Script Apart

This week on Script Apart, the return of Mike Flanagan! The response to our last episode speaking to the horror auteur, one of this generation’s true titans of the genre, was so emphatic, we couldn’t wait to invite Mike back on the show to get lost in the Overlook-esque hedge maze of 2019's Doctor Sleep, his near-miraculous sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep. We use the word “miraculous” because it really is astonishing what the Ewan McGregor-starring chiller managed to achieve, marrying the legacies of two notoriously different visions of The Shining. Stephen King wrote The Shining in 1977. When Stanley Kubrick made drastic changes to King's source text in his adaptation of the story three years later, it led to contempt between these two masters of their craft. Fans have been divided ever since over which version is the more powerful – King’s novel, which had a different ending and a sunnier message about the capacity for love to triumph over evil, or Kubrick’s ruthless cinematic journey into male madness; the bloody end game of toxic masculinity, as embodied by Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrence. When Mike was presented with the chance to adapt King’s 2013 literary sequel to The Shining, which continued the canon his story, ignoring Kubrick’s changes, the Haunting of Hill House filmmaker decided to attempt the impossible. His Doctor Sleep was to knit together the visual language of Kubrick’s Shining with the storytelling that King favoured,  honouring both iterations. The story of how he pulled it off, and the seismic personal changes it sparked in Mike’s own life, is a tale as fascinating as the film itself. Which is saying something. Doctor Sleep is a fevered festival of telekinetic children, travelling vampiric bohemians and the courage it takes to beat addiction. And though the film didn’t perform well at the box office, it’s since found a passionate community of devoted fans who rightly consider it a masterpiece. Listen out at the end for some mind-blowing information on the sequels and spin-offs that its disappointing commercial performance sadly stopped from going ahead – and a note of optimism that we may see some of Doctor Sleep’s characters again, featuring in Mike’s upcoming adaptation of King’s incredible The Dark Tower.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Unlike Margot Robbie in the hedonistic tour-de-force Babylon, we at Script Apart have never fought a rattlesnake. We have, however, now had the pleasure of chatting with one of our favourite filmmakers working today, Damien Chazelle. The Whiplash writer-director’s latest epic is a fevered telling of how 1920s Hollywood reacted as the industry transitioned from silent film to sound, shining a spotlight on the drug-addled dreamers chewed up and spat out by Tinseltown as it underwent that seismic change. It’s a story that puts the “sin” in Singing In The Rain, following an ensemble cast of characters as they experience both the divinity and destruction of the American moviemaking machine, with Margot Robbie astonishing as the doomed Nellie LaRoy – a character loosely based on real-life actress Clara Bow.If all that sounds drastically unlike Damien’s previous work, well, that’s intentional – the La La Land filmmaker wanted to make a movie at the other end of the storytelling spectrum to that acclaimed 2016 musical when approaching Babylon. “If La La Land was a love letter to Hollywood, then Babylon is written with a poison pen,” he told Al when they last spoke before the film’s release. Catching up now for a spoiler breakdown of the movie and its incredible screenplay, the pair discuss how early iterations of the film centered on Brad Pitt’s character Jack Conrad, the eye-opening real-life stories of 1920s Hollywood debauchery that Damien pulled from, and where next for the filmmaker now that he’s conquered his boldest, most ambitious project to date.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are a duo who don’t wait for permission and refuse to let small budgets reign in their storytelling ambitions. Since announcing themselves as a fierce new force in independent filmmaking a decade ago with the meta-horror Resolution, the pair have released a further four films, each one a staggeringly original triumph of imagination over budgetary restraints. Spring was a low-cost Lovecraftian tale set on a gorgeous stretch of Italian coast that corkscrewed between romance and brutal body-horror. The Endless was a time-loop sci-fi head-scratcher involving a UFO cult that proved similarly spell-binding made on a similar shoestring. By 2019’s Synchronic, about a designer drug that allows users to step through time, they had A-list actors like Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan queuing up to work with them, and superhero studios keen to collaborate (they’ve since helmed episodes of Marvel’s Moon Knight and Loki). Together, they're