WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.720 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we're getting 00:00:02.720 --> 00:00:05.219 into someone really fascinating, a real paradox 00:00:05.219 --> 00:00:09.199 in modern film, Ari Aster. Definitely. A filmmaker 00:00:09.199 --> 00:00:12.000 who, I mean, incredibly quickly just shifted 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:14.599 how we think about cinematic dread. Exactly. 00:00:14.720 --> 00:00:17.039 He became like the face of elevated horror, that 00:00:17.039 --> 00:00:20.179 whole movement. Right. And then almost immediately 00:00:20.179 --> 00:00:22.359 he takes all that success, all that commercial 00:00:22.359 --> 00:00:25.449 power. And just burns through it on these huge, 00:00:25.609 --> 00:00:28.710 really personal, sometimes really divisive epics 00:00:28.710 --> 00:00:30.690 that you can't even pin down genre wise. Yeah, 00:00:30.829 --> 00:00:33.689 it's a wild trajectory. So our mission today 00:00:33.689 --> 00:00:35.890 really is to look beyond those labels. We're 00:00:35.890 --> 00:00:37.829 trying to map out, you know, the themes, the 00:00:37.829 --> 00:00:40.630 commercial path of this director. Born in 86, 00:00:40.929 --> 00:00:42.909 so he's still quite young. I'm 30s now, yeah. 00:00:43.030 --> 00:00:45.189 But he's already built this significant body 00:00:45.189 --> 00:00:47.250 of work. We've got a lot to draw on his early 00:00:47.250 --> 00:00:50.990 life, which sounds pretty alienated growing up 00:00:50.990 --> 00:00:54.159 in Santa Fe mostly. And that huge breakout success 00:00:54.159 --> 00:00:57.100 with A24. We have to talk about Hereditary and 00:00:57.100 --> 00:00:59.380 Midsommar, obviously. They were massive. And 00:00:59.380 --> 00:01:02.899 then there's that sharp turn, that really expensive 00:01:02.899 --> 00:01:07.239 pivot with Bo is Afraid and now his latest, Eddington, 00:01:07.439 --> 00:01:09.840 the satirical Western. And the timeline is just 00:01:09.840 --> 00:01:12.840 breakneck, isn't it? Hereditary in 2018. Then 00:01:12.840 --> 00:01:15.540 Midsommar literally the next year, 2019. And 00:01:15.540 --> 00:01:20.379 by 2023, boom, Bo is Afraid. three hours of pure 00:01:20.379 --> 00:01:24.500 anxiety that apparently cost A24 a fortune. So 00:01:24.500 --> 00:01:26.560 he's juggling these two roles, right? The like 00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:30.019 totally uncompromising auteur and also this increasingly 00:01:30.019 --> 00:01:32.700 savvy producer with his own company, Square Peg. 00:01:32.819 --> 00:01:34.920 That's it. Square Peg. We'll definitely need 00:01:34.920 --> 00:01:37.239 to get it. So the big question, I guess, for 00:01:37.239 --> 00:01:40.480 you listening is why? Why would an artist who 00:01:40.480 --> 00:01:42.480 finally achieves commercial success immediately 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:45.379 risk becoming, well... commercially untouchable? 00:01:45.480 --> 00:01:47.859 It's a fantastic question. And his whole career, 00:01:48.040 --> 00:01:50.340 really, it's like a perfect case study. You see 00:01:50.340 --> 00:01:52.579 this constant push and pull between his, you 00:01:52.579 --> 00:01:56.319 know, pure unrestrained artistic vision. He clearly 00:01:56.319 --> 00:01:58.140 doesn't want to cut his ideas down. No, definitely 00:01:58.140 --> 00:01:59.920 not. The runtimes alone tell you that. Right. 00:01:59.980 --> 00:02:01.739 And then you have the cold, hard facts of the 00:02:01.739 --> 00:02:04.099 studio system, even a studio like A24, which 00:02:04.099 --> 00:02:06.420 is known for being artist friendly. Right. There 00:02:06.420 --> 00:02:08.280 are limits. He didn't just arrive on the scene 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:10.580 quietly, he completely took over the conversation, 00:02:10.919 --> 00:02:13.439 got this incredible leverage. Yeah, unprecedented 00:02:13.439 --> 00:02:15.819 really after just two films. And then he used 00:02:15.819 --> 00:02:17.879 that leverage immediately to make films that 00:02:17.879 --> 00:02:20.860 are almost by definition really challenging for 00:02:20.860 --> 00:02:22.659 a mass audience. Okay, so let's start at the 00:02:22.659 --> 00:02:25.819 beginning then. To sort of understand where that 00:02:25.819 --> 00:02:28.520 focus on trauma on messed up families comes from, 00:02:28.620 --> 00:02:31.479 we need to look way back, his early life. Yeah, 00:02:31.520 --> 00:02:35.979 definitely. Ari Aster, born July 15th, 1986, 00:02:36.659 --> 00:02:40.080 New York City, Jewish family, and apparently 00:02:40.080 --> 00:02:42.300 quite a creative one. His mother was a poet, 00:02:42.379 --> 00:02:45.500 his father, a jazz musician. Right. So art was 00:02:45.500 --> 00:02:47.680 in the house from the start. Seems like it. And 00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:50.120 it sounds like it was a bit of a, well, nomadic 00:02:50.120 --> 00:02:52.620 start too. Our sources mentioned this brief period 00:02:52.620 --> 00:02:54.599 where the family actually lived over in England. 00:02:54.879 --> 00:02:56.819 Oh, really? I didn't know that. Yeah. His father 00:02:56.819 --> 00:02:59.759 opened a jazz club in Chester, apparently. Didn't 00:02:59.759 --> 00:03:02.789 last long, perhaps, but that... early taste of 00:03:02.789 --> 00:03:05.009 you know a different culture being immersed in 00:03:05.009 --> 00:03:08.189 that creative scene it probably shaped his outlook 00:03:08.189 --> 00:03:11.050 somehow interesting but the place that really 00:03:11.050 --> 00:03:14.169 seems to define his formative years where that 00:03:14.169 --> 00:03:18.009 um that feeling of alienation comes in is santa 00:03:18.009 --> 00:03:20.150 fe new mexico that's right they moved back to 00:03:20.150 --> 00:03:23.009 the u .s when he was about 10 settled there and 00:03:23.009 --> 00:03:24.590 that's where he spent the rest of his childhood 00:03:24.590 --> 00:03:26.990 adolescence and this is where things start to 00:03:26.990 --> 00:03:29.169 click into place with his later work isn't it 00:03:29.530 --> 00:03:33.169 He talks very openly about feeling deeply alienated 00:03:33.169 --> 00:03:35.590 then. He does. He described himself, I think 00:03:35.590 --> 00:03:38.650 the quote was, as a fat kid with a stutter, just 00:03:38.650 --> 00:03:41.430 feeling like a total outsider. Wow. And apparently 00:03:41.430 --> 00:03:43.610 getting kicked out of Santa Fe Prep, a private 00:03:43.610 --> 00:03:46.370 school there, just made that feeling worse, that 00:03:46.370 --> 00:03:49.490 sense of not fitting in. Social awkwardness. 