Revisionist HistoryI Am Superman with Patty Jenkins | Development Hell
Between her big hits, “Monster” and “Wonder Woman”, Patty Jenkins wrote an R-rated fairy tale, starring a dog. She hoped that the dog would deliver such a great performance that the Academy would — for the first time — give the Best Actor award to an animal. The story was about a dog program in a prison, a perfect set-up for a story of both canine and human redemption, right? Wrong. That’s the kind of story Hollywood loves, but not the kind of story Jenkins wanted to tell. Enter development hell.
Pushkin. You called it a fairy tale? Yeah, do you have? Is there a fairy tale that you were inspired by? Which fairy tale is this?
I don't know if there's one. I think it's so the opening, the opening of the movie is and this will just tell you the tone. There's a voice over throughout the movie, and the opening shot is you're pushing in on this kennel in the middle of nowhere, and it's out in the field, and it's like there once was, you know, an animal named Bandit, and the Bandit used to have had dreams of blah blah blah, blah blah. And you're pushing in, pushing in, pushing in, until you get to this pit bull sitting at the center, and it's a thing of fighting pipules. And he named himself Bandit because and you see a flash of a little boy that the dog had seen from his kennel far far away, playing with his puppy, named Bandit, and Bandit had dreams of one day being that dog, and he hoped that one day someone would give him a chance and believe in him. And this dog trainer comes, the fighting trainer and takes band It out, and he's like come on, get out of here. And he's pushing, dragging him along, and then he's like, but that's many, many years ago, and Bandit suddenly turns around and just fucking launches it as trainer and kills the dude. And at this point in Bandit's life, all Bandit ever wanted was just revenge, you know, like just bloody revenge for the life that he's lived. I'm not remembering it verbat him. It was a long time ago, but it's like and all he wanted was just one shot, just to get paidback and nothing more. And then you just push in on him and he's just got blood down his neck.
Welcome to Development Hell, our mini series about the movies that Hollywood never made. This episode is about a film starring a dog, I Misunderstood Dog, that the filmmaker Patty Jenkins wanted to make. You've heard of her, I'm sure her debut feature was A Monster, an incredible portrait of Eileen Warenose, a prostitute who killed seven of her clients. Jenkins wrote and directed Monster Charlie's Throne, took the lead role and went on to win the Best Actress Oscar for it. Patty Jenkins next tour of force, directing the twenty seventeen version of A Wonder Woman. The movie was a hit with critics and made more than one hundred million dollars in its opening weekend. But somewhere between those two hits, Patty Jenkins had the idea of telling a different kind of story.
So I became aware of these dog prison programs and started to really research them and watch them and came up with this story, which is kind of a fairy tale that takes place in a dog program where the lead characters are the dog. And my ambition was to make a rated R dog movie where I wanted the dog to give a performance so good they discussed whether to give it an oscar. You know, that was my whole goal, But there was a heavy there's a serious tour de force role for a man.
So far in development. Hell, we've only told stories about men and the movies they haven't made. This is our first story involving a woman. It's not for lack of trying. We made call after call. We recorded a truly fantastic episode with a prominent female screenwriter, and then she asked us not to run it. With good reason. Her movie never got made because she ran into a male director who didn't get the most beautiful and brilliant part of her script, and she didn't want to out him, not if she wanted to keep working as a screenwriter. And she's right. Women in Hollywood play by a very different set of rules than men. They don't have the same freedom, and more specifically, they're not allowed to tell the same kinds of stories, which was the brick wall that Patty Jenkins ran into with her fairy tale about a misunderstood pitbull named Bandit.
This is a bad dog, right for sure. You end up realizing as the story goes by, these trainers beat the shit out of these dogs, they abuse them, and so yeah, every once in a while they're going to turn on and kill somebody. And that's life, you know. I obviously, having made Monster, have sympathy for why people do the things that they do and interest in why they do the things that they do. But I think that's also what the core of the story is. By the end of the movie, you've seen that bann It is this wonderful dog if someone had just given him a chance to prove what he's capable of doing.
Patty, Patty hold on, yeahackup dog prisons. So tell me the story, Tell me the story, and tell me what a dog prison is.
