Max Landis: How This Screenwriter is Disrupting Hollywood
Max Landis: How This Screenwriter is Disrupting Hollywood
Max Landis, is known for his incredible talent as a loud and outspoken screenwriter. The paydays he has gotten for his screenplays harp back to the 80’s and 90’s when screenplays by Shane Black and Joe Eszterhas were selling for millions.
Apart from screenwriting, he has also worked as a director, executive producer, actor, novelist, as well as an outspoken comic book writer.
According to the critics, Max Landis’ work is a complete mixture of magnification, comic, and sensitivity, and these features are considered to be integrated within the default settings of his nature.
Landis’ genres of choice are fun action, adaptations of treasured properties, and last but not the least, horror. Getting into the film industry was not a dream of Max Landis mainly because he is the son of the renowned director, John Landis.
Max Landis and Screenwriting:
They say that Max Landis has an exceptional ability to spill his heart out on the pages, which translates through the dialogues in his screenplays. There’s definitely a hidden darkness and depth to the man behind the scripts.
Max Landis claims that he writes faster than any of the writers that he has ever met in his lifetime.
Hannah Marks said in one of her interviews that
“Max Landis is one of those few good screenwriters who are just good at everything mainly due to the tone he maintains while screenwriting.”
These unusual traits provide the ultimate blend of comedy and drama.
Max Landis does not incorporate drama, action, or comedy exclusively in his screenwriting but he also adds an element of humanity, more than what we see in the books, and thus, it becomes easier to replicate it.
As per the reaction of the audience and that of the critics, no other possibility could have been better for Max Landis than the opportunity of becoming a screenwriter. It seems like he was born to writer screenplays, which is why he has earned more than most established screenwriters, even though they are older and probably wiser than he is.
Impact of Landis’s Nature on His Career:
Forming a deep relationship with the fans as well as maintaining a firm repute in the industry is a difficult task and Max Landis does not seem to have any problem in the maintenance of that reputation or relationship. Apart from all the fame, Max Landis has also faced a lot of negative criticism.
He said in one interview that
“Every time someone blames him for something, he learns something new out of it. There are certain loopholes still present in Hollywood, which is why people do not have any control over what they are saying about the screenwriters, directors, etc.”
One great thing about Landis is that there came a time when he stopped paying attention all the negative criticism against him and let his work do the talking. By crafting unique characters, who speak for themselves, Landis gave voice to them rather than using his voice to answer the negative criticism.
Even with all this negativity around, there is no doubt in the fact that Max Landis has a strong public persona, even though half of the audiences fascinate him and the rest of the others are against him.
It is probably a never-ending controversy since Landis is a highly outspoken man, regarding the screenwriting and as a person.
He has experienced awkward situations where he met with a lot of individuals who hated his father and yet, he had to work with them. But then again, fate has played a vital role in the reputation of this screenwriter, and we cannot say that he was only driven by the pursuit of fame, sympathy, or money.
He stepped into the industry with the objective of understanding the role of a screenwriter deeply and making this position as visible as possible. The purpose of Landis seemed irrational to many people, but all he wanted was to give the screenwriters a bigger slice of the cake. People had misconceptions about the job of the screenwriters, and he was on a mission to clarify it.
Landis rose to the fame on the internet due to his appearances on some TV shows and has a huge fan-following on all of his social media accounts including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and so on. He is surely not afraid of self-branding and has given a lot of interviews in which he discussed his views on everything, without any shame or censor.
He has benefitted greatly from the fame of his father in the industry, which is why probably he is the youngest, yet the most successful, screenwriter of Hollywood.
Landis is not just a screenwriter as he has accomplished various other projects as well. They say that he is the only screenwriter in America who has achieved such success and fame under the age of 30, regardless of the hatred he receives sometimes.
His Recognized Works:
Apart from “Chronicle,” “Me, Him, Her” has gone a long way along with a controversial subject. He worked as a director for this movie, and it’s not constructed around a political theme, and yet, it is considered controversial. He has worked for many short films as well, for instance, “The Death and Return of Superman” and “Tumbler.”
Landis has penned down many other comics as well, which are quite famous, for instance, “Superman: American Alien” and “Green Valley,” which he wrote for Image Comics. This multitalented screenwriter has also directed one of Ariana Grande’s music videos, One Last Time.
Apart from Chronicle, Max Landis has also managed to get a lot of fame by writing for American Ultra and Victor Frankenstein. He considers that screenwriting is quite different from script writing and that almost anyone can come up with scripts.
But then again, being a screenwriter means that one has to edit, format, re-format, distort, re-equip your passion, and incorporating the script to a certain level of commercial need.
Mr. Landis has become a screenwriter-as-celebrity who’s out to expose the “laziness” of the studio development process even while racking up HUGE script sales. His screenplays have sold for an unGodly amount. His latest Bright sold for $4 million to Netflix.
He also runs a YouTube channel in which he posts the short films that he produces, for instance, Wrestling Isn’t Wrestling.
In contrast, Landis was immensely appreciated on a larger scale with the success of Chronicle, and that was the time when he was reckoned among the new screenwriters of the industry. Recently, Deadpool was a blockbuster hit but even then he was not invited to most of the parties thrown by the other celebrities of the industry.
Max Landis says that he has been throwing wild parties in LA for a long time now since he doesn’t get invited to the right ones. He also mentioned that most people love to hate him; however, these things do not stop this determined screenwriter. Landis has inspired a lot of individuals, and he always goes that extra mile to find new ways to make his projects happen.
He has also worked on The Slap, Ghost Closet ’07, Dupe, Tumbler, and appeared as a ghost rider in Blue Brothers 2000. The reason why he is different than the other screenwriters is that he is more blunt, outspoken, comical, and extraordinary sharp-witted.
Max Landis will always be ready to answer the questions within seconds, but he tends to keep the witty responses for his characters. Max Landis Twitter account is also something to behold.
He has faced a lot of other tensions in the industry, including the time when his original script went through a development process which he was not a part of.
After this incident, Landis does not simply sell his screenplays unless they are completely packaged and until he is assured that the studio will not interfere in the story, even if they are major film distributors.
Screenwriters are not prompted up as celebrities (last time that happen was with Quentin Tarantino), as they do not put themselves out there, but Max Landis stepped out of this stereotypical tradition and made a name for himself.
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THE PULL – Transcription
INTERVIEWER: Welcome back if you guys are just tuning in I am here with my friend Max Landis
MAX LANDIS: Hi it’s me.
INTERVIEWER: And he has decided to harm himself because he is very afraid.
MAX LANDIS: I am sorry I have been holding this like a bid bear.
INTERVIEWER: I just thought that you were really afraid of my interview tactics.
MAX LANDIS: Well you are very intimidating so I had to hold a folic object am I hard Whitney.
INTERVIEWER: I am a hard hitting journalist that’s what I was going to say I am also hard Max is here to talk about his new comic book which is SUPER MAN AMERICAN AILEN it drops in November but that’s not your firs comic you have written, ah Max.
MAX LANDIS: No I have written two things since SUPER MAN, one, do I talk to the where do I talk?
INTERVIEWER: Talk to the place with the light.
MAX LANDIS: Well, no I have actually written 2 things for SUPERMAN I actually wrote a short story about the atomic skull and I wrote an issue of SUPERMAN adventures of superman that ended up getting nominated for an Eisner.
INTERVIEWER: Congratulations by the way that’s awesome.
MAX LANDIS: Thank you.
INTERVIEWER: He almost got a Eisner he will get the next time.
MAX LANDIS: Getting nominated means you almost got it and it was about superman meeting the joker and people liked it some people hated it which is the same with all my stuff.
INTERVIEWER: And the cover is amazing and we should definitely show it with the Joker and he is unbuttoning his shirt and guess what’s under it, it superman.
MAX LANDIS: The art was done by my friend Jock who I met at Dubai Comic con.
INTERVIEWER: What’s his last name?
MAX LANDIS: his Jock.
INTERVIEWER: Oh cool.
MAX LANDIS: His finger drop 420 and I was like he is a very sweet British guy and the first time I met I was like Jock 420 so I was cool man he was like what’s that.
INTERVIEWER: And he didn’t get.
MAX LANDIS: And he was like why do you do weed.
INTERVIEWER: I have to believe he didn’t know what 420.
MAX LANDIS: No I swear to god he didn’t know it is not about weed. Sorry Jock it was really funny.
INTERVIEWER: That’s so cool, so we are going to get into that if you guys have any questions for Max please let us know in the chat we can read it right here say nice things please and.
MAX LANDIS: Or if you want to say mean thing feel free to say mean thing.
INTERVIEWER: Say mean things you know what.
MAX LANDIS: I have to have a thick skin you know.
INTERVIEWER: As a villain, so what do I want to talk about how do you get involved in DC in the first place.
MAX LANDIS: It’s funny I made a short film that you are in called the death and return of superman and Zack I do hate you being in this, but I made as short film that you are in called the death and return of superman but I have been making short films like it since early in college, my first one came out shortly or before or during the release of the first truck history.
We sort of use the same format and I call them the spare time like I do them whenever I have spare time and I am tremendously passionate of the character superman in a way that is really dumb but I really love the character and death and return is such a dumb story line I wanted to use it as an example of how if you break the suspension of disbelief it is breaking the contract with the audience and the second you do that you stop caring about what you reading and how superman has an occasionally very thinly character once you break the suspension and disbelief of that character you fuck that comic.
INTERVIEWER: So would it be too much of a spoiler if you give an example of how you broke that.
MAX LANDIS: What do you mean?
INTERVIEWER: How you broke the suspension of disbelief or is there.
MAX LANDIS: Well no I am saying when the original story line happened, killing him and bringing him back destroyed the contract with the audience that something meaningful had happened especially because ultimately the way he was brought back was very ultimately like haphazard and didn’t fell, it felt like copout the four superman felt strange and so I made that short film and the actually ended up getting tweeted and talked about by a lot of comic book people.
Then I met Grant Morrison at the Comic at (4:23) and we really got along and talked about superman and he said you should try and write something for them.
INTERVIEWER: You don’t get along with Grant Morrison you are a horrible person.
MAX LANDIS: I think I am going to go to Glasgow and do a bunch of asset with him, very soon and I have never been more excited to do.
INTERVIEWER: Please live tweet that experience.
MAX LANDIS: Oh I don’t think I would have a choice, you see the tweets I do when I am on mushroom, insane I tweeted the other day line from a movie trailer about a white female rapper, she is trying to be the Wanda (4:56)in the rap game, I cringe thinking of that because it felt so real.
INTERVIEWER: I wasn’t there for that.
MAX LANDIS: I forgot you were in the bulk, oh no oh no kids don’t you try this.
INTERVIEWER: Anyway so something I like about, go on.
MAX LANDIS: So he reach out to me and said do you want to do a short for the comic and I said I would be so honoured, I could never do that but they said do a short and my short was well received and they said do you want a full issue cause I have Jock with me Jock became my friend and I said yes, and it ended up being a huge leap selling issue and they brought me on to write.
This is how I ultimately get my own superman miniseries is that they brought me on to write a version of the return of the death of superman with Greg Pack so I came up with this big long story long story and then they say we actually not going to do it and I was.
INTERVIEWER: I remember that.
MAX LANDIS: So I was so frustrated, you remember this. I was so frustrated by that that one day while I was directing (name-6:07) I went down to the basement and I was like you know I am just going to tell this story and no one is going to like it they will take me 45 minutes but it end up getting hundreds and thousands of views which really caught me off guard and DC noticed that and they were nice enough to be like do you want to come in and talk to us.
Do you want to write the superman comic and once I cleaned the cum off the ceiling of my room and the shit out of my pants it happened simultaneously I was like, yes that has been a lifelong dream of mine.
INTERVIEWER: It didn’t sound like they were being nice it seemed like you got their attention in a pretty public way and that’s got to be a really frustrating thing as a writer to have a story that you really want to tell and have that stunted.
MAX LANDIS: As a screen writer I am very used to that, that’s my whole career is you have seen it happened to me where I get so excited I get this big job and this is going to happened and that is going to happened and then it just disappears and what was cool about it is that you know I got to go on line and do fan fiction and you know I got my start writing fan fiction with a shocker.
I wrote you know what was cool about is that (7:15 -11:00 the tape keeps repeating,) in a little while and I totally sorry I had a chip on my shoulder about being (name 11:10) son I did it all myself, oh my god I sound like John, but no, it’s funny boys night is just about being in your later thirties hanging out with your best friend and how friendships change as you get older and how the idea of fun changes as you get older and it is about making goofy adult and it has a lot of good cameos in it and I think I you will like.
If you Google it, it was drawn by my friend Ashley Perryman Quash who is a brilliant artist and did so much better than I could ever expect, but yes it is a comic.
INTERVIEWER: Remember when she did (11:49) monster.
MAX LANDIS: Yes of course have you ever seen, you see the video I made of that (11:54)
INTERVIEWER: She is great okay so superman
MAX LANDIS: Dream 2343 you will see soon.
INTERVIEWER: Oh yeah there is going to be a shit people have to say you can jump it at any time people are saying really nice things surprisingly.
MAX LANDIS: So far.
INTERVIEWER: So superman is one of my favourite comic (inaudible) to talk about because I feel everybody has a really polarized opinion on him even if it is just like oh, he is boring what do you have to say for people who would think that he is a boring character.
