As I work today, I’m going to be playing some of the great Buck Henry’s work. I’ve seen The Graduate so many times that I don’t think I’ll be doing that again until it’s time to share it with my sons. Instead, I’m going to put on some Get Smart, then watch Heaven Can Wait, which I love and haven’t seen in years and years, and then wrap it up with Taking Off, a Milos Forman collaboration with Henry that I’ve never seen.
Buck Henry always delighted me because he looked so goddamn normal. Not even normal. He looked like a super uptight little buttoned-up accountant, as Establishment as he could be, but the moment he started talking, you realized that the freak ran deep. He was brilliant at twisting cultural expectations in his work, and I cherish his presence as an actor and a comedian, and I envy his work as a writer. 89 is a hell of a number to hit, and his legacy is secure, but he will be greatly missed.
I know that there is an appetite for insider information about filmmaking while it’s happening, and I know that I built two businesses by providing it, but my experience over the last 25 years has taught me that there’s only so far you can pull that curtain back before you risk ruining the Wizard for everyone, including the filmmakers.
Ultimately, the best film journalism being done is being done after the film is in release. Look at a magazine like Cinefex. If you want to read a detailed, complex, and clear-eyed description of how a film was made, that’s the way to do it. Or go pick up one of J.W. Rinzler’s amazing making-of books about the Indiana Jones films or Star Wars or Planet of the Apes. And unfortunately, since so few places have the resources or the access to do work like that, what dominates instead is unsourced nonsense, an echo chamber of rumors, and studio-fed publicity.
Instead of things like script reviews or casting scoops or set reports involving 30 outlets at once, I’m going to talk to you guys like I talk to my friends here in town. There’s an assumption between us that you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have some sense of where I’ve been, what I’ve done, and my basic reliability. And I will assume that you are at least interested in understanding the way filmmaking really works. It’s a foundation for an ongoing respectful way of discussing all of this.
Making any kind of prediction about what’s going on with a film before it comes out is a very weird thing in general. First and foremost, you can’t tell what a film is going to be until the film is finished. Period. Ever. You just can’t. Films change constantly during production, from idea to script to principal photography to post-production, and filmmakers frequently work until the distributor literally pries the film out of their hands. But still… there’s often an itch when you know something’s in production. You want to know something. When I first started doing it, it was because I was a fan and I simply wanted to know things. There was a time when it was far more prevalent for a book tie-in for a movie to come out before the movie was in theaters, and I can’t tell you how many films I experienced as a kid via either the novelization or the Mad magazine parody before I actually saw the film.
Eventually, once I moved to Los Angeles, I started reading scripts because I knew people working on films, and they were happy to pass them along. Honestly, everyone I knew who was in the business had scripts from stuff they were making and stuff that they were just reading. It seemed to me to be fairly commonplace, part of being in a creative and collaborative industry. There were some big projects that would be locked down, making them more mysterious, but even on those, it never seemed to me that I had to push particularly hard to find someone willing to simply talk about their work.
In those pre-Internet days, if I had a conversation with a friend about a film that was in production, those conversations could be loose and informal and we could talk about possibilities without it feeling like the stakes were terribly high. Now, after doing this for 25 years in public, I find that I can’t even make a casual statement about something without it getting politicized, both pro and con, and without people reading volumes on non-existent subtext into it. When I read the Joker script, I mentioned on Twitter that the conversation around the film would be awful. I didn’t say anything at all about the script itself, but instantly, that became “Drew hates the script.” Now, true… I didn’t have to say anything at all, but I refuse to live in a world where the simple observation that a film designed to provoke is going to provoke audiences particularly well is interpreted as some sort of huge industrial secret being spilled.
When I speak about films in production, what I don’t want to do is simply play the hype game. I think of it more like we’re talking about the weather. Sometimes, things look sunny for a film in production. Everything looks good and clear and it should be a piece of cake to make all those ingredients work together. Sometimes, all you can see are storm clouds. Wait… that director? And that actor? Seriously? That’s a disaster just waiting to happen. Sometimes you can tell from a script that they just haven’t cracked something, and sure… no script is a final product. They’re part of that product, though, and reading one isn’t some mystical, indecipherable experience that only a select few can possibly interpret.
