Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / BONUS EPISODE: LOSS MY MIND WRITING the INSANE DEADPOOL, LOGAN & The X-MEN with Oscar® Nominee Simon Kinberg

Transcript

BONUS EPISODE: LOSS MY MIND WRITING the INSANE DEADPOOL, LOGAN & The X-MEN with Oscar® Nominee Simon Kinberg · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number five
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: forty three. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Wilveren broadcasting from the Back Alley and Hollywood. It's the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: of the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur How to turn
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: your independent film into a profitable business. It's harder today
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: than ever before for independent filmmakers to make money with
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: their films from predatory film distributors ripping them off to
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: huckster film aggregators who prey upon them. The odds are
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: stacked against the indie filmmaker. The old distribution model of
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: making money with your film is broken and there needs
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: to be a change. The future of independent filmmaking is
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: the entrepreneurial filmmaker or the film entrepreneur. In Rise of
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: the Film Entrepreneur, I break down how to actually make
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: money with your film projects and show you how to
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: turn your indie film into a profitable business. With case
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: studies examining successes and failures. This book shows you the
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: step by step method to turn your passion into a
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: profitable career. If you're making a feature film, series, or
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: any other kind of video content, the Film Entrepreneur method
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: will set you up for success. The book is available
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: in paperback, ebook, and of course audiobook. If you want
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: to order it, just head over to www dot filmbiz
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com. Today on
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: the show, we have writer, producer, and director Simon Kinberg. Now,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Simon started off his career in like all screenwriters, he
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: sold his first screenplay out of film school while he
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: was still in film school and was going to the
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: set of the movie that he had sold the script
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: for while he was still in school, which starred two
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: of the biggest movie stars of all time and directed
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: by one of the hottest directors of all time, and
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: from that point on his career launched. As you can imagine.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: He is responsible for working on films like Sherlock Holmes,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: X Men, X Men, Days of Future Past, producing Deadpool,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Deadpool two, bringing one of the best superhero genre films
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: of all time in my opinion, Logan to the screen,
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: and much more. We discussed his writing process, his directing process,
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: what it's like to work within the studio system, and
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: we also discussed his new film The Three five five,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: starring Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz and an amazing cast of
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Oscar winning actors as well. So, without any further ado,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: please enjoy my conversation with Simon Kinberg. So, first of all,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: how did you get started in the business, in the
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: in the film industry in general.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: I got started. I was in film school graduate film
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: school at Columbia in New York, and I wrote a
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: script in my first year of film school that a
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: professor of mine named Ira Deutschmann, who was the creator
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: of Fineline Features and produced a lot of movies.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: He read. He liked the.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Option for one dollar, with the promise that he would
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: send it out to Hollywood to studio executives and agents
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: and managers and the like.
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: To start my career. And it did.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: I got my agent at CIA, where I remain to represent.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: I got my lawyer who's still my lawyer, and a
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: lot of relationships that are still some of the closest
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: professional relationships in my life. And those people I was
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: twenty three at the time, and those people were maybe
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: a little older than I am. And those people now
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: run studios. People are Scott Stupor and Donna Langley and
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: Emma Watts, and I mean, those are you know, we
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: all started as kids together and now we're no longer kids.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: So that's how I started.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: And then I continued in film school even though I was,
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: you know, getting this traction and working in Hollywood. And
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: then my thesis project in my second year of film
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: school was a script called Mister Missus Smith and that
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: obviously turned into a movie starring Brad and Angelina, and
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: from that point forward, my career really really catapulted to
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: a different level.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: So one of your first scripts gets picked up and
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: is a big Hollywood, a big Hollywood production with two
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: of the biggest movie stars of all time out of
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: film school that year.
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: That is that is accurate and was completely absurd and
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: surreal and made, you know, listen, making that movie would
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: have been surreal in any circumstance if I was.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Made at any age. Yeah, at any age.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: But when you're twenty something years old and you're on
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: your first film set and you're showing up to work
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: every day and in the morning you're working with Brad
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: and Angelina onlines, and Vince Vaughn and Kerrie Washington and
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Doug Lyman, who was about as hot as any director
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: could be because he'd gone from Swingers to Go to
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: Born Identity to our film. It was I wouldn't even
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: say to dream come true because I wouldn't have dared
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: to dream that big. It was a It was a
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: completely absurdist fantasy. It felt like I was in a
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Charlie Kaufman movie.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Which is and obviously everyone're listening. That's generally the way
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: it works for screenwriters. This is the normal road that
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: all screenwriters go through.
