With ‘The Exorcist,’ David Gordon Green Was Losing His Creative Freedom — ‘Nutcrackers’ Gave It Back
David Gordon Green’s “Nutcrackers,” which will open the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival this evening, is quite a swerve from his last film, “The Exorcist: Believer.” Actually, it’s quite a swerve from his last two films, going back to “Halloween Ends.” You know, while we’re at it, let’s just include all three of Green’s “Halloween” movies.
Let’s put it this way, if you’ve been totally on board with Green’s recent horror output, which consists of his last four films, “Nutcrackers” is going to be quite the jolt. No one is possessed or murdered during the events of “Nutcrackers.” (Well, except maybe a chicken.)
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Here’s the story: While shooting a scene for Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All” in rural Ohio, Green visited an old friend he worked with on his first film, “George Washington,” who is now raising her family on a local farm. Green found himself so delighted by her four sons — Homer Janson, Ulysses Janson, Atlas Janson, and Arlo Janson — that he called his buddy, screenwriter Leland Douglas, and asked him write a movie for them. That’s “Nutcrackers.”
In the film, Ben Stiller plays Michael, a real estate executive from Chicago who is working on an important new land deal. Meanwhile, he has to go to Ohio for a few days to manage a few things that relate to his recently deceased sister’s estate. Michael arrives in Ohio under the impression that her four boys were already in foster care, but, as he soon finds out, this is not the case. The four boys — his nephews — need a guardian or they will be split up and sent to an orphanage.
It’s a sweet film (with some pretty hilarious Rambo references, surprisingly) that drastically contrasts with the last few movies we’ve seen from Green. It feels like an exorcism of sorts for the filmmaker himself. Green very much likes not being pigeonholed, and is very much aware that not everyone was on board with his vision for both the “Halloween” movies and his “Exorcist” film.
He’s totally fine with that. But, as he explains, the one thing he can’t do without is creative freedom, and that’s what he was losing on his early plans for two more “Exorcist” films. (One was already written and the third had been mapped out.)
Ahead, Green explains why, with “Nutcrackers,” he’s trying to make an ‘80s comedy that never got made. And he explains what his next two “Exorcist” movies would have been like before he left the franchise (Mike Flanagan is now rebooting the series), and if the reported $400 million Universal paid for all that “Exorcist” IP was the reason Green felt he was losing his creative control. And, pretty directly, he also tells us his biggest regret when it comes to not getting to make those last two “Exorcist” films.
The following interview has been edited and condensed.
IndieWire: I know this is not your last film, but if it were…
David Gordon Green: [Laughs]
“Nutcrackers” does act as a nice bookend to your first film, “George Washington.” Very different films about kids surviving on their own.
In a lot of ways it’s taking — and this is intentional, too — elements of all of my movie experiences and putting it into one curated movie. So, what I mean by that, is taking what I love about working with kids, and the rawness of non-actors, taking advantage of rural landscapes — that’s where I breathe easier and I’m happier.
I’ve learned so much from Jason Blum and the crew that he’s put together at Blumhouse and the way they can very economically make movies that are very appealing, they’ve been so successful launching horror movies in that way. I’m looking at an industry that’s really dried up with comedy. Most people are turning to television for their comedic intake, and I’m thinking maybe that’s an opportunity to start making funny movies. You don’t need big budgets and explosions…
“Pineapple Express” had a few explosions.
But here’s the thing! We did “Pineapple Express” on the “Superbad” budget. Those were favors. The explosions and the car chase? Those were ways that I said, can we take the “Superbad” budget, then put a little muscle in it for some trailer moments? There was some fun strategy and manipulation to be able to pull off a movie that’s an action comedy without an action budget. So that’s a great example of me in an industry that’s offering me something and getting what I want to — self-indulgently — squeeze out of the experience.
You mentioned taking elements of all your movie experiences. You have made four horror movies in a row before “Nutcrackers.” So is the element you bring from those just the economics?
It adds the economics of it, but I’m hopeful it adds the appeal of it. What I love about making those movies is I love watching stuff I worked really hard on with a crowd. And crowds love and hate shit I do all the time, that’s fun…
“Halloween Kills,” you certainly achieved that love-hate balance with that one. I am on record for really liking “Halloween Kills,” but a lot of people really don’t like that one.