Sometimes, you can see other factors that might play into a film’s success or failure, outside influences, social contexts, things like that. All of it is akin to weather forecasting. No meteorologist is 100% accurate, but they’re also not trying to be. They’re aware that things change and can change. But they can definitely tell you what is likely to happen, what has happened historically in similar conditions, and what to expect if things do come together.
That’s where I think there’s some value in looking forward. Instead of breathlessly running to you every time there’s a piece of casting news, like a child trying to get your approval for every single thing they do all day, it’s worth putting together a column from time to time where we simply read the weather on some of the more interesting projects winding their way through the process. If we’re going to talk about marketing, we can talk about it in context. We can look at how campaigns are being managed, and how effectively they’re getting their message out. If I’ve read something or talked to the filmmakers or to people on the film, then that may inform what I write without me necessarily trying to “scoop” anything. It is all part of the weather around a film, and as such, there is a conversation to be had about it.
One of the defining moments that led me to realize that my time as an “entertainment reporter” was ending came in the countdown leading up to the release of Batman v Superman: Too Much Title. Keep in mind, I really liked Man Of Steel. Like… reeeeeally liked it. Liked it more than most folks. Liked it so much I took some shit for it. Like… a lot of shit. In general, I had a solid relationship with Zack Snyder. We weren’t buddies, but I first met him in the editing room of 300, where I went to spend a long afternoon with him when he was first trying to build buzz on that film. He won me over that afternoon with the incredible enthusiasm that he brings to everything, and I remain a fan of Zack as a person. I think his work ethic is wild, and part of what makes him so effective is his partnership with his wife Deb, who is also his producer. I think husband/wife filmmaker teams can be incredibly powerful, and there’s a reason Chris Nolan gets to be Chris Nolan. It’s because Emma Thomas is right there, working her ass off to give him that space. Same thing with Deb Snyder. Even when they made a film like Sucker Punch, I found myself really liking the Snyders, and they made sure I came to each set, came to each editing room, with an active dialogue running the entire time. The bigger Snyder got as a filmmaker, the more direct power he had in the way Warner’s publicity team handled the press, and I was on the “Close Friends” list.
Here’s one of those moments where we speak more candidly than I used to, because even mentioning the idea that there are tiers in the way different members of the press are handled by studios is very tricky territory. It’s true, though, and I have occupied almost every spot in that hierarchy at one point or another. When I was writing at Ain’t It Cool originally, we weren’t at the bottom of the press list… we weren’t on it at all. We were the enemy. We couldn’t even get publicists to return e-mails at first. By the time they started reaching out to us, it was because we’d become unavoidable. They had to. We were already talking directly to their filmmakers, and they had to figure out how to get back into that conversation.
During the HitFix era, the phrase “our studio partners” was bandied around quite a bit, something that happens once you introduce advertising into the mix, and as a result, the doors were opened wide. There were many times I was shown something first, or in the first few groups of people, and when I was given largely exclusive access to things. It was important to the studios to have me onboard, and it was important to HitFix to have that access. On those occasions where I felt like the studio was pushing too hard, they would put pressure on the business end of the website, and they would put pressure on me to play nice. Suddenly, there was something to lose, and I found myself leashed. It was subtle, it was all under the guise of giving me room to have my opinion, but it was clear that there were boundaries to what I could publish.
And, boy, when I finally found that boundary, it was crystal clear. There was one publicist in particular at the studio who had become closely tied to Team Synder. As long as Team Snyder was pro-Drew, so was the studio. We did a lot of video content for HitFix at a certain point, grinding out stuff where I was asked to speak on the fly about a lot of upcoming films. It was probably six or eight weeks before the release of Batman v Superman, and while fans seemed very excited about the film, the stuff I was hearing from the studio was rough. Over the course of an average week, I talk to all sorts of friends, and I have friends who work all over Los Angeles. They work in post-production. They work in offices. They work in accounting departments. They are on-set but they’re no one you’re paying attention to. They’re on-set and they are exactly who you are paying attention to. It just depends.
