to fill up a like a deck and then what actually does or does not happen six months from now can be totally totally different that's how corporations work yeah

23:50Sean Fennessey:Hey, you know, I'm about to bring up the forthcoming Martin Scorsese movie to you. And obviously when Apple was putting out Killers of the Flower Moon or when they were putting out Napoleon or when they put out F1 last summer, they worked in conjunction with the Legacy Studio to do the distribution for those movies. And it does seem like there's a real like meets like partnership in play with Sony and Netflix because they already license a lot of content in that output deal from Sony. they have this standing relationship with Sony Pictures Animation which just got us K-pop Demon Hunters and Quentin Tarantino's last movie in the Cliff Booth universe was distributed by Sony and so if we heard in a month or three months and I have no information I'm not reporting it but if we heard that Sony was going to put The Adventures of Cliff Booth in movie theaters in conjunction with Netflix for two weeks four weeks I wouldn't be shocked I think they should I think obviously think they should I mean we've been saying it makes no sense to not put like Frankenstein or Knives Out movies and movie theaters, like that's just bizarre to me that they don't really do that at scale.

24:51Right. So then that puts the August release date into a little bit of question, which is perhaps why it was scrubbed. But if it's going to be on Netflix in August and they do want to do a theatrical release before, then that's June or July. And that schedule is very full at this point.

25:09Sean Fennessey:Yeah, then you're running up against the Odyssey, which is not really where you want to be. And Disclosure Day. Yeah, and Spider-Man. Yeah. Yeah, and Toy Story 5. And Minions. Yeah, it's a very crowded June, July this year with big, big, big movies. I think it's a question of like, what does Netflix want out of that side of the business? Do they really want to make money now? Or is it continuing to placate the feelings of the high-level filmmakers? That was the other thing. It felt like there was a little bit of sensitivity to, will people still be willing to work with you guys if you're not going to start to do this?

25:40Sean Fennessey:Because we saw Emerald Fennell, for example, with Wuthering Heights, passed up Netflix to make her film with Warner Brothers, and that turned out pretty good for her. Obviously, Ryan Coogler made Sinners at Warner Brothers because he was able to get that, not just control of the print after 25 years, but a strong theatrical commitment. This has been discussed and debated for seven or eight years at this point, and we've talked about it a lot on the show. I do think Greta Gerwig making her first streamer movie and Tarantino being the writer and producer of a big movie like this, and he's like he really prizes theatrical right feels like an interesting rubber meeting the road moment for the studio we will continue to cover it i mentioned um speaking of streamers martin scorsese's new film what happens at night we saw a first look at the movie today a still photograph of leonardo dicaprio and jennifer lawrence the stars walking down a driveway in a snowy background that's probably the image of the movie we'll be looking at for the next 18 months Yes, because it's currently filming in Prague.

26:45Do we normally get first looks for Martin Scorsese movies, 18 months?

26:50Sean Fennessey:Famously, we did for Killers of the Flower Moon. There was that image of Leo and Lily Gladstone at the table. Right. And that was the only thing that we saw from the movie for almost two years. And then the movie came out. I don't know when this movie is supposed to come out. I presume in 2027. I'm very excited for it, obviously. Mustache in full effect for Leo. Big fan. Looks good. I haven't read who is helping distribute this one. What studio? I think Paramount did Killers of the Flower Moon. And Warner's at F1. So who's helping out here? We shall see. Is it you? Yeah. I have exciting new business to announce.

27:27Me and my AI producing partner. We'll be making lots of money. That's a joke. Her name is Money.

27:34Sean Fennessey:I'm looking forward to this movie. We're probably going to be talking about it for the next two years, though. So I don't want to get too over my skis. I'm incredibly psyched. You were talking about the 100th Oscars and what would be in competition. And if it releases in 2027, it would be in the mix. That's exciting. It is exciting. We're trying to get Marty that second Oscar. Yeah. Are we going to make it? To the Oscars, to 2028. Should we go to the 100th Oscars? Well, then we got to work, right? I know. Jack was trying to encourage us to go to the Oscars when we were down in Austin. And I was like, I don't know.

28:12Listen, we have to figure out mobile recording. You know? That's the thing. No, that's not it. I'm booking the Uber, timing it exactly correctly. Best picture goes to what happens at night. We are in the car. We get here. We're the first people out of the building. We fire up the microphone. That is very sweet. And I like that you, like Marty Supreme, are dreaming big.

28:36Sean Fennessey:I also like the energy you're bringing to this. Thank you. But listen, an Uber won't be able to get within like half a mile. That's true. That's true. I'm getting a helicopter. On that particular night. They do have the helicopter pad on the Lowe's, as we saw in Crime 101. That's right. Filmed on location in Los Angeles. Lime scooters? Yeah. Should we take lime scooters? I also forgot to mention we lost the I Heart Award, unfortunately. Oh, who won? Watch what crappens. That seems about right. I'll go to that. Sure. I'll go to the Oscars. I was thinking about when I shared that comment with you that I've never won anything.

29:12Sean Fennessey:And that's not true. When I was in third grade, I won a national contest. That contest was about health and the food pyramid. And I created a meal. Okay. That was like the ideal meal to get all the food groups in. And I drew images of what it was. And it was just a meal that my mom made. I can't totally remember what the meal was at this point. But it was like entered into the contest I won at my school. Then I won in New York state and then I won nationally. And it was just like a meal that my mom made in my house. So were you awarded based on the like the meal planning on the drawing itself on.

29:49Sean Fennessey:Kind of the totality of my essence, I think, is really what it was. I think they identified me as a comer in the industry. Did you submit the did you submit yourself or was it your teachers who decided that you had the best work? and we would be submitted. You know, I was in third grade. Okay, well. So I'm not totally sure. But as you might imagine, I was a confident young man. You know, I had some strong feelings about where I was going in the world. And at that time, it was 1989, I want to say. Okay. Third grade. Maybe 1990. And we were right in the middle of George H.W. Bush's America. Right?

30:33Sean Fennessey:And there was Operation Desert Storm. Yeah. A lot of tumults in the world. Storm and Norman. Storm and Norman Schwarzkopf, of course. I didn't interact with any of these people, but the national body was Bush's governmental body that recognized my work. Yeah. So that's the one time I've ever won anything. Okay. And we didn't win the I Heart Award. Yeah. That's too bad. That happens. Maybe next year. What were the kind of qualifications? What were they looking at to determine who had the— That's a good question is who submitted us for the iHeart Award? I don't know. Because we did not. I'm not sure.

31:05I assume that it costs money to be submitted. Presumably. Yeah. But that's not one of those where we didn't fill out an application.

31:12Sean Fennessey:Is Watch What Crappens an iHeart show? It is not. It's like a Bravo reality recap show. No, I know that. But who distributes it? Like, what is the... I don't think it is, but maybe I'm mistaken. Cool. I'm not accusing anyone of Dirty Pool. I'm just asking questions. The Rewatchables was also nominated for What It's Worth. Yeah. Yeah. but it was submitted before CR month if they had known CR month was coming would have been a whole different kettle of fish this is hosted by Ronnie Karam and Ben Mandelker congratulations to them I'm learning about them in real time I do know about Bravo you watch any Bravo shows?

31:49nope

31:49Sean Fennessey:I've watched many an episode of the Real Housewives franchise over the years but Eileen has kicked that franchise in the last five years so we never have it on anymore I've seen the meme where they scream take a Xanax which I want to scream at you fairly often. But... Doing really well. I feel very calm. That's good. I feel very measured right now. Okay. Well... Okay, so Spider-Man. Yeah. My youth is dead. Yeah. But Marty's coming back with a movie. That's right. My youth is alive. Kiki's getting paid. Kiki's getting paid. And reminding us all that sometimes you just got to go chase that back, you know?