I’m not afraid of that! I’m not afraid of strong feelings. But the beauty of those movies is you make it low budget and nobody is breathing down your neck to make it work for everyone. They are coming to you and saying, you make your movie, just don’t make it expensive. So, if I can make movies that are respectful of the business model… For example, for “Nutcrackers,” I wanted to make a movie my kids could see. I have young twin sons and I’m not going to let them watch a lot of the movies I’ve made…
They are going to have to wait a few years to meet Corey Cunningham from “Halloween Ends.”
Exactly. Although, one of them is already bugging me about it.
Hey, I saw the original “Halloween” when I was eight.
I did, too!
It was a different world then. It was on HBO and I was like, oh, what’s this?
But that’s a perfect segue into what I’m talking about. The movies I saw when I was eight really affected me. If it was watching “Halloween,” I was shaken to the core about it. If I was watching the Kenny Rogers movie “Six Pack…”
I just rewatched that recently.
It’s so good! It’s on YouTube.
Yeah, that’s the only place you can find it.
But it holds up! Young Diane Lane, young Anthony Michael Hall, cool Kenny Rogers. But they’re not making movies like that. They are not making “Uncle Buck” or “Home Alone” right now. Or, they are in a polished, manicured way that goes to a streaming platform. You can plug your kids into those movies, but you’re not sharing those experiences. I wanted to make a movie that had the saltiness of “The Bad News Bears,” with messy, rough-around-the-edges kids. I’m just looking over at my poster collection in my office. It’s Tony Danza in “Going Ape” and Chris Makepeace in “My Bodyguard” and Steve Martin in “The Jerk.”
Those are pretty good posters.
“My Bodyguard” is one of the greatest movies ever made. That was the inspiration for “Halloween Ends,” but that’s another story.
I think a lot of people, including myself, thought it was “Christine.”
And “Christine.” That’s the obvious one. But “My Bodyguard” is the real core of that movie. Someday I’ll meet Tony Bill. Maybe he’s dead? I don’t know. [Note: Tony Bill, who directed “My Bodyguard,” is still alive.] But my point is, the movies I grew up on, I think there’s a great appetite for, if you can market it right.
In the past, anytime I bring up that you’ve done a bunch of horror movies in a row, you say you’re also working on “The Righteous Gemstones,” so it never feels that way. But that doesn’t change the fact you did four horror movies in a row, and now this, which feels like your own exorcism. It is the polar opposite of what you’ve been doing.
Yeah, but also, it was during the writers strike and actors strike and we got a waiver to make this movie. So, if you were going to work in that time, if you wanted to be really sensitive to what was going on, and I think if you’re trying to get something big and ambitious, you’re looking at your industry in the wrong way. So maybe this is the perfect deep breath to take right now. Its a script that Leland Douglas, a friend of mine, had been scripting specifically for these kids. And coming after “The Exorcist,” it’s really the anthesis in a lot of ways.
So the kids were already attached with the script?
I had a cameo in this movie, “Bones and All,” that Luca Guadagnino made. He had me go out to rural Ohio to be in this movie and it was a really entertaining and interesting and amazing experience. And one of my college friends, Karey, lives out there and I hadn’t been to her farm since college. She was one of the second unit DPs on “George Washington” and she left the movie business to go have a family and be a farmer. So, I hadn’t met her four sons.
When I’m out there on Luca’s movie, I go visit her and immediately meet her kids and they are these four amazing and lovely sons. Their home and animals are all incredible and inspiring. I walked away from that weekend thinking, I just acted in a movie that’s crazy and I just met the subjects of a movie I’m going to make. So, I called my friend Leland and said, we’ve got to get you out to this farm and meet these kids, and we’ve got to make the great unmade ‘80s movie of our childhood as a vehicle for these four brothers.
That’s interesting. Usually the script comes first, then you find the actors…
In the last six months you’ve thought, this guy should be in a movie. Or this is a great idea and you write it down on a barroom napkin. Or this place is beautiful, why hasn’t anyone made a movie here? These types of things, at this point in my career, I like to be just like, yeah, they should be in a movie. And I can make that happen. And we should shoot in on their farm, with their animals, and go to their ballet school, and cast their friends, and then invite a movie star and see if we can’t convince someone to come in here and headline it.