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, people told me, They say, what advice do
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: you have it?
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: So don't you tell them and get the biggest movie
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: stars in the world do acts in it, and then
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: you're golden, You're done.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: You never think, just just the doors open magically. Of course,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: of course, Now, what is what is your writing process?
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Do you do you sit down, I mean every day
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: at a certain time. Do you wait for inspiration the
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: muse to show up. Do you argue with the mews,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Why aren't you here?
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: Things like that?
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: I love these questions. Uh, the answer to your question
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: is my writing process is everything you subscribed. But it
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: starts with I have a said amount of hours each
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: day that I'm going to write. Because if I don't
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: have that kind of construct or that kind of discipline,
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: the muse is never going to show up. I don't
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: think the muse is magically shows up. Sometimes it magically
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: shows up while you're sleeping or you're in the shower.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Your subconscious is working right. But but what it what
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: it needs is some sort of container. And then within
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: that container of however many hours I'm gonna I'm gonna
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: sit down and write per day, And I have a
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: goal of how many pages I'm.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: Gonna get done, how many scenes I'm going to get done.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: But that goal sometimes to surpass it, most times I
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: come short of it.
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: Then you just wrestle all day.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: The writing is the greatest torture in the world, and
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: it is the greatest pleasure in the world when you
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: get it right, When the news shows up and a
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: line comes out of nowhere and you don't know where
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: it came from, and if not for you, it would
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: not have existed, and it cracks something open.
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: It's the greatest feeling in the world.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: And the other ninety nine point nine percent of the
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: time you are staring at a white page or a
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: white wall and saying, why did I take this job?
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Why did I choose this career. I could have been
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: a professor. I would have been a happier person. That's
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: my writing process. I mean, my my technical or specific
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: writing process. I would not advocate for anyone, including myself,
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: but it just happens to be mine, which is I
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: write by hand, and I write on blank, white pieces
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: of paper, front and back, and I don't know what
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: page I'm on when I'm writing the script. I just
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: know a sense of sort of flow and rhythm of storytelling.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: And what it helps me with is one I'm just
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: much looser because it's not on a computer, and I
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: don't feel like there's this sort of finality to what
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: I'm writing, and it's got scribbles and scratches and you'd
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: never be able to read it anyway.
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: But it also it keeps me from going backwards. It
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: keeps me from looking at yesterday's work because I can
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: barely read yesterday's work. I just keep moving forward. And
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: there's a satisfaction of that. If I were to show
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: you a picture, by the time it's done, you know,
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: it's it's really a lot of pages. And so there's
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: a satisfaction of building that pile as I'm writing. And
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: that's better than being able to scroll up and down
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: a screen for me.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Now, you know, as writers, you know, I know when
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: I'm writing, I feel sometimes that like I'm typing and
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: then afterwards I read and I go who wrote that?
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Like I don't even remember writing that. Do you have
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: that feeling of almost channeling some other worldly force, that
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: that thing that writers, if we're lucky enough to tap into,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: flows through you. Is that is your experience?
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's the that is the that that's
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: the point one percent of the time. That's the great
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: that's the unbelievable joy. You know, when people ask me,
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: what's the what what? What's my favorite part of my job?
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: And I've done a lot of different aspects of this job,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: between producing and directing and writing, and the greatest pleasure
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: for me, by far and away are the moments you're
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: describing or as a writer.
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: You do.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: Discover or channel however you want to describe it, invent
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: whatever the verb is. It is outside of you, and
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: then it is coming through you, and then it is
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: on a page. And if not for you existing in
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: the world those lines, that idea would not exist either.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: And that feeling is the greatest feeling in the entire world.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: And it is the feeling you know, there's a there's
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: a joke and I can only say this joke because
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: I'm a Jew. Is why did the Jews search in
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: the desert for forty years because they found I don't know,
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: a dollar. Why did they search another forty years because
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: they found a dollar? And I think that is very
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: much my writing process and on all of our writing process, right,
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: which is like take forever, we find something that is invaluable,
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: and then we take another forever because we're chasing that feeling.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: That's the film industry in general. I think as film
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: creatives you're just always searching for that high that happens
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: a handful of times, if you're lucky, if you're in
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: your left and whether as a director, as a producer,
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: as a writer, you're looking for that high. It's we're sick.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: We're all sick. Film it's cool, it's the beautiful sickness.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: Listen.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: You know, I say this to my my, my partner.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: Let's she's a writer too, but put a different kind
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: of writer's poet. And I say, you know, if not
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: for the fact that after six hours, eight hours, ten
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: hours a day we came out of our rooms with
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: pieces of paper that had writing on it, we would
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: be considered you know, psychiatric or psychologically you know, imbalanced,
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: and put in a psychiatric hospital because we would just
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: be sitting in our room for ten hours a day,
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: staring at the wall, communicating with imaginary voices and characters
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: in our head. And if we didn't somehow experience, you know,
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: you would beat that. I'm sure that would be diagnosed.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: I'm not a psychiatrist psychologist, but my armchair psychology would
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: be that would be schizophrenia.
