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1:20
This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
1:24
I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
1:27
All right guys, you got a special guest on the podcast today.
1:29
His name is Todd Comernicki, so he is a film director, producer and screenwriter and the
1:34
cool thing about this particular interview is I've talked to a few guys that are kind
1:39
of in this world and only a few of them on the show, but this dude is a tremendous storyteller.
1:45
And so that's really what this entire podcast is today because really the focus of this
1:49
is his new film that is out guys this Friday.
1:52
That is Bonhoeffer, that is the Bonhoeffer movie that's made about Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1:56
that's being put out by Angel Studios.
1:58
That is in theaters this weekend.
1:59
And I know there's a lot of great films that are coming out over the next couple of weeks.
2:02
We talk about that, but there's something very different and very interesting about the feel
2:07
of this movie.
2:08
But we start the interview with like, okay, well, you know, how do you get this artistic
2:11
bend to push you towards the film industry and writing and different things like that?
2:15
What's the difference between just, you know, having that as a goal, but then actually maybe
2:19
doing that, you know, the difference between, oh, that's kind of nice.
2:22
But then actually running it as a career until we break into all of that.
2:25
But this is a guy that's worked on some incredible films that most of you would know.
2:29
So 2016, I believe it was Sully starring Tom Hanks and was directed by Clint Eastwood.
2:34
He was a producer on that film.
2:35
And then Elf, which is probably other than die hard, my favorite Christmas movies like
2:39
that, die hard, Home Alone, those are the ones that are up there.
2:42
That started Will Ferrell and John Favreau was the director.
2:45
And he had such interesting stories about Will Ferrell about John Favreau, how they got
2:50
into the film of Elf, the process of making Elf took them like seven years to get that
2:54
film out and all the problems they had trying to get people cast and directed and getting
2:58
it distributed and all that type of stuff.
3:01
He had some amazing Tom Hanks stories and Clint Eastwood stories.
3:04
So if you are fans of either one of those guys, that's in the first half of the interview
3:07
where we talk about that, then we get into the movie Bonhoeffer.
3:11
We talk specifically about, okay, you wrote directed and produced this film.
3:15
I think this was the first time he did all three, like, how did he get interested in that
3:18
project?
3:19
And just kind of making a film that follows Eric Metaxas' book, which the answer to that
3:23
is no.
3:24
But you know, the Eric Metaxas book does kind of give you like a foundation for understanding
3:29
Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a person.
3:31
But then how do you go about finding Dietrich Bonhoeffer and an actor?
3:34
And he found Jonas Dassler, and so this was, you know, apparently one of the biggest and
3:38
best names in terms of German cinema and German actors, you know, how do you get a guy like
3:43
that?
3:44
Because guess what?
3:45
Jonas was not even making films at the moment.
3:46
He had been basically working for over a decade straight, and he's like, I'm not taking on
3:50
any more projects.
3:52
But guys, I'm telling you, the story about how Jonas became a part of this film and took
3:58
on the role of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is incredible.
4:02
About brought me to tears.
4:03
Like, it is an incredible, incredible story.
4:06
So you got to check that out.
4:08
But also I asked him about kind of the interesting artistic decision to, you know, have a film
4:12
released mainly in America, but with a essentially all German cast.
4:17
But everybody was speaking English, including the guy that played Hitler, right?
4:20
Like how exactly do you thread that needle?
4:22
And so he was able to explain that.
4:24
He explained what it's been like working with Angel Studios.
4:26
Obviously that's the studio that had originally gotten the chosen out there to the world.
4:29
And so some of you are familiar with sound of freedom and different things like that that
4:33
have come out of Angel Studios.
4:34
And then just what he's feeling right now, because guys, again, if you're listening to
4:37
this on time, this film comes out this Friday, okay?
4:41
And this is a good time for my commercial.
4:43
He kind of gave his own.
4:44
But there are some big movies coming out that I'm even excited about over the next couple
4:47
of weeks.
4:48
And I don't really go to the theater that much.
4:50
But if you want more films to be made like this that are telling stories of these giants
4:55
of Christendom, these giants of Christianity, these, these stories that are just entertaining
4:59
you.
5:00
It's not just like CGI.
5:01
It's not just like big Disney Pixar stuff.
5:03
And it's like, it's not just the same thing, like all the Marvel movies.
5:06
It's the same film, just, you know, repackaged and rinse and repeated the same storyline over
5:11
and over and over.
5:12
They just expand the universe every time they release a film.
5:15
You've got to go see films like this and you've got to go see them in the theater.
5:18
And I know you might be thinking, Hey, a couple of months from now, just watch it on streaming.
5:21
But you just have to think about it.
5:23
Like if you want more stuff like this, you have to make your purchases your vote, okay?
5:28
And then at the end, I talked to him a little bit about what he's got coming out and the
5:31
thing he's working on now, which will hopefully get made, you know, down the road is absolutely
5:35
fantastic as well.
5:36
Guys, we had to do an early morning interview after a couple of reschedule.
5:40
So I'm just glad we were able to get this one out before the release of the film.
5:43
I really, really think you're going to enjoy it.
5:44
So without further ado, let's get into it.
5:48
Todd Comer Nicki.
5:49
Welcome to a Daunted Life of Man's podcast.
5:51
Thank you, Kyle Thompson.
5:53
Well, I am.
5:54
Hey, no one ever uses my last name.
5:55
So I feel like this is an official meeting.
5:57
This is officially an interview that we are doing here on my show.
6:01
So that is great.
6:02
And we need to get a little bit of an introduction to you from from you, because everyone already
6:06
got the introduction from me, but you kind of a weird job.
6:09
You know, you're in the world of filmmaking and writing and all those types of things.
6:13
And that's not everybody's main thing that they got at the top of their resume.
6:16
But I'm just wondering for you, what was it about growing up Todd that, you know, kind
6:21
of led you more towards the artistic led you more towards writing and really led you into
6:25
the world of filmmaking just in general?
6:29
That's a great question.
6:30
I mean, I'm a firm believer now, especially because I have two kids that we are who we
6:35
are when we come out of the womb.
6:37
So the kid that I was was always in trouble and always in trouble for trying to entertain
6:45
people.
6:46
So in nursery school, I was four years old.
6:49
I remember this really clearly.
6:51
Miss McClintock was my teacher.
6:53
And I told a joke on the first day and 17 nursery school kids rolled about the place.
7:02
They thought it was hilarious.
7:04
And I got this rush.
7:05
I was like, this is magical.
7:08
What was that?
7:09
And to put the cherry on the Sunday, Miss McClintock said, Todd, go to the hall.
7:15
So I got the double whammy.
7:17
I got the appreciation of my peers and I didn't have to sit in class.
7:23
So I thought that was a great plan and I stuck to it.
7:27
So you know, there was a Canadian comedy group years ago called the kids in the hall.
7:33
And I was, I was a kid in the hall and I was, that's, you know, put out there because I
7:37
was kidding around a lot.
7:39
I certainly didn't know I was headed towards a career in writing, a more career in comedy.
7:45
And I was in musicals and in bands all the way, you know, growing up.
7:52
And it was actually the last band I fronted ended when I was 29.
7:57
So music and performance was a big part of my life.
8:01
And then somewhere in there, God decided to say, actually I want you to be a storyteller.
8:06
And all the redirecting occurred by his hand.
8:10
It was this career that I've had is not something that I pursued.
8:15
That's for sure.
8:16
Okay.
8:17
So I'm curious because you talked about, hey, you thought you were going to be getting
8:20
into comedy.
8:22
Here you are in the world of music now into the world of writing.
8:25
It seems like those are very narrow nuances, though, between those, those worlds where
8:32
you're using a lot of the same skill sets, but you're just pointing them in very specific
8:36
different directions.
8:37
So is there kind of a wide array of gaps between those worlds?
8:42
No, it's all goes back to creativity.
8:45
And I just, my imagination has always been kind of electric.
8:49
So the way I hear words, the way I see moments in life, I always have felt like I was in
8:55
a bit of a movie that life is a story.
8:59
And I also find that the reason people are listening to you right now is because I want
9:04
to hear a story.
9:05
Right.
9:06
And when my kids come home from school or I call my wife from the road, I want to hear
9:09
a story.
9:10
What happened today?
9:11
What's your, what's the latest?
9:14
And there's something deeply human about wanting fresh information from people that we love
9:20
and from strangers.
9:22
We want to know what we're missing.
9:25
And stories really are the bridge between people.
9:31
When I tell you a story, you're either going to say, that's crazy.
9:35
I've never heard of that, which is interesting.