So there are these programs throughout the country where they put dogs, unadoptable dogs in with inmates and they have those inmates rehabilitate the dogs. And what's an incredible thing about it is that the closer you get to studying why and what's happening in these prison programs, you realize and this is very much what the movie was about, that you're talking about a population of people that no one gives a second chance to. And this will come back around to because it's, ironically, I think, related to why I could not get the movie made. Everybody wants to believe that these are bad guys, they're only interested in having them suffer and pay their dues. But the truth is that the closer you get to prison, the more you realize that prisons are mostly full of just poor people. The prisons are full of guys who have changed, never were that bad, have been in since Juvie, and there's no way out. So the incredible thing about these dog programs is that they you're looking at a population of people that nobody is interested in anything other than having them pay their dues and then in these animals that don't see them that way and need them to be their hero, and the men just come alive. So you're using their time to do this incredible thing and it ends up being an absolutely stunning program where the inmates that end up being enrolled in this have their acidivism rate drops to almost zero. And that's what the movie was called. I Am Superman. The guy who gets paired with this dog names him Superman.
Yeah, yeah, So what is the what's the can you can you be more specific about the emotional journey of the actor in this.
The emotional journey of the actor is is the last vestige of hope that they can get out and that they can have their life changed, and it's crushed when the prison shuts down the dog program and sends the dog away to be put down and all hell breaks loose. The journey of the actor is very much the journey that I've seen happen with any guys in prison, which is like, oh, I got tricked into thinking that I could get a ged and I could go and change my life, But the truth is no, because even when you get out, nobody's really going to hire you. They're not going to give you a chance. They're not going to ever believe that you're different. They're only going to be interested in the tough guy that you were. And so what are you gonna do. You're gonna become a criminal again, because it's at least there's some integrity of being a bad guy, you know, like there's no integrity of being a loser. And so it's that's his journey, and it ends up going differently than that in the end, but only by a miracle. And so the movie was a fairy tale about a single dog, and the dog's opening scene of the movie, the dog kills its trainer. It's like sitting on top of him with blood dripping down its mouth. It's a fighting pit bull, and he gets put in a shelter and is supposed to be put down. But this dog gets accidentally put in the program and the inmate that gets paired with him has just been brought back into prison after being he had just and he's been accused of another crime. But because he had had, you know, had been a good history when he was in prison before, they let him get into this program. But he hates dogs, and so it's the story of this this terrible pit bull supposedly and this terrible man who are paired together, who actually hate each other, who have to go through this program together. And I can't tell you the whole story because I still may make this movie and I don't want everybody to know everything. But the truth is it doesn't go the way you think. It's not a touchy feeling. I'm not interested in just straightforward issue movies. So this is this is very much a fairy tale, and the story goes slightly differently than you think it would, but but it's wonderful.
Can you give us one tiny little hint of a little direction that it goes in.
Yeah, you would, one would assume, and will assume that it is that the man and the dog change each other. Yeah, they do start to change each other. But then the entire program is sabotaged by the prison and by the administration and by the corruption, which is exactly what really is going on in these prison situations, and things turn out very very differently, like a bunch of different people go a different way.
Who do we root for more by the end, the dog or both?
I mean, you really get to know them both and you understand. You end up understanding how misunderstood they are completely and how disinterested in anybody is in what's really their story, except they figure out what's up with each other, but nobody else cares or is open to it.
This is this sort of on one level, is super bleak.
It's not. It's magical, No, it is. It is. The journey is bleak, and it seems like it's going to be, but it ends up being magical, and I love the ending and it's wonderful, but really it's it it. You'd like to think that, you know, there are these great programs and that they're changing people, and so of course we're going to continue to do them, But not only does that not happen, but then it goes a very different way, and that goes to the point of why I think no one ever made the movie, because the movie is all about the main character is already changed. He's already a changed guy, and so it really ends up being about the corruption that surrounds these guys, where even if you've changed and you've become a better person, or you've never really done anything, there's no way out because everybody's only interested in seeing you as the tattoos that you have and the history.
After the break, Patty and I talk more about dogs and development. Hell, we're back with Patty Jenkins. Are you a dog person?