That was the conversation with Ben. “Hey, Ben. We’ve got these four non-actor brothers. Come out here. It’s cold as hell and you’re going to step in animal shit. But if we can get a camera to capture what is so magnetic about the personalities of these four brothers, I think we’re on to something really special.”
So, I’m not correcting you, but I’m correcting Ben Stiller’s character. The brothers ask for a bedtime story and he chooses “First Blood,” which is really funny. But he says Rambo is his nickname instead of John Rambo’s last name.
[Laughs] Exactly! He’s only watched it once when he was 11.
It’s an integral part of the story that his name is Rambo.
It is such a movie that’s organic in that way that you can nitpick, but, yeah, “his nickname was Rambo.”
I honestly started laughing so hard when he begins the story, “After the fall of Saigon…”
[Laughs] The first rehearsal of that scene, I was dying. It was hard to keep it together because Ben doesn’t break. It’s very rare. And he’s so good at saying the straight shit so funny.
You had planned to do three “Exorcist” movies, but now that’s not happening and the property is being rebooted. Last time we spoke, you said you had a roadmap for the other two movies. What would that have been?
Oh, man. That’s a long answer. It’s complicated. It’s long and complicated. We had our next one written and had it mapped out for the third one. Again, it was ambitious, complicated. We were going to Europe for some pretty extraordinary backdrops. It was one of those things where all of the creative parties got together.
What I’m pitching, in terms of my professional ambition is, I need the creative freedom and give me the budgetary constraints so I can keep control of that. That’s something we learned pretty quickly, [with] expectations that are limitless and really daunting. So, for me to keep that creative freedom and be able to make the choices I wanted to make… As you see with the “Halloween” movies, the choices I make aren’t always the most popular ones. So it’s trying to make something that me, and my great friends at Blumhouse and Morgan Creek, want [for] that property to be fulfilled, as much as the audience is there and has the appetite for it. I don’t think they were on the journey I was excited about taking.
Would your sequels have followed the same cast from the first film?
It was going to follow Ann Dowd’s character.
You made the “Halloween” movies on a budget, and even the ones people are polarized about still made money. With “The Exorcist,” it felt like a big factor was the studio paid $400 million for the rights to the property, as opposed to just the budget for the movie itself. Is that what led you to realize you weren’t going to have the freedom you did on the “Halloween” movies and decide, “I’m done”?
Yes. Basically. It was still a very economical movie.
Every article written about it always came back to the amount they paid for the property.
Yeah, that stuff gets really complicated. And I don’t even know. Honestly, there are a lot of ins and outs of that stuff that I don’t even know. All I know is, give me some boundaries and let me loose. If there are a lot of people poking me about ideas and thoughts and notes? I’m not best in those environments. It’s just trying to make everybody get what they need.
I’ve made such great friends with so many executives at Universal and Blumhouse and Morgan Creek, I just want to make sure they’re doing what they feel confident in and makes them the most money. Or whatever it is they’re looking for in their satisfying experience. For me, it’s creative freedom. Every time. And I’ll always turn a corner and figure out where the freedom is. And also where the spontaneity is. I like to reinvent myself.
Oh, that’s true. The director of “George Washington” and the director of “Your Highness” is hard to reconcile sometimes.
And the other part of me thinks, well, shit, if I could have finished that “Exorcist” trilogy, I could be financing my own movies for the rest of my life. And that would be super cool if I could have turned that into what I had imagined it being, both creatively and financially. It would have been an amazing opportunity for me as a benefactor to indie movies and my own creative projects. So, that was kind of the goal in mind and it just seemed like that was going to not happen, so I took a different route.
It’s not lost on me “Nutcrackers” ends with the song “Pure” by The Lightning Seeds. Which seems like very much the goal with this film after all that, “pure and simple.”
Yep, yep. That is what the goal was. Now it’s taking that really special something we created in this really unique environment and unleashing it on the uncertain marketplace of indie film. So, we’ll see what happens.
“Nutcrackers” will premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival as the opening night film. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution, with UTA Independent Film Group handling sales. The film was produced by Rough House Pictures and Rivulet Films, who fully financed the feature.
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