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: Fair enough. But but you know, we tend we're writers
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: and artists, and so we get away with it.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: One of my favorite films in the X Men series
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: is X Men Days of Future Past. You know you
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: you wrote that. How did you come up with that
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: storyline like that? That's an insanely howplex is greated line
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: meaning all moving parts.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well I came up with it because Chris Claremont
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: came up with it, and you know it was it
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: was a comic book, uh, and so the notion of
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: it was something that it already.
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: Existed as a comped but as a comic it was.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Wildly different than the movie we made, Like, as a
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: one specific example, it was Kitty Pride. They went back
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: in time, not Woverene. And one of the reasons I
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: made it Wolverine, other than obviously Wolverine being the lead
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: of the franchise, was because I thought there was something
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: incredibly powerful about this character who had been in some
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: ways tamed by by Professor Xavier, having to go back
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: to a younger broken Professor Xavier and team and teach
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: him the lessons that Xavier had taught him. So there
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: was a there was an inherent complexity, and it was
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: interesting about that. But writing that movie, I would say,
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: from a technical standpoint, was the most complicated and difficult
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: film I've ever written, because of the time travel element,
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: because of the time paradoxes, because of the fact that
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: I was playing two different sets of characters who were
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: essentially the older and younger version of the same character,
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: you know, Simon po and wanting to give them all arcs,
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: you know, and and wanting to wanting to give halle
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: Berry interesting things to play, and certainly wanting to give
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: all of our younger X Men from X Men First Class,
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: who were sort of the dominant storyline of that movie,
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: really interesting surprising twists and turns emotionally in that film,
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: while also servicing a storyline that was itself and unbelievable. Uh,
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: you know, demon the wrestle to the ground.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: No, no question, And like even when you're writing the
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: voices of the same character is so different from the
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: older Xavier to the younger Xavier. And keeping that all together,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: like did you like just put it all up on
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: a board, Like how do you keep not only the characters,
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: but the time and the paradox is. Like That's why
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: I looked at movies like Back to the Future and
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: I'm just like Jesus Man, how did Bob and Bob
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: do that?
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean back in the Future was obviously a
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: movie that I looked at a lot. Terminator too, I
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: looked at a lot although there's not as much back
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: and forth obviously in the car, you don't have the
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: same kind of struggle with the characters. I have a
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: great actual Terminator two story, which is I met James.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: Cameron's one of my like all of us, and I
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: met him. We were on a panel together, insanely while
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: I was writing Day as a Future Past. And I
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: said to him, listen, I'm writing this time travel movie.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: And you know, the Terminator films are for me, among
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: the greatest time travel movies of all time, obviously among
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: the greatest science fiction movies, maybe movies movies of all time.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: And I said, you know, and I brought I had
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: brought this like fan book that I had for him
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: to sign. And of course, and so he was like, okay, buddy,
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: I'm going on a panel with you, but I'm happy
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: to sign your book.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: So I thought, he wrote, sign the book. We went
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: on the panel.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: I looked at the book afterwards. I need written, Dear Simon,
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: don't fuck it up. Love James and I and I
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: remember and and and Throughout the writing.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: Of the process of Day as the Future Pass.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: I just kept thinking, don't fuck it up, don't fucking
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: I keep sucking it up with these paradoxes. But I
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: hope I didn't say those words by other ways. So
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: you know, yes, I did have I don't usually use
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: note cardboards when I write, but I did with that
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: because it was so complex.