32:21Sean Fennessey:We lost an award. But we've gained... What? An AI friend named Money. Okay, let's talk now about Project Hail Mary. This is, safe to say, the most anticipated movie of the year so far. Would you agree? I would. It's a new film from Amazon MGM. It's, as I said, directed by Lord and Miller. It is, the screenplay is written by Drew Goddard based on the 2021 novel by Andy Weir, which is the same formulation we had from 2015's The Martian. Yes. A beloved movie on this show and a hugely successful movie, award-winning movie. Goddard adapted Weir's novel back then. And this movie does have a lot in common with that movie.

33:02Sean Fennessey:This new movie stars Ryan Gosling, who also produced this film. Sandra Huller, Lionel Boyce, Ken Lung, Alana Vayntrub. The cinematography is by the great Greg Fraser, who you may have seen shooting the Dune movies recently. Charles Wood does the production design. Neil Scanlon, we will talk about him quite a bit because he did the creature effects on the film. And the score is by Daniel Pemberton. Plot synopsis is as follows. Rylan Grace, the sole survivor on a desperate last chance mission to save humanity from an extinction level solar event caused by space algae known as Astrophage, wakes up with amnesia on a spaceship and remembers his mission with the help of an unexpected alliance with an alien named Rocky.

33:41Sean Fennessey:What did you think of Project Hail Mary? I really liked it. I think that the first hour and a half is truly magical. And then it keeps going. But that is true of many great movies. And what it accomplishes, I think, both scale and production-wise, and as you said in the intro, feeling made by humans, even if it is not always portraying humans, as opposed to being inside a computer, is palpable and exciting. and there is one element that they just have to get exactly right, which is Rocky, the alien. And, you know, I guess that's a little bit of a spoiler, but it's not because, so I met an alien is in the trailer.

34:25And if they don't get that creature and that not just the actual recreation of the alien, but the characterization, the mood, if they can't use it in the story, then the story sucks. And they absolutely nailed it, I thought. It really worked on me, and I was charmed and emotionally invested in this alien in a way that I haven't really been invested in an alien since E.T. So, I mean, you don't spend that much time with aliens, you know, but they're clearly, they really owe a debt to many films, including E.T., and I think they get that. And so the rest of the movie's flaws or missteps kind of float away for me.

35:11Sean Fennessey:Yeah. I think it's good to go into the movie expecting a little bit of pastiche. The movie very purposefully wants to remind you of the best versions of these movies. In fact, there's a moment when Ryland, Gosling's character, is attempting to communicate with Rocky and he literally sounds out the Close Encounters theme to him while banging on the glass that divides the two of them. And the movie has a self-consciousness about that in the way that I think a lot of Lord and Miller films have a very kind of, we're pulling together a lot of the vibes of things that we love. You know, they are similarly like recombinant filmmakers.

35:46Sean Fennessey:You know, 21 Jump Street is a movie that is like trying to have its cake and eat it too and often does so successfully. The Lego movie is another example of this. Their work is very much influenced and addled by pop culture. This movie though, for them, is a really interesting shift tonally because it does have some of their trademark silliness and Gosling is doing a lot of, at times like chaplain-esque solo silent comedy. So is Rocky. Rocky is as well. But there is also like a real sentimentality in this story and a real sincerity in this story about a lost person, a person with really no connections and then what happens when you're millions and millions of miles away from home and you make a friend.

36:31Sean Fennessey:And that stuff also really worked for me. I think the movie is beautiful in a way that very few mainstream Hollywood productions are. I think that craft that you're talking about, the way that the ships are designed, the way that they move through space, the way that the characters interact with each other physically is just unusually specific and considered and artful. And it's also pretty funny. Like all the way through, it's pretty funny. You know, like there's a lot of laugh lines. Gosling is. I was just listening to Bill and Craig and Chris talking on the Rewatchables about how Gosling is in that like A tier of SNL hosts.

37:10Sean Fennessey:He's kind of using that same muscle in this performance where he's, you know, doing some mugging and doing a lot of like talking into camera. Yes. But he's very adept at it and he sells it in the same way that Rocky is sold really well too. But it's also different than like the full character actor, Ken, or even Nice Guys or one of the other comedic performances that he does where he's being Gosling being a dope. Right, right. This is a lean man part. Yes, exactly. And he's just using his innate charm and timing. Yeah. This is in that Matt Damon, Paul Newman realm of like, cameras on you. Yeah.

37:49Sean Fennessey:You got to carry it. Your face has to carry this movie all the way through. And if you're not bought in on that as well as Rocky, then the movie won't work. We've both seen it twice now. Both times the same thing was true for me and I think it was true for you, which is it is a very epic tale with a lot of like we're going here and then we're going here, we're going here through space. It also has a very interesting shape, like an interesting structure. structure because in the novel as I understand it and this is explained to me by our pals Mal and Joanna the flashbacks as they are in the film are really more like Ryland remembering moments in real time as he's going through the journey on the spaceship and remembering how he got to this point the movie doesn't quite communicate it in that way it doesn't quite feel like he's remembering something that has happened it more just feels like a traditional flashback structure but But that structure, in addition to the extended nature of the mission, makes this movie feel long.

38:54Sean Fennessey:Yeah. It is too long. And I'm usually a little reluctant to say that about movies because I like long movies. But there's something a little redundant in Act 3. Yes. That is like my one kind of strike against it. They have to. It's not that they have to solve the same problem several times. but you can feel the moment where they're like, we need one more big set piece. You know, we need one more emotional resolution moment here. We need to do one more alien thing here. You can feel them checking off the demands or what they think their various like plot building blocks are. And you're like, no, no, no, you don't actually, like we've gotten there.

39:45We understand all of this emotionally. We also are a little bit tired of the actual adventure stakes. So, you know, I think some of that they're just like trying to do a lot because they have three different things going on. They've got the flashback structure. They've got the actual save the earth structure. And then they've got Grace, the Gosling character's, you know, emotional relationship and like buddy structure. Then there's also a thing where the movie ends about five different times. Like, just literally, and I can, I have two different propositions of what shot the movie should have just ended on.

40:18Just, like, stop. And without even having to reshoot anything. And that would sort of help. Because it's not just that it is overstuffed, but it really doesn't know when to end. And so the last 15 minutes are really, really, really baggy and kind of over the top. And I think a little, you walk away with an impression of greater sentimentality than is maybe in the rest of the movie. Yeah, I think that's right. That it gets kind of a little lopsided at the end. I will say I rewatched The Martian. I went on House of R to talk about The Martian with them. And that movie is two hours and 25 minutes.

40:58Same thing. Exact same thing. And like, you know, bless Ridley Scott, who directed it. But it is also, by the time they're going on that last mission, which is another spacewalk, in order to do a very vital thing or else everyone dies, it's both stressful and you're just watching people spinning around and you're like, let's wrap this up. Let's go. Let's go. So some of it may also be the nature of the source material.

41:23Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Andy Weir likes an epic tale. Exactly. And likes a lot of science. And some of it is just, I guess, how movies are now. Yeah, I really liked the science component of this movie. I did too. I thought it was simultaneously very specific, but not intellectually overwhelming. I thought it was pretty legible. I was by no means a good science student and I don't host Science Corner on this show. But there are jokes about Xenon. It is that kind of a movie. It is detailed. I think I'm really impressed with both. I've never read an Andy Weir book. Mal and Joanna have read both and were telling me a lot about them And that's an interesting conversation to listen to if you're curious.

42:03But I think I have now seen two novel adaptations, both adapted by Drew Goddard's. So I think the combo of Andy Weir and Drew Goddard handle the science very smartly. I agree. It is always middle school science. Even if they have to, you know, say a lot of words at first, it is whether it's growing a plant or recreating water or elements or, you know, everything is like this. It's a cell is one of the big reveals. And it's like, you know, I can't tell you what mitosis is, but I know what a cell is. So it's something that is at least recognizable. And then the actual problems themselves are so basic, right?

42:46You either have to get off Mars, you got to get home, or you got to save the planet. Even the basic setup of this, which, you know, I'm sorry, it's the sun is dying. So it's getting colder. You know, that's not...