00:03:49.650 --> 00:03:51.590 You really see that reflected in his characters, 00:03:51.710 --> 00:03:54.409 don't you? The isolation, the paranoia, battling 00:03:54.409 --> 00:03:56.669 these forces they can't quite grasp or name. 00:03:56.889 --> 00:03:59.189 Absolutely. You can draw a direct line from that 00:03:59.189 --> 00:04:01.409 self -described childhood loneliness to the people 00:04:01.409 --> 00:04:05.229 on screen in Hereditary or Bo is Afraid. So it 00:04:05.229 --> 00:04:07.009 sounds like he was maybe observing more than 00:04:07.009 --> 00:04:09.750 participating, which I guess is perfect training 00:04:09.750 --> 00:04:12.830 for a filmmaker. Very possibly. But alongside 00:04:12.830 --> 00:04:15.150 that feeling of being on the outside, there was 00:04:15.150 --> 00:04:18.959 this incredibly intense. Fixation on movies. 00:04:19.220 --> 00:04:21.560 Ah, okay. The obsession begins. Oh, yeah. And 00:04:21.560 --> 00:04:24.079 it started super early and really dramatically. 00:04:24.439 --> 00:04:27.860 There's this amazing story about him seeing Dick 00:04:27.860 --> 00:04:30.860 Tracy, the Warren Beatty one from 1990. He was 00:04:30.860 --> 00:04:33.420 four years old. And there's a scene Beatty fires 00:04:33.420 --> 00:04:36.399 a Tommy gun. And apparently the sound of the 00:04:36.399 --> 00:04:39.279 violence on screen had such a visceral effect 00:04:39.279 --> 00:04:41.680 on little Ari. What happened? He jumped out of 00:04:41.680 --> 00:04:44.339 his seat and sprinted apparently six New York 00:04:44.339 --> 00:04:46.399 City blocks down the street. His mom had to chase 00:04:46.399 --> 00:04:49.519 after him. Get out at four years old. That's 00:04:49.519 --> 00:04:51.319 intense. Isn't it? It's like. a perfect little 00:04:51.319 --> 00:04:53.740 snapshot of the kind of psychological intensity 00:04:53.740 --> 00:04:55.959 he later put audiences through. It wasn't just 00:04:55.959 --> 00:04:58.800 liking movies. It was this extreme sensitivity 00:04:58.800 --> 00:05:03.019 to their power, their ability to, you know, terrify. 00:05:03.019 --> 00:05:04.860 That makes so much sense. So it wasn't just casual 00:05:04.860 --> 00:05:07.240 viewing. Not at all. It quickly became serious 00:05:07.240 --> 00:05:09.639 study. He wasn't just watching. He was like systematically 00:05:09.639 --> 00:05:12.300 downloading film knowledge. He was apparently 00:05:12.300 --> 00:05:15.040 obsessed with Leonard Maltin's movie guide. Oh, 00:05:15.040 --> 00:05:17.519 wow. The Bible back then. Totally. And he spent 00:05:17.519 --> 00:05:20.100 countless hours at the local Hastings video store. 00:05:20.220 --> 00:05:23.439 He basically exhausted the horror section of 00:05:23.439 --> 00:05:25.860 every video store around. Okay, so he really 00:05:25.860 --> 00:05:28.519 did his homework in the genre trenches. He absolutely 00:05:28.519 --> 00:05:31.759 did. And that deep dive into genre rules, into 00:05:31.759 --> 00:05:34.259 horror conventions, that's why his films feel 00:05:34.259 --> 00:05:37.300 so smart, so self -aware later. He knows exactly 00:05:37.300 --> 00:05:40.040 what buttons he's pushing, which tropes he's 00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:42.319 twisting or breaking. Right, so he goes from 00:05:42.319 --> 00:05:45.160 being this obsessive watcher to wanting to create. 00:05:45.800 --> 00:05:48.279 But filmmaking wasn't the first stop, was it? 00:05:48.420 --> 00:05:50.860 No. Interestingly, the sources say his first 00:05:50.860 --> 00:05:53.319 real ambition was to be an author, a novelist. 00:05:53.420 --> 00:05:56.959 But that creative urge found its way into screenwriting 00:05:56.959 --> 00:05:59.519 pretty quickly. And the sheer amount he wrote 00:05:59.519 --> 00:06:01.939 back then is kind of nuts. How much are we talking? 00:06:02.100 --> 00:06:04.839 Apparently, he wrote six full feature length 00:06:04.839 --> 00:06:06.779 screenplays just while he was in high school. 00:06:06.899 --> 00:06:09.720 Six. Wow. Yeah. He was just pouring it all out 00:06:09.720 --> 00:06:12.199 onto the page, probably because, you know, actually 00:06:12.199 --> 00:06:13.980 making a movie involves coordinating people, 00:06:14.279 --> 00:06:17.240 money. logistics. Writing was something he could 00:06:17.240 --> 00:06:19.420 control completely. That explains a lot about 00:06:19.420 --> 00:06:21.620 his meticulous approach now. He's a writer first, 00:06:21.680 --> 00:06:24.360 the architect of the story. Definitely. And then 00:06:24.360 --> 00:06:26.100 he went on to get formal training, which really 00:06:26.100 --> 00:06:28.480 cemented things. He studied film first at Santa 00:06:28.480 --> 00:06:30.459 Fe University of Art and Design, finished there 00:06:30.459 --> 00:06:33.639 in 2008. But the really big step, the career 00:06:33.639 --> 00:06:36.420 maker, was getting into the American Film Institute's 00:06:36.420 --> 00:06:39.560 graduate program, the AFI Conservatory in L .A. 00:06:39.660 --> 00:06:42.660 Right, the AFI. That's huge. Huge. He was in 00:06:42.660 --> 00:06:46.079 the class of 2010. And AFI is known for giving 00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:48.699 students the resources to make really ambitious 00:06:48.699 --> 00:06:51.579 short films, which is exactly what he did. And 00:06:51.579 --> 00:06:53.730 that leads us straight into his breaks. or at 00:06:53.730 --> 00:06:56.310 least his first taste of notoriety, the short 00:06:56.310 --> 00:07:00.029 film era. Yep, roughly 2011 to 2017. And the 00:07:00.029 --> 00:07:02.069 one that really put him on the map or maybe the 00:07:02.069 --> 00:07:05.370 map of controversy was his AFI thesis film from 00:07:05.370 --> 00:07:08.029 