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: The luxury I had. The advantage I had in writing
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: the older.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: And the younger versions of these characters is that I
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: had already written the older and younger versions of these characters.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: I'd worked with the older cast the X Men three,
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: and did work with the younger cast on on First Class.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: So I knew the nuances both of the characters and
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: of the actors, and so I could channel that to
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: some extent, rely on that to some extent. But even
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: within that I was I was creating new versions of
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: those characters, like the Professor, the young Professor Xavier. That
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: Macavoy's playing in Days of Future Pass is very different
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: than the Macavoy of First Class obviously, uh and so
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: I and the fact that you know, from the very
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: beginning of the movie you introduced the older Xavier and
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: the older Magneto as partners and friends again, you're just
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of sort of work you're doing to
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: both honor the voices and then also innovate on the
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: voices they came before.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: Now you you produced the film that's one of my
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: favorite comic book films of all time, Deadpool, which must
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: have been I mean, I just only assume it must
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: have been a ball to work on that project. At
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: what point did you jump on that project? It was
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: it after the film was leaked by somebody, I think
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: at the green light.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: How was it?
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: How was it working on that project?
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: It was extraordinary working in that project, and it was
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: exactly what you said, which was it was it was
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: great fun to witness, like just unbelievably talented people, from
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: the writers Ret and Paul who really uh uh created
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: the voice, to Tim Miller who was directing his first movie,
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: which is incredible about you know.
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: The difficulty tonally of that film is really hard.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: And then most especially Ryan, I mean Ryan Reynolds is
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: not just the actor of those films or any film
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: he works on. He's the producer. He's he reminds me
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: a lot of the way Tom Cruise works. He's also
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: kind of the person who is operating in every category
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: of the film.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: He's the sort of force of nature of the movie
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: in the best possible way.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: And when I got involved was after the movie had leaked,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: but before it got green lit.
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: It was close to getting green lit but was not
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: green lit.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: And Ret and Paul, the writers where they can raise
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: the writers, Uh, emailed me. I've never met them, and
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: they emailed me saying we need your maybe. They said
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: we are we are dead well, we need your ass
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: with a bunch of ellipses after it, and then that
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: was the subject. And then in the body of the
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: email it continued the word asked into assistance.
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: And then it's.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: Greatly yeah, and they and they and they made this
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: this sort of plea to me, because I was at
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: that time overseeing the sort of X Men universe at
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: twenty century Box, to help them and.
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: Ryan and Tim get the movie greenlit.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: And so we all worked together a bit on the
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: script and then quite a bit in the budget. And
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: one of the things that was extraordinary about that film,
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: especially when you go back and rewatch it, is we
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: made that movie for I think something like fifty million.
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: Dollars, yeah, which is low.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: It's tiny compared to what you're the superhero movies are
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: made for, which is usually in the two hundred.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: Million dollar range.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: And that was part of the deal with Fox because
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: they'd never made In nor had most people ever Marvel
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: hadn't made They'd made Blade, but they'd never made a
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: true R rated comboo movie before. And the tone was
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: so wildly anarchic and different and you know, breaking the
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: fourth wall and all the things that movie does. They said, listen,
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: this is feels like a gamble, but it's a cheap
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: enough gamble that we're going to take it.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: And they did, and obviously it paid.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Off incredibly well for everyone involved.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Now I have to I have to thank you for
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: for making a Logan, which is arguably one of the greatest,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: in my opinion, superhero films of all time in the
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: genre it is. It's one. It's like Dark Knight. It's
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: up there with Dark Knight. It's just one of those films.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: And it's such a bittersweet film because I wish you
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: could stay his age forever, just continue to play that character.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: What was it like, because you'd been with that character,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: and you've been with Hugh playing that character for so long,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: what was it like putting that film together and finishing
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: off his it Swan song. If you will, We'll be
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: right back after a word from our sponsor, and now
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: back to the show.
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: It was all the things you said.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: It was bittersweet because I had lived with Hugh as
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: both a friend and a partner and making these films
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: for probably.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: Over a decade.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: And it was also really exciting because hughes ideas, Jim
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: Engeld's ideas, who's a genius filmmaker, Scott Frank's ideas, who's
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: clearly a genius writer. You know, Scott wrote and directed
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: all the Queen's Gambit episodes, and you just used to
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: such incredible pedigree.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: We all came together, They all really did the heavy lifting.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: And Hudge Parker, who was another producer on that uh
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: and had worked on a bunch of the X Men
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: movies and had been the executive at Fox for a
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: lot of them. We we all came together and with
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: a common purpose, which is creating you know, a truly dramatic,
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: truly emotional, deeply resonant swan song for this you know
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: character that had been in the zeitgeist for you know,
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: again well over a decade, close to two decades. Uh,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: and so it was. It was an extraordinary process with
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: a bunch of you know, A plus brilliant human beings
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: taking the job incredibly seriously and just really listening and
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: caring deeply saying when this isn't good enough, and like, really,
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: I remember Jim mangled with that last action sequence, and
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: really the third act of the movie just.