9:37
Or you'll say, Oh my goodness, I did the same thing, I skied that same run.
9:41
Or I love Chanterell mushrooms or whatever it is.
9:45
That's how we find our way to each other.
9:48
And I think it's no accident that the Jesus was the greatest storyteller of all and decided
9:55
to communicate his salvific work through story.
10:01
I think you're absolutely right and it's funny hearing you describe that because with
10:05
this show, even early on, so we're coming up on 700 episodes, but even early on, I would
10:11
give the same amount of effort to an episode as I possibly could.
10:15
And if I was recording solo, or especially if I was doing an interview, I was like, there
10:19
has to be a narrative arc to what we're doing here with this information.
10:23
It can't just be like, because some people have very entertaining personalities and so
10:27
they think, Hey, I'm just going to wax poetic with this person for an hour and it's going
10:30
to be entertaining.
10:31
Maybe not.
10:32
Sometimes if you're meandering in and around a bunch of interesting subjects, you're not
10:36
actually getting to the heart of what the audience wants.
10:38
So I am like haunted by my listeners because I feel like I know them so well because I
10:43
I would be a listener of me.
10:44
And so I can hear them like, ask this question, you know, push a little further there, you
10:49
know, move on.
10:50
This isn't that interesting.
10:51
And it all kind of comes back to that, that narrative arc, but it's one thing Todd to kind
10:56
of have that bend to have that artistic bend to kind of want to do those things.
11:00
It's another thing to make that a career.
11:02
And we've all heard the thing about the starving artists or the person that's, you know, chasing
11:06
their dream, but their dream is just not realistic.
11:09
It's like that.
11:10
It's the first two weeks of American Idol, right, where these people are just embarrassing
11:13
themselves or I guess the old school American Idol where they are convinced that they can
11:17
sing and that they're going to be a platinum selling artist and they just don't really
11:20
have the chops.
11:21
So when do you kind of figure out like, Hey, it's not just that I'm interested in this,
11:25
but like this could actually be my calling and career.
11:30
I think you need to get some good news in your life early.
11:34
I was fortunate to work right away.
11:38
I think probably the first nine months out of college were the only time that I was working
11:43
on my screenwriting and working on my craft and not getting paid.
11:48
So when I was great, when I was 22, I got my first gig and that's been my job for the
11:54
last 37 years.
11:56
So that's the first thing you have to have the kind of crazy confidence and cockiness
12:04
and also for me, it was very connected to my faith, which was new at the time to feel
12:09
like you're doing what you're supposed to be doing.
12:12
And then you need encouragement to be a starving artist is not a it's not a great business
12:21
plan and it doesn't have a lot of legs.
12:24
And only it only lasts a certain amount of time.
12:28
You hear a tremendous amount of noise when you decide to tell people you're launching
12:32
a dream.
12:33
And most of that noise is it's never going to work out.
12:37
So few people have success.
12:39
What are you going to get a real job?
12:41
When are you coming home?
12:42
So you always say, when are you coming home?
12:44
And I always thought home is the place you're supposed to leave.
12:50
You're not supposed to go to college and then come home.
12:53
You're supposed to go to college and then go build a new life.
12:56
So I didn't feel like home was an attractive place to return to.
13:01
And I think that's precisely because my parents were so loving and they built a rocket for
13:08
me to fly out of home towards my dream.
13:12
And then I worked very hard at what I was doing.
13:15
I was really trying to learn it.
13:18
I equate it with making chairs, I've talked about this a lot, but screenwriting especially
13:24
is a craft.
13:27
It's an art form, but it's very mathematical.
13:31
And you have to understand both the emotion, the dialogue, the story, all those things that
13:37
might fall under the creative bucket.
13:40
But if you don't understand the architecture, if you don't understand the rules, you can't
13:44
do it.
13:45
You have to do all this work within very specific parameters.
13:51
So in the beginning, when I first was making chairs, I was making terrible chairs, you
13:57
know, chairs that couldn't hold a 10 year old, they didn't have any stability.
14:02
They were uneven.
14:03
The legs were weak.
14:04
The wood was bad.
14:06
But by learning that, by having a bunch of broken chairs around my studio, I found oh
14:12
my goodness, maybe this time I'll try this to make a better chair.
14:16
And now after doing it for almost 40 years, I'm confident.
14:20
And again, I only do this by the grace of God.
14:24
But I'm confident that if you ask me for a chair, Kyle, I will deliver you a high quality
14:31
chair that you will keep in your home for the rest of your life.
14:36
Well we can certainly work on that.
14:37
I got some chairs that got some issues.
14:39
Okay.
14:40
And I need some more reliable chairs up in this piece.
14:42
It's almost Christmas.
14:43
It's a good time to give you some chairs.
14:45
Hey, you know what?
14:46
That's good.
14:47
I might put it in an order.
14:48
But you mentioned rules there, Todd.
14:49
So I think most people wouldn't think about that when they think about a writer, you know,
14:53
someone that's just writing and they're just coming up with whatever this narrative, this
14:57
story they want to tell.
14:58
I think they make it a little bit more romantic than it than it actually is because same thing
15:02
with podcasting, like, oh, it must be awesome to just, you know, create and talk about what
15:07
you want to talk about.
15:08
So three times a week, roughly, I stare at a blank screen and turn that into an hour's
15:11
worth of content that people will hopefully listen to and share around.
15:15
That's kind of hard to do.
15:16
What are the rules, as you mentioned, like the rules of doing the world or doing the
15:21
job of screenwriting?
15:22
Well, there are too many to mention, but I'll give you a handful of them.
15:27
Okay.
15:28
And also just to go to your earlier point, the first rule is to work your ass off because
15:35
it is a difficult craft to master, and I don't believe in sitting around at the cafe waiting
15:43
for inspiration.
15:45
You have to do it.
15:46
You have to write.
15:47
And you have to write badly sometimes.
15:48
We have to write.
15:49
You have to be with the pad and pen or the computer available for the ideas to come.
15:56
You can't just talk about writing.
15:58
Orson Wells has one of my favorite quotes of all time, which is the desire to write followed
16:05
by a lack of writing is the desire to not write.
16:11
Yeah, exactly.
16:12
A lot of people say, Oh, I've got a book in me.
16:15
I regularly meet people say, my life story is incredible.
16:19
Would you write it?
16:20
And I'm like, well, it's your life story.
16:22
Why wouldn't you write it?
16:23
Yeah.
16:24
You know, because it's hard.
16:25
People if people don't, people don't like to do things that are super hard in general.
16:30
So for instance, rules, you can't write a screenplay and obviously there are exceptions
16:37
to rules.
16:38
But in general, professionally, you can't write a screenplay that's longer than 120 pages.
16:44
That equates to a page a minute, a two hour film.
16:49
The first act of a screenplay needs to be between 20 and 30 pages.
16:55
The first act is where we meet the character or characters and then they get launched into
17:00
the story at the end of the first act.
17:03
So you're sort of laying the groundwork and drawing people towards the story that you're
17:08
telling.
17:09
That's 20 to 30 pages.
17:11
The second act has very specific rules.
17:14
It's about 60 to 70 pages.
17:17
In the middle of your screenplay around page 60, you need to have the sort of aha moment
17:24
of, oh, I always thought we were going there, but we're actually going here.
17:30
And then by the end of the second act, which is around page 80, you have the dark night
17:38
of the soul.
17:39
You have the moment where your hero is boxed in and has no way out.
17:45
That's in a drama or a comedy.
17:47
And then the third act is the resolution.
17:49
And that's between 20 and 30 pages.
17:52
So in every story that comes through has to get put into that essential recipe.
18:00
Okay.
18:01
So as you were coming up with that, I've had this thought before and I've never talked
18:05
to like someone that does your job, so I was always curious.
18:08
So you see someone write a movie and let's just say it's a movie that you love.
18:12
Like, you know, we got Gladiator 2 coming out.
18:14
My favorite movie of all time is Gladiator 1.
18:16
That's like a two and a half hour film.
18:18
It's not perfect, but I love it.
18:19
Like I don't care.
18:20
Don't say anything bad about Gladiator.
18:21
My favorite.
18:22
But what if they were not what if they were doing a Gladiator of the series?
18:28
So let's say it was going to be a a 10 part one season.
18:32
That's it series or let's say you're going to make it an epic that might run four or five
18:37
six seasons of 10 episodes that are all an hour a piece.
18:42
What is the difference between writing for a film where you've got to wrap this thing
18:46
up?