2011. The strange thing about the Johnsons, even 00:07:08.029 --> 00:07:10.490 the title is unsettling. Oh, it is. And the film 00:07:10.490 --> 00:07:12.889 itself. Well, it showed right away that Astor 00:07:12.889 --> 00:07:14.689 wasn't going to shy away from anything. He was 00:07:14.689 --> 00:07:17.490 diving headfirst into the deepest, darkest societal 00:07:17.490 --> 00:07:20.569 taboos. What's the premise for those who haven't 00:07:20.569 --> 00:07:22.829 seen it? It's pretty infamous. It's psychological 00:07:22.829 --> 00:07:26.970 horror focusing on this seemingly normal suburban 00:07:26.970 --> 00:07:30.250 family. But the core of it is that the father 00:07:30.250 --> 00:07:33.750 is being subjected to this long term, non -consensual, 00:07:33.790 --> 00:07:36.689 incestuous abuse by his own son. Right. It's 00:07:36.689 --> 00:07:38.990 incredibly disturbing subject matter. And the 00:07:38.990 --> 00:07:43.600 reaction was. Immediate and intense. It premiered 00:07:43.600 --> 00:07:45.420 at the Slamdance Film Festival, but then it leaked 00:07:45.420 --> 00:07:48.300 online and just exploded. Went totally viral. 00:07:48.500 --> 00:07:50.560 I remember the buzz around it. Polarizing doesn't 00:07:50.560 --> 00:07:52.639 even begin to cover it, right? Not really. The 00:07:52.639 --> 00:07:54.879 sources describe the comments ranging from effusive 00:07:54.879 --> 00:07:58.279 acclaim, people hailing it as genius, to disgusted 00:07:58.279 --> 00:08:00.879 vitriol. Just absolute outrage. But for a young 00:08:00.879 --> 00:08:03.980 filmmaker looking to make a mark, that kind of 00:08:03.980 --> 00:08:06.560 reaction is powerful, isn't it? Even the negative 00:08:06.560 --> 00:08:09.060 kind. It's gold, basically. It tells the industry, 00:08:09.160 --> 00:08:10.860 pay attention to this guy. Whether you loved 00:08:10.860 --> 00:08:12.399 it or hated it, you couldn't ignore it. It gave 00:08:12.399 --> 00:08:14.899 him instant notoriety and sort of paved the way 00:08:14.899 --> 00:08:16.639 for him to get a feature off the ground. Which 00:08:16.639 --> 00:08:20.160 brings us to 2018, his feature debut, Hereditary. 00:08:20.699 --> 00:08:23.660 Bankrolled by A24. And this film really becomes 00:08:23.660 --> 00:08:25.920 the touchstone for that whole elevated horror 00:08:25.920 --> 00:08:28.579 discussion. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe we should 00:08:28.579 --> 00:08:30.879 quickly unpack that term elevated horror for 00:08:30.879 --> 00:08:32.779 listeners. Good idea. What does it actually mean 00:08:32.779 --> 00:08:34.740 in this context? Well, when people talk about 00:08:34.740 --> 00:08:36.960 hereditary as elevated horror, they mean it's 00:08:36.960 --> 00:08:40.059 using the sort of skeleton of a horror movie, 00:08:40.220 --> 00:08:43.320 you know, supernatural stuff, dread, people dying. 00:08:43.440 --> 00:08:46.019 Right, the familiar tropes. Exactly. But the 00:08:46.019 --> 00:08:49.159 real focus, the meat of it, is on really complex 00:08:49.159 --> 00:08:52.179 characters, deep themes like grief and trauma. 00:08:52.720 --> 00:08:55.759 The horror isn't just ghosts jumping out. It's 00:08:55.759 --> 00:08:58.580 the psychological breakdown, the inherited pain 00:08:58.580 --> 00:09:01.909 manifesting as something terrifying. So the plot 00:09:01.909 --> 00:09:03.970 centers on the Graham family after the grandmother 00:09:03.970 --> 00:09:06.750 dies. This very secretive woman. Who turns out 00:09:06.750 --> 00:09:09.149 to have been the leader of a demonic cult, naturally. 00:09:09.450 --> 00:09:11.769 Naturally. And this presence starts haunting 00:09:11.769 --> 00:09:14.789 them. But like you said, the real horror feels 00:09:14.789 --> 00:09:17.169 like the family imploding from guilt, secrets, 00:09:17.389 --> 00:09:21.299 and that sense of... Inescapable inherited damage. 00:09:21.559 --> 00:09:23.340 Precisely. And the film was just a phenomenon. 00:09:23.759 --> 00:09:25.980 Commercially, it was huge, made over $80 million 00:09:25.980 --> 00:09:29.100 globally. On what kind of budget? Tiny, around 00:09:29.100 --> 00:09:32.860 $10 million. So at that point, it became A24's 00:09:32.860 --> 00:09:37.029 biggest hit worldwide. That instantly made Astor 00:09:37.029 --> 00:09:39.409 a very bankable name. And the critics loved it 00:09:39.409 --> 00:09:41.169 too, didn't they? I remember Peter Travers of 00:09:41.169 --> 00:09:43.110 Rolling Stone calling it the scariest film of 00:09:43.110 --> 00:09:45.909 2018. They did. And it wasn't just the scares, 00:09:46.009 --> 00:09:48.470 it was the craft, the meticulous way he builds 00:09:48.470 --> 00:09:51.330 dread, and Tony Collette's performance, just 00:09:51.330 --> 00:09:54.049 monumental. Oh, incredible. Absolutely central 00:09:54.049 --> 00:09:56.409 to the film's power. And Astor's visual style 00:09:56.409 --> 00:09:59.549 was already so distinct. Those miniatures, the 00:09:59.549 --> 00:10:02.590 dollhouses that Annie Collette's character makes. 00:10:02.710 --> 00:10:04.570 Right. They weren't just background props. No, 00:10:04.610 --> 00:10:07.370 they were deeply symbolic. Representing the family 00:10:07.370 --> 00:10:10.629 unit itself as this fragile, maybe preordained 00:10:10.629 --> 00:10:13.409 thing, manipulated by outside forces just like 00:10:13.409 --> 00:10:15.470 the characters felt they were. He picked up awards, 00:10:15.649 --> 00:10:17.750 too. Most promising filmmaker from the Chicago 00:10:17.750 --> 00:10:20.899 critics. He'd arrived. not just profitable, but 00:10:20.899 --> 00:10:23.220 critically acclaimed. And then with barely a 00:10:23.220 --> 00:10:25.320 pause, he follows it up just one year later, 00:10:25.440 --> 00:10:28.740 2019, with Midsommar, which feels like a deliberate 00:10:28.740 --> 00:10:30.960 counterpoint to Hereditary. It really does. It's 00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:33.419 like the photographic negative in some way. Hereditary 00:10:33.419 --> 00:10:36.980 is dark, claustrophobic, interior. And Midsommar 00:10:36.980 --> 00:10:40.500 is folk horror, but set almost entirely outdoors 00:10:40.500 --> 00:10:43.980 in relentless, bright, sunny daylight. Exactly. 