MAX LANDIS: Any character can be boring badly executed any idea is bad well executed any idea is good, it is amazing how many of these characters are really stupid and boring. Literally most of them but when you look at superman and the question he asks, there are a bunch of questions that aren’t generally addressed in superman stories and the ones that do address them become iconic and the best thing about him is that he is so blurry.
I mean like if you read Graham Morrison all star superman it is a acid dept ultra mythical simplistic view of that character executed with viniceness and grace and simplicity and incredible art and the fact that they just take it and they do superman, they do the simplest version.
You feel like you reading a comic book you know like it came on a stick of bubble gum something about that is so wonderful and deep, but then if you look at superman in Kingdom Come I don’t know on a farm rejecting all society in a hologram of a farm refusing to come back and deal with the world that out paste him, wonderful because he is perfect and so the question is does he need to be perfect, of course not, who is superman, I mean what’s the answer.
I was on a panel with Neil Adams at comic con and our answers for what makes superman interesting were totally different and I am not saying his sis wrong and mine is wrong and his right and mine is right but, he said he is an alien and I was like, I always felt what makes superman interesting is that he is human and he is someone trying to be human. The reason he seems perfect is because and I have said this before I said it regarding Clark which people still hate a video we talked about man of steel. I loved that he, I love his attitude. I also don’t think of him as superman I think of him as Clarke Kent because superman.
Bruce Lane is really Batman, superman really is actually is Clarke Kent wearing a costume he doesn’t know shit about krypton and even my estimation of him. I mean he grew up knowing he was special but he certainly didn’t know his history he certainly wasn’t aware of his status as a god. He was taught morality in the same way we were and ultimately he just realized, you know have you ever done shady because you were mad?
INTERVIEWER: No, yes.
MAX LANDIS: Oh you have, I don’t want to go further but, no you know he is a guy who..I love red sun I love that comic I think it is really interesting and fun but it is one of those things where there is so many different ways to go with a human god which is what superman ultimately is.
INTERVIEWER: We just love that idea about what you said much earlier about it is not necessarily about the idea it is about the execution, so do you know any examples, I don’t want to make you be negative but do you, can you think of any examples where superman is poorly executed.
MAX LANDIS: Tons, superman is poorly executed more often than not but that is true of a lot of character and that is not to say I am going to do a better job I am doing slightly different thing than most people do but, you know superman is boring because there has been a lot of boring stories. I mean like I pretty much laid out how he is badly written when I say nobody gives a fuck about superman because he doesn’t my thesis on him is he can’t write a superman comic.
You can’t I mean people do and I am sure this is polarising and like oh I think I know more about superman than anyone else, I don’t but I do know what I like reading and I have been given a chance to write that and honestly what I when the character is boring is when he protrade as perfect when hi s feeling are ending threat, when you take away the Clarke Kent element and don’t have to deal with the fact that this god has a day job he has a girlfriend he has friends.
The fact that he is a much more normal and well adjusted person than anyone else on the justice league, the fact that I have said this before and I will say it again, anytime you make superman story tragic one of the things that really bothered me in man of steel and you, god bless Warner Brothers I really enjoyed the Batman movies but one of the things that really got to me is they killed his dad.
I think they killed his parents in the new 52 comedy too, he can’t, why don’t we fond of superman is that he is a guy who has a family and like he has friends from back home that he likes better from the friend has in the city except for Jimmy Olsen like hips photographer that’s his best friend out there kind of out there but how close are they. Are they but you know he is not ready to be a celebrity.
I don’t know I really got off topic but I think superman is badly written anytime superman is the focus instead of Clarke Kent you have to remember that this guy has not formal military training he has no police training in my estimation I hate when superman is a genius, I think that is fucking stupid.
You know what that’s when he is badly done any story when superman is anywhere beyond like how smart I am.
Q: All star superman.
MAX LANDIS: All Star Superman is not open for criticism.
Q: His super genius is a separate name.
MAX LANDIS: Is its own thing, it’s perfect fuck you, don’t you fucking talk about All Stars Superman.
INTERVIEWER: No one is about to talk about it,
MAX LANDIS: No I like the idea, one of the things I love is that superman’s main villain is Lex Luther and the modern portrayal of Lex Luther, you know when he was introduced he was just a criminal master mind but when the genius has turned him into a legit billionaire who is a genius there is no that so many stories because the guy smarter than the god.
In any other stories Lex Luther would be a heroic under dog and they played with the story they played with it a million times a heroic under dog and they played with his trump they played with it a million times but a genius and I know there are so many stories (18:30-22:16 the tape again is repeating).but people see him lifting up a bus.
INTERVIEWER: Real muscle.
MAX LANDIS: Superman is but I think people see him and in their head there is there is distance himself he must be really strong but my version of you know krypton an muscle is like diamond so, oh fuck you.
INTERVIEWER: I like when you say that.
MAX LANDIS: You embrace my comic.
INTERVIEWER: No that’s what it is about Max, you know I kind of hate it when people stick too much to(22:42) anyways because there is so much to comic books that goes all over the place you don’t need most of it.
MAX LANDIS: I think the way cannon uses it when you need it and I think people have grown to rely on it. Grant the first time I met him give me the speech about cannabis killing comics although I don’t agree with that I do think in order to write a good story these days you need to choose a world and write a story in the world.
My favourite world is like 1999 to 2010 like that area from like no man’s land to and the new background and all that to all the way to Batman international is like my two sign post of like one world that I really love and I am not even writing in that world, you know they gave me DC is so silly they gave me my own continuity like I have I took away a bunch of superman powers and now if you get shot is like getting hit with a paint ball so one of the things is called you have some little nix and bruises still charging up in my stories.
INTERVIEWER: I have heard you say that DC basically gave you free reign to do whatever you wanted with the story and I mean that must be pretty awesome.
MAX LANDIS: It is very emotional, what’s funny is that I didn’t do as much crazy stuff as you might think I do, yes superman is (inaudible 24:06)in this comic its implied it’s all.
INTERVIEWER: 420 boys (24:09 over lapping) is his name Jock.
MAX LANDIS: 420 Jock 420, yes this presents a slightly different version if you really want to superman is written as an emperor and the decisions to change him come on guys.
INTERVIEWER: And you don’t want to stick to cannon.
MAX LANDIS: No so I mean think about it, think about when you see a celebrity, there is too much going on back there but yes, you see I am not doing an origin I am not doing first son a on American alien is doing to be the stories Clarke Kent will tell you if you went drinking with him and they follow him from age 9 to age 29.
It is 27 stories from 20 years in his life and it is pretty much every 2 to 3 years and if the maths works out, I am a writer man I don’t do maths, but it is 7 stories about we don’t see the moment he decides to be superman in the comic and each story is self contained and I hope when it comes out you guys all buy it first and second issue because the first issue is a very simple young Clark Kent story and the second issue is a much less simple a young Clarke Kent story that’s the image.
If you Google American alien there is a Clarke Kent mug shot and you will notice that his cheek bone is broken he is covered in blood, I wonder how that happen, please buy my comic book.
INTERVIEWER: Good pitch.
MAX LANDIS: There is an entire which is just him hanging out with Ross and talking.
INTERVIEWER: That’s awesome.
MAX LANDIS: It’s cool.
INTERVIEWER: Let’s go way, way back in the time machine Max, what got you into comics and what keeps your interest in comics.
MAX LANDIS: I can answer what got me into comics really simply, which is I would sing it but it would be embarrassing the X-Man.
INTERVIEWER: Please sing.
MAX LANDIS: Singing ….. I know the whole thing, watching that cartoon this cartoon has so much going on in it, there is so many cool characters and then I found out there is a comic book that I can read of the cartoon and you have to keep in mind when I was very little I read (26:32) comics my day and I didn’t have an understanding that stuff kept going I totally read the collectives.
So I was like I went to a comic book store the Golden Apple with my dad and my mom parent because I was very age I was a problem kid and I was like there is a spider man comic because I have seen the cartoon I was like cool so there is a user guy there is a new user guy (inaudible 26:58) and I left.
They indulged me because it I left with a stack of comics this big and I gotten stuff like the Killing Joke and Dark Night returns and like all this stuff like what was I like 9 years old probably things I shouldn’t have been reading and.
INTERVIEWER: That’s why I am so excited for the cartoon The Killing Joke because hoe the fuck are they going to do that.
MAX LANDIS: Carefully, you know in my mind he raped her, I mean I just got obsessed with them and I got so excited and the comics were so much better than the cartoons and Gimmick was in the cartoon too and they didn’t kiss in the comic either but maybe they would soon and you know me I like love when characters like each other so I was like this is great and around that time I picked up a trail of the death and return of superman I think as I was like this is bad, and I was like this is dumb and 20 years later.
So I just started loving it so much and getting so excited about these stories there was always something new about all of these people, I don’t know it was the best comics are the best.
INTERVIEWER: So what keeps your interest in comics because before we went on air we talked a lot about some of the flaws with comics right now how a lot of it is pandering to fans I wish I to be honest.
MAX LANDIS: I don’t want to be on air you guys are fans, you guys who are watching are fans I don’t want to be a guy, I am not interested in being the Max Landis people use to get mad at and more really.
INGTERVIEWER: No, no because, no, no if you very clearly a fan of comics you love comics and you can’t love something without being able to criticise it that’s what makes it better. That’s what if you really love something you have to be able to recognise the flaws in it so you can hope for it to be even better.
MAX LANDIS: You can blindly love, well this dumb thing happened in comics and it happened slowly and it really happened when it happened, which was it stopped being about what the most interesting story is and became about what will make people notice this story.
Really but it really happened what had happened which was it stopped being about what the most interesting story is and became about what will make people notice this story (29:06-33:37) so cool and professor zoom was like all these cool stuff and now I pick up comics I don’t even know what’s happening but I went back and I reread, Jeff gave me his on the bus and I was like man it couldn’t have been that good and this was really fucking good and it makes me wonder, it makes me wonder dude I just love it I like it is just hard because you get so attached to these things instead of completely ephemeral and don’t exists.
Comics aren’t an ephemeral media they are the chewing gum of storytelling because there will always be more and you can’t just eat one piece of chewing gum and be full you keep eating.
INTERVIEWER: I don’t think you can be full on anything chew gum.
MAX LANDIS: Exactly right but you never going to be full on Batman either that’s why they have been around for 70 years because you always popping that gum into your mouth and it’s not like I out grew it because I am desperate to write a comic and I still read some comics but I definitely do feel like it out grew itself and its struggling to get back.
Because ht second it was like nope Bruce Wayne is Batman again the second that happened Dick Grayson is not Batman anymore we are restarting it or even the Marvel universe we are just restarting things now. It is so disrespectful to the story at least.
If you want to tell me Bryce Wayne is Batman story just give me a comic where Bruce Wayne is batman I won’t care but if Night wing is fucking batman don’t take that away from me that’s cruel don’t ruin it. I get really passionate and annoying I am sorry I am really excited.
INTERVIEWER: No this is like if there is any place other than comics I am going to be passionate and annoying about comic books.
MAX LANDIS: I am way to drunk on comic and for that.
INTERVIEWER: So here do it here.
MAX LANDIS: I did comic con this year I did yell the words Dick Tracy is night wing and he is the best night wing but Tim Drake will be batman he will be the best batman because he is better than him being Robin and I think I yell that at Sef Green from this far away and Sef Green went what and I went..see I love comics guys.
INTERVIEWER: Tim Drake is the best night wing let’s be honest.
MAX LANDIS: Bob please talk one more day, one more day is the biggest fuck you I have ever received as a reader that’s one more day.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, where I am, look at my hand writing Max.
MAX LANDIS: It is cute I forget as a screen writer I definitely shouldn’t be expressing opinions.
INTERVIEWER: Here we are screen writer, okay you have a very, very long background not super long because you are only 30 but you have a background as a screen writer and I want to know.
MAX LANDIS: Did (36:38) I was drunk
Q: Not audible,
INTERVIEWER: Oh yea, I don’t know my mind is fried.
MAX LANDIS: Am I being an ass hole guys.
Other than that this is going great
INTERVIEWER: No I like it when people are having their opinions (over lapping)
MAX LANDIS: People say what Marvel character would you tackle if given a chance, in a comic or in a movie?
INTERVIEWER: Both.
MAX LANDIS: In a movie I would really like to do a black panther movie or I would actually, actually I would really love to do a Dr Octopus movie like in a center six movie I think would be really fun or a sleep walker my great moon night amaze could be a really fun movie.
In terms of comics I would definitely would like to write a Herman Shelts the shocker comic man, and then I would be like, I love that guy I grew to love a version of him I created but like I don’t know.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, I go to ask you just like Max my friend because I know that you are obviously so much more into cape stories than and you have such a person story.
MAX LANDIS: Some has to put his fate in Jesus its time is short, are you coming to kill me.
INTERVIEWER: Truth messenger
MAX LANDIS: Is that you.
INTERVIEWER: Max so I know that you are disappointed in comic books from Marvel and DC and things like that.
MAX LANDIS: I didn’t say that I didn’t say that.
INTERVIEWER: He didn’t say that I said it.
MAX LANDIS: I said some comics I don’t like sometimes.
INTERVIEWER: Don’t be diplomatic.
MAX LANDIS: I know I you in the reading I was being silly and I am sorry.
INTERVIEWER: But you know there is such a wealth of independent comics out there maybe you can get one of those.