18:47
And it's like, if you start creeping up towards three hours, people are going to start rioting
18:50
versus, hey, I've got a vision for, you know, Taylor Sheridan in 1883.
18:56
That's a standalone 10 episode, you know, story of this family going on the Oregon trail,
19:02
right?
19:03
Versus, I don't know, breaking bad where it's like, no, this is five seasons and we're
19:07
to we already have an vision for how this thing's going to end, but we're just going
19:11
to take 50 hours to tell the story.
19:13
Well, what are the different nuances there?
19:15
Well, they're rules.
19:16
They're just different rules.
19:18
You have to compel an audience forward.
19:20
The screenwriting rules for movies are to take the audience on a particular ride.
19:26
Television has its own set of rules because you're watching it in a different way.
19:30
You're in your home.
19:31
You can stop.
19:32
You can pause.
19:33
You're not compelled to watch the whole thing, even though I guess you could walk out of
19:36
a movie.
19:37
And then the long arc storytelling is really about you have to fill your buckets with
19:43
story and make a plan for when it's going to come out.
19:48
I have a television series that's debuting December 1st called Earth Abides.
19:51
It's a 1949 novel, you know, 304 or 100 pages, very long.
19:59
Takes place over 50 years and I have six episodes to do it.
20:04
So you have to build and you get a writing staff to help you, but you have to build the
20:09
world, but you also have to lay out where the twists and turns are, where the surprises
20:15
are.
20:16
You have to create a map.
20:17
The biggest thing is it's the difference between going on a drive where you don't know the
20:23
landscape and you have no idea where you're going and saying, "I need to get from New
20:29
York City to Mobile, Alabama and in order to get there and have the kids not revolt.
20:35
I've got to stop here.
20:37
I've got to have a sandwich here, bathroom break here, sleep here, go to this town and
20:43
visit that museum, you have to make the map before you drive it."
20:48
And that's television.
20:50
Television is very much map making.
20:52
Okay, that's actually helpful.
20:54
So I want to get into some of your work that certainly everyone in our world would recognize.
21:00
And so you did one of the, if you could call it, the Mount Rushmore of Christmas movies
21:06
as it pertains to my world at least.
21:08
So we've got Die Hard, we've got Home Alone, we've got Elf and then you can throw some
21:11
other random one in there, but you did work on the movie Elf.
21:15
So that's the movie with Will Ferrell, obviously that everybody has heard of and watched now
21:19
that is probably hopefully shared with their kids.
21:21
And you as far as I understand, we're a producer on that film.
21:24
And so tell me what that means because some people are like, "Oh, this person produced
21:28
it."
21:29
They're like, "Well, what did they do?
21:30
I don't really know what that job entails.
21:31
But what was your job in bringing Elf to life?"
21:33
Well, a creative producer is the first person to turn on the lights and the last person
21:38
to turn them off.
21:40
So my partner and I, John Berg, we made this movie.
21:46
We were involved with it for seven years developing the script, getting Will attached, hiring
21:52
John Favreau, all the way through the marketing where we're involved.
21:58
The key in producing is choosing the right people, is getting the right cast and getting
22:05
the right general to direct them.
22:08
And I think the thing that makes me happiest about that movie is that we had to fight throughout
22:17
for what were not obvious choices.
22:20
When we wanted Will Ferrell, every studio passed.
22:25
And they said two things.
22:27
Nobody likes Christmas movies and Will Ferrell is not a movie star.
22:32
That's what all the studios said.
22:34
Oh boy.
22:35
We were setting it up at New Line Cinema, which was an independent studio that pretty
22:40
much had only done horror films.
22:42
So that was our first fight.
22:45
Then when the script was in great shape, we were ready and we got the green light to
22:51
bring a director on.
22:53
And we met a lot of directors and everybody was coming in and they were trying to edge
22:57
it up.
22:58
They were trying to make the movie darker and they just didn't see the inherent magic
23:07
that was sitting in the original script.
23:10
And then audiences have been able to enjoy for all these years.
23:14
So in walks John Favreau, John Favreau had been known for acting and writing swingers.
23:22
He directed one movie with him and Vince Vaughn, $5 million mob comedy, which was essentially
23:28
two guys in a limousine cursing at each other.
23:31
There was nothing in his resume that said he was going to direct a family Christmas movie.
23:37
But he walked in and he said, "I have a one-year-old son and I want to make a movie that he's
23:44
going to be able to watch for the rest of his life.
23:47
I want to make a movie that will make him proud of me.
23:51
I want to make a Christmas classic."
23:53
That's what he said in the room.
23:56
Everybody else was like, "Okay, so Jovie needs to be a prostitute and buddy of the elves
24:02
got to take out her pimp and like, what are you talking about?
24:07
That's not this movie."
24:08
You go ahead, you go make that movie, dark elf.
24:13
But this movie has its own DNA.
24:16
Favreau understood that.
24:18
And so we fought to make sure that he was our director.
24:22
And again, that was a big uphill climb.
24:25
The battle of making a movie takes place over many, many years and you have to win all these
24:30
skirmishes.
24:32
And when you lose a skirmish, you have to not die from it.
24:35
So the producer is the one that on behalf of the movie is putting themselves in the way
24:41
all the time of the things that will make a movie lesser than it would be otherwise.
24:46
Okay, so you have this tremendous uphill battle.
24:49
It's just crazy to even hear about that.
24:51
I don't think people really realize a lot of these films do take that long, but even
24:55
seven years, that sounds like from soup to nuts.
24:57
That's a really long process.
24:58
I mean, just think about the last seven years that we've lived through.
25:01
It seemed like we've lived through 17 different worlds in the last seven years.
25:05
But you get Will Ferrell on, who's at that point has done a lot of kind of shocking comedy
25:11
type stuff like that was not exactly kid-friendly.
25:13
And here he is in this kind of like doofy but very lovable role.
25:17
I guess tell me what it was like working with Will Ferrell in this role that he just kind
25:21
of, you know, take to the character, like a duck to water.
25:24
Like how did he, you know, get with the character?
25:26
How do you know he was the guy?
25:27
Well, what do you know, what he'd done to that point was SNL.
25:31
I mean, he'd only really done one movie, which was Night at the Roxbury.
25:37
And that's why the studios were hesitant to hire him.
25:41
But if you'd look at Will's characters on SNL, even if the skit was edgy, he always had
25:47
this innate innocence.
25:50
There was just some youthful silliness and a certainty.
25:56
You know, we played the cheerleader or whatever character he was playing.
26:01
There was always this marriage of confidence and innocence.
26:06
And that's why he made total sense to us.
26:11
Because the movie is about light winning.
26:14
The movie is an inversion of regular storytelling.
26:17
Usually storytelling is the protagonist goes through the movie and is worn down, worn down,
26:24
worn down.
26:25
And by the end of the second act has to somehow pull it off.
26:29
You're talking about diehard.
26:33
Diehard's a great script and a great example of that, not a comedy.
26:36
But you know, John McLean is up against the whole movie and barely survives.
26:42
In elf, it's Will Ferrell's sweetness, his Teflon love, that is actually changing all
26:50
the people that are in the dark around him.
26:53
It's on its way to healing his dad.
26:56
It's great for his stepmom.
26:58
It completely revolutionizes the life of his little brother and everybody who comes into
27:03
contact with him, the secretary, the people in the mail room, they all get lifted up from
27:10
his light.
27:11
You're going to have a hard time finding other movies that do that.
27:16
And I think that's why that movie is stuck around.
27:18
Because you know when you watch it, you're not going to be in tension.
27:21
You're not going to be like, Oh, no, what's going to happen?
27:24
We're like, you're going to watch light and love winning and winning and winning.
27:30
And it really, it feels good.
27:31
Yeah, I think that's why my life, my wife actually loves that movie so much because she doesn't
27:37
do well with tension.
27:38
She doesn't like drama.
27:39
She doesn't like what's going to happen.
27:40
She doesn't like anxiety.
27:42
She doesn't like her heart to be racing in the middle of a film, which I know is why a
27:45
lot of people like go see movies to begin with, but she's like, no, I just want something
27:48
to make me happy.
27:49
And so even like finding Nemo's got some parts in it where it's like, all right, this is
27:52
a little bit sketchy.
27:53
These sharks are kind of scary.
27:54
And so elf doesn't really give you that, even though you do feel some bit of tension,
27:58
but it is that innocent tension.
28:00
So before we move off of elf, I'm just curious for you, what was the feeling when it's basically
28:05
where you are now with Bonhoeffer.
28:07
We're recording this the Monday of the film release comes out this Friday in theaters.
