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Not every year brings a new holiday classic, but this Friday, David Gordon Green slips one under the tree.
Snapped up by Hulu following its premiere at TIFF, the film is Nutcrackers, a little dramedy Green shot out on a small-town Ohio farm late last year, with an interim agreement in hand. Ben Stiller stars as Mike, a workaholic who heads out to the Buckeye State to look after his recently orphaned nephews, developing a closer bond with the rowdy bunch than he had anticipated.
Green’s way into the project was unconventional — engineering a film around the charismatic young sons of a close film school friend. After years steeping himself in horror, between an Exorcist film and a Halloween trilogy, the project marked a return to his humanist roots, as well as his first feature comedy in almost a decade. But while pivoting creatively, as he’s known to do, after repeat collaborations with Blumhouse, Green walked away thinking about that company’s financial savvy, and how their success in empire building might be applied to the genre of comedy.
As the industry continues to rebuild following Covid and last year’s double strike, Green is optimistic about the future, seeing the potential for a “renaissance” for feature comedies, and film, in general. But it’s an outcome that will only come with some serious soul searching amongst filmmakers and execs — an interest in real innovation that would involve taking a close look at everything from star salaries to ticket prices and movie theater seating.
Below, Green gives his take on the way forward, also dishing on his feelings regarding the first big streaming deal of his career, his work as director and EP of Amazon’s forthcoming series Kay Scarpetta, and more.
DEADLINE: I’ll start with a softball question, David. What are your favorite holiday movies?
DAVID GORDON GREEN: The one that immediately hops to mind is Elf. Right now, Elf and Christmas Story are the ones that I always have in rotation. Of course, I’m always trying to squeeze in a Die Hard or a Home Alone, but I think Elf is the one that the more I watch it, the more I find these funny details and textures that’s not necessarily the obvious. And when you start to personalize a movie and make it your own is when you know you’ve got a classic.
DEADLINE: You had an unusual way into Nutcrackers. Has any other project of yours come together in such an out-of-the-box way?
GREEN: I think the closest thing to this was my second film, All the Real Girls, which was college friends, very closely connected stories. Paul Schneider, the lead actor of that movie, was an editor at my film school, not a trained actor, so we built that narrative around him and some of our personal stories, and filmed in a place that was very personal to us. In fact, the mother of these boys [in Nutcrackers] is an actress in that film. So, it’s self-indulgent to the degree that just makes me honored to be among the social and creative inner circle that I work within. And it’s the inspiration of people that help you to safely go to some pretty strange places.
DEADLINE: Your stars, the Janson brothers — Homer, Ulysses, Atlas, and Arlo — are magnetic on screen. But what assured you that they could lead a movie? How did you harness the unique energies they bring to the table in service of a fictional narrative?
GREEN: I’ve done a lot of work with untrained actors and non-actors. I’ve done a lot of street casting. So I have a lot of experience with the warning signs that you’re walking down a dark path, or the signals of confidence and comedy and craziness, charisma that say when we turn a camera on, we’re going to get gold. All four of these kids had those kind of inspirational signals, so I just knew that if we put a camera in the right place and created a safe environment, these kids were going to bring authenticity. And I’m not asking them to do Shakespeare; I’m not asking them to memorize long monologues. I’m saying, “We’re going to film it at your house, with your animals. This is your movie, so you be you.”
When we were developing the project, I bought them a video camera and had them start to film each other and put on scenarios, and get comfortable with expressing themselves and playing into characters a little bit. Then, we brought an acting coach down from New York to workshop scenes with them, but always being very cautious of the fact that we don’t want to burden them with technique and logistics. As Emily [McDonnell], our acting coach, would say, we just want to bring who they are forward. So that’s kind of what we worked to do. We were very fortunate to partner with Ben Stiller on this, so that you have an actor that gets the game and enjoys that playground of uncertainty and improvisation and authenticity.
DEADLINE: How did you initially connect with your writer, Leland Douglas?
GREEN: My first meeting with Leland was, when I first got out of film school, I went to work at a market research group that used to do test screenings of movies in Los Angeles. I was the guy that would tape people’s names on the backs of seats, or rope off rows for the VIPs, or collect the comment cards, and Leland was my supervisor. [Laughs] So during the 11th screening of Edtv or whatever movie we were testing, he and I would sit in the lobby of the movie theater and talk about Robert Altman movies, or Michael Ritchie movies, or Stanley Kubrick movies.
He’s the only guy that’s read every script for every movie I’ve made, and we just really bonded in our affinity mostly for ’70s films. So when it came time to write this movie, I was immediately triggered by movies like Bad News Bears, and some of the style of Robert Altman and Hal Ashby movies, and the balance of tones that they had from comedic to dramatic. So I called Leland and said, “Hey, I’ve got these kids. I’m out on this farm in Ohio. I need you to come out here and meet them so we can design the greatest ’80s movie that was never made.”