MAX LANDIS: You of all people have always tried to sell me on independent comics and to be fair I have not liked a single comic you have given me. I like Morrison’s, fuck the title of the comic.
INTERVIEWER: (38:32)not audible.
MAX LANDIS: No two character is based I love the (name) the two character is based on the Grant Morrison comic, what was that comic called?
An eye later.
MAX LANDIS: Did you know that both of those characters are me I realize that and I went like this they made me cry, but no I like reading comics maybe I should get more into them but these days a lot of indi comics are IP funding back log projects trying to generate IP to try to make movie out of and so I don’t know which ones are good.
INTERVIEWER: I will tell you.
MAX LANDIS: Thanks Whitney.
INTERVIEWER: Okay I did want to circle back and ask you, I fucking hate when people say stuff about.
MAX LANDIS: Grant Morrison say fuck, I want to know so okay all the you tube comments for this video is this going on you tube, all the you tube comments for this video calling it now, I am calling it now will be during the reading everyone will be I fucking hate this guy and none of them will watch this part because they hated me so much right now.
INTERVIEWER: I don’t know about that.
INTERVIEWER: That is the type of audience I generate for your show.
INTERVIEWER: People are nice to us on you tube they like us.
MAX LANDIS: To you because you are nice and sweet and cute and your two little friends are cute too.
INTERVIEWER: My two little friends
MAX LANDIS: And they are shorter than me.
INTERVIEWER: Do not belittle our show Max.
MAX: you guys have a short little show.
INTERVIEWER: Okay coming from Rebecca as a screen writer I know you work alone a lot and as a
MAX LANDIS: What’s happening back there?
INTERVIEWER: separate they are doing a lot of shit, I know that you have to work with people at some point because you have to work with the studio and you had writing partners on these comics.
MAX LANDIS: I have never had a writing partner on a comic.
INTERVIEWER: Not on this one I read it was guy name Fabian.
MAX LANDIS: No, you might see other story.
INTERVIEWER: Let’s forget about it then Max keeps writing alone.
MAX LANDIS: It was because this one had there it is it had two stories in the thing, I actually never had a writing partner for the first time I am working pretty heavily with someone else but I am a producer in that not a writer.
INTERVIEWER: Do you have a Max keep writing alone (40:30-45:02 repeating) eloquent writer bonus icing on cake, formatting a story so that it is interesting to read so that could potential be a movie how many movie you have seen where the script suck a zillions right because good writers are able to do their job and if you are good and you lucky, so luck, so lucky.
Oh my god you have no power once the movie starts unless you Ken Bergen you are like a producer once the movie starts if you are lucky you will get something good but its all shot in the dark. Speaking of go see American Ultra it is really good and it comes out August 21st.
INTERVIEWER: I can’t believe we didn’t get there yet I almost wore my T shirt but.
MAX LANDIS: Is it better than being a nerd or a geek for real I hate both of those terms they are negative and I need them to describe people that I don’t like, boy this dude still has a lot to learn in life, you suck – you are a nerd you have a lot to learn in life I think you are bad at stuff Jet Fugen, I think you are bad at stuff, I think your (46:05) yes people who say being called a nerd is being a compliment to me I get that.
I get that I definitely need that at one point in my life but I have come to realize that I think comics are cool, I think fantasy and science fiction are cool. I am cool and I like the things I like I don’t need to apologise for them fuck that shit. I am a nerd, fuck you Kelson you are a nerd.
You are nerder.
MAX LANDIS: You are a nerd and I will be wearing your shirt under this sweat shirt, you should be doing that show what you know.
INTERVIEWER: Bye Tellison /Nelson.
MAX LANDIS: I will see you on my birthday come give me a hug, watch critical role the geek un sundry
INTERVIEWER: Oh like that’s the beast I mean.
MAX LANDIS: Thousands know me like since I was 14.
INTERVIEWER: That’s funny because I remember Stephen King had on a face book page someone was like fuck you Stephen King and he responded well fuck you too kid, which bring me to my next question if you were to adapt to a comic book and Stephen King novel or to a comic what would you pick.
MAX LANDIS: Tommy Knockers.
INTERVIEWER: What’s Tommy Knockers?
MAX LANDIS: Tommy Knockers is a story about a woman who lives in a little called Jesus Christ, which town it is not daring its not Castle Rock either, where is it oh Jesus it is in Maine of course and Tommy Knockers is about a woman who find a thing in the woods and she suddenly gets good at stuff and she gets better and better and smarter and smarter but as she starts to uncover this thing.
Guys come one shut up (name)inaudible….shut the fuck up.
Do your own interview, it’s your show
MAX LANDIS: What could be cool about Tommy Knockers is that it is a very subtle type of fear that builds and builds I don’t think it is Daring, its Heaven,
INTERVIEWER: It is a woman that lives in Haven.
MAX LANDIS: And it is really frightening and it is fun and silly and no one, they made a movie of it whatever miniseries but it allows you to have a limited budget and to go off on all the tangents you want to go off on in that story.
Then again I would love to see a comic on the Shining, do you guys know they are doing a Shining TV show about the Over Look Hotel a pretty cool series, the first time someone has said there is a pretty cool series I went fucking pretty cool what is it about the Overlook Hotel I want to watch it, I want to watch the show.
INTERVIEWER: I think the Overlook is the star of that book like how did that happen
MAX LANDIS: It is terrifying and you read it while we were. I love that book.
INTERVIEWER: You gave me my copy of the shinning. Okay last question because I want to open it up to the chat room because they are hitching to ask you stuff but do you listen to music when you write comics do you listen to music when you read comics. Hector by the way picked the music out for our reading tonight because that’s his thing and it is awesome.
MAX LANDIS: I thought it was great the incredible centric I am sorry I was so annoying during the reading.
INTERVIEWER: Will you shut up.
MAX LANDIS: I sometimes an ongoing problem with me as a public figure is that I have no media training and most of the times you see me I am just being silly with my friends so I can come off like a real asshole what is hash tag Landis Pokémon.
INTERVIEWER: No answer my question first, no, no Max.
MAX LANDIS: But no we will we will see man at one point there is a hash tag Landis Power in there who knows but, so where was I music, no in general I do not listen to music when I read but as you have seen what will happen to me is I will get a story in my head when I hear one song and I will imagine it in my head the story and the scene again and again and again and sometimes being able to see it on the movie theatre in my head is so powerful I would start crying when I listen to it I get really excited and I just imagine seeing a music video and so I use music a lot for that.
I found that if I try to play music while I am writing even like epic score you know there is always epic complications all it does is distract me, I mean I have enough distractions on face book.
INTERVIEWER: You actually create physical play list when you write correct.
MAX LANDIS: Yes I do that is true.
INTERVIEWER: Playlist that people could find on spotify.
MAX LANDIS: What, oh that’s true I no longer have spotify, you could find my spotify playlist that I.
INTERVIEWER: You don’t have it anymore.
MAX LANDIS: No I forgot how to make it work because my you’ve seen the way my life works my life is imagine me imagine Max Landis this is who I am. Imagine a little boy who gets 5 scoops of ice cream and he is running to meet his mom at the corner mall and they all fall down except one scoop of ice scream still on the cup and he gets there and his mom is like I thought you had 5 scoops of ice cream.
And he goes oh yeah they fell off and his mom goes aren’t you sad and he goes oh, crying..I will drive a car that doesn’t work until someone says it is broken. My apartment looks like an episode of orders. I like there will be like food lying out, I start scraps and forget to stop writing them.
I wrote 428 pages of Super Mario’s script that I release that you can find on line I mean like ADHD I am ADHD that’s who I am but, yes do we do this stuff.
INTERVIEWER: Yes let’s do the question, that’s great answer by the way I will help you set up your spotifyer if you need it. Oh yes collected ones from when we were talking.
MAX LANDIS: I am (52:26-56:17 tape is stuck again)
INTERVIEWER: Do you think that Superman is feeling special or feeling different than (name)
MAX LANDIS: Well superman isn’t real, superman what I think about the way he grew up doesn’t matter, I can tell you my perception of how I want him to grow up. I think Clarke has a deep insecurity that is explored in my comic Superman American Alien because it is about, ultimately all of the comics is about Alienation.
My stories is about alienation but they are bad alienation in a real way it is about Clarke feeling different because he is a person and translate that I can fly and I have super strength but ultimately Clarke feelings of isolation and alienation are just what you feel as a smart guy in Kansas growing up as an adopted kid not being sure what you want to do with your life and it, that’s like the secret you know my whole superman life but I like him as a guy who had friends you know skinned his knee and was a guy who ultimately wanted to kind of be like everyone else and then gradually not through someone fucking shooting someone, not through a tornado killing anyone but gradually was like hey I could fucking fly. I can hear police sirens from 2 hours away and get there in 5 minutes.
On the news I see there is this thing happening I don’t have to be here right now watching that and I think the moment he had that change I don’t think anyone said you got to do it and I think that’s what cool about him is he is the American alien. I don’t think he is an alien I think he is a guy and that’s what so cool he is just doing the right thing and that makes the fact that he is dealing with sociopaths and monsters so much more frightening than the very well trained Batman.
He is out gunned so yeah I think he grew up wanting to be like himself and not really knowing who that was just like you and I grew you know I don’t think you or I was thinking at any point, specifically you and me as people from how much as I know about you like who do I want to be like.
INTERVIEWER: I think you are right
MAX LANDIS: I think he is a smart than average guy like you are smarter than an average person like you, I think there comes a point where you look at people around you and you say if I am not different then I am the same and I think Clarke has that fault just as anyone else does.
INTERVIEWER: I like that I am sorry if I am butchering your user name.
MAX LANDIS: Superman never made any money saving the world, yes dude that is the best song about superman, no, no, no it is crash dummy song about superman that is my favourite song about superman.
INTERVIEWER: Row war six asked, do you write your own scripts for comics different that you do for screen plays.
MAX LANDIS: You have to write them completely different because you also the director and if we are being totally serious I am not great at it, the closest I have ever come to true collaboration is on all the comics you are going to read because I really let the artist feel it out because I know that I am alien to it.
It has been a very long process this guy Alex Antone (name) my editor has really helped me and I mean I needed a lot of help. Diving into comics have been very hard and exciting and yea there has been lots of songs about superman there are a lot of good ones too I mean like if I go crazy would you still call me superman.
INTERVIEWER: There is this song …..beep bop I a superman.
MAX LANDIS: Oh yeah beep.. I am superman here I go I am in the sky I am superman. Have you heard my you tube song. This is a you too song I am you too, this is what you too looks like, this is what you too sounds like, I am a you too song, hey guess what I am bore at, I am bore at my wife is nice this is what bore at looks like bore at from the movie bore at.
I do drugs guys I am kidding, Jimmy Olsen’s blues such an awesome song , grovey red jeans call out you guys are really killing it you guys are making me really happy dude I am sorry.
INTERVIEWER: Don’t be sorry Jolly filled doughnut asked, Max this is a great question, for people who don’t read superman what is a good jumping off point.
MAX LANDIS: There are a number of individual great superman stories but superman as a comic is rarely reliably really good, oh I shouldn’t said that, I mean like okay you want a great jumping off point, first sun is great or last sun pardon me, red sun is great kingdom come is great all star superman is great the world finest that was going on a couple years ago is really, really good.
Go there are a lot actually there has been a lot of superman I would have just fallen in love with this character by accident, I am thinking now does anyone want to throw me some and I see if I like them, birthright is kind of interesting, birthright is good I forgot about birthright that’s embarrassing.
It is a good jumping off point what’s interesting about, oh superman for all seasons really good, whatever happens to man of tomorrow you know if you are a normal gut and you like that being done with the character but I wouldn’t say that’s a jumping off point. That’s something from when you are already in there.
Superman earth one, blue electric superman, no blue and red superman was like the worst thing ever oh god I am fired American Aliens is never coming out I am fired my career is over.
INTERVIEWER: By Max okay Kay Tibbs asked Max what was the last thing that made you angry.
MAX LANDIS: Like actually angry?
INTERVIEWER: Yes angry in however you want to talk about it.
MAX LANDIS: My mom said a weird thing to my sister during dinner that pissed me off.
INTERVIEWER: Can you tell us what she said ?
MAX LANDIS: No, but that was the last thing that made me angry.
INTERVIEWER: Okay good.
MAX LANDIS: My mom is great my sister is great oh you know what actually made me angry, somebody made me angry today. I had a meeting on my TV show Dirk Janly that was really fun and good and we were having like a ton of fun in the meeting which was so rare when you are just killing it in the meeting and I have to meet with Bret Ratner I had a meeting with him all the way across town and so I go from Santa Monica to Warner Brothers and I am kind of excited for this meeting because I heard good things about.
He is a cool guy he is fun meeting and I have some stories to tell him about, I am liked all pumped up I am really happy after my dirk meeting and on the freeway and as I get off the freeway my phone which is going to tell me how to get to Warner Brothers just dies, and I am like I know 405 to 134 that sounds like the California right now (inaudible1:3:12) so I get on the thing and I am driving. Yes Dirk gentle TV baby not the Stephen mangle one although I have nothing against them it is my one (1:7:43 tape repeating again). I want them to fucking kiss
INTERVIEWER: Fucking kiss or like fuck and kiss.