28:12
The week of the film release, you're probably satisfied with it.
28:16
You're maybe tired of this film because you've just been thinking about it and living it so
28:19
long and the editing process and blah, blah, blah, but just take me through the anxiety
28:24
of, oh my gosh, is anyone going to go see this thing?
28:26
Is it going to turn into a classic and then obviously here we are, you know, over 20 years
28:30
later, and it's a staple of, you know, Christmas movies just take us through that entire thing.
28:36
Well, we had no idea.
28:38
We had no idea tracking and all this box office stuff was not nearly as scientific back then.
28:46
I was enjoying it because right down the street from my apartment, there was the biggest billboard
28:51
I'd ever seen associated with one of my movies and it was Will Ferrell in a full split barely
28:58
fitting into the billboard and I was like, wow, that's really smart and funny.
29:05
I'm excited about that.
29:07
People are going to talk about that poster.
29:09
That's probably pretty much it.
29:10
We had planned to go look in at a bunch of movie theaters on opening weekend, but we didn't
29:14
know what it was going to do as well as it did.
29:16
We were up against master and commander speaking of gladiator that shares across the crow.
29:23
And the expectation was that he was a huge movie star.
29:27
That was a couple of years after gladiator and that that movie was going to crush.
29:31
And we wound up barely losing to it week one and we beat it week two.
29:37
All of it was all of it was a surprise.
29:39
It continues to be a surprise.
29:41
Well, it's just a cool thing now for me as a young father, you know, four year old and
29:46
two year old where, first of all, I can just put the movie on and not be worried, right?
29:50
Because anymore, like you can't even just leave YouTube running from film to film to
29:53
film.
29:54
But we're watching like some little kids show on we were watching blaze or something.
29:58
And then the ad was like this, this rap video where you had like girls bear half naked dancing
30:04
and twerking and doing all sort of stuff, throwing money around and all that.
30:06
Like that was an ad specifically put onto a kids show and it's like you literally can't
30:11
take your eyes off your kids' content for even two seconds.
30:14
But let's fast forward a little bit.
30:15
I want to go to another film of yours, Sully.
30:17
So this was from 2015 and so my understanding 2016, okay, and so working with, you know,
30:23
Tom Hanks, Clint Eastwood, my understanding is that you were the writer on that film.
30:27
Is that correct?
30:28
Or what was that?
30:29
Okay.
30:30
Let's let's talk about that film.
30:31
Talk about the process of getting into that because obviously doesn't get much bigger than
30:36
Clint Eastwood and Tom Hanks in terms of the people in the industry that everyone would
30:40
recognize.
30:41
So let's let's talk about Sully.
30:42
What was that like?
30:43
Well again, seven years, my joke is that, and this is a it's not just a joke, but it's
30:49
the truth, that every movie takes seven years, including the ones that don't get made.
30:54
Oh boy.
30:55
So you're just you are in it for the long haul.
30:58
There's no quick satisfaction in the motion picture business.
31:02
So Sully was very much like that.
31:04
I got the job.
31:05
It was an OWA drops some more terms on you.
31:09
That is not a rap group, by the way.
31:12
OWA is an open writing assignment.
31:15
So people had options, Sully's book, and they were two major producers, Frank Marshall,
31:23
who is Steven Spielberg's producer and Alan Stewart, a woman who used to be a big deal
31:28
of Warner Brothers and was then independent.
31:30
They optioned the book and they were looking for a writer.
31:33
I'll skip the long part of that story, but by the grace of God, they chose me.
31:39
And I was the writer of this film.
31:41
It's going very well.
31:42
I write the first draft.
31:43
They're thrilled.
31:44
I'm just about to turn the second draft in.
31:47
And Robert Zemeckis announces flight, Denzel Washington movie, about a plane crash and
31:54
an investigation.
31:55
It's not a true story, but it's a movie star in a plane crash movie with an investigation.
32:01
Yeah.
32:02
And I get a call from the producers and they're very happy with the second draft, but they
32:07
say, we're going to have to go silent, you know, like a submarine going to the deep and
32:14
running quiet because there's not space in the movie world for two movies like this.
32:20
And we'll get swamped.
32:21
So they literally went away for five years.
32:26
I had forgotten completely about Sully.
32:29
I remember having a conversation with my agent where he said, you know what, Todd, things
32:34
are a little slow right now, what you should do is find a true story that really matters
32:38
to you.
32:39
You know, something heroic, write that and let's get that out in the marketplace.
32:43
And I said, oh, something like Sully.
32:45
It's like Sully.
32:46
Yeah.
32:47
Right.
32:48
And he said, yeah, like Sully, but not Sully because that's never going to happen.
32:51
So that was the sort of standard understanding.
32:54
And then after this, this five years, I get a phone call, I'm driving with my family and
33:01
Alan Stewart, the producer calls and she said, give me, give me a name that would mean we
33:07
would go from totally forgotten to pre production in one name.
33:13
And I guess Spielberg first and Clint Eastwood second, and that's what happened.
33:20
Clint Eastwood read the script, loved it.
33:23
And we were immediately a $60 million Warner Brothers movie like that.
33:28
Just like that.
33:29
Okay, so Clint calls me, you'll, you'll appreciate this story.
33:34
Clint calls me.
33:35
I'm told Clint's going to call us sometime this afternoon.
33:38
I wait around all day.
33:39
I'm kind of a nervous wreck because yeah, Clint Eastwood's calling and I'm like, be cool,
33:44
be cool.
33:45
Anyway, we have a great chat and I get to experience something that I had never experienced nor
33:52
any movie girl or had ever experienced.
33:54
I got to hear Clint Eastwood laugh.
33:58
Oh, you think about it, he's never laughed in any of his movies, even his comedies, never
34:03
seen Clint Eastwood laugh.
34:05
Yeah.
34:06
But he says to me, we're talking about casting, talking about different ideas.
34:10
And then he floats this, he said, what do you think about that Tom Hanks?
34:17
And he, and he said that Tom Hanks as opposed to Tom Hanks.
34:21
I suppose the other one, what do you think about that Tom Hanks exactly?
34:25
And I said, thank goodness, I said, you mean from bosom buddies?
34:31
And he laughed so hard.
34:35
You, Kyle, you may be too young to know that Tom Hanks got famous by being in a comedy
34:42
called bosom buddies.
34:43
It was a television show on ABC where he and his best friend dressed in drag to live in
34:51
an all women's hotel.
34:52
Oh, wow, now I had never heard of that bosom buddies.
34:56
That's how Tom had a famous.
34:58
So when I said to Clint, Oh, for bosom buddies, he laughed and that cemented our friendship
35:06
from that way on.
35:07
And fortunately Tom Hanks wanted to do it.
35:10
Hey guys, real quick.
35:11
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35:15
but the problem is you work out at a global gym.
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And so there's 17 guys on the bench that you need and there's people doing bicep curls
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on the squat rack.
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And the biggest problem is not your schedule.
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It's actually where you're trying to get your work in.
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How about you guys stop making excuses and build yourself a home gym?
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And when you do, make sure you use Sorenex.
35:35
So Sorenex is a family owned and operated business that build some of the most impressive
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But in addition to that, they make the highest quality home gym products that I've ever seen
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36:00
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36:19
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36:23
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Begin your build out by going to Sorenex.com.
36:29
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36:37
Okay.
36:38
So I want to kind of hear about that.
36:41
I love stories like that when you kind of get to behind the scenes, peel back the veil,
36:45
like, okay, this isn't just the lone, you know, the lone guy out there doing his Western,
36:48
like this is a real man.
36:49
Obviously that has been around for forever and as a legend, but you're kind of working
36:52
with two legends, right?
36:54
On a film, but we've all seen that film, like I'll leave some nameless because I want to
36:59
make anyone mad or maybe they're your best friend or something like that.
37:02
But there have been some films where it's like, Oh my gosh, this director makes great
37:05
movies and everything that this actor in is awesome.
37:08
And then you watch the movie and it's just direct.
37:10
It's like this is terrible.
37:11
It didn't go anywhere.
37:13
It was almost as if they're like, we're going to put this guy and this guy in there and then
37:16
the film's just going to be awesome and it just doesn't really work out that way.
37:19
Like I would probably put master and commander in that I watch that.
37:22
I'm like, what is happening?
37:23
Like this doesn't make any sense to me.
37:25
But like, is there extra pressure when you're working with the Clint Eastwood or Tom Hanks
37:29
or is it like, Hey, I can't screw this up.
37:31
I'm going to write the best thing that I can write and they're going to make it even more
37:34
awesome.