00:10:43.980 --> 00:10:46.759 He takes this group of American students to a 00:10:46.759 --> 00:10:50.679 remote Swedish commune for their unique Midsommar 00:10:50.679 --> 00:10:52.840 festival. Which, of course, involves some deeply 00:10:52.840 --> 00:10:55.559 disturbing pagan rituals. Naturally. And the 00:10:55.559 --> 00:10:58.980 genius move was swapping that dark, shadowy dread 00:10:58.980 --> 00:11:03.830 for this sun -drenched pastoral horror. It's 00:11:03.830 --> 00:11:06.289 unsettling in a totally different way. And thematically, 00:11:06.330 --> 00:11:08.830 he shifts too, right? Family trauma to relationship 00:11:08.830 --> 00:11:11.450 trauma. Yeah, the core is Donnie, played brilliantly 00:11:11.450 --> 00:11:13.549 by Florence Pugh, who's dealing with immense 00:11:13.549 --> 00:11:16.350 personal grief and the slow, painful collapse 00:11:16.350 --> 00:11:18.409 of her relationship with her boyfriend. That 00:11:18.409 --> 00:11:20.590 emotional breakdown happens against this backdrop 00:11:20.590 --> 00:11:23.909 of very organized, ritualistic, communal horror. 00:11:24.190 --> 00:11:26.470 It was another critical hit. Pugh's performance 00:11:26.470 --> 00:11:29.029 got massive praise. Astor's direction again. 00:11:29.610 --> 00:11:31.570 But this is where we start seeing the first signs 00:11:31.570 --> 00:11:34.070 of him pushing against maybe commercial expectations. 00:11:34.490 --> 00:11:37.309 Yes, the runtime issue. This is key. The original 00:11:37.309 --> 00:11:39.570 cut of Midsommar that Astor delivered was, what, 00:11:39.590 --> 00:11:43.070 nearly three hours, 171 minutes. Wow. For a sophomore 00:11:43.070 --> 00:11:46.970 film, that's ambitious. Very. And A24, quite 00:11:46.970 --> 00:11:49.409 reasonably, asked him to trim it down for the 00:11:49.409 --> 00:11:51.769 wide theatrical release. They needed something 00:11:51.769 --> 00:11:54.629 more manageable for multiplexes. But he wasn't 00:11:54.629 --> 00:11:57.580 thrilled about that. It seems not. His instinct 00:11:57.580 --> 00:11:59.960 even then was for the longer, more immersive 00:11:59.960 --> 00:12:02.940 version. He did eventually release a director's 00:12:02.940 --> 00:12:04.980 cut, which was closer to his original vision, 00:12:05.179 --> 00:12:07.899 showing that commitment to the full scope. Still, 00:12:08.039 --> 00:12:10.220 even the theatrical cut got nominated for Best 00:12:10.220 --> 00:12:12.179 Screenplay at the Gotham Awards, I think. It 00:12:12.179 --> 00:12:14.879 did. So the quality was recognized, even in the 00:12:14.879 --> 00:12:17.519 shorter version. But it hinted at this tension, 00:12:17.740 --> 00:12:20.820 his expansive vision versus the practicalities 00:12:20.820 --> 00:12:23.330 of distribution. So the big takeaway from this 00:12:23.330 --> 00:12:26.389 period is he earns incredible artistic freedom 00:12:26.389 --> 00:12:29.429 through huge commercial success with Hereditary 00:12:29.429 --> 00:12:32.220 and Midsommar. He proved challenging horror could 00:12:32.220 --> 00:12:35.139 be big business. He basically got a blank check 00:12:35.139 --> 00:12:37.399 from A24, didn't he? Looks like it. And what 00:12:37.399 --> 00:12:39.019 does he do with that blank check? He immediately 00:12:39.019 --> 00:12:41.600 goes for the riskiest, most expensive gamble 00:12:41.600 --> 00:12:43.919 imaginable. Right. Which brings us to section 00:12:43.919 --> 00:12:46.700 three, the pivot. He's riding high. It's 2020. 00:12:46.919 --> 00:12:49.039 Everyone's still talking about Midsommar. And 00:12:49.039 --> 00:12:52.139 he announces his next film, not horror, but a 00:12:52.139 --> 00:12:54.440 nightmare comedy. A nightmare comedy. OK. And 00:12:54.440 --> 00:12:56.559 he mentions, almost casually, that he hopes it'll 00:12:56.559 --> 00:12:58.919 be about four hours long. Four hours. OK, so 00:12:58.919 --> 00:13:01.360 right away the signals are there. Genre is shifting. 00:13:01.720 --> 00:13:04.399 Runtime is ballooning. No more contained horror. 00:13:04.700 --> 00:13:06.899 Precisely. And that project eventually becomes 00:13:06.899 --> 00:13:09.940 Bo is Afraid, released in 2023. It didn't quite 00:13:09.940 --> 00:13:12.299 hit four hours, but at nearly three. Still a 00:13:12.299 --> 00:13:14.879 major ask for audiences. Yeah. It stars Joaquin 00:13:14.879 --> 00:13:18.740 Phoenix as Bo. Who is Bo is this incredibly anxious, 00:13:18.980 --> 00:13:22.299 deeply paranoid, middle aged guy who has to embark 00:13:22.299 --> 00:13:25.120 on this surreal, almost picaresque journey to 00:13:25.120 --> 00:13:28.399 visit his overbearing mother. It's like anxiety 00:13:28.399 --> 00:13:31.279 and maternal control turned into a sprawling, 00:13:31.279 --> 00:13:34.779 bizarre odyssey. OK, but. The crucial thing here, 00:13:34.799 --> 00:13:37.440 the real pivot, is the budget. Oh, yeah. We need 00:13:37.440 --> 00:13:39.559 to talk numbers. Hereditary and Midsommar were 00:13:39.559 --> 00:13:42.019 around $10 million each, right? Right. Lean and 00:13:42.019 --> 00:13:44.879 mean. Bo is afraid. The budget reportedly jumped 00:13:44.879 --> 00:13:49.240 to $35 million. $35. That's a massive leap for 00:13:49.240 --> 00:13:52.259 A24 to gamble that much on something so abstract, 00:13:52.379 --> 00:13:55.159 so hard to market. It shows you just how much 00:13:55.159 --> 00:13:58.320 Clout Aster had built up. They were betting the 00:13:58.320 --> 00:14:01.519 Ari Aster brand itself. The quality, the vision 00:14:01.519 --> 00:14:04.720 could carry a $35 million three -hour nightmare 00:14:04.720 --> 00:14:07.539 comedy. And how did that bet pay off? Commercially, 00:14:07.639 --> 00:14:11.279 it was a disaster, a huge flop. Ouch. What are 00:14:11.279 --> 00:14:13.799 the figures? It only made about $12 million worldwide 00:14:13.799 --> 00:14:17.200 at the box office against that $35 million production 00:14:17.200 --> 00:14:20.379 cost. Plus marketing. So the loss was significant. 