I speak to a lot of people, and they not only talk about their own work, but other people’s work. And over time, it is clear who is or isn’t reliable in the way they read a room. When I was hearing bad things about Batman v Superman, it was from every direction, and it kept getting louder. One day, one of those conversations was with a person working directly for Team Snyder, and that person vented some very real anxiety about what might happen if the film didn’t work. They explained just how deeply embedded the Snyders were at that point in the future of the DC Films “big plan,” and how much it would throw a wrench in things if they couldn’t make a crossover film between their two biggest characters into a hit, and how much stress there was on figuring out the interconnected franchise somehow.
The thing they said that stood out most was how they were already far enough down the road on Justice League that it was happening no matter what, but that the fear was that a stumble on BvS would start a domino effect that would screw up all the other plans, including the films that were connected to Justice League. It was a pretty naked admission, and while I know I wasn’t going to quote that person anywhere, there were also no restrictions on the conversation. We’d had a hundred other conversations like it. So when I ended up in front of the camera talking about movies the next day, that was one of many conversations I had floating around in there. And when I was asked about the film, I answered honestly. People at the studio were worried, and there was a lot riding on it. Plans would have to change if it didn’t work. That’s all I said. I said more words than that, but if you really listened, that’s it. That’s what I said.
It cost me my entire relationship with Warner Bros for the next few years. The person who I had that conversation with not only closed ranks against me, but actively worked to keep me from having any access to the filmmakers again. I heard through clenched teeth that I had permanently destroyed my “close friends” status with Team Snyder, and that certainly proved to be true. It made it impossible for me at HitFix because they didn’t include me in anything that had been standard before that appearance, and after I left HitFix, that same person made it very clear that I was not going to be invited to anything at Warner except, maybe, the very last all-media screening of something pre-release. And even then, I had to beg every time.
That person left the studio, but had done such a great job of shutting me out that it took a while before I even figured out how to re-start the conversation with the publicists over there, who have all turned out to be perfectly lovely and rational now that I don’t have someone actively working to prevent me from doing my job. I have no idea what “Team Snyder” ever really said about me, but it would not be the first time I went from trusted to blacklisted with someone. What shocked me was how quickly this one pretty obvious thing I said turned into something totally different. The Internet plays telephone with everything everyone says, and everyone adds something to a story that they pass along. In my case, people love to ascribe motive to things I say, and I’ve noticed it happens with a lot of entertainment press. If someone doesn’t like something you say or report, then clearly, you were paid by someone with an agenda that they hate. That’s a crazy way to see the world, and it would be insulting if I thought the people who said it actually read anything I wrote or had any idea of the time and energy I’ve put into laying out my reasons for things over the years. You may not agree with me, but the one thing I hope you’ll accept as true in every scenario is that I’m just sharing my ideas about art with you, free of any larger agenda. If you can’t even start there in an exchange with someone, what’s the point?
The thing that really threw me during that entire Warner Bros thing was that I am honest with people, to a degree that really does backfire on me, and over the decade or so that I actually worked with the studio, I treated each and every person I dealt with in an honest, friendly fashion. Some of these people went on the various junket trips and set visits, and we spent a ridiculous amount of time with them. We saw them go through personal ups and downs, just like we did. We saw them get married. Divorced. Have kids. Get sick. Get strong. And I always felt like those were real and genuine interactions, separate from the business that we are all engaged in.
But the moment I said something that was even remotely difficult for a filmmaker at the studio, something that should not have been scandalous in any way, I was burned to the ground and treated like a stranger, and that’s where it really threw me. In the end, what we’re talking about here is art, and there are so many opinions about what works and what doesn’t. Yes, I am very strident about mine sometimes, but the idea that any filmmaker should be that bruised by the mere hint of a conversation about backstage troubles really drove home that the press can’t be worried about the feelings of the people they’re writing about. You can’t control the way they’ll react to things. And ultimately, you’re not writing it for them. I can accept that Team Snyder got mad at their publicist because the message wasn’t completely controlled by them. But I can’t accept that anyone ever expected that simply treating me with professional decency was enough to guarantee that I could be controlled or that I would somehow soft-pedal any real conversation about the process or the final product.
