DEADLINE: Youre big proponents of both original storytelling and the theatrical experience.
How do you know when youve landed on an idea that merits that treatment?
And I think it helps that theres two of us.
Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, ‘Heretic’Getty Images/A24
So its always about what keeps us engaged.
DEADLINE: How do you feel about the state of the industry, where risk-taking is concerned?
BRYAN WOODS: Well, its funny.
Hollywoods never been a place of great risk-taking, throughout the history of cinema.
So we have these kind of cycles of exciting things happening and Hollywoods in a weird place right now.
Weve certainly felt for years this fatigue of superhero movies, and fatigue of the sequel/remakes.
And its not to say that those movies dont still do well.
A24 is a studio that weve loved since the beginning.
So we need studios that know how to take interesting choices, but also make them financially successful.
DEADLINE: In its opening weekend,Hereticmade back its production budget of less than $10M.
Do you see this as a systemic issue?
Big movies, and studios that spend a lot of money on movies, thats a great thing.
I think whats not a great thing is just how boring its all gotten.
DEADLINE: Where scale seems to be a real issue is when it becomes about thoughtless excess.
Its interesting how hard its been for streaming.
Because the film feels meticulously thought through in the dialectic its presenting.
How did you get there?
How do you decide when to stop researching?
We hadnt filled our heads with enough information.
Weve solved religion, or, Weve read enough to understand Mr. Reed.
It was actually a confluence of personal and professional events… Because we were feeling it so raw and emotionally.
You dont have to pretend to know what their pains and fears are.
Its all on the page, all in the work.
Weve always wanted to do that, and felt like we hadnt done that before.
Did you think of it that way?
They have relationships to fairytales.
Were not telling a factual tale, necessarily.
DEADLINE: Obviously, your production designer, Phil Messina, was integral in fleshing this out.
WOODS: Were very visual writers, and I mean that literally.
We write in a kind of dream logic, and theres two of us.
Its funny how when we write, Scott will diagram something out.
Hell have a door be on the left side, and Ill be like, Oh, interesting.
I always saw it on the right side.
So a big part of our process is drawing and diagramming so that were imagining the same movie.
WOODS: It did not start with that philosophical parable about the butterfly.
BECK: Our process is such that our ideas get lost in the midst.
Or you see the moth that is trapped earlier in the living room.
How does it feel to have achieved that?
WOODS: Its really gratifying and special.
Nobody wants to see a movie with no dialogue, and aliens, and a family on a farm.
Thats just an exciting place to be.
Its not even this feeling of, We dont like sequels or remakes.
We like anything thats wonderful and go see those movies.
Its just, its less exciting for us to go play in somebody elses sandbox.
BECK: Thats true.
Something likeBarbieis absolutely incredible and inspiring because theres a narrow framework for that, right?
And yet we feel that with original film, too.
Like Chris McQuarrie, what hes done with theMission: Impossiblefranchise is amazingly beautiful.
For us, though, we want to go to the unknown, and that invites face-planting sometimes.
DEADLINE: Interestingly, unlike most filmmakers, youre also theater owners.
I always wonder, does it come back to community engagement and being a place thats not merely transactional?
Im not trying to claim this is some kind of James Cameron-level innovation here.
But we have a rooftop screening space, and thats very different in our community.
People were like, Wow, what an experience.
But I do think theres something often boring about the way movies are marketed.
Theres not necessarily an intrigue.
And it takes something like aLonglegsmarketing campaign to get you to lean in.
Theres a complacency with the theatrical experience and the movies being made, and thats not good enough anymore.
DEADLINE: Do you spend most of your time in your home state?
BECK: Were transient, but we have a go at spend as much time in Iowa as possible.
One part, because we have the theater here; another part, because its home to us.
And not always being consumed by the film industry 24/7.
What dictates which one you make next?
WOODS: Its going to be dictated entirely by passion.
Weve got this giant sci-fi movie; weve got a more contained thriller.
We have movies at different scales, and passion will win out.
And we love writing things that we dont direct, also.
Can you replace that with a potent philosophical idea?
Can a line of dialogue about religion be just as scary as the monster thats hiding under your bed?
A movie thats wall-to-wall talking, thats still somehow engaging, felt really hard to do.
Nobodys going to want to make this movie, especially ourselves.
Thatll probably be the one.