42:58Sean Fennessey:It's fairly simple. There are a lot of, they complicate it a bit. And I think they do that in smart and interesting ways. But even like the science experiment that Gosling's character Grace runs in order, his big breakthrough is like built out of plywood and is very much like a diorama that you - They go to Home Depot and get some stuff. Yeah, like your parents had to help you make when, by the way, I'm just absolutely dreading that. When that day comes, when we have to do the dioramas. I, no, it's, I just - You're an artist and a content creator. You're going to do great. I don't know if I'm great with my hands.

43:32I'm certainly no Rocky. And even that was just, they use puppet shows to explain things to each other, right? So there's so much both in the science that they choose that I think is very clever and accessible, and then the way that they have to communicate it that lends itself. It's just, it's understandable. And the other thing is that the flashback structure is... is very helpful in that you don't really ever have to wonder what time it is. It doesn't, it elides it because you know there's like past and present. So you don't have to worry about light years or where are they or what's happening or blah, blah, blah.

44:12It's, I thought it was very, very well done.

44:15Sean Fennessey:I thought so too. On the one hand, I actually enjoyed the movie more the second time because I knew what I was getting in that respect. So I didn't feel like I was having to keep up with the plot in any meaningful way. on the other hand I did start to have a few more questions about how much people had aged how for example the coma process works when they send the astronauts into space well obviously they lose two astronauts in the flight we are spoiling this movie at this point if you're still listening but like does Gosling's character not age over that period of time in which he takes that journey sure I don't really know how all that works yeah absolutely they just skipped up there's a yada yada over those things.

44:56Yeah, the most yada yada thing is there's a beautiful sequence where Grace and Rocky, you know, are starting to try to communicate and they do puppets. And then they say, like, this is the word for Rocky and this is the word for Grace. And he's using a machine and he's using money, our favorite AI bot, to start a language machine. And then two seconds later, they're communicating as if they've been living together for years. And I was like, I think that would have taken a little longer.

45:34Sean Fennessey:I think it did. And they just cut that out. I think the movie kind of acknowledges that they're like, we got to move this up a little bit. That's a thousand percent the right decision. And I was absolutely willing to go with the first time. And the second time, I didn't really care. You know, there are other things that they've solved, but sure, they cut corners. Yeah, I think it's helpful. it's kind of what makes the last kind of 25 minutes more frustrating because I think the movie mostly does a really nice job of not getting weighed down within well then what would happen well then what would happen they don't have to kind of over explain all of those things um I do want to go back to both like that weight of influence and also how it manifests in the movie yeah I mean you can hear Phil and Chris talk about it the the very specific steps that they made to accomplish this but I am obsessed with these movies and have been obsessed with them since, you know, I just talked to Steven Spielberg.

46:23Sean Fennessey:I mean, his movies in this world definitely changed my relationship to science fiction, made me fall in love with these kinds of stories. This is a really, really high level version of it in terms of how it looks and feels. And, you know, there is, of course, a lot of CGI in the movie, but it almost always feels like you're in a thing that was built by a person. Yes. And that quality, whether we're on Grace's ship, whether we're on Rocky's ship, whether we're at the base with Sandra Huller, or in a bar on a boat, it always feels like a real place and a real thing. All of the things that Rocky's sculptures that he makes out of his kind of solid xenon, clearly an artisan made those for the movie.

47:06Sean Fennessey:And like, this is how it should be. I genuinely feel like, this is, if you, I know it's expensive and I know it's hard, but for me at least, it really helps a movie like this. I feel like it's earning its believability, its earning its setting and story structure when it feels like Ryan Gosling is in a room with an alien. Yeah, which to some extent he also was, which to not, I mean, he was not, listen, Wolverines and wolves are different things. What a week for you. And the aliens are, Rocky the alien is not real that I am in at Oban's Noah, of but again i'm not steven spielberg but they chose a puppet you know they didn't choose like a green screen or a person with all of the motion capture stuff choice it's an essential choice and if it's anything else then he's acting with some form of computer and i think and you don't get the physicality which is such an essential part of like both of their comedies yes and then and And then the comedy is what creates the chemistry that kind of is the foundation of the relationship, which is wonderful and like very moving.

48:15And I like teared up every single time. It got me at a thousand percent work. And then the rest of the production design and the physical nature of the world takes its cues from that decision. Because if like Rocky is real, a puppet, and then it's all just like in the void.

48:33Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Then what's, you know, what's the point? There are a couple of moments when the two characters hug and they can only hug through this kind of apparatus. But when they hug, Rocky's in the glass cube, you know? What are we doing? How do you know when it's over? But you feel like you're watching these characters hug, which sounds like a silly thing. But, you know, Neil Scanlon, who, you know, designed all these creature effects. And what is the puppeteer's name who worked through it? Is it Ortiz? Yes, James Ortiz. James Ortiz. It's just a miraculous and odd little thing that they've made. You know, and it's kind of a rock alien, hence the Rocky name.

49:08Sean Fennessey:Doesn't really have a face. No. His posable thumbs only go down, which becomes a running gag in the movie. But yeah, they use the design or maybe that's in the book. And then the design, like, you know, meets exactly the inspiration. But it really is very funny. He uses a little rollerball to run around the ship and like keep his environment. And that's just extremely funny. The other thing that's really fascinating about the movie is that Rylan Grace is not much of a character. Yeah. We don't really know much about him. The movie purposefully, I think, withholds a lot of information about what has come before.

49:50Sean Fennessey:You get a little bit when he is first approached by Sandra Hewler's character to come experiment so that they can get a little bit more clarity on what's happening with this astrophage and why it is dimming the sun. and he kind of, you know, at one point he tells Rocky that he had a mate and then he lost her because his head was in the clouds and we know that... Now he's with Mark. Yeah, yeah. I hate Mark. That was really funny. I like that part a lot. There's a lot of really good laugh lines in the movie, but, you know, we learn a bit like he's a middle school science teacher even though he has a PhD and has some pretty dramatic ideas.

50:25Right, and even that is used expositionally, Expositionally, like both obviously, but like effectively where we learn about Astrovage and why the earth is in danger because he is explaining it to his like group of middle school students who won't stop asking about it. And even there, he also he has like a real diorama in in the classroom that he uses, like a like a physical explanation as opposed to screens.

50:51Sean Fennessey:No iPads in those classrooms. Yeah, that's how you know that it's a fantasy. But anyway. Yeah, I like those choices. And I think it is... It's kind of like more McQueen, Cary Grant style stardom from Gosling, where he's like, you don't need to know too much about this guy. His name is Roger Thornhill. He's been thrown into this world of North by Northwest. Go. And Gosling, we bring a lot to a movie with him, and he brings a lot to a movie starring him. And he's just fun to be with for two and a half hours. He really isn't that rare class of actor. it's a relief to see him in something like this honestly I was a little worried that it was going to be the gray man and the fall guy and variations on these things and he's very well suited to this kind of a thing that blend of serial comic drama epic drama there's a moment in the very first images of the movie in which we see the lights changing the lights shifting in the ship and we see that this bold red and this bold blue that are very purposefully invoking 2001 A Space Odyssey.

51:58Sean Fennessey:And that is no doubt on the minds of the filmmakers. You know, you mentioned E.T., which is no doubt as is Close Encounters. Interstellar is very much on the minds, but I liked what you said before about the simplicity of the science because it is almost the inverse of Interstellar, which is like kind of begging you to keep up with the wormholes and the fractals and this kind of mega science that is at the heart of that movie. It's very Nolan-esque, Jonathan and Christopher. Yes. And this movie is more, like you said, a little bit more middle school style. I think also, like we've seen Ryan Gosling in a space movie before.

52:34Sean Fennessey:You know, this isn't the first time he's been an astronaut. And in First Man, he's kind of, it's sort of like the sad boy version of Rylan Grace, you know, Neil Armstrong. He's much more internal and has this kind of unresolved angst. It's flipped. He's like incredibly professionally and outwardly successful. and, you know, like internal crisis. Yes. So, and cannot, and literally, you know, a man will do anything not to go to therapy. A man will literally go to the moon to not go to therapy, which is what happens in First Man. And then at the end, they just, they're staring at each other through the quarantine glass.