Younger Drew would have harbored a grudge. That’s not who I am now. I had a famously public fight with Tom Hardy, who took some (admittedly funny) cheap shots at me, and in the end, Mad Max: Fury Road is my favorite film of the last decade. And he’s great in it. One thing does not impact the other. It’s all worth talking about, but the film is the film, and the next time Zack Snyder releases a movie, I’ll be there, I’ll be excited to see it, and I’ll certainly be rooting for him to pull it off.
Whatever happens here, I’m not looking to bruise anyone or even to impact the way something’s developing. I’m looking to introduce accuracy and reason and some overall analysis into the way we talk about hype, instead of just soaking in it like an endless series of waves we’re drowning in, one dunk at a time.
I’ll close by saying that you should never get too wrapped up in any of this conversation because things change. That’s the fundamental truth underneath everything else in Hollywood. Things change. Marvel wrote the playbook for this modern era to such an extent that you could make the argument that Jon Favreau was the most influential director of the last decade. But right now, they’re more vulnerable than they’ve ever been. For many fans, the release of Avengers Endgame felt like a conclusion, and the company is starting over in many ways, both narratively and in terms of building movie stars. I wouldn’t bet against them in the long run, but I will say that I’ve never gotten more of a sense of uncertainty from them as a company. Watch the way people overreact about Scott Derrickson’s withdrawal from the Doctor Strange sequel. You’ll see plenty of hand-wringing today about what this “means.” What it actually means is that Scott Derrickson won’t direct the Doctor Strange sequel. That’s it. That’s all the genuine analysis you’re going to get today, because not one outlet is going to do the legwork to figure out why those “creative differences” came up. Instead, you’ll see massive amounts of speculation, and you’ll see people assigning motive they cannot possibly understand. You’ll see people talking about what this means to the company as a whole, and how things are “out of control.” Every creative fluctuation behind the scenes on these megafranchises sends fans into crazy spirals of what is essentially fan fiction about the filmmakers. Reddit loves to tell you what Kathy Kennedy is thinking, even though Reddit has no fucking clue what Kathy Kennedy is thinking.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros has run a very strong and focused campaign so far for Birds of Prey, and it feels like they’ve done a nice job of giving the film its own identity. There’s an outrageous aesthetic at play, all built around Harley Quinn’s personality, and it’s clear if you look at Warner’s overall efforts behind Harley right now that they want her to be an icon for the immediate future. The animated show that’s on the air is bananas, scratching that Venture Bros/Archer itch, but with the actual Batman rogues gallery to play with. Leaning into R-rated theatrical fare with their DC titles is a smart move for Warner, and feels like a more accurate nod to the legacy of the studio overall. Disney was always positioned as the family company, while Warner was a Movie Studio, and for much of their modern history, perhaps the most filmmaker-focused of all the studios. With strong campaigns underway already for Wonder Woman 1984 (hearing that New Order song in a IMAX theater was delightful) and Birds of Prey, and with The Batman beginning production under the watchful eye of Matt Reeves, who has proven to be a thoughtful, empathetic blockbuster director, it feels like a very different moment than it was on the eve of Batman v Superman. Instead of chasing someone else’s playbook, they seem to be at least trying to let the material guide the way.
Sunny days for DC? Rainy days for Marvel? It’s easy to make grand sweeping statements, but in both cases, I suspect the final story will be more nuanced, and have little to do with the larger companies and everything to do with the audience’s interest in the individual films.
Whatever happens, we’ll weather it all together. And hopefully, with some well-applied sanity to cut through all the noise.
Image courtesy Warner Bros Pictures/DC Entertainment