00:14:20.639 --> 00:14:24.340 Sources estimate E24 lost over $35 million on 00:14:24.340 --> 00:14:27.620 it. It's a steep, sharp drop from the profitability 00:14:27.620 --> 00:14:30.120 of his first two films. And the reviews, did 00:14:30.120 --> 00:14:31.659 they match the commercial reception? They were 00:14:31.659 --> 00:14:34.279 all over the place, completely polarized. You 00:14:34.279 --> 00:14:36.500 had some critics calling it a misunderstood masterpiece, 00:14:36.740 --> 00:14:39.519 a brilliant dive into Freudian anxiety. And others. 00:14:39.700 --> 00:14:42.269 Others found it rambling, self -indulgent. pointlessly 00:14:42.269 --> 00:14:44.490 difficult, too long. There was zero consensus. 00:14:45.009 --> 00:14:47.269 And when you spend that kind of money, you really 00:14:47.269 --> 00:14:49.610 need some level of critical and audience consensus 00:14:49.610 --> 00:14:51.929 to make it work. Which leads to Astor himself 00:14:51.929 --> 00:14:53.909 reflecting on it. He talked about it in 2025, 00:14:54.190 --> 00:14:56.629 apparently. Yeah, and it's quite revealing. He 00:14:56.629 --> 00:14:59.590 admitted he was pretty sad that it was so maligned. 00:14:59.649 --> 00:15:02.309 He acknowledged that lack of consensus whatsoever. 00:15:02.830 --> 00:15:05.409 Okay. Did he express any regrets about the film 00:15:05.409 --> 00:15:07.870 itself? He did say he would do differently now. 00:15:08.169 --> 00:15:10.190 Specifically, he mentioned tightening the last 00:15:10.190 --> 00:15:13.279 hour. which he felt ejected a number of people 00:15:13.279 --> 00:15:16.779 from the theater. Hmm. That's interesting. Is 00:15:16.779 --> 00:15:19.720 that genuine artistic self -critique, do you 00:15:19.720 --> 00:15:21.740 think? Or is it the pragmatism of a director 00:15:21.740 --> 00:15:24.559 realizing he maybe pushed the studio's goodwill 00:15:24.559 --> 00:15:27.679 and the audience's patience a bit too far? It's 00:15:27.679 --> 00:15:29.440 hard to say, isn't it? It's fascinating that 00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:31.899 the director who meticulously crafted Hereditary 00:15:31.899 --> 00:15:35.000 would admit to actively alienating viewers with 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:37.340 pacing and length. Maybe it's a bit of both. 00:15:37.480 --> 00:15:40.179 A sober look at the financial reality. Perhaps. 00:15:40.669 --> 00:15:43.250 But did that big financial hit send him scurrying 00:15:43.250 --> 00:15:46.210 back to the safety of, say, a $10 million horror 00:15:46.210 --> 00:15:48.230 film? Absolutely not. If anything, he doubled 00:15:48.230 --> 00:15:50.370 down. He immediately followed Bo with Eddington. 00:15:50.529 --> 00:15:53.710 Right. Eddington. 2025 release. Another big swing. 00:15:53.809 --> 00:15:56.330 Another genre shift. This time it's a contemporary 00:15:56.330 --> 00:15:59.029 Western satirical black comedy. Got it in one. 00:15:59.350 --> 00:16:02.169 Co -produced again by A24 and his own company, 00:16:02.289 --> 00:16:05.289 Square Peg. And significantly, it's set back 00:16:05.289 --> 00:16:07.730 in New Mexico, near Santa Fe, in this fictional 00:16:07.730 --> 00:16:11.210 town, Eddington. Returning to his roots, geographically 00:16:11.210 --> 00:16:13.509 at least. And the setting isn't just geographical, 00:16:13.509 --> 00:16:16.549 it's temporal too, right? Very specific. Extremely 00:16:16.549 --> 00:16:18.809 specific. It's set slap bang in the middle of 00:16:18.809 --> 00:16:22.330 2020, COVID pandemic lockdowns, the George Floyd 00:16:22.330 --> 00:16:25.789 protests, massive social and political upheaval. 00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:28.559 Wow. So he's moving from internal psychological 00:16:28.559 --> 00:16:31.899 or family horror to very external contemporary 00:16:31.899 --> 00:16:35.000 political satire. That's a huge leap thematically. 00:16:35.139 --> 00:16:37.960 Huge. The plot apparently revolves around this 00:16:37.960 --> 00:16:40.679 super tense mayoral election in Eddington between 00:16:40.679 --> 00:16:43.220 the local sheriff and the incumbent mayor, reflecting 00:16:43.220 --> 00:16:45.500 all that national turmoil on a small town scale. 00:16:45.559 --> 00:16:48.320 It sounds like an ensemble piece looking at the 00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:51.659 fractures in American society. A24 clearly still 00:16:51.659 --> 00:16:53.679 had faith, though. They put serious weight behind 00:16:53.679 --> 00:16:55.740 it. Premiered at Cannes Film Festival in competition 00:16:55.740 --> 00:16:58.000 for the Palme d 'Or. Yeah. Artistically, he's 00:16:58.000 --> 00:16:59.480 still playing in the major leagues. The prestige 00:16:59.480 --> 00:17:02.679 is there. Did it reverse the trend of Bo? Is 00:17:02.679 --> 00:17:05.940 afraid. Sadly, no. The pattern is almost identical. 00:17:06.670 --> 00:17:09.349 Eddington had a reported budget of $25 million. 00:17:09.789 --> 00:17:12.410 Okay, slightly less than Bo, but still substantial. 00:17:12.730 --> 00:17:15.509 And it only brought in about $10 .5 million worldwide. 00:17:15.789 --> 00:17:18.670 Another significant loss. And the reviews. Mixed 00:17:18.670 --> 00:17:21.250 again. Respectable, maybe, but not rapturous. 00:17:21.690 --> 00:17:25.190 Around 68 % on Rotten Tomatoes. Not the kind 00:17:25.190 --> 00:17:27.829 of buzz that drives audiences to see a challenging 00:17:27.829 --> 00:17:30.349 satirical Western. So the evidence seems pretty 00:17:30.349 --> 00:17:33.329 clear. When Astor moves away from that elevated 00:17:33.329 --> 00:17:36.349 horror label and into these bigger budget genre 00:17:36.349 --> 00:17:40.009 bending auteur pieces, they currently lose money. 00:17:40.089 --> 00:17:43.039 A lot of money. Yeah. The transition is stark. 00:17:43.259 --> 00:17:45.599 His ambition seems fundamentally disconnected 00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:47.720 from the commercial success that first enabled 00:17:47.720 --> 00:17:49.759 it. He's making the films he wants to make, but 00:17:49.759 --> 00:17:51.619 the audience that loved Hereditary isn't necessarily 00:17:51.619 --> 00:17:53.700 following him there, especially at that price 00:17:53.700 --> 00:17:56.299 point. Okay, so if the genres are constantly 00:17:56.299 --> 00:17:58.779 shifting horror, nightmare comedy, satirical 00:17:58.779 --> 00:18:02.000 western, what is the consistent Ari Aster signature? 