53:12Sean Fennessey:Yeah. The thing that really jumps out to me is watching, there's a moment in the film where it becomes clear that these two ships are going to encounter one another, right? that Rylan has realized that there's a foreign spaceship that is sending out a blip, which is basically like a message. And the way that the ships move in space, I've never really seen that in a space movie before in that specific way. They were like gliding. It was almost like you were turning them on like an abacus or one of my children's like, you know, rail toys where they just like, zoop, zoop, kind of dancing. Yeah. And there's a rhythm to the way that they move.

53:50and it didn't feel like the way that the ships move in Star Wars.

53:55Sean Fennessey:It didn't feel like the way that the ships move in Apollo 13. It didn't feel, it felt different. It looked different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's hard to make something look new after 70 years, 80 years of space movies. Actually, this year is really funny. I have been trying to figure out a way to do something about the origins of science fiction at the movies and 51 is the day that the earth stood still. And there's one other classic. I can't remember which one, but that's really the set. That's the 75th anniversary of like the dawning point of science fiction at the movies. There were other previous films like Metropolis and things like that, but how we know them where there's aliens, there's humans, there's US mission control and we're putting rockets in space and all of our anxieties about the Cold War and all of these stories being introduced to us.

54:48Sean Fennessey:And the idea of being able to still make something look and feel new in these worlds is really exciting for me and rewarding. You know, I was reading a couple of reviews and I saw some tisking at Daniel Pemberton's score, which I thought was magnificent and is like rhythmic and jazz-like in the first half and more kind of like epic and choral in the second half. And I found both of those strokes to be really, really impressive. What did you think of the score? Well, yeah, it's, I mean, it understands that the movie is both a procedural and, you know, an emotional epic. And a lot of this film, even though it's set in deep space and was filmed on IMAX and is meant to see on the biggest screen possible, like, is a guy and a small alien in a room?

55:33Yep. You know, or they're looking at a cell or they're doing very, very small things in rooms. and so I think that the bigger score especially communicates like some of the grandness that is meant in this movie. Like they are still in space, you know? Even though you're just watching them float around in tubes for a while. So I liked it, but I particularly liked the percussive stuff. The first half. Yeah, and also it plays up the comedy, which this is. This is a very funny movie and I find that comedies don't always have scoring or soundtracks that like meet the level of the material. It's very true.

56:16Yeah, it can often just take away or distract or not take it as seriously.

56:21Sean Fennessey:Yeah, Pemberton, my favorite thing he's ever done is the Spider-Verse scores. And obviously he's worked with Lord Miller before because they produced those movies. And he is an incredibly variable composer. If you go and listen to his work on Spotify across the many films he's made, It's a lot of different styles. And he has clearly a lot of different influences. But I was really impressed by this. And, you know, speaking of Lord Miller, the other thing, too, is like, like I said, it's been a long time since they've directed a movie. Right. And I mentioned Solo earlier in this episode. And they were directing Solo.

56:54Sean Fennessey:They did direct chunks of Solo. And then they were fired by Lucasfilm. And Ron Howard was hired to replace them. and that one of the reasons why that movie is ultimately a nothing burger is that it's like two completely different filmmakers with completely different sensibilities smashing together a story and a script you know some of the suggestion in that story is that lawrence casden didn't really like the tone that lord miller were pursuing because he is kind of the author of han solo he writes all the great han solo dialogue and they were trying to do something different and presumably just much more in their tone.

57:28Sean Fennessey:I've always wanted to see their version of Solo just because it would have been a different kind of Star Wars movie. But this does, this movie does kind of feel like revenge for that. Yeah. That experience. Yes. You know? And I mean, and better for sure. Now that I've seen. Definitely better than Solo. This episode is brought to you by Volkswagen. There is such a thing as becoming too comfortable in your day to day. But our favorite films with stories that make us change the way we think that weren't made by people content to just sit back and watch the world pass by. This is your sign that you shouldn't either.

58:02Sean Fennessey:From us, from VW, and the other drivers out there, grab the wheel. Do what you love, even if it means taking the road less traveled. Learn more at VW.com. Do you think people are going to like this movie? Or I should say, do you think people are going to love this movie? Because it is a very big and expensive swing from Amazon. They have had a checkered past with their movie distribution. They're attempting now to be a real, we've released 12 films theatrically per year studio. There's a gap. We could use a studio who's willing to do that. Yes. You kind of can't get a bigger, more big tent original story.

58:41Sean Fennessey:Obviously, it is based on a novel, but this feels more like 2009 than it does 2026. And it certainly feels like 2015. And people loved The Martian. The Martian made a tremendous amount of money. Yeah, it was like$500 million. Yeah. And I will say, now that I have rewatched The Martian recently, I think this might be better than The Martian. The Martian... It's pretty close for me. Which we love and really enjoyed. And also had that feeling in 2015 of being like, wow, they just made, you know, a classic big budget adapted from a book studio movie. and it's Matt Damon and he's being a movie star and then all these people got to save this problem.

59:20You know, save this guy and solve this problem. But it's baggy. Matt Damon isn't as funny as I remembered, though it's not his fault. I just do think some of the Andy Weir character humor, like we got to science the shit out of this. You know, which is...

59:38Sean Fennessey:I think in its time, it was very funny. Totally. And now, like, how is it aging, that comic sensibility? Yeah. Yeah. But but it is just kind of funny to locate that there is like a. A noticeable strain of humor to both of these that is like stands out. Yeah. And I anyway, people really like the Martian. I really liked the Martian. So theoretically, they would also like this, which is the Martian and like maybe slightly more complex, but also with a cute alien. I yeah I don't know The Martian as I recall was an October film right yeah it was released October 2nd yeah and Project Hail Mary does kind of feel like an October movie this is an interesting release date yeah before this movie we were in Vegas last April where they showed us the extended first look at this movie and we were both like whoa holy fuck yeah this looks really cool and I didn't even know this was coming um and that has me thinking about how there's usually one movie at the beginning of every year now that it becomes a movie that we talk about for 12 months at the Academy Awards.

1:00:47Sean Fennessey:And last year it was Sinners. A couple of years before that, it was Top Gun. A couple of years before that, it was Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. I don't really know if this is a Best Picture contender. I think it is. I think it is too. We went and saw it for a second time the night after the Oscars. And again, that first hour and a half, I was still very much in Oscars mindset and shattered intellectually. intellectually and emotionally. And I was like, oh, this is definitely, this is definitely an Oscars movie. There's so much to like about it. It's such a big scale. And we do have this precedent of, you know, big scale movies being released earlier in the year and making it all the way.

1:01:28Sean Fennessey:And also like Gravity being nominated for Best Picture. Like there's some precedent for the kind of movie that it is too. Yeah, Arrival. Arrival, yeah. So I think it could be. I do... Is it too much of a comedy? I don't know there are a lot Ryan Gosling cries like a lot in this um a lot and he you know holds the camera just so for a lot of it I was absolutely dying laughing at both times at the close-ups of him watching Sandra Huller sing a an emotional karaoke song yes we don't have to spoil anymore even though it's been widely reported it's a great scene I love her performance is amazing She's amazing.

1:02:09But I mean, he's just sitting at the bar in a sweater that you turned to me halfway through and said, I need to buy this sweater. And he's got these rimless glasses and it is framed just so. And he's leaning just so for, you know, his his movie star shot.

1:02:27Sean Fennessey:The camera is looking at him, looking at her. Yeah. But he knows it. And he's like, OK, here it is. Here's time for me to be Ryan Gosling and for everyone who showed up to see Ryan Gosling. to get some Ryan Gosling. So he is doing all of that along with all of the puppet stuff. But I don't know. I guess it's how much can you market the Rocky of it all before? And because I was thinking about it, like our children would love Rocky. They would be bored by the rest of it. But that's okay. Even the way he speaks is so funny. And they would like definitely laugh. There is a physical comedy element to it.

1:03:08And I think that you have... That is a real crowd pleaser. That's the word for the movie. It is a real crowd pleaser. But you can't... It feels like there's already too much in the trailer. You know, of...