It's not a dog person, fanatical dog person. I love dogs.
What kind of dog do you have?
I have a pit bull and I have a French bulldog. Yeah, but I've had pit bulls my whole life.
Did you grow up with dogs as a kid sort of?
I mean I yes, I was always my mom didn't want us to have a dog, but I was always finding a way to get dogs, and so yeah, I had different dogs. And also my grandparents lived in Mississippi when I was young, and so I would spend every summer down there with them in Mississippi, and there were like twenty thirty pitples there. And this is kind of before pitbulls had this bad reputation. And so I grew up around pit bulls and I understand them and know them and love them and think that they're so smart and interesting. And so that's another thing.
An incredibly steadfast dog.
Unbelievably, And by the way, it's not to say that there aren't some people breeding hyper aggressive ones. I've always I've never been the person who says, oh, they're just like any other dog. Dangerous dogs, you need to know what you're dealing with. If it does bite somebody, it can do a lot of damage. They're not very likely to bite somebody, and they are incredibly smart and independent and emotional dogs, one of the most intelligent breeds.
Yeah, so how do you first of all, when you conceive of a movie that hasn't both you know whose principal characters are a person and an animal? What challenges does the Does the dog present huge challenge?
I mean chalge? So this is part of what I was so excited and interested about. My goal was to get an honest performance out of a pitbull. They are incredibly emotive dogs and so you can just read what's going on on their face. So that got me really interested in how do we do this, not just having a trainer, you know, be over here. Really what it was going to come down to was putting the actor in the zelle with the dog and actually trying to elicit that real perform it's out of the dog with almost no crew around. I was always when we would talk about budget, I was saying, I want to get the tiniest crew, but I want to shoot a lot of days, and so it was just going to be slow to try to wait until you get that right expression out of the dog and elicit that actual performance from the dog.
And so what are you looking for from the dog specifically?
It depends, So it's a whole you know, it's a whole story. So you would need the dog to dislike the guy and be hostile. You'd need the dog to become curious and interested but apprehensive, and then the dog to you know, start to fall in love with the guy. You need the dog to all kinds of things. He has to have a moment where he flips out and so so you would need everything. And that was going to be kind of the sport of it.
But the whole time that you're trying to elicit a natural performance from the dog, the dog is aware that there's someone with a camera.
Maybe maybe not. So if you hid enough cameras around and laughs, you know, like the way that they do like reality shows where their cameras mounted all over the car and you know, or comedians in cars with coffee or like whatever, you can hide different cameras. I would shoot it differently than all of my other films, because everything else I've done, I've done on film, and you know, it's a very big, big production. This I would actually be open to shooting digitally for this very reason, just so that I could get cameras everywhere. The addition, the other thing I wanted to do was I wanted to shoot it in a real prison with inmates as part part of the crew. There are a couple of prisons that have like two different They have a very busy prison, but they also have like a closed down section of the prison nearby, And so I was working on that idea as well. Where you know, just the same way you would run a dog program, you run a very you know the yard where the kind of vetted inmates are. You have them come and be trained to work as crew on the film. The problem is it, you know, it becomes a little tough if there's lockdowns and things like that, and that happens all the time. But this was all gonna you know, I was going to try to figure out how much of it I could do that way.
And what about the actor.
The actor would have to be on board in a in a different it would be a ride. It would be like a journey. You and that actor would be on a ride trying to figure out how to do this film together and try to figure out how. They'd have to love dogs. They'd have to be interested in the endeavor and it would be you know, interesting to find out how it went. You'd have to be learning the dog as you went.
But it's not just have to love dogs. It's that you're also acting. So in the first part of the relationship, you have to act that you don't love dogs.
M So again, that would go into camera work. When I've worked with kids before, you sometimes have moments where the actor is directing the kid off camera. I've had one where this act, this adult actress was was Geene Tripplehorn was acting out for the child what the child should do. It was wonderful because we couldn't get the kid to totally do it. So, you know, there are many ways to get you know, you might be having to do something strange to the dog to get the dog to react strangely, you're not doing your part.
Oh I see. Yeah, So before we even get to the studio, you've got to find an actor who's willing to do something very unorthodox.