00:18:02.480 --> 00:18:05.099 Let's try and pin down the stylistic DNA here 00:18:05.099 --> 00:18:07.579 in section four. That's a great question, because 00:18:07.579 --> 00:18:09.940 there are constants. If you look at the core 00:18:09.940 --> 00:18:12.279 themes, they run through everything. He's always 00:18:12.279 --> 00:18:15.359 exploring grief, family trauma, psychological 00:18:15.359 --> 00:18:18.960 breakdown, societal taboos. Right. He even called 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:21.099 hereditary a family drama, first and foremost. 00:18:21.539 --> 00:18:24.619 That focus on the dysfunctional family unit seems 00:18:24.619 --> 00:18:27.339 key, even back in The Strange Thing About the 00:18:27.339 --> 00:18:30.460 Johnsons. Exactly. He's fascinated by what happens 00:18:30.460 --> 00:18:33.539 when that basic social structure, the family, 00:18:33.720 --> 00:18:36.019 just collapses under pressure, often internal 00:18:36.019 --> 00:18:38.140 pressure. And there's always this feeling of 00:18:38.140 --> 00:18:41.099 inevitability. The characters are trapped by 00:18:41.099 --> 00:18:43.900 something bigger. Fate, genetics, history, cults. 00:18:43.900 --> 00:18:46.200 Absolutely. Inherited doom is a huge part of 00:18:46.200 --> 00:18:48.059 it. And he translates that internal pressure 00:18:48.059 --> 00:18:51.619 into a very specific visual style. It's not just 00:18:51.619 --> 00:18:53.880 what happens. It's how he shows it. His use of 00:18:53.880 --> 00:18:56.299 mise -en -scene is incredible. Explain mise -en 00:18:56.299 --> 00:18:59.019 -scene for us again. Sure. It's basically everything 00:18:59.019 --> 00:19:01.440 you see within the frame. The set design, lighting, 00:19:01.640 --> 00:19:04.019 props, how the actors are positioned. And Aster's 00:19:04.019 --> 00:19:06.339 frames are meticulously controlled. Nothing is 00:19:06.339 --> 00:19:08.240 accidental. Like the miniatures in Hereditary. 00:19:08.599 --> 00:19:11.299 Or think about Midsommar. All that bright, beautiful 00:19:11.299 --> 00:19:13.940 sunlight. It's the opposite of typical horror 00:19:13.940 --> 00:19:16.220 darkness, right? Totally counterintuitive. But 00:19:16.220 --> 00:19:18.500 by putting the horror right out in the open, 00:19:18.619 --> 00:19:21.500 in the daylight, he makes it unavoidable. You 00:19:21.500 --> 00:19:23.559 can't hide in the shadows. You have to confront 00:19:23.559 --> 00:19:26.799 it. It's deeply unsettling because it's so bright 00:19:26.799 --> 00:19:30.410 and clear. And technically... His use of long 00:19:30.410 --> 00:19:32.809 takes is a real signature, too, isn't it? Those 00:19:32.809 --> 00:19:36.009 extended, often unbroken shots. How does that 00:19:36.009 --> 00:19:38.509 serve the horror or the unease? The long take 00:19:38.509 --> 00:19:41.890 really forces you, the viewer. to sit with the 00:19:41.890 --> 00:19:44.089 characters. There's no escape through editing. 00:19:44.309 --> 00:19:46.990 The camera just stays there as the tension cranks 00:19:46.990 --> 00:19:49.910 up or as something awful unfolds. It traps you 00:19:49.910 --> 00:19:52.430 in their experience, their discomfort. It enhances 00:19:52.430 --> 00:19:54.710 that slow burn feeling he's known for. Definitely. 00:19:54.789 --> 00:19:56.789 It's all part of creating what he calls emotional 00:19:56.789 --> 00:19:58.849 horror. It's not just about making you jump. 00:19:59.009 --> 00:20:00.569 Okay, what's the distinction there? Emotional 00:20:00.569 --> 00:20:03.490 horror versus, say, jump scares? Well, conventional 00:20:03.490 --> 00:20:05.690 horror often relies on startling you, right? 00:20:05.849 --> 00:20:07.990 The sudden noise, the monster in the closet. 00:20:08.289 --> 00:20:10.789 Aster seems way more interested in unsettling 00:20:10.789 --> 00:20:14.380 you on a... deeper existential level. His films 00:20:14.380 --> 00:20:17.119 often show the complete disintegration of a person's 00:20:17.119 --> 00:20:19.240 identity, their sense of control, their agency. 00:20:19.680 --> 00:20:22.259 Think about Donnie in Midsommar or the family 00:20:22.259 --> 00:20:24.339 in Hereditary. Their ability to make choices, 00:20:24.420 --> 00:20:27.980 to act independently is just eroded, taken over 00:20:27.980 --> 00:20:30.920 by the cult or by fate or by inherited madness. 00:20:31.339 --> 00:20:33.200 So the real horror is realizing you're not in 00:20:33.200 --> 00:20:35.599 charge of your own life. Exactly. That loss of 00:20:35.599 --> 00:20:38.400 control, that existential dread, that's the core 00:20:38.400 --> 00:20:41.019 of it. And when the shocking violence does happen, 00:20:41.039 --> 00:20:44.579 And it does. Graphically, it feels earned, purposeful, 00:20:44.579 --> 00:20:46.799 not just gratuitous because it emerges from that 00:20:46.799 --> 00:20:49.160 psychological pressure cooker. Right. It's calculated. 00:20:49.420 --> 00:20:51.779 But OK, while he's making these artistically 00:20:51.779 --> 00:20:55.240 ambitious, commercially risky films, he's also 00:20:55.240 --> 00:20:57.180 doing something else, something very practical 00:20:57.180 --> 00:21:00.099 and strategic on the business side. Yes. He's 00:21:00.099 --> 00:21:02.059 building an empire, or at least a foundation. 00:21:02.339 --> 00:21:04.519 Square Peg, that's his production company. Founded 00:21:04.519 --> 00:21:07.380 when? Co -founded in June 2019, right between 00:21:07.380 --> 00:21:09.380 Hereditary and Midsommar's releases actually, 00:21:09.539 --> 00:21:12.940 with the Danish producer Lars Knudsen. Smart 00:21:12.940 --> 00:21:15.569 timing. And they have a deal with A24. They do. 00:21:15.690 --> 00:21:18.990 They signed a two -year first -look TV deal with 00:21:18.990 --> 00:21:22.670 A24 back in 2021, which is crucial. Why crucial? 00:21:22.930 --> 00:21:25.089 Because it means even if his own directed films 00:21:25.089 --> 00:21:28.170 are losing money, he remains deeply embedded 00:21:28.170 --> 00:21:30.970 with the studio. He's a key creative partner, 00:21:31.049 --> 00:21:33.190 helping shape their overall slate, bring them 00:21:33.190 --> 00:21:35.950 projects. It gives him insulation. And Square 00:21:35.950 --> 00:21:38.190 Peg isn't just about producing Ari Aster's next 00:21:38.190 --> 00:21:40.670 challenging epic, right? They're diversifying. 