37:35
Like, what is that tug and pull with guys that are, you know, at that level?
37:38
Well, there was no pressure because Clint shoots the script.
37:41
I didn't, I didn't have to do any writing.
37:43
I'd already written the movie five years earlier and he shot the script.
37:47
So I got to hang out on set, eat lunch with them.
37:50
Here Tom Hanks tells stories, non stop.
37:54
He is a story jukebox and just have the coolest time of my life.
37:59
There was no pressure at all.
38:02
Okay.
38:03
Well, hey, without violating confidence, is there, is there a story that maybe sticks
38:08
out?
38:09
Maybe, maybe from Tom Hanks, the story jukebox guy or maybe even like a Clint Eastwood story
38:13
where y'all are just like sitting around, you know, pounding around during lunch or whatever.
38:17
And then like you got this story and you're like, that is really, really cool.
38:19
Is there one that maybe sticks out?
38:21
I know that was a while ago, but is there one?
38:23
Can you give us one?
38:24
Well, I can tell you a couple of things.
38:26
The funniest thing I saw, which I couldn't do because I can't do a John Wayne impression.
38:35
You know, John Wayne.
38:36
I keep you.
38:37
Of course you are.
38:38
No, of course, everyone knows John Wayne at one point in between takes Hanks and Eastwood
38:44
went toe to toe with their John Wayne impersonations and it got filthier and filthier.
38:52
There's no way your podcast would be banned if I quoted the jokes they were telling, but
38:58
just seeing them, I mean, I was three feet away from them and it was just the three of
39:03
us and them going toe to toe on John Wayne.
39:06
And they destroyed the legacy of John Wayne by the end of that impersonation.
39:12
I'm sure Mr. Wayne was glad he wasn't alive to hear it.
39:17
But I'll tell you a story about the genius of Tom Hanks, which is the very first time
39:23
I met him, we were on a jetway.
39:27
That's the thing that you walk through before you get on a plane when it's at the gate.
39:33
And the art director was there just giving some final touches to the props.
39:37
I was there and Tom was there and down the jetway was the plane.
39:42
And this scene was just him walking down the jetway to enter the plane.
39:46
So everything was set up inside the plane.
39:48
There was no crew and no camera visible, just Tom and myself and the art director.
39:55
And Tom is telling me how I ruined his life because in fact, the first thing he ever said
40:02
to me, he took me by the hand and he said, you ruined my life.
40:07
I had just told my wife I was going to take a year off.
40:12
I had just told my agency that I don't want to play real life people anymore.
40:19
And here comes this script about another captain.
40:23
How many captains do I have to play?
40:24
He said, and it comes to my hotel room in Rome.
40:29
And it sits on a chair for a week and I just hate you for having written it.
40:35
Because Clint Eastwood is calling.
40:38
You don't say no to Clint Eastwood, ah, but I figured it out, Tom said.
40:45
All I have to do is read the script and tell them creative differences.
40:50
Just not able to do it, don't love the material too bad, maybe next time Clint.
40:56
But instead, I pick up the script and he does this invitation where he pretending he can't
41:03
read without glasses and I pick up the script and I start turning pages and oh, oh no, oh
41:13
no, it's good, it's good.
41:18
And so that was how I met Tom Hanks.
41:21
And he has remained a friend and a touchstone and a mentor, what a glorious human being.
41:33
But the story I want to tell about his talent is he finishes telling me this story and has
41:37
me in stitches.
41:39
And then they call, okay, Tom, final touches, we're ready.
41:44
They check his makeup, whatever, and here we go, okay, we're rolling.
41:50
And Tom is standing two feet from me.
41:53
And I've been laughing with Tom Hanks, it's Tom Hanks' voice.
41:57
It's, I know he's got the sully gray hair and the mustache, but it's Tom Hanks.
42:02
And they say, okay, action.
42:05
And Tom moved, he did move.
42:10
He moved about an eighth of an inch.
42:12
He just dropped, he dropped his left shoulder just a tiny bit and I am not joking.
42:18
Tom Hanks vanished before my eyes and sully appeared.
42:25
Now I'm friends with sully from having worked on the film for so many years.
42:29
My no sully and sully appears and walks down that jetway, goes in, does the scene and you
42:35
hear cut and Tom Hanks walks back out of the plane and up the jetway.
42:43
Every take for the entire shoot, Tom did this magic trick where he vanished and sully appeared.
42:53
I'm not being metaphoric.
42:55
That's the level of this genius.
42:57
Okay.
42:58
So real quick, because we got to talk about Bonhoeffer and we don't have all day.
43:02
But I have to ask a question like this.
43:04
We've heard about actors that are just kind of sloppy.
43:08
They just kind of like make movies.
43:09
Then we hear about actors that kind of do what you just described with Tom Hanks where
43:12
it's like they're themselves until the cameras are rolling, then it's game time.
43:16
Then we've heard about method actors where these people just embody these characters
43:21
and they just stay in character even on set to the chagrin of everybody on set.
43:25
It's like, can you stop being, you know, build a butcher, you know, we're filming games
43:29
in New York here, but can you just chill out for five seconds?
43:34
If you had to put actors, if you had to do a Mount Rushmore and I won't keep you to four
43:39
and you could use whatever standards you want of just like, hey, when when the cameras
43:43
were rolling here, here are the best people to have ever done it, whether they were method
43:48
people or just they went by feel people that ad lived the entire time really straight away
43:54
from the script.
43:55
People that stuck to the script for your money, who's who's your Mount Rushmore of actors
43:59
that I've worked with or overall, let's just say overall, let's just go overall.
44:05
Well, Hank's 100%. I mean, I saw it in real time and he's a genius.
44:10
He's so good that we don't appreciate him as much as we should.
44:15
Who else do I love?
44:17
I mean, before he was doing more paycheck acting, I think in his prime and even all the way
44:25
through when he started doing comedies like Midnight Run and Meet the Parents, I think
44:29
it's hard to top the Nero.
44:31
When you look at his run of films going back to Dear Hunter and just what he was capable
44:37
of, his humanity, heat is one of my all time favorite movies.
44:41
I was literally thinking heat the whole time every every time you turn on heat, you have
44:45
to watch it to the end so compelling and actors of it's not just men because they changed
44:53
the term.
44:54
You don't say actress anymore.
44:56
Obviously you have to mention Meryl Streep.
44:59
I love old-time people too, Robert Mitchum, the extraordinary actor, Jimmy Stewart, Humphrey
45:12
Bogart.
45:13
Every time, no matter what Humphries in, I want to watch it and sit with it.
45:16
So I'll give you those for my Mount Rushmore.
45:19
And then for comedic actors, I like when comedic actors go dramatic.
45:27
I think when you take the energy of Robin Williams and you put it into the Fisher King
45:33
in which he's extraordinary.
45:34
And if anybody hasn't seen the Fisher King, Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams, a must-see.
45:41
And Steve Martin is not a great actor if people don't think he's one of the all-time actors.
45:47
But if you look at what he did with Roxanne and LA Story and even his drama, which nobody
45:53
saw, but I really loved, "Shopgirl," he's super gifted.
45:59
So I need more hammer time on the rocks in Mount Rushmore because there's so many people
46:07
that I love.
46:09
That's great.
46:10
Well, I appreciate you giving us that.
46:11
And you gave us a few nuggets for guys that if you haven't seen some of these films it'll
46:14
be good as well.
46:15
So knock it out, Fisher King.
46:17
Even when you mentioned Robin Williams, the first one that I thought of was Patch Adams,
46:20
which is, obviously, he had a very comedic performance, but it was a very dramatic movie
46:26
in a lot of ways where he was playing somebody that was a real doctor in real life and things
46:30
like that.
46:31
So that's one for whatever reason that stuck out for me.
46:33
But now we need to talk about what's going on this week because right now, if you were
46:37
listening to this on time, guys, this Friday in theaters, Bonhoeffer.
46:41
So this is a film that you wrote, directed, and produced.
46:45
And this is about the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
46:47
And I've talked about Dietrich Bonhoeffer a lot.
46:49
We have a book list on our website, The 100 Books Every Modern Christian Man Should Read
46:53
List.
46:54
And Eric Metaxas' biography of Bonhoeffer is in our biography section.
46:58
Metaxas has been on here several times.
47:00
So we've talked a lot about Bonhoeffer on this show.
47:03
So let's just go from the beginning.
47:05
How did you initially get involved with a project like this?
47:08
Where did the idea come from?
47:10
And you've kind of become the jack of all trades on this one since your writer, director,
47:14
producer.