I wouldn't, which I don't think would be that hard actually, because I think it's such a juicy like, it's such a juicy performance for an actor. It's such a good role. Had been talking to Ryan Gosling about it at the time, and this is way back, this is two thousand and six of two thousand and five, and then Ryan and I were going to sort of do it alternately off and on, but then he kept not being able to do it or wanting to do it because he'd wanted to go make money or various different things. When I would try to go to other actors but Ryan Gosling, I would get the same sort of thing from the guys. They wanted to be tough and scary and stab somebody in whatever, and and I thought that was such a telling thing that that that was a story people struggled to embrace, a non redemption story about prison. That was the issue I had more of. Interestingly, when I tried to make the film, even the most liberal people in Hollywood and the most issue we companies that make these films would always say, yeah, but can't he stab somebody at the beginning and be about his redemption? And I would say no, you're very much missing the point of the movie. The point of the movie is that you're romanticizing prison. If you think it's a bunch of super dangerous people in there, it's not. I've walked around the main line of Full sum you know, of some of the most dangerous prisons in the country, and I'm not fraid at all because ninety nine point nine percent of the guys are just sad. It's just a sad sack situation. It's very organized, it's just a warehouse for human beings with no way out. And that's what I found so fascinating about people not wanting to make it is that no one's interested in the story about prison not being just you know.
Yeah, so it's it's a what's fast saying about the script is you begin I mean, the very thing that makes it hard for the studio or an actor is what makes it so intriguing for an audience, because you're messing with our expectation about an animal movie. We've seen animal movies and we know how they work. Right.
That's why I think it's great is because the truth is a lot of people also said to me, you can't make a rat at oar dog movie. I was like, but everybody said you couldn't make a dog movie at all, and every time they make dog movies they're huge. We love dogs, and so what are you taking. It's not like only kids like dog movies. Adults like dog movies. So yeah, you can definitely make a rat Atar dog movie. So but it's just listen. I make myself feel better by saying you can't. Both want to do things that nobody's ever seen before, and then before frustrated that nobody understands why it's going to work or why you believe in it. But this plagues me in my whole career. I've never done anything anybody thought I was going to succeed. Everybody thinks everything I do is like a wonder woman that's going to be terrible. Oh monster, that's going to be terrible. Oh the killing is going to be a bad TV whatever.
When you finished the screenplay and you said, what did you say to yourself? Did you think this is a slam dunk? Someone's going to help me make this?
No, but I knew how how very happy I was with it, and the people who read it had the same reaction. You know, like people would say you know that it was. I've had still people some people write me and say it's still one of their favorite screenplays they've ever read. But but I knew it was going to be a little bit hard, but I didn't And I still don't understand why no one would roll the dice on my very low budget second film, other than to speculate that the sexism that I was very very disinterested in throughout my career, but see much more clearly now wad into the fact that you know, if a guy makes an Oscar winning first film, then then you roll the dice on their second thing. Whereas throughout my career people have not been interested in or not had confidence in what I want to do. They've embraced me and wanted to hire me for what they want to do. But still to this day, like when I have my what the stories I want to tell are, people are like, ah, we've never seen that before, And I'm like, yeah, but you've never seen monster before either, Like you want to just give it a shot. So so, looking back, it took me all the way until now to be like, wait, how did nobody just say, yeah, we'll give her five million dollars to make her second movie. Different thoughts of.
This is super interesting and something I've been thinking about a lot recently, which is that you're talking about sexism here. Sexism discrimination of any kind takes all kinds of different forms. Yeah, And in this case, what we're talking thing about is someone is perfectly capable of saying, you made a brilliant movie. So the sexism doesn't prevent them from seeing the genius of Monster. It prevents them from seeing that you could do it again. In other words, the way they make sense a monster is, oh, it's a one off.