1:03:22Sean Fennessey:Yeah, you know, I will say, when the trailer first hit, I think you and I were both a little disappointed that we even learned of the existence of Rocky. But then you learn pretty quickly. It's about 45 minutes before Rocky shows up in the movie. But then he is... He's there. He is as much the center of the movie as Grace is. They do, I think, almost. It's 45 minutes before you get to Rocky. And then I think they do almost, it's 35, 45 minutes of just Grace and Rocky before you go back to Earth. Right. Which is another, I mean, again, this is just part of, there's so much to fit into this movie that, you know, they can't actually start the plot for an hour and a half.

1:03:57Because they had to do all the setup and then they had to give you your Rocky time. That's right. But you can't do without the Rocky time. Because it's so charming.

1:04:04Sean Fennessey:The second time around, there was a little bit of like some plaintive moments of them like staring at each other that are a little drawn out. But for the most part, I agree with you. Well, they were doing the E.T., but then they were pointing. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of time spent in that tunnel that is built from ship to ship. Yeah, well, they got to dance for more physical comedy. I like the dancing. I think below the line, this movie is going to do very well. There's definitely production design, visual effects, maybe score. I don't know how you recognize the puppeteering work. Reacher design?

1:04:39Sean Fennessey:That is something that, you know, presumably it goes into production design. I think it goes into, I mean, Neil Scanlon has been nominated for visual effects. For visual effects. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I guess visual effects would be the place where that work goes. but it does have that feeling of like a Mad Max Fury Road-esque like there's a lot of places where they could recognize this movie in the awards I'm very very curious to see how well it does The Martian made$630 million worldwide yeah that's very good if this movie makes$630 million that's a huge success in terms of the Oscar race though Dune Part 3 is coming out and it's unusual for two huge science fiction movies to be nominated for Best Picture.

1:05:27Sean Fennessey:In fact, I can't really think of a time when it's happened. Though, let's see, it's in the 10-year run, so since 2009. What was in 2009? What was the year that like District whatever? District 13. District 13. There weren't two that year? Maybe there were. I believe that was the, was that ultimately the 2010 Oscars? Yeah. And then I'm looking at... Oh, District 9, not District 13. Oh, you're right, Avatar. Yeah. District 9, a smaller movie. I think Katniss Everdeen is from District 13. Okay. Right? Guys, Hunger Games in the booth? District 12. Oh, okay. Would you volunteer as tribute for me in fighting the Hunger Games?

1:06:08Sean Fennessey:Before you, you actually got to the screen and you go to Project Hail Mary a little bit late and they showed the new Hunger Games trailer beforehand and I was sitting there with Chris and I was like, I'm just in on this. I just think this movie looks good and I want to see it. I didn't really care for the last Hunger Games movie. I don't even love those previous films but I'm interested. The Martian was also nominated up against Mad Max Fury Road which are different but you know. One's more like epic war movie in the desert. Okay. But you're right. They're not that far afield. Post-apocalyptic for sure.

1:06:36Would I volunteer for you? Would you? I mean I think I have a way better chance than you do. Of surviving in Hunger Games? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Training more, pain tolerance higher.

1:06:47Sean Fennessey:I'm pretty shrewd. I'm fairly ruthless though and there is a physicality to it respectfully. like you haven't been at the gym recently. I feel like I'm doing very well. And I've been meeting people in Pilates class who listen to this. What's up, Chase? If you're listening at home. What's Chase's story? I saw Chase at Motivate. He was very friendly and he lives in the neighborhood. It was great. I was very excited. Nice. There's usually one man in a Pilates class and I'm always a fan. I think it's very brave to be the one man in the Pilates class. And that was Chase. How do you feel when someone approaches you and says, hey, are you Amanda Dobbins?

1:07:25Sean Fennessey:What do you do? I usually introduce myself and ask their name. I'm happy about it. Can I tell you about what happened last night? Where I was out to dinner at Queens with friends and a nice man named David came over with a Negroni in hand and put it down for me because he's like, I needed to bring you a Negroni. That's my best friend for life, David. So I feel amazing. Also, by the way, it was my third Negroni. look at me here and thriving. Wow. That's impressive. Thank you. I had zero Negroni's. Once again, I've been training, right? I've been in the gym. I've been at the bar. I'm ready so I could win Hunger Games.

1:08:01Sean Fennessey:I don't think there's a bar component in the Hunger Games. You don't know. What do they have to drink? There's no Negroni challenge. What do they have to drink though? You know? We got to ask Katniss. Do you have access to fresh water? We got to holler at your girl, Jen Lawrence. This episode is brought to you by Volkswagen. There is such a thing as becoming too comfortable in your day-to-day, but our favorite films, with stories that make us change the way we think, they weren't made by people content to just sit back and watch the world pass by. This is your sign that you shouldn't either. From us, from VW, and the other drivers out there, grab the wheel.

1:08:35Sean Fennessey:Do what you love, even if it means taking the road less traveled. Learn more at VW.com. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. The best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals and 130 million decision makers. And that's where it stands apart from other ad buys. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company, role, seniority, skills, company revenue. So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. It's why LinkedIn ads generates the highest B2B return on ad spend of all online ad networks.

1:09:11Sean Fennessey:Seriously, all of them. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash the big picture. Terms and conditions apply. Project Elmeri, dynamite. Really, really good. A lot of fun. Yeah. What a great way to kick off, I guess, the post Oscars. $60 million, I think, in that vicinity. That would be good, even though I know that tracking is broken. I think that's just domestic as well. Okay. you know it's going to take a while to get up to$250 or whatever this movie costs but let's go to my conversation with Phil Lord and Chris Miller because they'll tell you all the ways in which this movie was built and shaped and looks the way that it does

1:10:00Sean Fennessey:for the first time Phil Lord and Chris Miller thank you both for being here it's been a minute since you guys have made a movie curious when did the book hit your desk and then how do you decide you want to direct something um let's see so uh ryan sent us uh the book with amy as a manuscript before it was published okay ryan gosling and amy pascal that's right yes to you they're ryan and amy yes exactly um and uh and we had a pre-existing relationship with andy weir uh our producing partner aditya sued discovered the martian was an e-book and put together that movie and brought Drew on. So when we got the manuscript, Adithya said, guys, this is your next movie.

1:10:51And then we read it in one night and we're like, you're right. What is it that he saw that made him say that to you? I think it's, first of all, we've made a lot of movies about friendship and people whose friendship is the reason they can do something really hard. Our movies are, we like to say, 51 % optimistic. And this novel is so affirming. And we try to make movies that help people imagine goodness. And that's what the book did when I read it. Also, it seemed really hard, and that's kind of exciting for us. You're like, oh, the co-star of this movie is an alien with no face and no eyes, no mouth and speaks in whale song.

1:11:38Fantastic. And you have to fall in love with it. Great. And like the spectacle, the scale, the massiveness of it, you could just feel it on the page. But really, it was like the emotional heart of it. And it was crazy that by the end, with all the twists and turns and surprises that the last third of that book has, like how I found myself like, oh my God, I would die for this rock. And you're like, I don't know how he did it, but we have to make you feel that way. I got confident reading about that he had no face. Yeah. I was like, oh, we know how to do this. And I feel like somebody else might not do it right.

1:12:16What do you mean when you say that? So Rocky, the alien co-star of the movie, in the novel has five limbs and no face and no mouth and no eyes. and he speaks in whale language. And so we, you know, most people would be, most people who finance movies would be really scared by that. They would say, oh, he has no eyes, but the eyes are the window to the soul. How could you possibly relate to a character? And I was like, well, I don't know. Like every Pixar movie opens with like a lamp, you know, being a parent, right? So I was like, we human beings are so good at projecting personality onto inanimate objects.

1:12:56That's why every car has like a smiling grill on the front of it and little light eyes or windscreen eyes. And so I was like, oh, we know how to help the audience project a personality onto a rock.