MAX LANDIS: Yes, I know she is not gay show I know kiss, anyone else Jamie Landiser like
INTERVIEWER: You will see in 30 seconds there is.
MAX LANDIS: Life on John Senior Hill real easy I think that is real easy but go on.
INTERVIEWER: I want to know.
MAX LANDIS: How I would turn John Senior Hill he would come out and face right now Kevin Steven, no he wouldn’t he would be Kevin Owens and then that same night the authority would make him face let’s say Neville and he would be like Neville you could opt out of this match now and of course people would be booing him because they boo Senior and he say you can opt out of this match and you don’t have to lose to me because he is all beaten up from facing Kevin Owens.
No not during the authority and he says everyone and he is beaten up and he say I can’t do this don’t take advantage of this opportunity and beat Neville, he would say that. Like you know there is a chance you could beat me right now because I am weak and don’t do that, don’t ruin it for me you know I need this championship and don’t do that and Neville would say I want the championship too like yoj would take this opportunity you have taken it before.
Remember when you did that to Ramos and Senior would be like bottom line everyone in this arena right now knows that I would beat you, no one believes that you would beat me these people booing me because they know I will win.
So many boos as soon as he says that and Neville say I am not afraid of you and Senior goes you watch the show have you seen an episode of Raw I am aware that you are not afraid of me I have beaten Brock Lesner you little bitch, like really start laying into a character who really doesn’t stand a chance but could on one night because Senior as a character the thing.
Who says I am not with WWW creative, the thing that makes it hard, I am kidding.
INTERVIEWER: My god Max.
MAX LANDIS: The thing that makes it hard with Senior is that he has an arrogance the problem is and I have been told this about me confidence can come across as arrogance especially when you are actually arrogant, but occasionally. I say I put my foot in my mouth as soon as it turns on.
INTERVIEWER: You don’t need to you have been fun and good.
MAX LANDIS: But no I think the second don’t you know I am with www it is really good.
INTERVIEWER: Okay let me jump on that comment because Max is actually the person who got me into wrestling and I am a filthy casual about it but I love the explanation you gave which you relate everything to comics you are a comic book fan and it is that but live and it is a show and it is any character you can think of is batman versus superman and its awesome and its really, really good.
MAX LANDIS: It is really, really bad but you know at the end of the day everything isn’t comics and wresting isn’t wrestling.
INTERVIEWER: Okay so we are getting a lot of request for nerd lidmous I don’t know how much time we have if we have time to open it up again to the box over there the chat box.
MAX LANDIS: What nerd lidnus, am I about to fail a test?
INTERVIEWER: Nerd lidmus is a thing the Hector invented that he is going to ask you question and learn who you are but if anybody has any questions.
MAX LANDIS: Are you guys you want to do that.
A: Yes we have time, we do it really quick.
INTERVIEWER: I have no concept of time when we do this.
MAX LANDIS: I have been having so much fun with you this is really great. That fake John Pisso squally in school.
INTERVIEWER: Is this John Pisco squally.
MAX LANDIS: You know John Pisco squally(inaudible 1:11:42)
INTERVIEWER: You are like two of our friends, two of our most well loved friends.
MAX LANDIS: Two of my favourite friends.
That’s better than Whitney’s cute little friends I will take that I will just let that one slide.
Q: This is just a geek test this is rapid fir or you can take your time one it there is no right or wrong answer this is just get to know you as a geek or has a human being.
MAX LANDIS: No I am a geek I admit I am a fucking dork i am a dork.
Q: Star Trek or Star wars?
MAX LANDIS: I actually answered this recently which do I like better or which.
However you want to interpret the question
MAX LANDIS: Because star trek is more culturally important it is the reason why comic book exist star trek is more culturally important there is way more hours of good star trek than there is good star wars. By like hundreds even voyagers kick ass there were good episode of enterprise you know but I like star wars better, start wars is storytelling to me I use star wars and I go back to it time and time again and again because everything in the first three movies even if they didn’t mean to because I think star wars is a lucky accident but everything have purpose.
E wok is one of the cleverest ways to show the availability of the emperor and people hate them because they don’t get it the truth is it is not like they mean to do that it’s just any aspect of star wars if you tell your perception on it you see something new and you are like wow, start like is like that.
With star trek a lot of what they give you is what is there, star wars I mean talk about true Bobby, you can talk about true Bobby a character with no lines for hours what he represents where he fits in the following series what he means to the characters what he does and then he break down star wars talk about him as a writer or as a story teller.
I mean it is so exciting, you know what star wars is it is the canteen of scene but then more than that in emperor how many of those fucking bounty hunters are they going to use one and yet he walks down a row of six or seven each with a completely unique design each looking completely different and you only going to see one of them again, like bless, bless genius.
Because you know what you are doing when you leave the theatre, man who was that lizard bounty hunter, who was the robot bounty hunter what was the fucking, I mean talk about faith in the audience talk about giving the audience something to go.
INTERVIEWER: There is more question.
MAX LANDIS: Sorry, sorry.
Q: No this is great this is brilliant, fuck I want to ask you this now because you are star wars Luke or hunk.
MAX LANDIS: Luke I mean the concept of a cooler or fun character but Luke again, storytelling 3 acts I mean like, the lizards name is Boss but no (inaudible) but yow man I seen star wars. JJ Abrahams call me, don’t actually big teams write those movie so don’t I don’t think I can do one but it would be fun, I wouldn’t be mean about it on the web shot.
INTERVIEWER: Don’t be sexy Max JJ Abrahams does not like that.
MAX LANDIS: but it would be fun (1:15.20-19-33) sorry guys they say it is taking too long and they are bored.
INTERVIEWER: No they are not.
MAX LANDIS: Okay so go on.
Q: If you had to be sorted into a Harry Potter house.
MAX LANDIS: Sorted.
Yes that’s pretty fucking obvious if you had to belong to one of the nations of the last Avatar of the last air band nation fire bender Lord of the rings or Games of France/chance…?
MAXLANDIS: That’s a ridiculous question, that’s a ridiculous one wouldn’t exist without the other, oh I don’t have to terminate one of them, Game f France is a bigger it has more stuff I like in it but Lord of the rings, all of the great cultural set pieces have perfect endings you ever notice that. Star Wars have a perfect ending Lord of the Rings ended, Aerogram doesn’t matter Goggle lost doesn’t matter, no one matters.
Thor though is in Mandogu matters actually fuck this and then Golum bites off a finger and falls into a volcano one of the best ending.
INTERVIEWER: I have actually never seen Jessie bough the Blue Ray so we could.
MAX LANDIS: Last movie was really rough.
INTERVIEWER: Well I don’t like the first one either its boring.
MAX LANDIS: The second one is good with Golum it is the best of them.
Q: Favourite Ninja Turtle.
MAX LANDIS: Probably everyone I mean Rafael I mean I think it would be.
Q: You didn’t say Leonardo.
MAX LANDIS: I think it would be hard to be Rafael, I think all of them are way more interesting characters I have a pitch for a Ninja Turtle movie I was talking about with Dave Green I never pitched it because the writers who write the first one write the second one but Dave Green is writing the second one right now and I had a very intense pitch that I gave him that made him cry.
Remember that Dave I hope you see this one day but he had already done it because I feel like those characters are teenagers. Michael Angelo is a cool guy he is only friends for his brothers Donatello is a smart guy and the only people around him are turtles. Fucking Rafael is an angry guy and all of his brothers want to tell him what to do and hang out with them all the time and Leonardo is a clam collective guy with a real goal which is being a ninja.
He wants to follow in his father’s footsteps and what he is dealing with an ass hole and idiot and a dud who thinks he is smarter than him, I mean those are great characters and I never really leaned into it I love the first Ninja Turtles movie but they never really like leaned into it and I think there could be something there so Rafael because he is the one that is the best so far.
Q: Do you have a favourite Transformer character.
MAX LANDIS: (name Arat).
Q: Nice okay I know the answer to this, superman over band man.
MAX LANDIS: How bored are you guys listening to me enjoying all my shit.
INTERVIEWER: They love it.
Q: Iron man or Captain America.
MAX LANDIS: Captain America.
Q: Who would win in a fight Superman or Hulk?
MAX LANDIS: That depends, well written, first of all it depends on what characters which persons of the characters but say 1993 The Hulk, okay Superman is super strong if he throws the first punch it is over but if superman is like you are a dumb cocksucker and Hulk is like that makes me angry and superman is like well I am way up her and you can’t get me and Hulk is like well that makes me angry.
Hulk has no upper threshold I mean he might turn into devil Hulk at some point but there is no threshold on how strong Hulk gets the longer you fight Hulk the higher the odds are that you are going to lose that’s why most of Hulks fights end quick and Hulk wins and if superman does like that done, the second superman tries to talk to the Hulk reason with the Hulk do anything to Hulk it might be a real long day for everyone involved.
Because Hulk doesn’t die either he is the personal embodiment of one man’s penis envy that is anger about his parents I mean like superman flies the Hulk into space so that he can’t move, no that would really piss the Hulk off. Do we have anything that will like trap the Hulk is a super bad idea because he will just get real mad but again you don’t want that.
Q: Do you have a favourite video game of all time.
MAX LANDIS: Yes, I don’t remember it, smack versus 3000 (inaudible).and then speck ops the line was the most engaged I have ever been.
INTERVIEWER: Just Cause
MAX LANDIS: You know I love Just Cause but at the end of the day I live Just Cause because it was fun and I am talking so much fun. Speck Ops the Line made me like during it I have the emotions like I had while watching the Apocalypse now you know or like a great story, I love stories so it that came out real weird.
Q: Profess X or Magneto.
MAX LANDIS: Magneto I am Jewish.
Q: No brainer done, if you could wake up tomorrow morning Max with you yourself your own knowledge everything that you are and live in a fictional world you are not a main character you are just you.
MAX LANDIS: Power of the universe.
Q: Excellent choice.
MAX LANDIS: No 2001 Marvel Universe.
Q: What would be the first thing you do as Max, let’s say you wake up in LA fly to New York obviously, second thing you would do.
MAX LANDIS: Okay the first thing I would do is stay in LA find Power Man.
Q: Is he in LA 1990 or 2001
MAX LANDIS: Yes movie star he is a movie star.
Q: You mean Wonder Man Simon Williams.
MAX LANDIS: Yes Wonder Man sorry find Simon you need to understand I am from a difference dimension where Marvel universe doesn’t exist I need you to protect me right now because I have a secret identity of Spiderman i also have weakness you could exploit with Dr Doom Dr Octopus all Spiderman’s rouge galleries any criminals that scares.
I know more about them than Dare Devil does and you got some good powers but you are not a legit super hero.
Q: You go from wonder man.
MAX LANDIS: If you give me five million dollars which you have I will teach you stuff about Dr octopus’s childhood.
Q: You just brought Wonder man up to A list.
MAX LANDIS: No, no I get Wonder Man up to A list and then I became a super important character in Marvel Universe because I know all this shit, I know about the watch I know about celestials I know shit about Faneos and what he is doing and why he is doing the Marvels characters don’t know (1:26.18-30:26 tape breaks) gets upsetting to look at.
Q: What does the bad guy look likes.
MAX LANDIS: No I really like a lot of the designs Well squirtiles I would like to hold a squrtiles I feel like if squirtiles were real sees its owner for the first time in 6 months videos (inaudible) what is has tag Landis Pokémon don’t tweet that.
Q: That’s why you say grammar is one of my first Judo and I think they come from I want to hold Judo in my arms.
MAX LANDIS: Judo because he is this big he like look strong, you know what I want a far fetch because I love green onion.
Q: The constant stream of green onion you are in the kitchen like fuck that shit and you just throw in.
MAX LANDIS: Yea it sounds delicious it is amazing.
INTERVIEWER: Talk about what Landis Pokémon is.
MAX LANDIS: I don’t know anything about that that is something that is getting tweed out.
Q: If I had a Geo dud I would teach you to do my laundry because it has like puzzle book it is like a Pokémon with hands, it’s like oh dude help me with.
MAX LANDIS: The question when you are dealing with Pokémon is, which Doctor I don’t like Dr Who.
Q: Do you have a favourite doctor who is not Dr Who Dr from pop culture
MAX LANDIS: Dr Murray oh that professor Murryagi , I like Dr Spock I like Dr Do I love Dr Victor, oh no he doesn’t that is funny because do you know I am writing the Dirk Gently show do you know that Dirk Gentle started out as a spinoff of Dr Who.
INTERVIEWER: Talk about Dirk Gently because we haven’t touched on that at all.
MAX LANDIS: Dirk Gentle is a show that I am writing for BBC America that was a property that I have hunted my entire adult life by adult I mean since 17 I was like I really want to write a Dirk Gentle TV show because I think I could do it in a really fun way and I went years ago to the guy who control the property and I was like please let me do a Dirk Gently TV show.
His name is Orvant and he was like I will come back to you there is stuff going on out there and then 7 years later or 6 years later he said he do you still want to write this TV show and I was like do I ever, oh my god that would be the coolest thing ever and he was like but what would be your idea for it.
So I was in the room and I was like okay beat this and I pitched them and they yes in the room that day and I was like cool and I wrote a script and then we sold it to BBC America the way that works is that there is no guarantee that the show will exist.