Yeah. Yeah. And I also think it's that, of course, it's not anybody's fault that the industry is based on looking backwards. So if it's something this is what I think is the real gender issue, and by the way, not just gender issue. Diverse stories issue in Hollywood is you can want to invite as many people behind camera and into these positions as possible, but as long as you're still basing what can and cannot succeed on the past, you're basing it on a blueprint of a very specific voice. And so I think that when I want to tell a different maybe a guy wouldn't think of that story that I'm coming up with and maybe the way the emotions work are slightly different. Whatever, it is the combination of the fact that they haven't seen it before, and also they don't like to think of women as auteurs or artists or take it as serious, Like there's a there's a romantic desire to look at guys who do like crazy art things and be like, oh my god, they're a genius. Much less so with a woman, you know. And so I think it's like the combination of those things that make it tough.
So what exactly you said a little bit? But I'm curious, So you take this script out? You want five million dollars, which, just for those of you listening in Hollywood terms, not a lot of money at all.
No, I mean, everybody thought that Monster costs more than that, like they they there was a there was a big lawsuit about it, and one of the sides tried to say that it costs eleven million dollars, So that's what they thought Monster costs. It actually costs one point five But it's very that was as little money as a movie can be. Is five million? Really?
And what do you so? What what exactly are you hearing? You're hearing a people want they want. First of all, they get that they want a different perspective on the prisoner. You've said that they feel more comfortable where they have a very clear redemptive narrative when it comes to the to the past. But what else, keep going? What else? What else is in their area?
You know, I can only say that it was always like no, It's like even these people saying like it's great, we love the script, but it's not for us. There's always a million different reasons. It's only as the years have gone by, and my husband's always pointing it out too, that we've had this so many things that I led that or my idea like I wanted to do an MMA show called the Fight about People in the MMA world. No, no, we don't. It doesn't make sense. Then sure enough that goes on and becomes huge. It's like I when I go and pitch things that I want to do and what my ideas are, so often it's been met with with like no, but we'd love you to do this hooker with a heart of gold script or this you know other thing. And I'm so grateful to have been embraced to do other people's things, but there is something about it, and so yeah, it's always something different. I don't think that they're ever even aware of it, but I do think that there's something about confidence and excitement in in in women's artistry that is slightly less, you know, they're they're less confident in.
That's my well, that's my that's my point. There's a a much more constricted view of of your talent. It's like you're this desire to see to if you can explain away a big success by saying it was like a like a a, it was an anomaly.
And by the way, it's always miss I feel it's always misunderstood as well. I remember people saying to me when I made Monster. The one studio executive actually said to me she came into the editing and she actually watched a part of it, and she goes, sweetheart, no one wants to see a film like this. Oh, no, one wants to see a movie like this. And she wrote me an email saying like, oh, you're a great kid. I know you're gonna make it one day. I'm just really too bad.
You know.
And this is before, of course the movie comes out and ends up, you know, succeeding and making eighty something million dollars by the way, and then I would hear everybody saying like, oh, do you have any more female serial killer things? And you're like, that's the take home lesson. The take home lesson is that they want female serial killers. And the same thing I felt with Wonder Woman. I felt like Wonder Woman was there was just so much emphasis on gender where it was like, Oh, everybody wants to see a woman directing a woman's story. I'm like, is that it It's not because of the movie. It's not the hero's journey, it's not you know. It's like and then there are a hundred women get women action things made on the It's like it's always it's the wrong lesson. But but I think in the there's so much focus on the woman part of it versus being like, Oh, it's a good film and it's an unorthodox film, but they pulled it off. Instead, it's just like, oh, female serial killers, that's it, That's what everybody wanted.
At what point do you think it would change, Like, give me a hypothetical, what would have to happen in your career for people to say you want to do it. Given your track record, let's go for it.
I mean, honestly, I don't know too many of the women I know who have had major successes are also we all behind closed doors whisper about how it sort of doesn't. I think the world is really really long way away from that. It's not going to happen in my lifetime. I think it's you know, I may find my own financing and have my own people and get my own movies made. But I think that the world is still genuinely run way behind closed doors by the same people who have a desire for the interests that they have, and no matter who they're putting on the lower levels, the mandate is still bumping up to that level. And the truth is like, we're real far from really diverse voices being understood and embraced. And it's not about money either. So that's the unfortunate thing.