1:13:10Sean Fennessey:Okay. I'm curious, like the hard part that you mentioned, what does that mean to you practically? Is it like the scale of the movie? Is it space? Is it just the translation of the rock? Well, it's like a lot of things. There's, you know, this has a lot of zero microgravity, which means like a lot of wires and like a lot of like like technically complicated choreography. um this you know having uh we wanted to do have rocky really be there and have a have a be a creature that was puppeted uh so that ryan would have a scene partner and so that we could you know capture you know rocky really and not have him have to act with a tennis ball on a stick um so we knew that that meant okay now we have to this thing's gonna have to be operated by a team of five puppeteers that we call the Rocketeers led by James Ortiz.

1:14:05But now we're going to have to, like, find a way for us to, like, find a place for them to even exist to operate the puppet. Right, it means we have to build the sets, you know, five feet off the ground. Right, so that they don't block the light. And then... And by the way, the two main characters are always separated by glass. Right. And so that means that, like, oh, it's going to reflect all the cameras. It's going to make really gnarly, bright lights blocking your view. It's going to require tons of touch-up. Meanwhile, we're going to have to erase puppeteers behind glass. So it just made the whole movie, it's a book about overcoming odds, right?

1:14:50Impossible odds and solving problems. And so it meant that the making of the film was going to be a way to experience the story ourselves. and that we had to solve a lot of problems by gathering a bunch of smart people and working together. We also create our own obstacles that make things even more complicated. In the book, you know, there is, the ship has centrifugal gravity, but it's all, all the rooms are sort of stacked like a rocket ship or a lighthouse. And we thought it might be interesting if it had one orientation of gravity when it was traveling like a lighthouse, but then when it separated and started spinning, that it would turn on its side so that it wouldn't be vertical, it would be horizontal, and the wall would become the floor.

1:15:35So we'd have a secondary version of gravity. So that meant that the ship, which we built in its entirety, had to be oriented vertically and then disassembled and reassembled horizontally each room of the ship, which was an insane thing to do. But two of the HODs are Greg Fraser, the incredible cinematographer, and Paul Lambert, who's won four Oscars for visual effects. And they looked at us one day and said, this is the most complex film we've ever worked on. And we made two dunes. And so there's something about those obstacles that get us excited. I don't know if I ever told you this. I have a close family friend who had Parkinson's.

1:16:23Parkinson's. And when he was struggling to move around, one of the things he would say to us is like, will you put your foot and place it in front of my feet? And then he was able to step over it. But it was only by placing an obstacle in front of him that would get him over when he got stuck. And I always thought that was a really interesting thing. Sometimes limitations or like hard problems to solve make you do something that you haven't seen before. And that's really what we're always trying to do with everything is make something that feels new and original.

1:17:00Sean Fennessey:You started to talk about gravity and the construction of the ships and the way that they operate. And the movie is, I've been told that it is less scientific than the book, which is tremendously scientific. But as a movie watcher, I was like, this is deeply rooted in science. And there are extended passages where there is a lot of conversation that is scientifically based. Yes. And, and like long passages with no dialogue where they just like put things in pipettes and centrifuges. Yes, totally. And it is its own little science experiment in that way. But I was, I'm curious how you guys thought about how an audience might feel about that.

1:17:34Sean Fennessey:What's the line between keeping it true versus keeping it coherent and how you worked through that with Ryan too? Well, we wanted all the science to be real and we wanted, other than the invented stuff from the book, like an alien species and an alien. Even those things, we were like, the novel is true. Right. Everything that Andy established, that's real. Let's pretend it's everything is real. But we also didn't want, this isn't a lecture. This is a piece of entertainment, right? This is supposed to be fun and exciting and entertaining for everybody. So we didn't have the advantage of the book where you can hear Rylan Grace's thoughts.

1:18:09So we had to show the audience what was happening in a way that was easily digestible entertaining and fun and so that was the real challenge of the movie but thankfully we uh you know we we test our movies with friends and family and and strangers uh more than probably anybody we're very like probably we probably screened this movie 11 times before we locked the cut right and every time it was sort of like is anyone confused anyone bored is anyone where's the parts that our people are are feeling like either like they're losing engagement or they're not following what's happening. And so like, how can we, how can we simplify this?

1:18:45How can we make it, make it interesting and cinematic and tell you without like having a lecture? And so that's how we ultimately find the right balance. We shoot too much and then we like hone it into something that is, that's entertaining. But we imagine that the audience would go with it because it's kind of like watching Rafifi or Thief or something where you're like watching someone like crack a safe or dig a hole for 20 minutes in the floor and you're just kind of interested in the process, you know, in watching people do a job well, like one of our favorite genres of cinema. And so we thought, well, if the, it's actually something learned from watching Denise's first Dune movie.

1:19:24If the emotional story is palpable, then you will pick up the lore. And in our case, like the lore is like the science. You'll pick it up as you go and you'll look for it and try to understand it because you're so invested in the character. And if you don't follow the ins and outs of the science of the story, it doesn't matter. You're following the plot and the characters and that's what you care about. Is he going to get the thing that he needs? I don't know exactly why he needs the thing, but I really want him to get it. Because he seems to think he needs it. It's true.

1:19:53Sean Fennessey:There are like xenon gags though, so you are still touching the very specific languages. I always call what you're describing ingenuity porn. Like there's something about like really exciting about watching someone solve something. And this movie is full of that. the legacy of space movies is very intense there's like hundreds and hundreds of movies about space but then there's also like four or five movies that stand way above those other movies and I do feel like your movie is really grasping to be like I'm one of those four or five movies it is it's kind of like Katie shows up early at the party I mean time will tell you never know but even just the way that objects moved in space I was like this feels different this feels like the energy is different the way that the objects are operating feels different in a way that it is like communing with the history of space movies but not imitating um i don't know if that was intentional i'm just like we definitely wanted to we wanted to do uh our own thing right we didn't want to we don't want to do an homage to anything we wanted it to be its own movie and have its own space and i think we often said this movie is not a mac it's a pc it's not slick it's not shiny the guts of the ship are on the outside.

1:21:04You can, like, it's messy. He's messy. You know, it was, like, really important to us and to Ryan to represent what, like, a regular person would be like in this scenario. And so we were like, oh, yeah. There's no one else on this ship who would just throw all his, like, crap on the ground. And then it would be a huge problem when zero-G hit and suddenly it was, like, floating around everywhere. And we wanted, and this was a great thing about working with Greg Fraser, is, like, he is an amazing DP, but he's not a perfectionist he's an imperfectionist and so he's always like i want to find something kind of messy or sloppy or imperfect about the image and so it all kind of coalesced around making the space a little bit more tactile and and um and weirdly relatable right like it feels like immediate intimate and you're and it was like uh it felt sort of found in a way and less formalist like that was sort of we at every scene we would do what we called like greg vibes pass which was after we felt like we got the scene we're like okay we're gonna do one more we're just gonna run the scene and then greg's gonna come with a camera on his shoulder and just sort of find the moment and that was what was cool was that you know because we had the sets really built and there was no green screen in the movie whatsoever right and because we had a real Rocky.

1:22:24It didn't matter the scene. He could go anywhere and find a shot and line up something that felt like it was discovered and it didn't feel it felt like it had a sort of a little magic to it. And a lot of that stuff made it into the movie because it just feels different from other space stuff.

1:22:43Sean Fennessey:I was going to ask you what percentage of the vibes shots do you think actually made it into the final cut? A lot. Because that's the hard thing to do when you're making a movie that requires so much planning is for it to be driven by intuition so we're trying to create the conditions that allow greg you know to shoot 360 basically you know greg like lit most of the scenes in such a way that he could point the camera anywhere and create the conditions for ryan to improvise to respond directly to his scene partner and have things feel more captured and spontaneous, which is like so hard to do when you're like strung up on wires.

1:23:25But we wanted space to be, we wanted the movie to be playful. And it requires a lot of planning to be able to have that freedom, right? And so you have to like, we like pre-shot all the space stuff virtually. First is make sure that we had the walls of the set can move out that we needed and we had the right size and shape of everything and that we were going to be able to be using the right equipment. And, you know, and when we did, but that allowed us to be free when we were shooting. And then similarly, like when we did wire stuff, like there was like, there's a very tropey version of space where everyone's on like a wire and going slow motion like they're in a ballet or a bad high school production of Peter Pan or something.