So he came out, and then we just started talking about it. Is this a save-the-farm movie like Kidco? Is it an orphans-looking-for-a-home movie like Six Pack? What are our inspirations? What are the tropes we want to either invite or avoid? A big influence of ours was Overboard, which is a movie I just always loved — that Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell film — and then I think Bad News Bears and Bless the Beasts and Children were our role models for how to bring these kids forward, and capture who they are, in their rough-around-the-edges authenticity.
DEADLINE: You’ve said one of the big appeals of this movie was the fact that you got to work totally off the grid, as far as Hollywood was concerned. What awareness was there of the project in the local Ohio community? I imagine there was a level of excitement, when you’re filming right out in the town square.
GREEN: Yeah, it’s amazing. I do a lot of production in Los Angeles and New York, cities that are numb, if not annoyed every time a camera truck pulls up down the street. But here, it was so welcoming, so inviting. It was just a beautiful experience to take an art project like this and start showing a community that doesn’t get burdened with this, but gets to feel the beauty of it. Last weekend, I went back to Wilmington, Ohio and we showed the movie at the Murphy Theatre, where we filmed some of the sequences, and it was really fun being able to show people full circle. I’m not even sure some of them knew what we were making was a movie. I think they just thought we were doing some performance art in the street. So to be able to invite the whole town, the community that was so supportive of us in those days, to come and share in the experience of the final product was really special.
DEADLINE: You’ve also said that it’s a joy for you to work within environments that feel alive, rather than on a soundstage. You certainly got your fair share of that energy on this one…
GREEN: It’s funny you say that because right now, I’m outside of a sound stage. I’m on my final day of production on this pilot, and I was saying the exact same thing yesterday. It was our second day on a stage, and for the most part, we’ve been out in these real locations. And when we get to the stage, I just start falling asleep because I love the elements. I love being out in it and I love the uncertainty of it, where in here, we have control of the lighting grids, and the comfort of heat and air conditioning. We filmed Nutcrackers, it was 10 degrees on this farm — howling winds and animals everywhere. They’re not hitting a mark; you just have to let them be. And these kids that, again, they’re not trained to memorize long monologues or have emotional arcs in the traditional sense. But we let them be our guides, and let it just unfold. What I get so excited about is capturing the authenticity.
DEADLINE: What will your response be if one of these kids ends up pursuing a show biz career?
GREEN: “Be careful.” [Laughs] A lot of the kids I’ve worked with have gone on to do great things, so I’m actually really proud of them. Mostly, that comes with great parental support and guidance of influences, and it’s been really fun for me to see. I was actually texting yesterday with one of the actors from George Washington, my first film. He’s getting his master’s degree in social work right now. Or an actor like Tye Sheridan that I worked with when he was a kid, or Jamie Bell. You see them go on to do really amazing and ambitious things, so I’m always intrigued, and I don’t have any of the horror stories on my resume. But you always want them to have people looking out for them because it can be a really vulnerable time of discovering that ability or that interest — the access to emotions, the access to so much of the world is right there when you want it, and you hope you have the right navigators in the chaos.
DEADLINE: While promoting Nutcrackers on the festival circuit, you expressed the hope that the film would secure a deal for theatrical distribution. It ultimately sold to Hulu for eight figures and should rack up plenty of views over the holidays. But are you ambivalent about your outcome?
GREEN: That’s a great question, probably complicated. I haven’t fully processed it because this is the first film I’ve taken that step with, but all I can say is so far, they’ve said the right things. They’ve created the right marketing materials. I’ve really enjoyed the collaboration with Hulu, and I’m excited to see them get this film out in a way that I’m enthusiastic about. So we’ll see.
There’s a bit of a romantic notion I have for the cinematic experience, and guess what? They gave it to me at the Murphy Theatre. So having those experiences and screenings I’ve had, in the Toronto Film Festival and others, I get my fix of sharing this movie with an audience. My parents saw it last night at an Alamo Drafthouse in Dallas, so that’s fun, that they got to bring their friends and see it with a crowd. We shot the movie on 35mm, so I want it to be seen and appreciated in all of its beauty, [but] more than anything, you want eyeballs and hearts to enjoy the film you made.
DEADLINE: How do you view the future of comedy where filmmaking is concerned? What do you think has caused it to wane in the theatrical space, and do you think it can make a comeback?
GREEN: In most of the topics that we could talk about in life, I believe in the pendulum swinging, and so we’re here, we’re there. There’s a couple things I would note on that. One is, I think comedy, like horror, doesn’t need big movie stars; it needs funny people. I don’t think it needs big action set pieces; it needs funny concepts and funny set pieces. So the backlash comes, in a lot of ways, from a cultural standpoint, but also comes in an economic standpoint of these very expensive movies that cost too much money and then they don’t make it back. That seems absurd for something like comedy. I can understand it for a big event or action movie, but for these types of things, I think it should be responsibly made. I think all films need to look at their economics a little bit more responsibly.
There’s a couple other things that I think are really fascinating that I’ve been observing, because I go to movies all the time. One is, the chairs are too comfortable and removed from the rest of the audience. People don’t see the backs of heads when they’re bouncing with laughter or jumping in fear, so I think these big armchair theaters are doing a disservice to the crowd that’s actually there to entertain. On top of that, if a movie does come out, they’re putting it in like five or six auditoriums so that audience is spread really thin. Rather than back in the day, where we’d have a sold-out crowd with an anticipation of the popcorn in their hands as they’re going into a movie and trying to find the best seat.