I'll be right back with more from Patty Jenkins. While Patty was telling me about her dog prison fairy tale, I kept thinking about what the story shares with Monster, how upbringing and events can conspire to wound people or dogs and shape what we expect from them. Monster and I am Superman both stories that ask us to look for nuance in some very dark places. Jenkins, I was thinking, seems compelled by these kinds of dark places, So I asked her about it. Where where does this come from?
In you? So it's funny because I think we both have very backgrounds of a lot of exposure and travel, and I think that that's I. You know, when I was little, we moved to Vietna, to Thailand and during the Vietnam War, and then we moved.
To You're an Air Force brat.
Are Air Force brat? Yeah, And I think I grew up consciously or unconsciously in the shadow of the Vietnam War in Thailand, you know, with my father's people dying right and left, and the plant, you know, everything that's really going on. So I think I was I was born into the around the darkness in a familiar way. And then my own father passed away in a plane crash, and you know, all these things, and I lived all over the place. So then I've always never quite been one type of person. I'm not like from somewhere and like of a type, and so I've always been curious in all types of people and what's going on with you, and I'm not daunted by the darkness, and as a result, I ended up making friends with all kinds of people my whole life. Like I've been friends with definitely people who have done some terrible things and ended up in prison. And as much as I've been friends with, you know, upper class socialites or whatever, I've known all kinds of people. But I think that the people who end up living some of the most dangerous lives have I have a real soft spot for because I've watched them turn into those people and seen how how misunderstood they are and how easy it would be to happen to anybody should they were. They the ones that went through that journey. So it's just it's not my only as you can see, like wonder Woman is also my interest, you know, like I have Arrested development is also my interest. I have lots and lots of interests. I think the reason I like such diverse work myself is because because of what I just said, I'm not one type of person. I've had to learn how to live in different circumstances at different times. But this issue, these issues definitely are near and dear to my heart. And also I think the most misunderstood because people have so little access to understanding these stories.
How old were you when your dad died?
Seven?
Oh? Wow? I always think about you know. In one of my books, I had a whole section on what the I think does all this work on what happens to people when they lose a parent at a young age. And it's this incredible study that was done in England of extraordinarily high percentage of high achieving people lost a parent in youth. And wow. The argument is that it has one of two effects. You know, it's like, you know, it's a Nietzschean thing. It either crushes you or it makes you stronger. You've gone through just about the most horrendous thing that can happen to a child, and if you can emerge from the other side of that, you're kind of toughened in some way. I'm just I'm just using by how drawn you are to investigating this kind of darkness and finding some some value in it. Mm hmm. I think that that's or some understanding.
Well said, that's well said understanding. I think it was. It's interesting to look back on this and how first of all, it was the definitive event in my life was my father dying. It was had a huge, huge on everything after, particularly in my youth. I think it was funny and watching Anatomy of a Fall this last year, what I thought was so interesting that and illuminating to me was how condescending everyone is to the child about their understanding of what's going on. And that really rang true to me, where I think that a lot of people, even at our age, don't necessarily know how bad bad can be, Like they just don't know they haven't been close to it, to the worst possible thing that could ever happen to you happening. And when it happens to you as a child, you're obsessed with your parents at seven years old, you are in love with them. And my father was like such a heroic figure, like taking off on his motorcycle every day and then flying off in his F four. You know, it's like he was like a superhero in my life. So to have that happen and then tell me you'll never see him again, like it was such exquisite revealing of how bad the world can be. And now when I look back, I'm like, oh, yeah, people are saying to you, like, oh, every cloud has a silver lining and all these things, and you're like, I want to die, Like you're done, it's your suicidal, really, your your interest in this place is over. And I only now realize that looking back, I'm like, oh, all of these words, and how I was probably being viewed as a seven year old is she'll forget him, she'll get over him, she'll and you're like, dude, I can't. I don't want to be here where that can happen at any moment. I don't trust any of this now, And so I think that it's it's a very interesting thing that you do have to kind of toughen yourself and learn how to exist in that world where you know that that can. And I still really struggle with it. I really struggle with it as it relates to my child, where I'm like it with the knowing how bad bad can be, like knowing that we all feel like it's not going to be us and it can't really happen, but it really could, you know, and it happen at any moment, and there's nothing you can do about it, you know. Interestingly, I don't think I would be the director I am if my father hadn't died and then I think monster I made literally directly about the death of my father. It was about like, oh, okay, cool, everything works out, everything happens, Like the voiceover in that movie is saying, everything, you know, it's all these myths that she's heard throughout her youth. If you just you know, if you just love and believe in yourself, anything can happen. Nope, not for Eileen Warnis, you know. So that it was a direct a chance for me to express how dark the world can be that people might not realize. And I think the driven part, what's interesting, don't I'd have to think about what I think it is that makes you driven. For me, I was. I was passionate to take control of the narrative. And my original reason for wanting to be a filmmaker was that I thought that the stories were always going to be terrible in real life. So I was like, so, I want to tell my story. I want to be the one who controls the story, so at least I can live a good outcome there, you know. And I turned out to be pleasantly wrong that, you know. I've lived a wonderful knock on wood life in so many ways. But yeah, I think it was like it made me very, very driven.