1:24:09When we talked to astronauts there, I said, it's not like that. Like, you're suspended in the air, but, like, you move at regular speed. And it's clumsy. You can get stuck in the middle if you're too far from the walls. So, like, you're constantly pushing yourself off one wall and bonking into another. And the first few days that you are experiencing microgravity, you are a total klutz and you're smashing into everything. And so we, you know, and so we set up this rig, which was on where Ryan was in a spin ring. And we had like flexibility with the way that the wires could move so that he could spin his body in any direction, flip around, basically do air parkour.

1:24:47And we'd be like, okay, you got to get from here to there and just like do however you would and give him the freedom to sort of like mess his way to the spot. And that kind of like planning and preparation to allow for freedom is like, it's so much harder than you might imagine. Can you tell me a little bit about directing Ryan to make this work?

1:25:14Sean Fennessey:And like how much did he like acting opposite a puppet? Was it difficult to do that? Like you hear a lot of, obviously a lot of stories about actors acting opposite tennis balls, like you mentioned. And this is different, but it's a different performance style. It is. For Ryan, I think he's such a big believer in the book. He was excited and scared, which is like where you want to be. And like Sidney Pollack would ask his HODs when he started a movie, he would say, do you want to get scared? And the whole point of it is, again, those obstacles. So I think Ryan is like us and that he likes having those provocations from the challenge.

1:25:56And then he's such an important part of Rocky's performance. His belief that Rocky is a person and that Rocky has status in the scenes is so critical. One of my favorite things about Ryan is how he, as a handsome movie star who's really smart and a great filmmaker, he always confers status to the characters around him. even when he's on SNL, like the way he, like his clown is to be the low man in the scene. And so when he's around Rocky, he's going like, Hey, I'm, you know, I'm sorry. I'm talking so much. You know, I just really want to be here. Like he's trying to get on, he's playing, get on the team.

1:26:33And so that's what we talked about as a, you know, the four of us, us, you know, us Ryan and James Ortiz who plays Rocky is like, you're older than him, Rocky. You think you're smarter than him you're certainly not as clumsy as he is and you pity him right and i think the big difference is that you had this actual performance that's coming with with james and the rocketeers what we call this team of puppeteers and and there was like this back and forth they could improvise and would improvise scenes for for long long stretches and and you could get these real reactions from ryan that are like he was surprised by the thing that james did and was like tickled by it or surprised by it or thrown back by it.

1:27:18And then Rocky was reacting to whatever it is that Ryan did. And like, and James, the voice that he was doing on set was the voice that we used in the movie. And so their banter is natural because he has a real scene partner. It's not him imagining himself having a scene partner. Right, so you're responding to each other and suddenly like you stop acting. You start reacting, guys. Yeah, you start just behaving, right?

1:27:42Sean Fennessey:I'm always interested to talk to directing duos because it's a unique relationship and division of labor is always interesting to me around this you guys have known each other for a very long time working together for a very long time but I'll sometimes ask like writing duos are you back to back in a room is one person standing and the other person talking but when you're on set who's responsible for what are you changing every day what you do we're side by side at a monitor often the communication is nonverbal. Right. And whoever is most preoccupied with something in that moment is the one who's taking charge and running onto the stage.

1:28:21We try not to have like two people run up to an actor and like give thoughts because then it can be like, whoa, the contradictory. And so usually when we've gotten onto set, like we have worked and reworked that scene and we know exactly what we want to get out of it. And we've ridden together. That's one like rule we have is like we ride together on the way to the stage so that we can talk about the day's work okay yeah and then and then we like are watching and then we can look at each other and go like needs to be a little faster right okay i'll go i'll go talk go and talk to them and then you know then or it'll be like one of us will be like i feel like like it should be they should be yelling and i'm like oh but i feel like they're too mean they're like well let's do the angry take now and then we'll do a safety that's like a sweetie pie take and then we'll figure it out in the editing room.

1:29:12But we sort of like allow that each version to have its own moment. So we go like, okay, let's go and let's just like really let them have it and then come back around after that. Okay, that was great. Now just to try a different version, let's try one where you're like trying to be kind to each other and then... Just try not to give them whiplash by like alternating ideas. Exactly. You try to like start with one and then guide towards the other. And I think for us, Like, this relationship is not unlike the one that, you know, Ryan has with Rocky or with, you know, Ava Stratt played by Sondra Huller.

1:29:42It's like you have to accommodate one another's, like, quirks. Like, and what you're hoping to do is to magnify one another's differences. Not like, like, a Lord Miller movie cannot be like the Venn diagram, like, subsets of the things that we both agree on. It has to be like the full, like both circles and the part in the middle so that you get a broader set of ideas. And you don't worry about editing them. You just have to like trust and embrace what the other guy is interested in.

1:30:19Sean Fennessey:Would you know how to define what are the things in your own individual parts of the circles? Hard to say. I mean, it depends on the moment, right? And then we sometimes switch. Right. Because if Chris gets super upset, I immediately become a peacemaker. Like a married couple, basically. Some of your functions atrophy because the other person is stronger. You have to yang someone's yin sometimes. Right. But we're usually coming at it from the same place. And it's only about 5 % of the time that we're seeing it slightly differently. And so we just try to get as much as we can and then figure it out in the editing room.

1:31:02Yeah. I'm sorry if that's an unsatisfying answer. Do you have a good answer? We don't really, we don't really. We don't divide labor. We do sometimes have different interests. In writing, what we'll do is we'll talk, talk, talk, talk about the scenes. And whoever's got a clearer idea of the scene, they'll write that scene and someone else will write the other thing. And we'll swap pages and they'll get back together. And we'll talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And then like figure out something. And then similarly like take turns on stuff. When we ran a TV show room, we thought that there was a great value in group writing and also a great value in individual writing and concentration and just the things that pop into your head and that you accept without being challenged.

1:31:38And I think we tried to balance that and have a little bit of both.

1:31:42Sean Fennessey:I'm curious also about the tone. I've had this nice experience of showing my five-year-old some of your movies. Not on 22 Jump Street. She's not there yet. It would not be the first five-year-old to see that film. It's probably true. But, you know, even 22 Jump Street and the Lego movie and Cloudy, like they all, they have a vibe. They have a tone. They have a sensibility to them. They're friendly. Yes, they are. And they're antic and they're excitable in a good way. Yes, that's true. And this movie has some of that, but not all of that. Like it is different. And I was kind of curious like what it was like to confront material and try to make sure that you're putting your stamp on it, but maybe not get in its way as well, because you have your own sensibilities, but this pre-existing material is here.

1:32:26Sean Fennessey:How did it feel doing that? I mean, you really want to honor this book. Like we were so blown away by the story and the tone and the vibe of the book. Luckily, the book is doing a lot of things that we like to do, which is like, it's funny. It's exciting. It's really emotional. You know, it's about like a friendship and all this stuff. So it's in our wheelhouse of things that we like. And so we didn't really think too much about like, like adjusting the tone or anything yeah like this is what the scene is this is how the scene goes and we and you know like what's cool about human beings is that we can laugh and cry right on top of each other and the best dramas uh make you laugh and the best comedies make you cry and so uh if you make a movie that makes you feel all of the feelings you've laughed you've cried you've been excited you were scared you were on the edge of your seat you were curious you had all everything then you come out of that movie going like wow i just felt i went on a ride and i had a whole experience of of of feelings and then and then you feel like it was worth going to the theater for what was the single hardest thing to capture in the movie

1:33:43like hard fun hard or like hard hard like like i would say i'm curious about so many things that were hard in this movie but but one thing that was it took a while to r &d but when we got it it was it was crazy magical was uh so there's a scene when they're collecting astrophage which is the sort of space algae that's eating the suns and you can only see them in um infrared light um and so uh ryan's character's out on the hull of the ship collecting a bunch of of this astrophage and he's surrounded by this invisible thing. And we sort of get a moment to visualize what an IR camera would be seeing and what's actually all around him.