I really wanted it to exist I am extremely proud of the script I think it is my best work I am very proud of it, it is very funny it is weird and mind bending and it doesn’t patronize the audience and it is so complicated and mind fucky it is like BBC Sherlock cross with Fargo cross with like just everything it is not like any other TV show I have ever seen and I hope they just, god I want to do it so bad. I want to do it so bad all my new stuff is so crazy.
I have Frankenstein coming out in November something and then the movie I directed the Empire hopefully will come out one day.
INTERVIEWER: And then the last scene.
MAX LANDIS: I know and then my movie Mr Right will hopefully come out eventually too American come out on August 21st so I will see but like all the stuff that I have in the pipe now is really, I am very excited about all of it for the first time in my career, so Dirk is one of those things and I hope it happens I am so excited about that.
INTERVIEWER: Cada left anything like Black Mirror.
MAX LANDIS: No Black Mirror is brilliant but it is an… show my show is almost you know what I love about ghost buster and I say this all the time he doesn’t patronize the audience and if I told you the plot of ghost busters it sounds like a straight up science fiction movie.
Nothing in that plat is funny there is no jokes all of the jokes comes from the character so I am doing a really dark scary science complicated science fiction thriller with really funny characters and who like shouldn’t be there except for you know some of them are going to get shot in the head suddenly and you really not going to want that to happen.
INTERVIEWER: Why are threatening us.
MAX LANDIS: Because I want you to be engaged the best way to engaged you audience is to scare them I would say bap but I remember you are epileptic so I don’t to.
INTERVIEWER: Thank you.
MAX LANDIS: Do you remember that ghost they have the flashing eyes
INTERVIEWER: Yes don’t ever, it’s a bit. Let’s play some super fight shall we get.
MAX LANDIS: There is more of this show
INTERVIEWER: Yes this is our last thing that we do
MAX LANDIS: I will be with you forever.
INTERVIEWER: We do super fight at the very end Max have you ever played super fight.
MAX LANDIS: This is the longest interview I have ever done.
INTERVIEWER: Have you ever played super fight Max.
MAX LANDIS: I did I played it with this guy comic con.
Dr strange.
MAX LANDIS: Doug Jones I really like him he was cool, I don’t really remember how to do it but I played it with him at comocom there is a you tube video of it where I was really drunk come play with us forever and ever Max, KB Tips I see you. Have you guys have been doing stuff the whole time, so I don’t remember how it goes.
MAN: “It is easy I just handed you 3 white cards which are character cards and then I handed you 3 black cards which are attribute cards you are going to pick one of each, you are going to pick one character with on attribute to send into this super fight.
INTERVIEWER: Zac is not playing.
MAN: No I don’t know where Zac is working on some stuff outside whatever.
MAX LANDIS: I have one that is just completely blank.
MAN: Character or attribute, character?
INTERVIEWER: What colour card is it?
MAX LANDIS: Character.
MAN: Is that also blank check that.
MAX LANDIS: What does the blank mean?
INTERVIEWER: I think it is like a creator
MAX LANDIS: Oh you guys are fucked I am supposed to make him win.
AMY: Feel free to sabotage yourself I am just saying you can pick something really terrible.
MAX LANDIS: I need another attribute.
AMY: Once you pick your two you get another random second attribute it might help won’t hurt.
MAX LANDIS: Okay got it shit, I went from practical to
MAN: Okay that’s fine you mean not fun that’s fine,
MAX LANDIS: And now I get a second attribute.
MAN: When you go through so the internet is going to vote to see who wins we are going to go through.
MAX LANDIS: Oh so if it was the crowd I should have done a funny one.
MAN: No this is going to be goo they are going they will vote for who they think is legit going to win don’t worry, don’t worry , man I wish I had written like shocker on the card I handed you like here you go Bernie Shultz are you this one. Alright so Whitney is going to go first we are going to go in order Whitney is going to be number one I will be number two Amy is number three Max number four then you guys vote okay.
MAN: Cool like Amy you wrote shocker on the card I handed you here we go so Bernie Schultz are you this one (1:38-42:00) .
AMY: No actually we are trying to win this by not doing anything.
MAN: What the fuck is Sand man’s name.
MAX LANDIS: He cask for sand man powers so lightning is not going to hurt him.
MAN: She but she got spider powers Zoos have spider powers defeat sand man.
AMY: Guess who wins or san man.
MAX LANDIS: Not when he is Bruce Lee.
AMY: Then it is zoos.
MAX LANDIS: Bruce obviously wins, zoos was his name like Flint
AMY: Oh, they are trying to help you out.
MAN: Do look Max they are giving it to you right there don’t look it is all in the chat room.
MAX LANDIS: Flint Marco.
MAN: Nicely done,
MAX LANDIS: That is a fake name Flint Marco is a fake criminal name and his real name is Bill Baker, fuck yeah,
MAN: That’s right William Baker, nicely done.
INTERVIEWER: That a true victory this is just icing on the cake,
MAN: That’s a deep ultra ego cut.
INTERVIEWER: Good job Max.
MAX LANDIS: I didn’t see in the chat I looked at the chat to try to cheat and it wasn’t there.
MAN: Do we have a poll guys do we have a winner all results where are they oh Amy clearly win.
INTERVIEWER: Oh Amy.
MAX LANDIS: She was fucking zooce, hey I got 58 votes I appreciate you doing that.
INTERVIEWER: that’s okay.
MAN: Captain Kirk of the Enterprise.
MAX LANDIS: Do I draw new cards.
INTERVIEWER: That’s it , one more thing before we go, thank you so much for watching .
MAX LANDIS: I think that guy sucks, no Duke Smeltzer I was dying I was dying on this show right now I saw that new movie Line for a week Marco one of the best and richest spider man villain/anti heroes and he is tragic and he has his own thing and I was like oh god san man in my head I though what was san man real name and there was like a log silence and then James Cameron I went yes wait, no.
INTERVIEWER: Max thank you for coming to my interview guys thank you for watching before you go we would like to ask our guest if they have like questions for us like this one was.
AMY: What is your question for next week.
MAN: It could be comic book related we can ask the internet and we will answer it next week.
MAX LANDIS: Any comic book related question. If you could choose a character from the Marvel Universe to join the bat family as a new to get training from Bruce as a possible night wing for Robin possible either their own figure operating in Gotham.
MAN: Or a Bat woman or bat girl if.
MAX LANDIS: Bat woman need a fucking Robin.
AMY: How you get that she is not a hash tag but you think Camali is, sorry.
MAX LANDIS: Because she is gay, you saying why don’t I think that.
AMY: How do you immediately dismiss her based on her real interesting premise.
MAX LANDIS: Honestly because premise is too interesting it’s just too interesting to dismiss and it is not a nuance, the nuance is from being a fan girl who is also Pakistani who is constantly freaking out about the other super girls that’s what makes her has tag to me.
Bat woman is a crazy damage woman who is obsessed with batman and the idea of him and get to meet him and join him but then she get to face her own villains she is not as good at fighting as batman she doesn’t have his stuff there is so many be cool questions because this is Barbara Gordon question.
You know the Barbara Gordon question is if you are not batman but you hanging with batman who the fuck are you and the answer is bang, and then the fact that she is a lesbian incidental the way sexuality should be with a character like that.
INTERVIEWER: That’s in general.
MAX LANDIS: No because sexuality can be the center of the story I mean Gambit wanted to fuck Rogue that is to those characters I wanted to believe that, Gambit wanted to fuck a lot of women.
INTERVIEWER: I meant in life.
MAX LANDIS: Like the guy on queer as Folk being gay came up in their lives the fact that bat woman it was just part of her was dope and when Rene Montoya came out when she became a lesbian I didn’t think that was has tag you want to know why, because I remembered in no man’s land when two face had her on the stand and he kidnaps her and he is obsessed with her and there is nothing there and that was just a product of and they didn’t know that she is gay yet.
That didn’t add to the character but god did the story support her being gay, every story Rene was in was like now that I think about it so when she turned into the question I was like dope superhero this is cool I was like this is perfect and then the way the original question died and they made it all spelled out during 52 and I was like this is good.
Oh that was a good bunch of stories too is the weekly and with all Bruster Gold stuff and that was really good that was the last time I remember being really pumped every week to pick up the next issue of weekly comic, but no that’s why she is not a hash tag to me is because she asked so many questions.
What is the Joker going to think of this one, oh you are gay and bat woman will tell I have a lot of jokes to make based off this. what is cat woman going to think of her what is poison ivy who is clearly kind of bi is going to make of her.
Suddenly stories are writing themselves there are millions ways to go with the character there is the Pakistani team she loves super heroes she is Miss Marvel you have her meeting super heroes but what.
AMY: That is a small part of her series, most of her series is just her and her surrounding characters and her family.
MAX LANDIS : No I told you like every issue of the book I ever read, I just think it is a weird thing I think it feels sinister to me a little bit, it does, it does I mean like many things that are oral sinister that turned out great.
Luke Cage he s a black super hero you got a pay me to say it you know like that in the seventies heroes for hire that’s kind of fucked up it is awesome and he turned into this wonderful character and like a lot of thing start kind of naught and ended kind of nice I just wasn’t around for the beginning of that.
AMY: (1. 49.03) inaudible, it is the editor and the writer and (overlapping)
MAX LANDIS: I don’t be grudged anyone being a fan of anything, which marvel character get training from batman and live in DC universe.
MAN: I totally Miles give a pass to Mass Morales I love the character.
MAX LANDIS: Oh I love Miles Morales what you fucking kidding he was introduces perfect, he was introduced he was introduce perfect.
MAN: I don’t like how popular and side board
AMY: Next week’s question right away. tape repeating again stuck..to the end
Max Max Landis was featured as one of forb’s 30 under 30 for 2 consecutive years his rising sun in screenwriting world has sold over 15 projects in the last 5 years 15 projects in the last 5 years Max Landis first featured chronicles you just saw earned a 120 7million were a bully his upcoming movie victor Frankenstein stars Daniel wright Clef and James mcahu and his American ultra which star Jessy iceberg Christy just came out his got Mr wright coming up starring Sam Rockwell and Annie Kendrick which is familiar to the 2015 trans film festival ahh and me him and her which he wrote and directed ah which stars Haley … and features Jenny Davis and Scott Barclay
In T.V ahh Max Landis just sold 2 pilots, ah Derk Henley hope I’m saying that right based on the comic book.
Max Landis: its wrong but don’t worry about it
David: (laughing) damn it
Max Landis: this is weird I don’t like this like standing and listening
David: its alright just come on out here sit right here Tova you sit right there
Max Landis: hi kids this is more people than I was ready to expect I thought it was like gonna be 20 people it was so I loved it the American ultra was listed after a movie that hasn’t come out yet who of you didn’t mean to see in theatres join the rest of America no one seen American ultra but it’s really its actually kind of a good movie it’s an interesting case study do you guys mind if I set a tone here
David and Tova: please
Max Landis: ok I’m uncomfortable in front of the house
David and Tova: can we stop you?
Max Landis: no but I’ve seen that movie was this where it was? It must have been
David and Tova: yes
Max Landis: it won’t make any sense ahhh that’s why I’m not the cinematographer no angles ahh but ive seen that movie like a 150 times I’ve also answered every question that could be asked about that movie you guys are students? Who here is a student? No don’t raise your hands (makes a funny sound) ok you guys are students it would probably be the best use of all our time if I were to answer question generally about this business ahh you can ask me question about upcoming projects and stuff ahh I mean but it would be like what was the inspiration for crown and cool and ive answered that question like 40billion times and I bet you guys are more smarter than that
Tova: and you know the answer now
Max Landis: not yet intrusive was a guy name Josh Trankey as I’ve said in every interview I’ve been asked this question Josh pitch me a web series about two kids who get super powers one of them turns abd and one of them becomes a super hero and I thought that’s not depressing enough and I was like what if its three kids and none of them become a super hero and none of them turns bad just think suck and Josh was like I don’t think we could sell that so so you know get in the question I don’t know how this work ive never done this at a school before I don’t know how I ended up here I just I do a lot of holising egenic and I say yes to every email I get amm ive been in writers room all day today so I sat with two other guys who are 15years older than me and we just talk about our lives and men at the end of it we didn’t do anything we make up a bunch of stuff for a T.V show and so so it’s awesome but it’s also a real day job which screen writer like me usually don’t have
Tova: ahh it’s fun to be with other people in the room is that help or not?
Max Landis: you know I was scared because I’ve never worked with another writer before I’m rare in that my script don usually get re-written enough to get people other yeah that’s sounds like am a great writer its just I don’t know why it is honestly emmm maybe it because I’m a great noo ammm
Tova: well this movie is awesome ok who thinks its awesome?