So now you're now you want to take uh this story back out and try and maybe.
I haven't decided. I haven't decided.
Tell me how you would knowing what you know. By the way, what you just said is incredibly Uh, it's sort of it's it. It's it's moved. I mean, it's really moved. I mean it's incredibly kind of moving. And and honest, you why you do what you do. What's what's interesting is that what is for most of us. You know, I've had a when I was growing up as a kid, I you know, thought all the time about what it would mean if I lost one of my parents. But it was an abstract thought. For you, it's real. That's the difference. So I can't As a kid, when I thought about that, it wasn't something I could put into words. It wasn't something I could make real to anyone else. It was just a kind of It's the kind of weird kind of fantasy you have, dark fantasy you have at three in the morning, you're like, oh my god, what would happen if but you actually, by virtue of gone going through it, you knew what it.
Felt like mm hmm, but yeah, because after my father died, then my sister had a like the most beautiful friend, runaway boy who came and lived with us, and I was like so in love with him. He was like three years older than us, Paul Penzini. He was like beautiful and you know, and he'd run away and was living in our house. And then he had to go visit a cousin and he got shot in the head and killed. And so I was between those two things. I was like, this place sucks, I you know. Was it made me very romantic though, like you interestingly that kind of tragedy I think, particularly for the opposite sex parent and then the opposite sex older brother figure. It made me so romantic about everything, but about like love and longing and loss. I think it's like I take for granted my familiarity with the darkness, but of course the romance of the stories I want to tell are very much born from that, And so I think I sort of thought I was this much darker, rebellious, the type of person that makes monster in my youth, and now I realize I'm not that person. I'm also the person that makes wonder woman I'm all kinds of you know, like I've grown up. I'm not just that person. But so I think that makes me look back and say, yeah, why do I have that much darkness? Oh that's interesting, let's look back. You you really don't you just you just go forward for a long long time before you say, like, how do I explain to people that I made Monster and I made wonder Woman?
You know? So, if you were to take this movie back out, knowing what you know both about your the first round of attempts with it and about yourself, how would you pitch it differently?
I don't think I would pitch it. First of all, I don't think I would. I think I would try to stack it up with my own financing and control because I think I made I've made my peace with the fact that it might not be the easiest thing to trust, and so you kind of need to be left alone to make it. I maybe would take it to one or two places. But I don't think I would go out, you know, with my hands out hoping that Hollywood understands this film. Now I'm playing the game in a more sophisticated way now, with age and with experience, where you're sort of like, oh, I see what this is and I see how it could go wrong, and just to give this film a winning hand, I'd need the space to actually make it what it could be, not be fielding a bunch of notes from a bunch of people who are afraid who needed to you know who, that they've never seen a film like this before. So I think, yeah, it's more just about how to set yourself up to succeed.
I want to see this movie. Were you were you? Maybe well were you?
Probly you'll If I don't make it, I'll come back and tell you the rest of the story.
This has been fantastic. This episode was produced by Nina Bird Lawrence with Tali Emlin and ben A Dapph Haffrey. Editing by Sarah Nicks, original scoring by Luis Quira, Engineering by Echo Mountain. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. I'm Malcolm Gladwell.