1:34:27And the way that we did that was you take a filter out of the camera that's blocking the IR light so that it is an IR camera. And it made this beautiful pinkish, reddish color thing. And what we did was we put Ryan on stage surrounded by a bunch of chicken wire filled with infrared lights that were like sparkling. And then we had, yeah. Greg built an aquarium, sort of like a double glass window with a hose dripping water through it. in front of the handheld camera, and then he would sort of stand around Ryan, who was going like this in this chicken cage, but he couldn't see anything because he couldn't see the lights because they're invisible to the naked eye.

1:35:19It looks ridiculous to the naked eye. And then when you look on the monitor... It's this beautiful thing with all these bokeh lights flickering everywhere all around, surrounded by it, and you're watching the monitor and then watching reality. If you walk onto the stage, like Amy Pascal walked onto the stage. There's like a huge spaceship over there taking up most of the stage. And in the corner, a bunch of dorks like crowding around this like cage that we built around Ryan. Cage of chicken wire. And we're all going like, oh my God. It's incredible. I'm seeing heaven. And she's like, what are you losers doing?

1:35:57And then we showed her the monitor and she lost her mind.

1:36:01Sean Fennessey:That's really good problem solving. Did you have to do like 10 other things so many experiments we wound up shooting that like really late in the schedule because on the day we planned to do it we didn't have a good enough answer methodology to get it done we were just like well let's try we were kind of winging it and we were like let's cut bait and do it for real the lights need to like interact with his body and light him up as they're lighting or else it will look fake and so we were like we tried a bunch of different versions and it wasn't quite getting there so then it built the cage yeah one thing that the movie has that a lot of great space movies have is an incredible score.

1:36:37Sean Fennessey:Yeah, Pemberton. Daniel Pemberton's score is very memorable and it feels essential. And I'm just like wondering, when did he come in? At what point do you have music? Is it before or after shooting? Is he looking at a cut and then adding? So during shooting, we asked Daniel, we were shooting in London. We just said, come by the set and just see what we're up to. And like, just write a few sketches because sometimes Ryan likes to perform with music. And so we had all these sequences that were, you know silent or without much dialogue so we're like let's just just like whip something up and uh one of those pieces is in the is in the movie and so it gave us like a feel and the other thing we discussed with daniel was i don't want ryan to feel alone we want him to feel like the entire earth is rooting him on and so that's why it's full of choirs and like lots and lots of players he brought in a bunch of school children to like stomp and clap for the percussion like his kids from his classroom were like still part of his consciousness because it just didn't again we kept wanting the movie to be affirming and warm and feel like you were we were all in this together and so one of the early things that happened is he he found a leaky faucet in his friend's apartment flat, pardon me, because he's English.

1:37:55And it became one of the signature themes of the movie is what opens the movie. It's like when you turn it a certain way, it would go and he was like, I've got to record this. And he recorded it, different pitches of it, and then turned it into music. And so the melody that winds up, so that's kind of a spooky sound. And what we talked about was it can't sing a spooky song. Ryan is waking up in great distress. He has no idea where he is. He's in a weird amniotic sack outfit that we made for him. And he's upset. I don't need the music to tell me I'm upset. I need the music to tell me that this guy is going to go somewhere, that we're rooting for him, and he's worthy of great things.

1:38:40He's going to do great things, like a call to action. And figuring that stuff out was a real back and forth trial and error process.

1:38:49Sean Fennessey:I think his music in the Spider-Verse films is also amazing. So it's like a really nice little union that you guys have going with him. The scores are always really playful. I think for this one, it's like we all knew that what was possible and that it could be one of Daniel's great scores. And he knew it too. And I think we put a lot of effort into trying to make it work. And he worked really hard on it and totally nailed it. In my opinion, my unbiased opinion. Yeah, exactly. You guys are both movie fans. Movies like this are not that common anymore. And I love how you just described for 30 minutes how you made this movie basically practically.

1:39:30Sean Fennessey:It builds everything. It looks just more real because it is more real. And I think people really relate to that. But that's hard and that's more expensive than ever. Feel pressure about the movie being a success. Of course. Why wouldn't we? You want to make sure that they can still make movies like this in the future, right? But the bet you have to make is, A, you're going to make someone's favorite movie. And you have to be able to live with that if it doesn't hit. And the other thing is you go, well, on average, I know that we can make something that appeals. And that's smart. It makes you feel good walking out of the theater.

1:40:07The bar we have to clear, every movie has to clear, is undeniable greatness. It is the truth of where the audience are. Somebody told us that really early in our career. It's like the bar, anything. It was television executive. If you're doing something new, if you're doing something original, it has to be great. Or it's not going to make it past everything else, all the big franchises. People need to walk out of the theater and call their friend and be like, oh my God, you have to see it. I'm going to take you. All the movies that we grew up with that we loved, E.T., Little Shop of Horrors, Star Wars, those are movies.

1:40:44I remember my dad seeing, he's done that for two movies, Little Shop of Horrors. He was like, we're taking your mother to this tomorrow night, right? And then the other movie was South Park, Bigger, Longer Uncut. Oh, yeah. I don't know why. The two classics. The two classics. He's like, we're bringing your mother tomorrow. You maniac. But there is that, that's where you have to get to. So I think every HOD, every day on set, we are trying to discover moments that make you want to bring your friend. And it was like everybody on the crew felt like they were doing something special. And so they put a lot of heart and soul and ideas into it.

1:41:26And everybody really cared. And I think you can tell.

1:41:29Sean Fennessey:We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen. Have you guys seen anything good lately? Oh, I've seen a bunch of good stuff. I'm trying to think. The last one. I'm trying to give you an answer that's not... Obvious? Not super obvious. We are at the tail end of awards season. I've been catching up on stuff. Could be old or new. I tell you what, I just saw, I just watched all the Oscar animated shorts because the voting has begun. Yes. And they were great, by the way. I just finished them too. Yes. You don't have to say your favorite, but maybe can you talk about a couple of them?

1:42:04Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Because they're fresh in my mind as well. There was Papillon, which was a beautiful painting and repainting story about a swimmer. I watched them with my kids, and my daughter especially was really interested in the process of how that was done. It was beautifully done and a beautiful story. I mean, they were all really good, but that one was just from a technique standpoint, I thought was really, really beautiful. Yeah, I just watched that last night. Great timing on that. What about you? The last great thing I saw, I went to the CityWalk IMAX and saw Crime 101. And particularly, they have these unbelievable shots of the 101 freeway.

1:42:53Yeah. Not considered, you know, like— The most beautiful freeway. A beautiful subject of photograph. Not our favorite place in the world either. and normally a place you're stuck in traffic and you know Bart is a filmmaker we got to know in London while we were shooting and just to see the way he turned that into poetry and like spun the camera and took the whole theater for this crazy ride I just thought he was masterful

1:43:22Sean Fennessey:I like that yeah that movie looks incredible it looks incredible it's like we love a heist movie It's a good old-fashioned crime picture where the characters and their relationships are in the foreground. It's a one-last-job movie, another one of my favorite sub-sub genres. Yeah, and it's L.A. for L.A. It makes L.A. look great. It's such a pleasure to watch that picture. Phil, Chris, congrats. Thanks, guys. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks to Phil and Chris. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for production support. We'll be back on Monday with a special conversation.

1:44:02Sean Fennessey:See you then.

1:44:22This episode is brought to you by Netflix. All right, baseball fans, get ready. For the first time in history, the Major League season kicks off with one exclusive opening night game live on Netflix. The New York Yankees, led by seven-time All-Star Aaron Judge, roll into the San Francisco Bay to battle Rafael Devers and the San Francisco Giants. The wait is over. It's time to play ball. Watch MLB opening night, the New York Yankees versus the San Francisco Giants live on Netflix, Wednesday, March 25th at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, 5 p.m. Pacific Time. Dear McDonald's, your breakfast menu, fire. Tins across the board.

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