Now, it’s become so comfortable and easy to get your ticket and find your spacing and fall asleep in the movie: That doesn’t serve a comedy in its best capacity, in my opinion. On top of that, the ticket prices have gotten so expensive that you’re thinking, well, I can just sit down with my family or friends and watch something streaming. Maybe that works to the advantage of a movie like Nutcrackers, in some capacity. But it’s really frustrating when I see and hear about audiences saying, “Well, I’ll go see the big action movie in the theater because I need that sound system. But for a comedy, I can check in at home.” I just think we’re trying to serve the interest of an audience, and instead, we’re scaring them away.
It’s the comfortable chairs that I have the biggest problem with. When I test screen movies, I like to go to the theaters that are not stadium seating, the ones that remain that aren’t the most comfortable seats. It keeps you awake.
DEADLINE: As someone who has collaborated repeatedly with Blumhouse, you’ve talked about the potential for applying their economic model for horror to a genre like comedy. Do you think there’s the potential for a company as prolific as Blumhouse that can succeed with lower-budget feature, less star-driven comedies in a way we haven’t yet seen?
GREEN: Absolutely. And who does it first, to light the fire to [bring about] all the copycats? We’ve seen it in horror, and we will see that. I’m not worried about that happening. It’s just like, as an entrepreneur, as an innovator, you want to get there first and create that entity and make that signature move for your company. You know, Danny [McBride] and Jody [Hill] and I have Rough House Pictures, where we’re making a lot of TV shows. We did Nutcrackers, and we’re cranking out some films, and we look at that as a real north star of, how can we curate the voices of great comic writers, great comic performers, and put them in a package that audiences want to buy a ticket to?
I feel like we’re on the cusp of a renaissance that happened, I’ll say in the late ’60s in American filmmaking, where everything got so manufactured within the studio vernacular that it was a time for the Easy Riders and Raging Bulls to come and disrupt the institution. And that’s going to come through the content, through the exhibition, through the mindset of where money goes in your production. I think all that needs to be reevaluated, from the cost of a star salary, to the practical below-the-line expenses of a movie, to the ticket prices that we’re selling at the theater. So I think with the right entrepreneurial mindset, we can find a great disruptor that’s going to then lead us back to what ultimately my vision of a theatrical audience experience would be.
DEADLINE: You’ve been really successful on the TV side with projects like It’s Florida, Man, Tires, and The Righteous Gemstones, which prove that viewers still have a big appetite for comedy. What will it take for you to get more titles like these into theaters?
GREEN: What I think we need is that partnership in a distribution company. Because you don’t necessarily hit the ball out of the park with every swing, but I think if you could put together that slate and keep the business model and the monetization responsible, there’s a strong likelihood that it could be extremely profitable and then point toward that radical renaissance that I think we’re all looking for.
[At Blumhouse], something that I got firsthand experience in is, keep the costs low, keep the salaries responsible, and if you win, you win on the backend. I think those types of incentives don’t necessarily appeal to everybody, but for the hungry and the confident, it’s a great way to bet on yourself. There’s no more beautiful thing than keeping the economic pressure off your shoulders so that you don’t have a lot of corporate influence on your artistic creation. And then when you win, you are alongside all the players saying, “We did this together.”
DEADLINE: You’ve said in the past that there are still a lot of genres you want to tackle as a filmmaker. Is one in particular on your mind right now?
GREEN: It depends on the day. Today, I woke up and started working on a comedic script that I’ve been working on. Last week, I put the polish on an action movie that I’ve been writing. I’m trying to put together a documentary. So it’s always a buffet, and then you look at both the reality of your resources and the cultural enthusiasm from a financial institution and say, I’ve got to make things real. My goal is to be in production as many days of the year as I can because that’s where I thrive, in those chaotic environments of uncertainty. It’s just kind of how I like to live and breathe, maximizing shooting days. So I have to pivot with the pendulum and balance what my personal priorities are among the spinning plates that I have.
DEADLINE: As we speak, you’re about to wrap on the pilot for Kay Scarpetta, Prime Video’s adaptation of the bestselling book series, starring Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis. What’s been most gratifying about your work on the show?
GREEN: For me, it’s just discovering a new ensemble of incredible actors. It’s a vast cast, covering multiple timelines, and it’s really complicated and ambitious in what we’re trying to do. But the fact that you go to work every day with people that can memorize six pages of dialogue flawlessly on the first take, that’s when you step back and really admire the craftsmanship of some of these iconic actors. In a lot of ways, it’s the perfect juxtaposition to Nutcrackers, where we have this incredible actor in Ben keeping the ship afloat with these non-actor kids, and it’s all about improvisation and letting loose. Here, I can design a very complicated shot, they hit their marks every time, every line is wonderful and insightful, and then we can give it little switches and nuances with subtleties of direction. So I bring a different toolkit to this type of project, but it’s equally as inspiring.