Audience claps and shout
Tova: honestly there’s some scenes in this movie that I have not seen before that are big eyelink you know they really are big eyelink and at the end to me was like Shakespearian so there you go ok
Max Landis: thank you so much for saying that
Tova: and the fact that you were going through with number
Max Landis: oh this is a beyond not re-written
Tova: unbelievable
Max Landis: chronicle is fluke ahh chronicle is a complete fluke and ruined me for two years it ruined me because I…. my career was very like kinda like am a complete out lion everywhere when compared to most writers so most of the advice I give is useless unless it about the act of writing you knoew im been serious like i.. i.. I sold an absurd amount you said over 15 worth 25 now ive booked assignments and pictches and spas which is not normal and earlier on my career when I first sold chronicle I told I sold this good time gang I was getting ready to sell piper and then I was thinking amnesty and I had a general run howeys company and ive done good and I said run howeys we’re gonna make it in this movie and I was like everything is gonna be great and then Josh pitched me this in the backyard cos he thought I was selling things cos Josh was not my friend he was a guy I knew emm he is an editor and this guy didn’t like me and he heard that I was a writer and he wanted to work on me so he said I wrote this script and he was like he went out they were like there’s a bit to more and I was like Josh has to direct and they were like there’s no more bit in more we are selling you to fox and I was like ok at fox John Davis the producer was like hey baby I don’t have any notes but you can’t kill his father and I was like ok and then I spelt the exact was like can we add a lot more of the girl? And I was like ok I’m happy to do that and they were like can there any affords and I was like they were like they were like hey Josh film this shots with 3 kids with the super powers she was like ok thay were like 4 movies just fell out of our schedule and chronicle shooting in 2months I was like what!!! Oh my God ok wow! Being a screenwriter is easy and fun you are not to create the freedom you have its really incredible I don’t know why you’re complaining about shame I said the shade ain’t black yeah you know I feel like you don’t understand this business and he was like a completely mind fucked me because there in the movie by the way in the worse that movie comes out they cut out all the stuff I wrote on the girl of course and it comes out there’s no advertising and Josh was like yeah its gonna fall on his face and there’s this giant opening weekend and then it’s a huge worldwide success and then its critically graded and I was like this is the life everyone is an idiot except me and I was really if you watched interviews with me from that period I’m incredibly obnoxious ahh is this level of energy? But also some of this which has since been bitten out of me ahh and you know been a screenwriter is emotionally and mentally punishing job and chronicle I have this really interesting relationship with it cos I wrote the script all of my ideas that were in the script are in the movie I was like he kills the spider like that it’s about header or normative male friendship header or social male friendship and how hard it is when you are 15 to make real friends it’s a movie about call on bye it’s a movie about loneliness it’s ultimately not a movie about great power corrupting absolutely it’s a movie about power exposing you to your darkest impulses rather than corrupting because power don’t corrupt power has never corrupted anyone all power does is that it wipes away the mask and it leaves you with control I mean who here has been in emotionally abusive relationship? Oh you guys are all young do you know the best thing about this all the same people even they had no more relationship than they already had 5years from now and you say who here has been in emotionally abusive relationship half the hands no because you don’t know until its too late some of you guys have really manipulated me and people feel like shade and you don’t have the other camera yet it’s interesting you learn you know the funniest thing about age people say age is nothing but a number but men its way more than a number you see yourself more more clearly and its terrible ahh its terrible but yeah so in truth chronicle was sort of about the things we need from other people and things they need from us and how if we let them down we get impelled on a big spite and ahh or get hit ahh what’s so funny is like when it came out it’s a dark movie and you know fox would never make that movie it’s like an accident they called me the way it did and I think everybody was real quick to like I meant to do that afterwards and aaaaa
Tova: was it on the blacklist direct?
Max Landis: yeah but it was on the blacklist
Tova: but how is that possible?
Max Landis: because it was a spec ok so the problem with my specs now is they never end up on the blacklist cos they sell too fast because I no longer I’ve gone out about 2years ago I permanently removed myself from the business of trying to sell specs cos you can’t do it anymore by the way I like a really interesting happened how many of you guys are familiar with my rant about original ideas does anyone know about that?
David: yeah and read it
Max Landis: on twitter and everyone got mad at me for saying it but like something they don’t teach people is that the spec market is a dead but like dead dead the entire shape of the industry is changed the people are been trained to an increasingly inhospitable bubble and I’m like inside of it and every time I go on twitter I say like hey man movie industry is fucked up right now 12million guys in their basement and hopefully girls and people of colour in their basement I’ve been on tubular go say to me like you don’t know the fuck you’re talking about and I’m like no I mean this rooms well American ultra didn’t make money you know the conversations I’ve heard since then they involve things like you can’t sell on original actions picture you just can’t people aren’t interested and you know what makes that even scarier it seem like people actually aren’t interested which is like what the fuck is going on? and no one knows everybody talks about wanting to see new things and star wars is estimated to make a flat a flat floor of 2.5billion dollars and that’s minimally so let’s talk about how much we love original ideas and life
David: you had a great crew that would do something like don’t make star wars today but they wouldn’t make star wars
Max Landis: yeah that’s…………..
David: meaning like you know if they don’t make they’ll do it because it exist it’s a French highs now but they would never make that as original IP you know like never
Max Landis: noooo that’s what bumps me up no maybe one of you or if not one of you if you are also one time terrible to people then maybe somewhere there’s someone who has an idea for a movie that is great but it’s too big and it can’t be made in the current ………… and that kills me because there is going to come to a point and I think it’s going to be about 2019 where VR is more implemented in homes than video games. Movies are all branded properties and what the fuck I mean like we’re never gonna see back to the future again unless its back to the future and like I don’t know you can be like knowstaich you van be like ohhh like what about original and film but at the end of the day you are just chocking yourself off and so like ….. it’s true and you were like oh things were better back then no they weren’t
Tova: well well ok so first of all
Max Landis: can you tell a VHD I wrote a script last week in 3 days its-its really dark
Tova: now I think that ok so I was around when on the days when they did back to the future and all those movies that started in the 70s then there were the 80s and the 90s and every studio emmm basically bought development they made about 35 movies a year each one bought at least 250 new pieces of material a year Warner brothers bought 300 more than anybody about 200 or something and some of it was what we called programmers you know what I mean but now really it’s like that kind of movies the back to the future, ahh you know it’s either the super power you know the franchise thing or you do art movies. Art movies have their own is sort of you know their own you know they do so independent
Max Landis: they do sort of sort of I mean like that the thing that everybody likes nerd flicks now anybody’s movie can be seen do you know how people choose a movie on that flakes? It’s a psychological theory it’s called the ahh choice of lowest refusal the least …….. choice so if I see a poster from a movie that I don’t recognise and then I see the others and then I see American psycho I’m probably gonna end up watching American psycho or I’m gonna watch 5mins of this movie that was months of someone’s life writing his actress this was a big deal for them to get this part they edited this they spent all that money and I watch it and I’m like play station troller oh yeah ok ill watch something else now I’ll watch first 5mins of 20 hall mailers and I do that and I’m the guy who supposedly loves movie what’s Josh mug who doesn’t give a fuck doing I’ll tell you what he’s doing he’s playing uncle night still and he’s and he’s loving it and he just saw whatever the fuck just came out he didn’t see Steve Jobs he didn’t see American Ultra but he didn’t see the work. But American Ultra made more money than the work
David: right
Tova: the work is ahh i.. i… I don’t understand I don’t understand
Max Landis: I do
Tova: Why
Max Landis: cos it’s a real movie it says Steve Jobs is a real movie and these days people only come out to have experiences, so if you are smart
Tova: But the work was supposed to be an experience it is really
Max Landis: ah but it is a guy crosses a tie rope have you guys ever seen the documentary man on the wire?
David: yeah
Tova: fabulous
Max Landis: fuck ya the works already been made but its real talking about an experience and so when these things happen where you know the smartest movies that smartest real movies these days turn themselves into cinematic experiences. Batman, you love it you hate it doesn’t matter its just so smart it’s a trick its like a boring dramady about a guy whose going through part of his shady part of his life but what do you do with the boring dramady? In 1989 it would be here, Michael King, there’s them and here’s this and this is the fucking dream secret now in fucking 2013 oooooh it’s a boring dramady here we go ohhh it’s a one shot and like I mean like that’s real genius
Tova: shall I tell you something the editor of this movie was here
Max Landis: of chronicle
Tova: no of Batman
Max Landis: what did he have to make 4 cuts? Am so wowed I had 3 cups of coffee apologize to all of you
Tova: he said there were over a hundred cuts in this movie which they have concealed with all kinds of tricks and made it seem like its 4 cuts
Max Landis: well that’s what I do I directed …….. here we are
Tova: and the other thing is what they did is they rehearsed they shot the rehearsal they rehearsed all the other complicated chaps and they shot it and that was the master for their thing one editor was in the editing room cutting and the other one was with the director while they were shooting basically reminding everybody how it was done and that thing..
Max Landis: so every space in between has already been shot?
Tova: everything was shot
Max Landis: oh that was so smart you know do you know about the fin man thing?
Tova: no
Max Landis: ahh in order to get real power you know in fin man and after the fin man they have like a great chemistry and like they were so funny and so loose
Tova: yes
Max Landis: to real do you know how they did that?
Tova: no
Max Landis: he’ll tell them don’t screw out it’s just a rehearsal and then he’d shoot every rehearsal and then like half of the scenes and that’s why that style of acting in the fin man if you are so contemporary and modern and you are actualist and fun and then if you watch all the movies from that era you know its kind of Stefan 1940s acting or 1930s acting and the fin man just thinks eh these people are having a party and fin man free code that’s why we watched them in the theatre 2weeks ago and I forgot that he’d like goes like ill turn gay for that guy I’m already wasted hey Max Landis there’s no cocaine at this party and I was like what the fuck like when you see them say that in black and white its like … yeah in that era you forget
David: in that era that’s crazy men
Tova: oh my God let me ask you something you did 2 really hilarious and funny shots right?
Max Landis: are y talking about Batman or Superman or the rest of its wrestling?
Tova: yes
Max Landis: has anyone seen those?
Tova: youtube oh my God
Max Landis: thank you guys those are the only this is totally real those are the only reason am inaudible figure let me say the only reason anyone knows what I really look like did any of you guys know what I look like before I walked out on this stage?
Tova: from the video but you look very different
Max Landis: stage kill hello again movie fights dude I demolished I felt bad afterwards when I was talking to Spencer and said did I piss you off and he said it’s just frustrating cos you start answering and I know you were winning and I was like honest fellows the best online the best thing one of the best things going but I said no main reason I’m notable is because of those 2 shots
Tova: I know because ahh wrestling in the wrestling I remember i……..
Max Landis: I’m so happy you saw them
Tova: yeah my God so couple of things first of all because they are students and they have to learn and they wanna be notable also that’s why I’m asking
Max Landis: no they don’t know they don’t, not if they’re screenwriters making list of notable was the biggest mistake in my career hands down I to pursue that giant mistake
Tova: why
Max Landis: has not benefitted me at all on the business side it’s nice to have fans it’s nice to have lot of people come up to me at caravan it’s fun to do shit like this but because I’m not I’m more likable now because I’m not an instantaneously likable josh more person I can be fill fished and I have been many times who here knows what fill fish is? Oh God damn it I was a reference you are millenniums that’s a fucking year reference ok who here knows what gamergate is? Woah no hands? Wait a minute God the internet fucks you up doesn’t it? You think everybody knows about everything who here knows what hit the quan is? Still almost like no hand the internet tricks you into thinking things irrelevant which aren’t but it also allows people I deal with the tremendous amount of hatred ah open hatred and because I’m not a real celebrity because I can walk around on the street and not actually famous ahh the people who hate me feel no shame about contacting on Facebook and also like the second John Max Landis’ kid is successful or something it his dad that did it you know no one says that about the rock you know his father is legendary wrestler but the rock has taught of it his own thing and so putting my face out there all I successfully did was enable myself to get hit with pies and ah and it’s been fun but it’s been hard too so but those shots I wouldn’t give them up for the world they are the two of the best memories of my life
Tova: so let me ask first of all how do you finance them?
Max Landis: its all my money and all my friends like Elijah wood and Ron Haward and Mandy Moore all the wrestlers and wrestling David Art ah Haley Joehasman Josh Park these are all the actors in them you notice none of the males except for Elijah are like famous actors they are all just they seem like random kind of good looking people and wrestling is wrestling with all those cute girls that’s like some of those girls I’ve dated some of those are my hypotonic female friends and then I would say I would say let’s go to thrift stores and make costume who wants to do this ill pay for every expense on it and we would just make a movie you know I love making stuff I’ve been addicted to making stuff if you go back you can find me in college like drunk comics book history the robins and ah ah nightfall and all that shit I’ve just made stupid shit cos I’m addicted to it and I can’t stop and I always have a new idea and the ideas aren’t necessarily good but I’m gonna do it and cos it has to be the next thing
Tova: now tell us actually in spirits it kind of reminds me you’re gonna hate that I said that I contact your fright movie
Max Landis: I don’t hate it at all oh I’m a big fan of my dads
Tova: on the…… yeah only because at a time that’s what it was like you know what I mean the same kind of spirit of what you’re doing so what I’m saying………
Max Landis: I can’t believe you know wrestling is a wrestling is about to hit 2million
Tova: no I saw it even more
Max Landis: well garfin return it to 2 and a half but am
Tova: I see so so big thing in both of those are really and it’s really and it’s really funny with of course female playing male, male playing female just even the voice the being you know
Max Landis: my voice yeah well that’s the old that’s the old Woody Allen thing but that’s also drunk history in the millions of things I’ve done it but you know the females playing males and wrestling is a wrestling is a necessary choice it wasn’t for like 39 sexy girls you noticed I’ve taken effort to desexualize them and they are such beautiful girls and I try to present them like doofy cartoons and because I realised indefinite return this would make sense to anyone who hasn’t seen these but I did a shot in which I go through an entirety of a restless career you know to demonstrate that poor wrestling is a profession succinct and compleat storytelling device ah it’s a method that’s is unparallelled that has no pairs beyond performance art maybe kabuki and occasionally tells wonderful stories ahh a lot of it sucks too but it occasionally tells really wonderful stories if you are not a fan of professional wrestling it’s actually, if you’re a fan of wrestling watching professional wrestling and you tired you be like I’m coming but if you are not a fan of professional wrestling and you watch the show its still worth seeing for men if you like funny shit ahh cos it’s about storytelling amm but in it all of the wrestlers are played by my female friends and I did that that was a necessarily choice because in the superhero one I can just make them dumb versions of the superheroes in wrestling is wrestling if I had them be guys who look like the wrestlers it would just be guys doing the impression of the wrestlers and it would still feel like wrestling and the point of wrestling is a wrestling is that wrestling isn’t wrestling it has nothing to do the sport of wrestling it has zero to do with it so I needed to divorce it completely no big strong aisles no rings no wrestling no title belts none of these stuff you use in wrestling in order to show that your story can still be told in a compelling way and I thought I know a lot of girls and so they are all in it every girl I’ve ever met ah it’s a fun one
Tova: it’s hilarious just go to YouTube and watch it it’s really funny it’s really funny
Max Landis: I wrote my first novel when I was 9 it sucked it had a great idea but it sucked
Tova: so then you sold your first screen played word at 18?