storytellers capable of building epic worlds without requiring epic resources.While Benson and Moorhead have enjoyed their recent excursions into the MCU, unsettling paranormal puzzles made on a dime are where they say their hearts truly lie. Which is why, when the pandemic struck and the world was thrown into lockdown, they began planning a supernatural mystery they could shoot in Benson’s apartment, star in themselves (the duo often act in their own movies) and craft almost entirely themselves. Something In The Dirt – their most compelling film to date – tells the tale of neighbours John and Levi, drawn into an unlikely friendship by unexplainable phenomenons in their apartment block. They decide to document this activity in search of fame and fortune – but can each party trust the other, as revelations about their secretive lives follow them down a rabbit hole into the unknown?We met with Benson and Moorhead in person last summer, before Something In The Dirt’s release, while they were filming Loki season two. They told us about their writing habits and helped us decode one of the most jigsaw-like cult dramas in decades – a must-watch for fans of David Robert Mitchell’s Under The Silver Lake and films like it. This is a spoiler conversation so be sure to catch the film before tuning in – it’s available on Hulu for our listeners in America, and video on demand if you’re tuning in from the UK.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Mike Flanagan is one of the defining horror storytellers of the last decade. He’s a trusted custodian of tales by some of the greatest horror authors of all time, with Stephen King, Shirley Jackson and Edgar Allan Poe just some of the names he’s adapted into acclaimed shows and movies. His credits as a writer, director and showrunner include The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor and The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep. No work is more personal to the filmmaker, however, than 2021’s astonishing vampire drama Midnight Mass. In the conversation you’re about to hear, Mike delves into his show’s creation, going back in time over a decade to a version of Midnight Mass he intended to write as a novel. The story of its evolution into one of the most moving meditations on religion in memory (not to mention one of Netflix’s most acclaimed ever series) is the story of a series of huge life changes for the 44-year-old, as his relationship to alcohol, faith, family and other facets of his life began to alter.The show starred Zach Gilford as Riley, a recovering addict returning to his small isolated hometown of Crockett Island after serving four years in prison for killing someone in a drunk-driving incident. There he reunites with an old flame, named Erin Greene, played by Kate Siegel, Mike’s partner and frequent collaborator. Erin is pregnant, but that pregnancy takes an unexpected turn following the arrival of an enigmatic young priest on the island, who unleashes upon members of the local church-going community a series of seemingly impossible miracles. What follows is an unholy, blood-soaked baptism, as the line between what’s miraculous and what’s monstrous becomes dangerously blurred.Discover why Mike’s love for Midnight Mass is so great, he still has the angel-slash-vampire’s prosthetic wings in his garage. Find out all about abandoned plans for a second season of the show, in which Riley was to be revived as the show’s antagonist. And learn why there’s a musicality to monologues that makes them a joy to write (with some tips on how to write your own).Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

This week we’re joined by acclaimed writer-director Todd Field, whose new drama Tar recently picked up a number of BAFTA and Oscar nominations, and understandably so. It’s an up-close portrait of a prodigious but problematic classical pianist named Lydia Tar, played by Cate Blanchett, whose achievements as the first female conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic are blighted by a history of sexual misconduct now threatening to unravel her life and mental health. Lydia’s abuses of power in this tense, sensory drama have seen the film become a lightning rod for conversations about so-called “cancel culture.” But as you’ll discover in this episode, Tar began life long before that term had been coined. There are deeply human questions of power, corrosion and culpability within this story that dovetail in interesting ways with our current climate – but are bigger than that buzzword and the volatile conversation around it. In the conversation you're about to hear, Todd breaks down key themes, scenes and characters in fascinating detail. Is Lydia really being haunted? What was the early incarnation like that before the project was rooted in the high stakes world of classical music, when the character was set to be the head of a media conglomerate? And when the film ends with a reference to a video game named Monster Hunter, how accurate is it to interpret that this has been a narrative about a cancel culture fall from grace – the titular monster, finally hunted? Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Today on the show, we’re joined by Samuel D. Hunter – playwright-turned-screenwriter of moving new drama, The Whale. Directed by Darren Aronofsky, the film tells the tale of Charlie (Brendan Fraser) – a reclusive former teacher who developed destructive eating habits following a devastating past tragedy. With seemingly days to live, Charlie desperately attempts to reconnect with a daughter who resents him, and is sinking into a cynicism that Charlie finds heartbreaking.It’s a film that, you may have heard, has stoked a wide range of reactions, which Sam and I get into in detail. We talk about its provoking title, which he explains was designed to prod at people’s prejudices before taking on a completely different context in the story. We discuss the challenges and opportunities presented to Sam when it came to adapting his stage play into a screenplay – and what the scarcity of media telling the tales of plus-size protagonists does for the fabric of our society.This is a spoiler-filled conversation so please be sure to watch The Whale before listening in.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

It’s thirty years to the day since a grouchy weatherman named Phil Connors found himself reliving the same day over and over again in Groundhog Day – a comedy that’s timeless in more ways than one. On today’s episode, we're joined by the film’s writer, Danny Rubin, as we delve into his initial screenplay for the iconic time-loop farce, which became one of the most beloved comedies of its generation.Danny wrote the film as a spec script in the early ‘90s. It soon landed in the hands of Harold Ramis of Ghostbusters and Caddyshack fame, and the pair began to develop the screenplay together. From there, Groundhog Day went through a number of changes as the pair decided to lean into the comedic potential of the premise – and lean away from some of the more "indie" and experimental elements of Danny’s original vision for the movie. Their hard work paid off – Groundhog Day was met with rave reviews on release and won a BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay. It became one of 1993's highest grossing movies and its influence has only grown from there: today, the story lives on not just in the form of the acclaimed stage musical that Danny wrote – there’s also the small matter of films and TV shows like Edge of Tomorrow, Palm Springs and Russian Doll, all of which took Groundhog Day's time-loop concept and ran with it in new directions.In the conversation you’re about to hear, Danny tells us how surreal it's been witnessing “Groundhog Day” become ingrained as an idiom in the English language. We hear about the vampire fiction that served as the movie’s surprising inspiration and talk about why weatherman”was the perfect profession for Phil and his detached, icy personality. Listen out also for details on Danny's original ending for the movie – a twist that found the character Rita beginning her own time loop on February 3rd. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Tony Kushner is the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of Angels in America and the long-time writing partner of a certain Steven Spielberg. His latest collaboration with the director, co-written with the Close Encounters filmmaker, sees Steven pulling the curtain back on his fascinating childhood, delving back to a time in which his blossoming love for filmmaking began to entwine with seismic changes in his family life. It was no surprise to see the drama collect a Best Picture nod at this week's Academy Award nominations – it's a peerless portrayal of a family shattering in real time that acknowledges both the joy of storytelling and the havoc it can wreak to us and those around us.Tony co-wrote the film with Steven having worked closely with him since 2005 – their previous collaborations include Munich, Lincoln and West Side Story. This project was different, though, with Tony required to act almost as a therapist to his friend as part of the writing process. For fifteen years, he’d been trying to convince Steven to tell the story of his adolescence. As you’ll hear in this episode, it was only after a blazing row between them on the set of West Side Story that Steven, as an olive branch to Tony, agreed to finally begin work on it. When it came to writing, Tony had to coax intimate details from Steven in a series of Zoom conversations, pressing his friend to delve deep into his recollection of those years – even the painful parts. In fact, especially the painful parts.In the spoiler-filled conversation you’re about to hear, we unpack his and Steven’s screenplay for the film in its entirety, discussing why The Fabelmans is more than a love letter to cinema as it’s been billed in some places (to Sammy, filmmaking is as much a curse as a gift, unravelling his family). We also touch on his own past experience of writing from a place of autobiography with his musical Caroline or Change, and talk about the film’s intriguing sequence with Sammy’s school bully. Oh and if you think Al was going to chat to Tony and not ask him about the brilliant end sequence involving David Lynch as John Ford, you have another thing coming – that’s one of our favourite final scenes of any film in recent memory, so of course we dig into that. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Buckle up, listeners – we’re heading to Pandora. Avatar: The Way of Water is the long-awaited sequel to one of the biggest movies of all time, and our guests today are two of its talented co-writers. You might know Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver as the screenwriters behind the brilliant Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy and 2015’s Jurassic World. If you’re familiar with those movies, you’ll know exactly why legendary director James Cameron chose the pair as collaborators for this sequel to his 2009 sci-fi fantasia – both of those franchises snuck sideswipes at man’s exploitation of the natural world into their exciting set-pieces and blockbuster action.The Way of Water is a much more complex movie than the first Avatar, with a lot more moving parts, some of which are seeds for movies to come (this is the first in a number of sequels that Amanda and Rick have also worked on, in production now). The film picks up with our heroes from the first movie, Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), fighting another battle fourteen years after the Battle of the Hallelujah Mountains – parenthood. The pair have had a family and now have an even more pronounced reason to protect their land from the colonisers from Earth, seeking to make Pandora man’s new home, having wrecked their own.Rick and Amanda – who have been married since 1989 and collaborating since 1992’s The Hand That Rocks The Cradle – told us all about how the Way of Water’s screenplay came together. We get into exactly how they, Cameron and fellow co-writer Josh Friedman brought back the villainous Colonel Quaritch, the Mowgli-esque origins of new character Spider, and the environmental truths about our own climate change-stricken world that the film takes aim at. There’s also a thorough breakdown of that death in the film’s final act, and Al at various points attempts to speak Na’vi. Badly, naturally.Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show

Today, we have with us the extraordinary Charlotte Wells – writer-director of one of the most affecting feature debuts in recent memory. Aftersun is a meditative drama about a father and daughter on a resort holiday in Turkey, told through the eyes and camcorder footage of 11-year-old Sophie, played by Frankie Corio. She shares a sweet relationship with her father Callum, played by Paul Mescal. Across their holiday, however, she’s able to steal glimpses of him wrestling with problems beyond her comprehension, – problems he attempts to hide from the world. It’s a story about memory, parenthood and the heartbreak of growing up and realising that your parents are people, too, with their own burdens to carry. Inevitably, it’s being described as an awards season frontrunner, and one of the best movies of 2022.In the conversation you’re about to hear, Charlotte tells me how the film began as an exploration of her relationship with her own dad, who she sadly lost aged sixteen. There’s a certain overlap between her life and the events of the movie that we unpack in this chat, as well as some big differences between her early drafts of Aftersun versus the final film. Initially, the film was set to feature an adult version of Sophie wandering through scenes following her childhood self, like a sun-soaked Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. There was also a romantic relationship at the holiday resort for Callum that got jettisoned, and much more melodrama, a more pronounced plot.We talk why she stripped away those elements to drill deeper into the father-daughter tensions at the heart of the film, what it is about the pressures and repetitions of a family holiday that make for such an interesting backdrop to the film, and what exactly is happening in the film’s astonishing emotional climax: a dance sequence set to Queen’s Under Pressure, whose lyrics take on a poignant new meaning in the context of Callum and Sophie’s relationship. It’s a spoiler conversation, so be sure to watch the film on Mubi before tuning in. Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, or email us on thescriptapartpodcast@gmail.com.Support for this episode comes from ScreenCraft, Arc Studio Pro and WeScreenplay.To get ad-free episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon.Support the show