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: Come over and over and over it again, got rewriting
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: it and me taking a pen through it, and and
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: Jim mangled himself rewriting it and just like working and
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: working and needing it until.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: Until we could create something that was worthy of saying
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: goodbye to Hugh in this part that we would be
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: hard for people?
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Would you? And I have to ask this, will we
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: ever see Hugh in a dead movie, in a deadful
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: movie as a cameo?
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Ever? I, you know, I'm not a part of that
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: universe anymore because Disney bought uh all the Marvel movies
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: at Fox.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: They bought Fox. So I the answer is, I have
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: no idea.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: I know obviously, like the rest of the world does
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: that you and Brian are friends and have this sort
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: of rival on you know, fun rise on social media.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: Uh. So I wouldn't be surprised. But I also have
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: an idea.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Got it, no problem. Now tell me about your new film,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: The three fifty five, which I had a pleasure of
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: watching yesterday, and it was it was wonderful. It's just
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: wonderful to see a group of women just kick all
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: sorts of ass throughout the piece. So how did that?
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: How did that come to be?
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: It came to me because it was actually going back
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: to an X Men movie when Jessica chesty and I
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: we'd work together on The Martian and then we work
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: together on X Men Dark Phoenix. When we were on
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: the X Men set, Jessica had this idea to do
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: an all female ensemble spy movie. And she brought that
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: to me and said, I had this idea. It might
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: sound crazy, and I said, actually, sounds really intriguing. And
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: then we just started building it with her producing partner
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: Kelly Carmichael, uh together and uh, we got the actresses
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: really on that pitch alone in Jessica's relationships and Jessica's
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: you know so pedigree.
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: And we went to the can Film Festival and we
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: sold it at the In Film Festival to Universal for
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: the UK and US rights as our partners, and then
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: to other distributors, to other territories around the world, and
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: from there we really crafted it to the actresses and
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: built the movie.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: You presold, but you presold it prior to actually going
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: into production.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: We presold it way before going into production, so it
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: all happened very fast. I mean, we presold that it
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: can in twenty eighteen May of twenty eighteen, and we
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: were shooting by summer of twenty nineteen.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: And it's been on hold since then because of.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: Because of COVID.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we were meant to come out last year, exactly
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: one year ago, and that was a tough time for COVID,
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: and obviously we're in another tough time for COVID.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: But not a tough time for COVID.
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's true. I mean a different tough time for
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: COVID because we're in a back time and sure strain
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: is not.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Thankfully, quite as lethal as as what we were dealing
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: with last year. But yeah, we pushed it a year.
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: It's been done.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: It would have could have easily come out last January
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: and now we finally get to release the film.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Now, how was it directing such remarkable actors? I mean,
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: you've got Oscar winners in there. You've got I mean,
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: they're powerhouses, every single one of them. How do you
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: approach directing actors like that as a director?
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: I approach it the way that I approach kind of
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: directing any actor, which is their partners. You have to
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: go into it that way, and especially with actors like this,
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: because they own their characters more than a director does,
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: because they're living that part, they're wearing that part, they're
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: thinking of that part and only that part.
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: As a director, there's.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: So many things you're thinking about, right, not just the
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: characters and the story of it, also the visuals and
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: all of the technique of making the film. And with
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: these particular actresses and the actors Adyr Ramirez and Sbastan Stan,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: they just had tons of ideas and really an immense
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: amount of authorship and ownership over their characters. And that
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: was part of the process going into all of this,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: was we were all partners and making the film, and
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: so that's the way I directed them was, you know,
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: their ideas, my ideas, other people's ideas, other actors' ideas.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: Within the scenes with them, we played it felt like
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: kind of the lovely thing about it. It felt like
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: being an actor's workshop with the best actors.
• 26:28
  Speaker 6: In the world pretty much pretty much now as the directors,
• 26:33
  Speaker 6: you know, there's always that day that we're on set
• 26:36
  Speaker 6: and the entire world comes crashing down around us and
• 26:40
  Speaker 6: the sun is we're losing the sun, the crane's not working,
• 26:43
  Speaker 6: the actor can't get to the set for some reason.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: What was that day for you, either on this film
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: or any of the films you've directed, and how did
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: you overcome that moment as a director?