Max Landis: no ahh when I was 18 I attempted to get book of trading John Carpenters his episode marks of hawk cos I’ve already written something like 15 screenplays and ahh you know with my dad been my dad my dad’s career you know it’s only so much I can say I’m been respectful but by 2007 2008 John Max Landis was not gonna agree writing movie he’s not a meaningful trash man so he’s been asked to do this thing called masters of horror I’d written something like 8 novels and 100s of short films and tons of stuff and none of it had ever been made and I was showing it to all my dad’s friends like someone pay attention to me and my script ended up going to a producer named Adam Golden and he was like you’ll do pretty good he was like you should do it with your dad and I was like if I do it with my dad they’ll associate me with my dad for the rest of my career and I won’t be able to sell anything he was like most screenwriters never sell anything anyway
David: sounds like Goldwon I know Goldwon
Max Landis: so me and Goldwon and my dad did a thing called dear women but then my dad took a co-writing credit and changed a bunch of it it’s a weird thing there’s some of it I recognise myself and I thought no one would ever take me seriously as a writer again my first credit is shared with my dad so I went to college and I was like oh well I tried but I turned out to be a joke and I wrote 21 more scripts and I start making shots and I was like no fuck this fuck this no this is all I am good at so I just became really rededicated myself to it I had a job in college and then I was all my friends graduated and then I’m too dumb at school to graduate so I was like we all moved back to L.A all my friends are aiming for their careers but by that time I’ve written script on home town hero which is not a great script but it sounds like good script but here is a secret most script aren’t good ahh if you read even from script of film that gets made, a lot of them are pretty fucking bad emm and so being even ok would get you noticed and hometown hero was ok ahh it was a completely ok script with major problems that we can never ever sell but it can be managers and 3years of me just writing and writing and writing and my managers you know when you have an agent and incoming calls business there are around people wanna hire you, your manager ideally only outgoings and call business they are calling people to say hey amm what’s your name (David) yeah have you heard of David? What’s your full name (David like my last name) have you heard of David like my last name? he’s a he’s a really good screenwriter already what’s he’s written and this script and they send the mad script and they go yeah that script has some ok stuff in it but what’s with all the board fucking and so, by the way, I read it I think it’s great ahh but no and so then but the thing is that managers you got a few of them and what they feel by its content and so good news my managers would be like you wrote this script and I’ll be like yeah and they will be like no one is interested and I’ll be like ok here is the other script they’ll be like what the fuck are you talking about you gave us a script last week I would be like no it’s this week I need to make money doing this cos I live with my parents now and I don’t have friends and they were like ok and then I’d be like I go with my friends and they’d be like hey that’s what you doing and ill be like I’m just living off the money I made in college ahh everything is great I imagine I’m gonna be a big screenwriter and I just kept doing that till I wrote a script called good time gang and good time gang gat optioned and then all of a sudden good time gang was the best thing I’d written and I was aware of it instantly upon writing it instantly I’d written a script called Mr. ride that’s since become a movie but that was the script that was first people were like hey this is pretty good and pretty good among scripts is very rare and of course this is also all subjective am only giving you reviews that I’ve gotten to me I think I’m very good at writing but I don’t wanna sound like an asshole being like you know so good time gang I got paid and the second I gat paid the second I actually got paid not the dear women thing suddenly I was a real writer and they were can you fini…. The good time gang is really funny can you make this actual movie funny we will pay you 10 cents and you won’t get a credit but it will be good you’ll get paid and I was like I really wanna move out can you make this science fiction movie scary? You acted a scary thing that is action movie I was like I can no credit no credit money money money and I’m like hey Ronald what if you did a movie it’s like an action adventure movie that set now except for we go to an island that’s like dungeons and dragons and we uncover our conspiracy there he was like cool I was like let’s try it like Universal then I went over to my ex-girlfriends molly’s house and there was this guy smoking a bomb on the couch and I was lie, Josh, I haven’t seen you since High school and it sort of like steamed from there and I went through a period where I was selling a tremendous man stuff I got burned because that’s what you do you got burned amm I’ve written on more things than I’m even allowed to talk about and by a lot the majority of jobs that I’ve done it’s fun when you think about it anyway it soo ah then movies slowly change during the beginning of my career and I became aware that trying to be shame black version two depression soldiers over a hundred wasn’t gonna work and now am in a new space and I’m doing clever stuff with the script but you know that’s mainly my manager ahh whose I think the best person whose ever lived she’s not she’s kind of an idiot but I love her everybody please am kidding please am kidding say hi to Felix
David: i. i.. I have a question just cos I know that you are so you know active you write so many different things can you talk to us a little about your process and how fast you’ve been cos it feel like
Max Landis: it’s different every time ahh every story in it my process is different every time ahh it depends on the story I wrote this script deeper three weeks ago that I was like you know it’s a funny idea and my friend were like what I was like no ill just write this one scene and then three days later and they denied page script and so and so I’m working now like in the process of selling that so it’s like and then but then you talk about my movie swam 3years ago I had an idea to do girrastic parts with bees to address the dwindling honeybee population and do a big fun spill ball game adventure movie about people who are trying to engineer a human proof bee and how obviously wrong that can go so like a smarter deep blue sea plus touristic park give really fun characters cos there no no fun characters in adventure movies anymore like really like one of the guys is a ah is a manager he is an ego terrorist based on what he does he is basically a crazy happy who kidnaps species and then repopulates them into an environment that cannot take them so he like there is this type of scorpion that lives in the jungle in the amazon and he needs this kind of environment its environment is destroyed i gonna get 200 of those and where can I find that kind of environment in America oh south main ok enjoy the golf course scorpions these fishes will survive and so it’s that guy and there’s another guy is sort like a brain crainstain ah many Potemkin character whose like the world’s foremost ……………… which is B scientist he’s like ok that script is like 64 pages long and it becomes 64 pages long in like 5months……… so like that script’s taken me I guess 2years now because I just go to it whenever I’m not working anything else my script condenses I wrote 60 pages of it in my 3 days and then I went time travels hard I didn’t come up with good enough plan and then I went for the 75 to 91 chunk of this and after 91 I usually know happens on one page from the the beginning of that page
David: do you align it in your head or do you do it online
Max Landis: no I just know
David: you just know
Max Landis: sometime sometimes I have one if it’s like a complicated thing I was writing on super project I was like I took it so seriously that I was outlining every day I did graphs of characters and they were like wouldn’t it matter if we had someone else and he just stupid and I was like sure so now I’m off that although my name is still on the script which is terrifying because not my script anymore I don’t know so so ehh yeah sometimes I align sometimes I write treatments sometimes I write a scene from later on the movie and then spend a bunch of time writing into that scene sometimes I start on a file I have a file on my computer that’s just individual lines of dialogue from this one movie ahh that guy which is about its like several organ moves into this apartment in Philadelphia and he’s like he moves in then and he’s like this stubby guy he just broken up with his girlfriend he really wants to get back with her they’re still in love they have like a really difficult relationship cos she’s like yu don’t do anything I have to break up with you because you are slowing my life down and I’m gonna leave you but then I’m still having sex but then they fight and he’s just been fired from his job then he was gonna get a new job but he slept through the interview and he doesn’t have any excuse why and he’s in his new apartment and then someone starts cleaning his apartment when he’s not there and he’s like the fuck is this and he starts to realise his apartment is haunted by just………… who was the happy young professional really smart really cool guy who lives there from 2001 to 2007 and he’s like what happened to this guy and it turned out he went missing in 2007 he was a reporter he was doing an exposé except for he and the ghost even though they aren’t couple they sought of hate each other but they certainly like each other and they become like bros and also for the first time in the movie it’s this bro comedy movie and then they get they have their bro break up you know like the end of a first style like 40 minutes into the movie after we’ve had some fun and just helped them put back lovers life you have to listen to your girlfriend she telling you she’s not happy you can’t argue when someone says they are not happy just those of us lover are grounded emotional matured guy and suddenly his organs get way better he gets the job and just when he says what don’t have you done for me and he says am fucking dead my family doesn’t even know am dead have you even thought about that? And Rogan is like fuck well we’ll find out what happened to you and its turn out that Juslin is not actually hunting the apartment he’s hunting a button that was under his bed so if he takes this button with him he can have Juslin go where ever he goes and he wouldn’t see him in mirrors and stuff and so he goes I’ll just go to your old job except for he goes for his old job and the say why are you asking questions about that he knows something and the second half of the movie is like 3 days in the condo where the scary people who killed Justlin have to come out after sir Throgan and its like a comedy but its like the action is …………… and ok I have 41 pages of the movie out of other and they’ve been there since 2012 and I know the whole movie but I mean when am I gonna write it really I have to write this other thing that I can sell easier you know I mean you can sell that easy but you need cast attachments you have to sought a studio you couldn’t sort small so already it’s a development project if its development project I’m not gonna be the only writer so what am I doing?
David: I do like a man on a ghost all the way of fun as a comedy I like it
Max Landis: oh yeah there’s is this scene where joseph is standing out in the rain and he has an umbrella and he is doing this and he goes you can’t get wet and then he goes oh you’re right and then he goes fuck you am fucking freezing and then he just goes like this fuck me the umbrella goes away and he says what the fuck and he goes over to pick up the umbrella and it turns inside out and he say what are you doing and he starts holding it like that and he’s gabbing at the ghost and then you just cut to him viewed from a distance in a lying over cold going I’ll get you ……… so there are a lot of scenes like that but I don’t really know what the stakes are yet beyond they gonna shot you with gun but you are always the mist boring stakes in the world
Tova: can I ask you something? Because I started to blog for having ten posts and I notice it for me if I sit down with a piece of paper they’re never more than a page and a half or something and if I sit down and I just write it there it flows it usually its pretty good and I just have to just think about it a little bit and it’s done and one time I had an idea in my head but I didn’t write it I just driving that car and I said oh wait a minute that would be a good idea and kinda filled it and then something just and it was in pieces and I struggled with this to put it together all of the pieces together way much more than if I just sit down and there was a flow and it seems like it may be the same with you, you know cos you can’t sit and write 99 pages in you in the flow
Max Landis: but they’re not good I mean like it’s not necessarily good there’s no such thing as a good kisser anyone who’s made out of 4 people know that there are people you teach with and there are people who you don’t reach with no such thing as a bad kisser just like there’s no such thing as a bad writer but in terms of been a good writer it’s a lot more liquid so like I can sit down and write 90 pages but if I’m not feeling it there’s a chance I suck not every idea I have is good one of the biggest challenges I have in my life because I’m a guy who has a lot of ideas is deciding which ones to actually spend time on and commit to because I realised very early on like horrison negligent against the girls act is a cool script but I can’t sell that movie and it’s not even that cool it’s just kind of a weird movie I wanna see it’s called horrison negligent against the girl act what the fuck am I doing I mean I handed over to my managers and the looked at me and were like ok you are doing heroine we are gonna get you help and I said no its really good it’s about two town fools in this Ethiopian country fighting a big man oh right that $200billion hmmmm I’m gonna go and chop myself in the rehab I’m doing heroine and so you know it’s like when you write up you….. when you write and it flows out of you it’s always gonna feel to you like it’s either perfect or terrible who here has written something and they look back and you wrote the whole thing and then you are like that’s terrible how many of you have written something and you look back and this is perfect I don’t wanna change this no that’s the exact right ratio ok both wrong you know it’s never as bad as you think it is and it’s never as good as you think it is
Tova: ok who has a question from the students?
Max Landis: oh yes please the you
A student: you are mentioning new projects you’re working on I just want to ask about ah victor Frankenstein and considering how many versions of the Frankenstein story you have come out with since 1700 what makes the one unique and your opinion
Max Landis: no no I haven’t seen it but but if you are curious about this script you can read it just Google Max Landis victor frankenstein pdf ammm I think it’s one of the best scripts I’ve ever written I haven’t seen the movie yet it’s a big fox movie and it’s probably good what made you need the script? I can I’m a screenwriter I can only answer questions about scripts the first thing you learn is that you have little or no control over movie what makes it unique because it’s from the side cast ahh it about fucking idea I ever had its ok tell me Egor the character the hunchback who helps find Frankenstein in what did he first appear?