00:21:41.099 --> 00:21:43.859 Massively. Look at what they've produced or executive 00:21:43.859 --> 00:21:46.339 produced already. Dream scenario with Nick Cage 00:21:46.339 --> 00:21:49.839 in 2023, quirky, successful. Sasquatch sunset 00:21:49.839 --> 00:21:53.099 in 2024, definitely out there. The upcoming Bologna. 00:21:53.279 --> 00:21:56.140 So he's using his brand, his taste, to champion 00:21:56.140 --> 00:21:58.859 other filmmakers with kind of adjacent sensibilities. 00:21:59.559 --> 00:22:03.000 Bold, maybe strange visions. Seems like it. It 00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:05.039 keeps him influential, keeps the company generating 00:22:05.039 --> 00:22:07.160 revenue, and lets him build relationships with 00:22:07.160 --> 00:22:09.640 talent who aren't afraid to take risks. And it's 00:22:09.640 --> 00:22:11.299 not just film. They're making big moves into 00:22:11.299 --> 00:22:14.579 TV adaptations, too. Okay, like what? Really 00:22:14.579 --> 00:22:17.059 interesting IP. They're developing J .G. Ballard's 00:22:17.059 --> 00:22:19.920 classic sci -fi novel, The Drowned World, also 00:22:19.920 --> 00:22:22.859 Nick Darnaso's graphic novel, Acting Class, and 00:22:22.859 --> 00:22:25.759 maybe most exciting for horror fans, a TV version 00:22:25.759 --> 00:22:28.680 of Junji Ito's legendary manga, Uzumaki. Wow, 00:22:28.799 --> 00:22:31.819 Uzumaki, that's ambitious. Incredibly. But it 00:22:31.819 --> 00:22:34.039 shows Square Peg is thinking strategically building 00:22:34.039 --> 00:22:37.039 a library of unconventional genre properties 00:22:37.039 --> 00:22:40.240 that could be very valuable, even if Aster's 00:22:40.240 --> 00:22:42.299 own films continue to be commercially challenging. 00:22:43.119 --> 00:22:45.619 It's a smart hedge. Okay, so that brings us to 00:22:45.619 --> 00:22:49.900 the future. Section 5, what's next? Given the 00:22:49.900 --> 00:22:52.420 financial results of Bo and Eddington, you might 00:22:52.420 --> 00:22:55.039 think he'd dial it back. But his announced project 00:22:55.039 --> 00:22:59.069 list, it's huge. and incredibly varied. It's 00:22:59.069 --> 00:23:00.950 staggering, honestly. It looks like a director 00:23:00.950 --> 00:23:02.869 determined to prove he can do literally anything 00:23:02.869 --> 00:23:05.950 regardless of cost or genre expectations. He 00:23:05.950 --> 00:23:08.329 is absolutely not playing it safe. Where do we 00:23:08.329 --> 00:23:10.390 even start? There's Antarctica. Yeah, this sounds 00:23:10.390 --> 00:23:12.730 wild. It's a major animated feature he's collaborating 00:23:12.730 --> 00:23:14.710 on with Don Hertzfeld, the guy behind It's Such 00:23:14.710 --> 00:23:16.930 a Beautiful Day and World of Tomorrow. Oh, Hertzfeld. 00:23:17.049 --> 00:23:18.950 Okay, that's a dream team for strange existential 00:23:18.950 --> 00:23:21.470 animation. Totally. And Hertzfeld himself called 00:23:21.470 --> 00:23:25.299 it big and... very expensive. So again, not scaling 00:23:25.299 --> 00:23:27.460 back ambition there, totally different medium 00:23:27.460 --> 00:23:30.450 and scale. And his live action plans seem even 00:23:30.450 --> 00:23:33.670 more all over the map. He's got an untitled Sirkian 00:23:33.670 --> 00:23:35.869 melodrama script. We need to explain that reference. 00:23:36.150 --> 00:23:38.910 Douglas Sirk. Right. Douglas Sirk was this master 00:23:38.910 --> 00:23:41.569 director of Hollywood melodramas in the 1950s. 00:23:41.730 --> 00:23:44.289 Films like All That Heaven Allows, Written on 00:23:44.289 --> 00:23:47.029 the Wind, Think Gorgeous Technicolor, Intense 00:23:47.029 --> 00:23:50.170 Emotions, stories about often women trapped by 00:23:50.170 --> 00:23:52.730 social conventions, domestic suffering, hidden 00:23:52.730 --> 00:23:55.630 desires, lots of heightened feeling. So how does 00:23:55.630 --> 00:23:58.690 Aster, Mr. Dread, and Trauma fit into that? It 00:23:58.690 --> 00:24:00.670 actually makes a strange kind of sense, doesn't 00:24:00.670 --> 00:24:03.869 it? He's obsessed with family dysfunction, repression, 00:24:04.049 --> 00:24:07.190 inherited pain, translating that into a lush, 00:24:07.250 --> 00:24:09.569 visually rich, emotionally heightened style of 00:24:09.569 --> 00:24:12.430 a circ melodrama. It lets him keep his core themes, 00:24:12.529 --> 00:24:14.269 but ditch the horror aesthetic for something 00:24:14.269 --> 00:24:16.410 completely different. High emotion is high art. 00:24:16.809 --> 00:24:19.150 Fascinating. But then he also seems to be eyeing 00:24:19.150 --> 00:24:21.430 much bigger, maybe more mainstream genres, too. 00:24:21.569 --> 00:24:23.329 Looks like it. He's mentioned having scripts 00:24:23.329 --> 00:24:26.720 for an untitled musical film. A musical. From 00:24:26.720 --> 00:24:30.660 Ari Aster. Right. And also, perhaps most intriguingly, 00:24:30.660 --> 00:24:33.660 an untitled big budget sci -fi satire adaptation. 00:24:34.180 --> 00:24:37.420 Okay. Big budget sci -fi definitely suggests 00:24:37.420 --> 00:24:39.880 he hasn't given up on trying to operate at that 00:24:39.880 --> 00:24:42.579 major blockbuster level. Yeah. That's $100 million 00:24:42.579 --> 00:24:45.059 plus territory. Where financial failure is really 00:24:45.059 --> 00:24:47.480 not an option. Yeah. It shows the ambition is 00:24:47.480 --> 00:24:49.839 still sky high. And then there's the mention 00:24:49.839 --> 00:24:53.980 of an untitled gangster saga. Epic. Epic, like 00:24:53.980 --> 00:24:58.019 multi -generational. Crime, corruption. Again, 00:24:58.319 --> 00:25:00.779 a massive departure from haunted houses or Swedish 00:25:00.779 --> 00:25:03.279 cults. Completely. It suggests he wants to tackle 00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:06.160 these huge canvases, these classic American film 00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:08.779 genres. But he hasn't totally abandoned horror. 