47:15
So let's just start from the beginning.
47:16
Well, the first thing I have to say, because you bring up Eric, is that this is not based
47:20
on his book.
47:21
There is correct.
47:22
Right.
47:23
Tremendous amount of confusion.
47:24
And some people have been quite upset because not everybody is a huge Eric fan.
47:30
And he's got political stances that some people love and some people don't like.
47:34
So it wound up getting noisy around my movie.
47:37
So I have to say up front, this is not based on Eric's book.
47:42
It's based on my wrestling with the man I found on the pages of his own books on Dietrich's
47:49
books, because he wrote 34 books and also the deep dive of history that I was able to do.
47:55
Because this movie examined stuff that American audiences did not know and have not seen.
48:01
We tend to know about World War II from the point that we got involved.
48:06
That's what we're taught in America.
48:08
But this movie looks at the moment that Hitler first took power.
48:13
And what he did in 1933 was he only had 33% of the Politburo.
48:18
And he knew that was not enough to get his agenda across.
48:21
So he went after the church.
48:24
He went after the Lutheran church and the Catholic church, because he said, if I have
48:28
that power, then I will have complete power.
48:32
And Germany had been so downtrodden since World War I, that this promise of the rise
48:39
of the country again excited church leaders.
48:43
And as it says in the movie, they exchanged full hearts for full pews.
48:48
They looked the other way at the things that they didn't like about Hitler, because he
48:52
was bringing people back to church.
48:54
That was a slippery slope, because very quickly, Hitler put himself as the head of the church.
49:00
I don't want to give too many spoiler alerts, but they rewrote the Bible.
49:08
I've held the Nazi Bible in my hand, and you feel like it's going to burst into flames.
49:13
It's one of the scariest things I've ever been around in my life.
49:17
And in the Nazi Bible, they made Jesus' Aryan, and they added two commandments to the ten
49:25
original ones.
49:26
And the two added commandments were that you must honor your Führer and Master, and you
49:31
must keep the blood pure and holy.
49:35
And they're not talking about the blood of Christ, they're talking about the Aryan race.
49:40
So that is terrifying.
49:45
And Hitler did it, as we say in the movie, without firing a single bullet.
49:51
The only person to really stand up against him in the beginning.
49:55
And then as the movement grew, the resistance movement grew, it remained small.
50:01
The first voice against Hitler was Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
50:05
And he was a guy who was 27 years old.
50:08
He had everything laid out before him.
50:10
He was a superstar academically.
50:12
He wrote his doctorate when he was a teenager.
50:14
He was ticketed for an easy academic life.
50:17
He came from a lot of money.
50:19
He had no need to speak out, and he traded everything, everything, in order to fight
50:28
Hitler's evil.
50:31
The thing about his story that is so compelling is what you literally just laid out.
50:36
Because we all know that person who just lived the life that was laid out for them.
50:39
And then the stories that we're interested in are the ones where people kind of buck
50:43
up against that, but very few people buck up against their laid out path and then risk
50:49
their lives in the process.
50:50
Like you may come from a family of doctors, but you just love the law.
50:53
And so everybody's in medical school while you're in law school.
50:56
And so that's you bucking back, but you're probably not going to lose your head in that
51:01
type of a scenario.
51:03
But when you're doing a movie like this, that is the namesake is the name of the movie Bonhoeffer.
51:09
The pressure to find Dietrich Bonhoeffer somewhere and actor that can pull off Dietrich Bonhoeffer
51:15
has to just be overwhelming.
51:17
But I just have to say, Jonas Dassler, who I had not heard of before, like he gave personality
51:25
to this man whose words I had read into these descriptions, these historical descriptions
51:29
of this man.
51:31
And I was, I was completely enraptured by his performance as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and having
51:37
because we don't have like film of Dietrich like talking and mannerism.
51:41
So like, you know, when you make the Reagan movie here this year, we've got a bunch of
51:44
video of Reagan so we can like judge you as, you know, your portrayal of Reagan, are you
51:48
just doing a cheap Reagan, right?
51:50
But then I also thought I'm just taking you through my thoughts.
51:53
One of my favorite movies is Walk the Line with Joaquin Phoenix playing Johnny Cash.
51:57
But I remember Joaquin saying, I'm not trying to do a Johnny Cash impression.
52:02
I'm trying to become Johnny Cash as me, but to make it a believable thing that you could
52:09
believe that this is Johnny Cash.
52:11
So no his voice isn't as deep and, you know, no, he wasn't as smooth, but it felt like he
52:16
became Johnny Cash.
52:17
I feel the same way about Jonas.
52:19
So how did you find Jonas?
52:21
Where the heck did he come from?
52:22
Everything that happened on this movie was God sent, God delivered, came in the strangest
52:28
way.
52:29
And I mean, literally everything.
52:30
So the Jonas thing was I needed to look at a bunch of great German actors.
52:36
I was doing an all German cast, and I knew one German filmmaker, a woman named Emily
52:42
Atef, and her films are beautiful.
52:46
She's worth looking up to.
52:50
I wrote to her, dear Emily, I would love a list of the 10 best German actors, age 25
52:55
to 35.
52:56
And she writes back immediately, Jonas Dassler.
53:01
And I say, oh, well, that's great.
53:03
I'll check him out.
53:04
I'll look at his films.
53:05
But I need a list.
53:07
And she writes back.
53:08
He is the list that you won't find better.
53:15
You just won't.
53:16
You can look, but you won't find better.
53:19
I assume they had to be friends or something.
53:21
They've never met.
53:22
They didn't know each other at all.
53:24
She just she just knew what this kid was capable of.
53:27
He was 26 years old.
53:29
So the story is I reach out to Jonas's agent and she says, oh, I'm so sorry.
53:38
The timing's awful.
53:40
Jonas has just taken his first break.
53:43
He's been on stage and in movies for 11 years since he's 15.
53:48
And he's just taking a break.
53:49
He's not going to work for a year, so I'm sorry.
53:53
Thank you for sending the script, but it's not going to work out.
53:57
And three weeks later, we get an email from the agent, Marie Louise, and she said, nothing's
54:04
changed.
54:05
Jonas is not going to do the movie, but I have to tell you, I've read the script and
54:10
I've sent it to him.
54:12
And he's not going to read it, but I had to send it to him to cover my ass because when
54:18
he finds out that this movie got made and he had it awful.
54:25
And he never had in front of him, he's going to fire me.
54:28
So I had to send it to him to keep my hands clean, but good luck finding your person.
54:34
Yeah.
54:35
And we were searching and it was just not happening.
54:37
There wasn't anybody that we could find.
54:40
We did maybe one check in on an American movie star, but that felt wrong.
54:46
Probably six weeks have gone by now.
54:49
And I get a call that Jonas would like to do a Zoom.
54:55
Okay, great.
54:57
So I meet this young man.
54:59
We end up spending an hour together on our Zoom.
55:03
I'm a huge crier.
55:05
I'm just tears flow easily for me.
55:08
So of course I cried, but this young stranger cried also.
55:13
And here's why he cried.
55:15
He said, when your script arrived, I was really mad at my agent because I told her I didn't
55:19
want anything.
55:20
I didn't want anything around.
55:22
And here's this script cover and it says Bonhoeffer.
55:25
And I know Bonhoeffer, I know Bonhoeffer Strassa.
55:30
I know Bonhoeffer plots everything in Berlin is named after Bonhoeffer, but you know, it's
55:35
just a name to me.
55:36
It was no reason for me to read it.
55:37
It was only reason for me to be upset with my agent.
55:42
I'm sitting in the backyard, he says, of my grandmother's house.
55:47
And my grandmother was my spiritual touchstone for being a dreamer, for being an actor.
55:56
We would sit out back and have a sneaky cigarette and she would dream with me.
56:02
She was my co-dreamer.
56:04
A week ago, she died unexpectedly.
56:10
And her request at the funeral was that my parents and I sing a song, sing a hymn.
56:18
And we're standing in front of the church and we're singing it.
56:23
And my eyes drift up, he said, to the top of the sheet music, and it says lyrics by Dietrich
56:30
Bonhoeffer.
56:32
You're kidding me.
56:33
He sobbed his way through the song.
56:35
He couldn't stop crying.
56:38
He goes home.
56:40
He picks up this Bonhoeffer script, is blown away and he's on the Zoom telling me, my grandmother
56:47
wants me to do your movie.
56:50
Yo, that is incredible.
56:55
I mean, at that point, he's got to basically sign.
56:57
He basically can't go against Nana's wishes at that point.
56:59
My goodness.