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: You know, I think on this film on three five
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: five the hardest moment of the moment where I felt
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: like I.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: Just want to go home, because you know, you do
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: have you do have that feeling sometimes you know you're shooting,
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: you know, fifty sixty on a huge movie, ninety days
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: of photography and their long hours and all that.
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: On this one, it was we.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: Were filming the fish market sequence in an actual fish market,
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: and it was right after the fish market closed, but
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: you could still smell the stink of the fish from
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: that day and it happened to be quite literally the
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: hottest day in the history of the United Kingdom, and
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: so the smell itself, I think Penelope passed out. I
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: was close to passing out most of the day. It was,
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: you know, sort of before the day of wearing gas
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: masks or surgical masks wherever we went, and so it
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: was overwhelming, and the heat was overwhelming as well, and
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: we had stunts and we had big crowd sequences, and
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: it just felt like the scale of it, plus the simple,
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: you know, human reality of your in the stinkiest place
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: imaginable on the hottest day in the history of a country,
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: was was a lot to manage.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: And you made it through.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: I made it through. Luckily, the actors made it through.
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: We all kind of bonded together and helped each other
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: get to get there.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Now, is there any advice you could give a filmmaker
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: screenwriter trying to break into the business today.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: You know, it's hard because you know, everybody has a
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: different way into the business. So, uh, you know, I
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: get asked this question a lot, and I hear people
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: ask this asked this question a lot, and I don't
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: want to give like a simple or a singular answer
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: because again, obviously my path is very different than other
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: people's past are going to be. And everybody I know
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: who works in the film industry has a different story.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: The thing I would say is write something you love,
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: direct something you love. I think the mistake that I
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: see a lot of new filmmakers make, or new writers make,
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: is they write or make something they think is right
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: for the market, or for the site, or for you know,
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: not for themselves. And the truth is, you can't chase
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: the market. Partly because by the time your movie comes out,
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: the market will have changed already. It takes time. And
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: also because people can feel it. There's enough writers out
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: here in Hollywood, there's enough directors in Hollywood. What they
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: want is new, fresh, genuinely original, genuinely unique, bespoke voices.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: And I want that as a producer. I can feel
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: it when I read new scripts. And you know, we
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: all know how to write the tricks of a script.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: We all know the structure of a script. It's not
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: enough to just write something that's solid. You have to
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: write something that makes people feel like, oh, this is
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: a new voice. And so it's trust your voice, trust
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: you vision. Don't try to copy other people's voices and
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: visions because they're working.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: And last question, what is the lesson that took you
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: the longest to learn? Whether in the film industry or
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: in life.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: Balance, I think balance is something that took me a
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: very long forty eight years old, and I would say
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: I just learned that and I'm still learning it.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: But I just learned it in the last few years
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: with a two year old baby and a four month Oh.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: God bless you.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: Oh I know, I hope God does. I'm counting on it.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: But you know, I think for a very long time,
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: I was so focused on my work that I and
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: I felt like, you know, I'll have time when I
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: take a break from my work to take care of
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: my life. And my work just kept rolling, and you know,
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: I moved from country to country and moving to movie
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: and set to set, and that's wonderful on the one hand,
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: But on the other hand, it hurts two things. One is,
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: obviously it hurts your life, because you know, if you
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: want to be in a real relationship or a real family,
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: it's harder. It's harder on them, and it's harder on
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: the bonds. But it's also it hurts you as an
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: artist because you start recycling your old ideas instead of
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: actually living in the world and coming up with new
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: ideas and so that balance is something that I am
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: still learning. But it is the lesson that comes first
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: to mind when you ask that question.
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: It's a good question.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Thank you Simon so much for being on the show.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: And where can people and when can people see three five.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Five this Friday, January seventh, it will be in theaters
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: and help people go see it.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Simon, thank you again for being on the show, and
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: thank you for doing making some amazing films along the
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: way of your career and continue doing so star So thank.
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: You so much. I appreciate it, appreciate all your questions
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: and your support. I really do.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Thank you, my friend.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: Ye take care, Thank care.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Simon so much for coming on
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: the show and dropping his knowledge bombs on the tribe today.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Simon. If you want to get
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: links to anything we spoke about in this episode, including
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: how to watch the three five to five in theaters,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Indie film Hustle
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: dot com forward slash five four three, and if you
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: haven't already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: truly helps us out a lot. Thank you again for listening. Guys,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Indie Film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: E F I L M h U S T l
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: E dot com