00:25:09.289 --> 00:25:11.529 No, not entirely. He still apparently has an 00:25:11.529 --> 00:25:13.849 untitled horror film project on the docket somewhere. 00:25:14.109 --> 00:25:16.250 And some other adaptations mentioned are Miss 00:25:16.250 --> 00:25:18.210 Lonely Hearts and something called Don't Wake 00:25:18.210 --> 00:25:21.130 Daddy. But the sheer weight and variety of the 00:25:21.130 --> 00:25:23.710 non -horror stuff is striking. He seems determined 00:25:23.710 --> 00:25:25.930 to break out of that box. And even the films 00:25:25.930 --> 00:25:28.240 that struggled, like Eddington. He's not done 00:25:28.240 --> 00:25:30.079 with them. He mentioned a sequel. Yeah, he said 00:25:30.079 --> 00:25:32.740 he was cooking up something related, maybe featuring 00:25:32.740 --> 00:25:35.319 some returning characters. It suggests that even 00:25:35.319 --> 00:25:37.359 a film that underperformed commercially is still 00:25:37.359 --> 00:25:39.400 a world he wants to keep exploring personally. 00:25:39.640 --> 00:25:41.859 That really speaks to his level of commitment, 00:25:41.980 --> 00:25:44.480 doesn't it? These aren't just jobs. They're massive, 00:25:44.640 --> 00:25:48.440 complex worlds he feels driven to build, whether 00:25:48.440 --> 00:25:51.299 or not audiences flock to them immediately. Absolutely. 00:25:51.440 --> 00:25:53.660 The personal investment seems total. He's going 00:25:53.660 --> 00:25:56.200 to make these films seemingly regardless of the 00:25:56.200 --> 00:25:58.119 commercial consequences. Okay, let's try and 00:25:58.119 --> 00:26:00.839 wrap this up. The outro. The cost of ambition. 00:26:01.279 --> 00:26:03.619 What a journey we've traced. It's really something. 00:26:03.799 --> 00:26:05.980 From these shocking student shorts to becoming 00:26:05.980 --> 00:26:08.940 this horror phenomenon with Redditary and Midsommar 00:26:08.940 --> 00:26:12.140 basically king of the hill at A24. Right, earning 00:26:12.140 --> 00:26:14.019 all this creative capital. And then immediately 00:26:14.019 --> 00:26:17.950 spending it all on Bo is a frayed... And Eddington, 00:26:17.970 --> 00:26:21.490 these huge, polarizing, financially risky passion 00:26:21.490 --> 00:26:24.349 projects, while at the same time building Square 00:26:24.349 --> 00:26:26.470 Peg into this significant production player. 00:26:26.710 --> 00:26:29.529 So the key takeaway, maybe, for you listening, 00:26:29.690 --> 00:26:32.849 is seeing this tension play out so clearly. The 00:26:32.849 --> 00:26:35.470 tension between this fiercely individual artistic 00:26:35.470 --> 00:26:38.230 vision. Which insists on long run times, deep 00:26:38.230 --> 00:26:40.609 psychological dives, difficult themes, ambiguous 00:26:40.609 --> 00:26:43.390 endings. And the hard realities of the market. 00:26:44.100 --> 00:26:47.200 Which so far seems to reward that vision most 00:26:47.200 --> 00:26:50.200 when it's neatly packaged as $10 million elevated 00:26:50.200 --> 00:26:52.720 horror. Exactly. The minute he steps outside 00:26:52.720 --> 00:26:55.019 that box, ups the budget, gets more abstract 00:26:55.019 --> 00:26:57.960 or satirical, the market, or at least the mainstream 00:26:57.960 --> 00:27:00.670 market, seems to pull back. resulting in these 00:27:00.670 --> 00:27:03.670 big financial losses for his backers. It's like 00:27:03.670 --> 00:27:05.750 this constant negotiation playing out in public, 00:27:05.869 --> 00:27:08.269 isn't it? Yeah. Between the very private internal 00:27:08.269 --> 00:27:10.849 terrors he depicts so well and the very public 00:27:10.849 --> 00:27:13.029 demands of Doc's office and audience reception. 00:27:13.349 --> 00:27:15.390 And it's fascinating to loop it all back to where 00:27:15.390 --> 00:27:18.250 we started, his own descriptions of feeling alienated 00:27:18.250 --> 00:27:20.430 as a kid in Santa Fe, that obsessive need to 00:27:20.430 --> 00:27:23.210 consume and then create harmless stories. It 00:27:23.210 --> 00:27:25.769 feels so deeply connected to the recurring themes 00:27:25.769 --> 00:27:27.930 in the films themselves, doesn't it? Inherited 00:27:27.930 --> 00:27:30.910 trauma, the individual by societal forces, by 00:27:30.910 --> 00:27:34.349 family, by cults, the overwhelming weight of 00:27:34.349 --> 00:27:36.309 the world on the isolated person. That seems 00:27:36.309 --> 00:27:38.349 to be the engine driving it all. Which leaves 00:27:38.349 --> 00:27:40.210 us with a final thought, a question for you to 00:27:40.210 --> 00:27:44.349 ponder. Looking at that incredibly diverse slate 00:27:44.349 --> 00:27:47.210 of future projects, the melodrama, the musical, 00:27:47.349 --> 00:27:50.849 the sci -fi, the gangster epic, what's the endgame 00:27:50.849 --> 00:27:53.910 here? Is he deliberately trying to shatter that... 00:27:54.089 --> 00:27:56.869 elevated horror label is he willing to take these 00:27:56.869 --> 00:27:59.470 financial hits as the necessary cost of proving 00:27:59.470 --> 00:28:02.190 he's more versatile a true auteur across genres 00:28:02.190 --> 00:28:04.750 or is he just taking a temporary break from horror 00:28:04.750 --> 00:28:08.289 a calculated detour while square peg builds resources 00:28:08.289 --> 00:28:10.369 before eventually returning to the one genre 00:28:10.369 --> 00:28:13.369 that has undeniably brought him massive success 00:28:13.369 --> 00:28:16.910 and allowed his specific intense vision to flourish 00:28:16.910 --> 00:28:19.009 commercially it's possible he needs the profit 00:28:19.009 --> 00:28:21.750 engine of square peg maybe even another successful 00:28:21.750 --> 00:28:24.079 horror hit down the line to actually fund these 00:28:24.079 --> 00:28:26.380 other massive, expensive dreams. But whatever 00:28:26.380 --> 00:28:28.579 the strategy. His career right now is just this 00:28:28.579 --> 00:28:31.839 incredibly valid example of the risks, the rewards, 00:28:31.980 --> 00:28:34.640 and maybe the sheer exhilarating cost of being 00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:37.279 truly uncompromising in Hollywood today. Couldn't 00:28:37.279 --> 00:28:39.019 have said it better myself. A fascinating figure 00:28:39.019 --> 00:28:39.599 to keep watching.