57:00
I would just made him a horrible person.
57:01
My goodness.
57:02
I don't even know where to go from there.
57:03
But let me, we could just end the interview there, but I do have more questions.
57:07
So that is a fantastic, fantastic story.
57:10
I'm so glad that you told that to my audience.
57:13
You said that you wanted to have an all German cast.
57:16
And it's funny because I recognized, you know, a couple of guys from like Inglorious Basterds
57:19
and things like that.
57:20
And so I was like, you know, it was very interesting.
57:23
But I felt like it was a very interesting artistic decision because I remember whenever
57:27
I got the screener for the film, I was like, all right, Kyle, make sure you can concentrate
57:30
because you're going to have to read a bunch of subtitles, right?
57:33
And then we get into the film and everybody's speaking English, even if they're a German
57:38
character, even Hitler, like he's speaking English.
57:42
And I'm sitting there like, okay, it's, it's easier for me because I can follow everything
57:46
without having to read and then look up at their face to make sure it's just a joke.
57:49
Okay.
57:50
Okay.
57:51
And I'm not the fastest reader on the planet.
57:52
So take me through the artistic decision to do a film featuring so many Germans set in
57:58
a German setting for the most part, some in America as well.
58:01
But doing that film but having everybody speak English.
58:04
It's a combination of artistic and financial.
58:06
So the financial part is having a movie in English is a much bigger selling point.
58:14
You know, if you make a movie in a, in a foreign language, just the dubbing alone, just the
58:19
notion that someone's going to have to dub from German is daunting and it limits the
58:25
audience.
58:26
In America, certainly, if I was releasing this as a subtitle movie, it would be coming
58:31
out on 200 screens instead of 2000.
58:34
So really it gives you the biggest financial possible upside.
58:38
But the artistic side was what drives me crazy is all these period movies and all these World
58:44
War II movies and all the actors are English.
58:48
And speaking with the English accent and they're supposed to be Rommel or they're supposed
58:53
to be Hitler.
58:54
I was like, what?
58:55
You know, just because you went to a fancy drama school in London, doesn't mean you get
58:59
to have all the parts from history.
59:01
I find it super annoying.
59:03
So because this was a German story, it deserved German storytellers.
59:09
So I wanted the best German actors.
59:11
So when they spoke English, they sounded German.
59:15
It's so much more believable to hear German accent in English.
59:19
So you're not checking out of the movie.
59:21
So that's why it was financial and artistic.
59:24
And I'm very happy because I wound up, I wound up with the top four German movie stars,
59:30
Maritz Blabtrow, who plays Karl Bonhoeffer, Dietrich's father.
59:36
We know him from World War Z.
59:38
We know him from Munich, from Run Lola Run.
59:41
And he is the number one star.
59:43
He's like, when Dustin Hoffman was at his prime, that's what Maritz Blabtrow is right
59:48
now in Germany.
59:51
Here's another act of God.
59:54
I never thought I could get Maritz Blabtrow to play a small role in my movie.
59:58
I never even imagined it.
59:59
So we're looking for other actors and in comes a video.
1:00:04
Maritz Blabtrow self-taped an audition and sent it in because he's a great actor.
1:00:12
He's so much better than everybody else.
1:00:15
And on top of it, he's a doppelganger to use a German word.
1:00:20
He's a twin to the real Karl Bonhoeffer.
1:00:23
They look identical.
1:00:25
So I get a photorealism and a brilliant German actor.
1:00:29
So this is what kept happening for this movie, just blessing after blessing.
1:00:35
OK, so let's talk about the process of actually getting it out to everybody.
1:00:38
So you're repping the sweatshirt, so I'm assuming things went well.
1:00:42
Angel Studios.
1:00:43
So Angel Studios is known mainly for the chosen.
1:00:45
But obviously, there have been a lot of movies and a lot of other television shows
1:00:49
and things like that series that have been released.
1:00:51
Let's talk a little bit about the process of making a movie with Angel Studios.
1:00:55
You know, a thing that didn't exist a decade ago versus maybe working with some of the
1:00:58
other studios, some of the bigger studios you've worked with in the past.
1:01:02
Well I didn't make the movie with Angel.
1:01:03
I made the movie totally independently.
1:01:05
Ah, OK.
1:01:07
Thank you for the correction.
1:01:08
Two days after I locked picture and sound, I got a call from Angel Studios.
1:01:14
Now you have to realize it's not just a decade ago.
1:01:17
In the movie front, Angel was not even a company, really, while I was making my movie.
1:01:24
During my nine months of post-production, Sound of Freedom came out and that put them
1:01:29
on the map.
1:01:30
They made all this money and suddenly they were a theatrical player.
1:01:34
So I didn't know anything about them.
1:01:37
And they made this call.
1:01:38
It was so great.
1:01:39
We sent them the movie and I had not shown the movie to anybody yet.
1:01:43
So I didn't show it to Paramount or Warner Brothers.
1:01:46
This is interesting.
1:01:47
Let's see what Angel has to say, because I like their theatrical model.
1:01:53
And Jordan Harmon, one of the three brothers that are at the top of the company, he called
1:01:58
me a week later and he said, "So last night, my wife and I watched the film."
1:02:03
And we loved it.
1:02:04
But that has nothing to do with whether or not we're going to make you an offer.
1:02:09
We'd like to put our movie, your movie, into the Angel Guild, and I don't know what you
1:02:15
know how the Angel Guild works.
1:02:16
But it's--
1:02:17
We'll go ahead and explain it to our audience because not everybody knows.
1:02:19
Yep.
1:02:20
It's hundreds of thousands of members that are concerned about the kind of movies that
1:02:27
get made and are hoping for kind of, I would say, a throwback to when there were more movies
1:02:33
for more grownups, there were more movies that were inspirational or, as they say, illuminate.
1:02:39
This is the thing that Angel Studios says.
1:02:42
So the movie is going to go in and this large group of people is going to watch it and they're
1:02:47
going to react.
1:02:48
Yeah, you're nay.
1:02:49
And what Jordan said to me is, "If you hit a certain number, we're going to make you an
1:02:52
offer.
1:02:53
If you hit this higher number, we're going to make you a better offer."
1:02:57
And so we hit the higher number in the test score.
1:03:01
We got a great offer.
1:03:02
And I was able to look at it just practically and say, "In this day and age where everything
1:03:07
goes to streaming and I'm committed to the theatrical model, I made a movie for people
1:03:11
who love movies in the cinema.
1:03:14
It's gorgeous to look at.
1:03:16
You love Gladiator.
1:03:17
My movie is shot by the same cinematographer as Gladiator and Gladiator 2, John Matheson.
1:03:25
That's my cinematographer.
1:03:26
He went from my movie and then he went to do Gladiator 2.
1:03:29
So the movie's gorgeous.
1:03:32
It is.
1:03:33
Yes.
1:03:34
And the commitment from Angel to get this out on 2,000 screens, to get it everywhere in
1:03:40
the country.
1:03:41
No other studio was going to do that.
1:03:43
They just weren't.
1:03:44
I could have done a platform release with Focus or something with Sony.
1:03:49
There's some studios out there that would have really dug this movie, but nobody would
1:03:53
have committed the amount of P&A that's marketing costs and commitment across all these theater
1:04:00
chains to get the movie in front of audiences.
1:04:03
So Angel and I don't agree on everything, which is normal.
1:04:10
But I've been impressed with their hustle and their commitment to the cinematic model.
1:04:15
Well, and I mean, part of the hustle is I didn't reach out to them.
1:04:20
They reached out to me.
1:04:21
They're like, we know your audience like I've, I've done a lot of interviews with some
1:04:25
of the folks that have handled some of the behind the scenes of bookings and things like
1:04:27
that.
1:04:28
And it was like, it's they pitched me this and I was like, okay, you could not have done
1:04:33
a more easy yes.
1:04:34
You could not have given me a better yes for, of course, I will, I will talk to my audience
1:04:38
about this film.
1:04:39
Of course, I will watch it early so I can make fun of my friends.
1:04:42
I won't be able to watch it for months.
1:04:43
All that's true.
1:04:44
But here we are, buddy.
1:04:46
This episode comes out on Tuesday.
1:04:47
We're talking on a Monday.
1:04:48
It's in theaters.
1:04:49
It's in a couple thousand theaters on Friday.
1:04:52
What are you feeling right now?
1:04:53
They're like, cause you've been here before, like this is, this is not your first, you
1:04:57
know, first world series game, as it were.
1:05:00
You've been in this exact position to where you're like, I know how I feel about the film.
1:05:04
I know how a smattering of people feel about the film, but I don't know how the larger
1:05:08
public feels about it yet.
1:05:09
What are you feeling?
1:05:10
Well, I feel really good about the film and I know that its message of being loving and
1:05:18
courageous in the face of darkness is timely.
1:05:21
And I know the reactions of test audiences, not just the guild, but now the movie's been
1:05:26
tested all across the country.
1:05:28
People love the movie.
1:05:29
So I'm not worried about the, the reaction to the movie.
1:05:33
The one thing I'm concentrating on is that we have this new landscape.
1:05:38
The last time when Sully came out, there, there was, there was not the COVID situation.
1:05:44
Movie theaters were not on the brink.
1:05:46
I mean, Regal is in bankruptcy and these are, these are dire times for, for cinema.
1:05:54
I happen to believe that movie theaters are vital to our communities, not just because
1:05:59
I have a movie coming out.
1:06:00
When we get out of our house and we sit in the dark and listen to a story with strangers
1:06:06
and it's good, when you walk out through the lobby or to the parking lot, you see that
1:06:11
you've shared something together.
1:06:13
You talk to a stranger.
1:06:14
You might bump into them at the local tavern afterwards or having a bite to eat.
1:06:19
Something about movies pulls us out of ourselves and into community.
1:06:24
We're, we're too locked up at home, Netflixing away and doom scrolling and, and not talking
1:06:30
to each other.
1:06:31
I think it's part of the reason that things are so divisive.
1:06:35
It's easy to be divisive.
1:06:37
If you don't have to interact with anybody, you know, when, when your face to face with
1:06:44
someone you don't agree with, your tendency is to be warmer as a human being.
1:06:49
And when we are warmer, then we learn from each other.
1:06:53
We've open ears and open hearts.
1:06:55
It's vital.
1:06:56
So movie theaters are a big part of that.
1:06:59
I know we've sung, we've sold a ton of pre-sale tickets.
1:07:02
I know theaters are selling out.
1:07:05
This is a great feeling.
1:07:08
The direct answer to your question is, I've never experienced the urgency of the first
1:07:14
two weekends because we're coming out against Gladiator 2 and Wicked and Moana is five days
1:07:20
later.
1:07:21
And those movies are all massive and they're screen eaters.
1:07:25
You know, there's only so many movie screens in the country.
1:07:28
So we're on 2000 screens, which is great.
1:07:30
But if we're not in the top five after our second weekend, Thanksgiving weekend, we start
1:07:36
losing theaters and you start losing theaters quickly because if I'm selling 100 tickets
1:07:41
but Moana's selling 150, Moana's going to go in that screen.
1:07:47
So this is really a time for people to vote with their feet.
1:07:51
If we want the kind of movies that we used to have, if we want great grown up stories
1:07:57
that move us and change the way we see the world.
1:08:00
The way to get the studios to pay attention is to go see those movies and not wait for
1:08:05
them to stream.
1:08:06
Yes, my movie is going to come to streaming eventually, but it's really built for the
1:08:10
cinema.
1:08:11
So I'm hoping that people feel that.
1:08:13
I know churches have, I've talked to people all over this country, everywhere I've gone
1:08:19
and spoken, ticket sales have spiked because people want to hear this story, they want
1:08:23
to hear the truth about Bonhoeffer and love and what it means to have abiding faith and
1:08:32
trusting the love of Jesus all the way to the cross.
1:08:37
People are hungry for this and I'm thrilled at the idea that this message is going to
1:08:45
go out where people are used to seeing Wicked or Gladiator 2.
1:08:50
They've got their popcorn, they've got their Twizzlers, but tonight at this screening, they
1:08:56
now have a new way of seeing the world.
1:08:59
Yeah, I appreciate the way you set that up.
1:09:01
And the one thing that I will say without providing any spoilers is I'm always nervous
1:09:06
that people screwing up the ending, right?
1:09:08
A lot of, a lot of ink was spilled and a lot of stuff was what, what was it?
1:09:12
Game of Thrones.
1:09:13
Everyone talked about how the last season of Game of Thrones, like even if you've never
1:09:16
watched an episode of Game of Thrones, everyone's like, the last season is absolutely terrible.
1:09:20
The series finale was this complete hogwash.
1:09:23
And then it kind of, you know, Sully's, you know, no pun intended, Sully's the rest of
1:09:28
the series because you're like, gosh, I was, I was setting myself up here.
1:09:31
I was very nervous about how you would handle the end.
1:09:35
I was very nervous about how the ending of this film would go and anyone that doesn't
1:09:40
know the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer familiarized yourself with the ending that he found because
1:09:45
I was like, okay, there's a way to romance this.
1:09:48
That's not going to be good.
1:09:50
There's a way to make this more rough than it actually was, which is not going to be
1:09:53
good.
1:09:54
And there's also a way to just ignore it, which is going to be even worse.
1:09:57
I feel like you threaded the needle personally as a non film critic, as a dude that just likes
1:10:01
a turn on movies and be entertained and to be taken on a narrative ride.
1:10:06
I feel like the ending was fantastic.
1:10:09
So there, there's my story.
1:10:10
There is my pitch and there is, you know, to all you guys out there listening and I've
1:10:14
spoiled nothing for anyone, but we're running out of time.
1:10:17
We're actually out of time, but I do have one last question.
1:10:20
What are you working on now?
1:10:21
What are you excited about?
1:10:22
What's that thing that you've got going to where it's like, okay, this is maybe seven
1:10:26
years away, but this is the thing that I think is going to be awesome.
1:10:29
I'm nearly finished my next script, which I'm also going to direct.
1:10:33
And it's about Columbine.
1:10:36
And it's not about the tragedy in April.
1:10:39
It's about that autumn when the school through the long trot upon football team suddenly finds
1:10:50
a chance at healing.
1:10:52
It's totally true.
1:10:55
The football players had in the springtime been put under a shroud of suspicion as to
1:11:02
maybe being part of the cause, press ram with that story that there was a bullying culture.
1:11:09
None of that turned out to be true.
1:11:13
Years later, it's known that none of that was true, but at that time, it was a heavy
1:11:17
weight on these kids.
1:11:20
And that fall, they started to win improbably, unexpectedly, and they kept winning, and they
1:11:28
kept winning.
1:11:30
It is remember the titans, but instead of healing racial division, it's healing a community
1:11:36
and getting a chance to give Columbine their name back.
1:11:43
Because when I say Columbine, every single person lowers their head.
1:11:48
And after this movie, if I've done my job, every single person will lift their head.
1:11:54
Well, I'm pretty sure I'm still going to be doing this by the time that that film comes
1:11:58
out.
1:11:59
And make sure that your people reach out to my people and we'll make sure to have you
1:12:03
back on.
1:12:04
Okay, we'll just go ahead and plan for it.
1:12:05
But Todd, I really, really appreciate your time and all the stories, great storytelling
1:12:09
in this particular podcast of no shock.
1:12:11
But that's all for me.
1:12:12
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
1:12:13
No, I just appreciate you.
1:12:15
You're doing this at a high level.
1:12:18
Your questions are great.
1:12:19
You love movies, but you also are just a really down to earth regular dude.
1:12:25
And it was a pleasure talking to you.
1:12:26
I really enjoyed it.
1:12:28
Here's mine.
1:12:29
Thank you, Todd.
1:12:30
Peace.
1:12:31
There you go, guys.
1:12:32
I hope you enjoyed our time with Todd Comernicki.
1:12:33
But before I let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost at Undaunted Life
1:12:36
for Mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual,
1:12:40
mental and physical resilience.
1:12:41
So the only thing I've got for you is a link to the Bonhoeffer film website.
1:12:44
So guys, if you want to see if it is playing in a theater near you, which with a couple of
1:12:48
thousand screens this weekend, it is almost assuredly playing in a theater near you, you
1:12:52
guys can go and check that out there and you can buy your tickets.
1:12:55
Thank you for listening to this podcast.
1:12:56
Whatever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five
1:12:59
star review.
1:13:00
If you want to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, just shoot me an email
1:13:03
to info@undaunted.life.
1:13:05
That's I-N-F-O at Undaunted.life.
1:13:08
Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else,
1:13:11
including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way.
1:13:14
Just go to www.undaunted.life and as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing
1:13:19
us to use their music for our content.
1:13:21
The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self-titled debut album
1:13:25
on Face Down Records.
1:13:26
The links are in the description.
1:13:28
I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
1:13:30
Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
1:13:37
Keep seeking the lion of Judah.
1:13:55
[end]