Student: I can’t remember which one it was I saw a lot
Max Landis: was it in the movie
Student: I wanna say it was in the movie
Max Landis: it was in the song in the monster mash
Student: I did not know that
Max Landis: the hunchback in the original 30s universal Frankenstein is named Frets Egor shows up as a ghost in Frankenstein and he’s belle ghosting he is a mad blacksmith who is not a hunchback nor a Frankenstein’s assistant his name is spelled with a y and yet everyone knows Egor is Frankenstein’s hunchback assistant the moment I figure that out I went fuck this I’m going in I’m gonna write the version of Frankenstein that everyone already thinks exist and I’m gonna write it in the social network its gonna me a story about friendship and science and love and trust and medicine and new frontiers and what it takes to challenge people’s ideas about what saying and I love that script the version online is my third draft I think the best version was probably my fourth for fox the shooting draft is unavailable and also I understand that things took out some time and moved around I haven’t seen it yet but the trailer the British trailer especially looks great so I’m really excited to see it but my script is opening against cride in the good dinosaur good luck Frankenstein but ah but so so although triple feature those are all movies that I would see even if I wasn’t involved but you know my script what makes it special it feature the best character work I have ever done outside of many scripts deeper and the first draft of American ultra but but but you know what fuck that it’s my end door charming pilot the only reason I sold that pilot makes me …. See the only reason I sold it cos it was so much fun and the characters are fun but yeah it all out of my best dialogue its people talking about all the shit that’s in Frankenstein and radically and emotionally instead of it being a monster or horror movie its two guy been like hey we have a filmmaking bring someone back from the dead my mind is fucking blown except for it written in this flowery a suit of a ton dialogue a lot of my best dialogue is in that script with that script you know what if I give you any homework you’d be able to read that script and see that movie because you can see I’m curious to see that movie but you can see how things change from script to movie and it would be exciting and also that script really fun to read its start from the line her body is perfect and also features one of my best girls I love writing girls it has a cool woman in it and it’s just good fucking version of Frankenstein that’s one version of those when is the last one of those? They’ll tell you 1976 I mean you can say the 90s Frankenstein it has stuff in it
Student: I’m more familiar with the black and white from like the 1940s
Max Landis: the universal the original muffin universe
Student: yeah yeah I used to collect those movies and I’m trying to like collect them again now out of blue ray and DVD
Max Landis: oh they’re easy to find men a lot of those are really good and when was the last time you saw bright the Frankenstein
Student: that was years ago I can probably forget like now that you mentioned it I totally remember him cos when I remember watching 1931 I think it was and I remember him addressing his assistant and calling him frets and I’m like what happened to Egor
Max Landis: Egor doesn’t exist buddy Egor what is he saying the monster mash you fool yes master and then the …….. of that character existed before the film that character existed in a film I go young Frankenstein what the fuck is going on with our culture and the neckle chamber he just get more and more distorted and those things we think are facts slowly unspool people talk about superman been able to fly and not until the 89th issue people talk about batman not killing people yeah that why he kept shooting people for the first win cos he didn’t wanna kill them bad monk I’m a super villain no you are boom I have million and millions of dollars boom boom boom this is for my mother she got shot just like this bang bang and I’m batman God no one can have fun with that but does that answer your question
Student: oh yes thank you
Max Landis: who’s next tell me you have good question common be smart guys and girls common questions
Student: Hi
Max Landis: hi what your name
Student: my name is berry I wanted to say thank you for stuff for the huge of channel you put together
Max Landis: that’s just my personal youtube page
Berry: yeah but I watch all those stuff all the time
Max Landis: you’re not like wilster video of E walk fox said to like ghost face killer
Berry: but all the screenwriting
Max Landis: I’m really happy if it helps you
Berry: yeah yeah I really appreciate that I was gonna ask about you were talking about specs no longer a thing you know I was thinking maybe you’ll just shadow it a bit
Max Landis: they are but they are not there’s a weird new thing and I’m not qualified to explain it to you defended but basically very few studios are buying specs anymore they buy new material and people are like always they buy a million new materials Max Landis you don’t know what you are talking about ahh material means one IP fuck you moron I hope you die no I can’t I should just now respond to that tweet and so there’s more more IPs best stuff coming out what IP means it’s getting looser there’s gonna be a jack Daniels movie and then it’s like an adventure movie yeah the assignments is open right now hope you have your specs on because that’s now you sample and so you can still get stuff made sort of in the new secondary system which is finance series and production companies where its discretionary but that scene is getting really really crowded and the real bad news is that there’s guys like me in there and not only guys like me there’s guys like David Goya and Shades Black and guys who when you say their name in the room someone goes I like to buy a script from them and you go what’s the script about? And they go I don’t care am not one of those guys yet but you know it’s a lot of big fish in two small ponds and all the little fish are writer number 40 on XYZ superhero movie and they don’t get credited and all the big fish are in the tiny pond that used to be the place where young guys went and then there’s like the net flakes crew of like people making shit completely outside the system and just believing and I don’t know how those people do it and I’m not good enough at that am not a genius am not a genius and like I see stuff like this victoria that just came out and I go a genius made this oh well I’ll hang myself later I’m, not a real artist everything they say is true and so to answer you once the minute parts of the Caribbean made that much money all bets rough cos what does pirates of the Caribbean have to do with the right pirate of the Caribbean
Berry: nothing
Max Landis: that’s not true it has the same name and the second that happened it became ahhhh what else can be a movie? I mean people are so desperate that there’s a new model that’s dying out now but it was going out for like 7years with this crazy thing happening where new writer will go to manager I have a cool idea for a movie and they go ok here’s what you should do don’t write that script you’ll be like what? They’ll be like we can sell that at a graphic novel and then we can sell it as an IP and then it will be based on the graphic novel but isn’t the comics industry dying shhhhhhh we don’t need to sell the graphic novel what? We just have a limited run of the graphics novel but then we can say its based on the graphic novel why are we just lying and say it’s based on the graphic novel because they wanna see the graphics novel so you want me to write a graphic novel that no one will read and hopes it will then sell and we can pretend like pepper ended and then ill get to write the script? Well yeah either you or David Goya who to hire to write that script so they will ah yeah proven screenwriter like some of my guy a good writer right now we have a lot of really good writers working I mean like fucking winter soldiers great what of ice winter soldiers that good all because people cared about it and that fucking cool ahh you know but the truth is the form is you go back to what was the winter soldier of you know 1985 aliens and you are like wow when the soldiers great but the aliens feel like a big movie that’s got all these complicated ideas in it different characters and everyone is like shhhhhhh we have to include these characters so we can out them in the sick walls I don’t know I don’t hate it it often seem like am complaining or I hate them but the truth is it’s been unbelievably kind to me and I’ve been having a really good time I just get worried about people who are in the position I was then 7years ago because all big Max Landis’ kid really did was shoe me how the industry works for 23years and 24years before I sold anything and then 25years before anything really happened you know if you go into the studios you are agenda to help bunkers it is and how little and the sense it makes you’re gonna have a really hard time and they don’t teach it in classes they don’t teach how habitually it is did you ever read my thing about getting note as a child? Did you read that about how you are a professional screenwriter you will get a note from a child? My kid I told this idea to my kid and he thinks it would be better if we chanced it so what you gonna do you are gonna tell child no that guy is an idiot well you probably also did a bad job explaining no you gonna go and do that cos that’s your job and like its bunkers there’s so many parts of this bunkers BS it is very useful for samples never give up not stop writing cos if you stop writing then you are taking yourself out the game you should always be rocky you can never not be rocky but you can’t be rocky with one script you need a new one you know people I know guys in the fringes of the film industry that drained the same script for 12years and their excuses always different for why it’s not selling and it’s different every time and now they are 42 when they came I knew they were 30 you know like what do I even say to you I can’t give you advice you’ll think am a punk so your dad is John Max Landis what do you know about the film industry I’ll tell you what I know about the film industry I work in it and so there’s no way to dissolution people from their fact that it is a job and you’re just gonna keep printing out materials so the spec not doing that shouldn’t discourage you but it should inform you going forward yeah as a young screenwriter I think your smartest move is to write a few specs one of which is good to serve as a calling card and that calling card spec will get you your assignment job and then ideally that would eventually lead to you selling something but no longer to the studio executive so you get your assignment jobs for instead to finance here’s many actually get to get a movie made which is the most exciting emotional thing you can do until you have to watch the movie did I answer you question?
Berry: yeah yeah thank you very much
Max Landis: no problem man thank you whats up dude what’s your name?
Student: hi max you are very big in London by the way everyone loves you in London
Max Landis: thank you tell London I said tchh
Student: I will thank you
Max Landis: not in a revolutionary war way tell London I said what’s your name?
Student: laughing my name is Toby
Max Landis: toby
Toby: I don’t know if I’m an upcoming artist sometimes I get a writers blog and sometimes I can’t think of any ideas or inspiration could you amm personally how do you get your ideas?
Max Landis: I’m an outlier I have multiple movies a day using me as an example and trying to give people advice about their ideas is always been hard for me because I don’t understand what it would be like not to have ideas but I can tell you something that’s really easy have you ever seen my video flip the premiers?
Toby: I haven’t any
Max Landis: ok you should maximise the flip the premiers it’s the best way you can have an idea ahh you just take a movie and you flip it so like this guy is a police officer and at a very young age there’s is a mob war and he’s a police detective has an officer then but his 2 children are kidnapped and taken away from him years and years down the line there’s is giant fucking syndicate and he find out by hook or by crook his mentor was not his father but his mentor was in the police station goes hey man we are trying to crack down a crime in the city but I have bad news I think your son is been brought into this do you remember that guy who was a police officer who was CRO coded and who escaped the law your partner I think he’s like training your son as like a killer and that guy is like what the fuck do I do? And his mentor is like you have to try to bring him in this kid everything for him sucks and now he has to confront the fact that he’s hunting his own son and his own daughter is somewhere out there too who is been taught to be nightmare criminals by the worse people life that’s just star wars backwards but it is its own movie its its own movie the end of the movie is what did I learn what makes u person is who raises you and who’s inside of you who am i? you have the coolest thing ever unimagination there’s never an excuse not to have an idea that’s just how I feel Toby I didn’t know if that answers your question
Toby: it does no it does that great thank you very much
Tova: from London also
Max Landis: yeah thank you London anyone else fight!
Student: hi my name is Yemo
Max Landis: Yemo hi
Yemo: so when you write a script do you usually have the entire back story of the character in your head even if it’’s not on page?
Max Landis: no no it’’s useless
Yemo: oh ok
Max Landis: characters are stories stories are character everything other thing is just green running class shit the reason that made you do that is good because it forces you to think analytically about the choices the person is gonna make and it forces you to know them but once you’re writing a story don’t exist outside your story and the second you are thinking about that you are just plucking on fatty you never want fat, alacrity, sportiness, clean, concise story that’s what makes a good script told interestingly have fun with it but you don’t need to know in some world document no ones ever gonna read you don’t need to know that his dog died you know you don’t need to know that she was sexually assaulted when she was 14 unless you take it in the plot you know these are all those things that you taught in screenwriter classes and in writing classes because that’s where your imagination go and that’s what is useful but the truth is the second you start doing that in a script you actually intend to finish youre gonna get distracted from what matters because what matter is who is that person who’s story am telling right now that’s all that matters
Yemo: ok thank you
Max Landis: no problem
Tova: you know they say ……………… had an office with nothing a typewriter and thre is this thing that says what does the hero want?
Max Landis: …………………….is such a better writer than me that wow as you say it would still be an insul to him me been impressed by him me talking about him ………………… is an actual genius
Student: ok ah ah max this is mike just a question……
Max Landis: who is mike?
Mike: me
Max Landis: ah ok ok I thought you were like this is mike (pointing downwards) I just wanna say mikes……. Thank you mike
Mike: what your vision for the film industry 25years from now
Max Landis: can I show you? Can I paint you a picture?
Mike: please
Max Landis: close your eyes yeah take off your glasses wow ok so ok so I want you to imagine me 25years from now I’ll be 55 Jesus Christ am still kid but line 1 I have lines in my face I look tired and I’m standing on the side of the road on the bus stop and there is a tremendous amount of people around me all these people of all different ages and races and they all look tired too and some of them are wearing stars wars the first waking shirt and likers jersey that look dirty I actually kind of look dirty too and then a bus pulls up but instead of everyone gets inside it no one is pushing everyone is been polite but in the bus instead of us getting on the bus guys in the bus began to unload crates of bottled water and we have coupons the we exchange for the bottled water and then I go home and my self-driving uni-cycle thing am too poor to afford the cars you know the ones who can afford the cars are the little pats and I get home and I see my little kid she says daddy did you get food and I said no only water they say it’s gonna be a hundred and ten tomorrow too she says well at least we live in north Dakota when it’s cold that’s my vision of the film industry in 25years
Mike: thanks
Max Landis: yeah men can they just keep coming I’m having a lot of fun with these kids
Tova and David: yeah sure
Max Landis: ok
Student: first of all that’s a great script
Max Landis: no its not that’s a cool pitch it’s actually a hard pitch global warming and then I die I told you I’m gonna kill myself later so It’s all everything is good what’s your name?
Student: my name is Thomas
Max Landis: hi Thomas
Thomas: hi max emmm I just wanted to ask you what your favorite movie is and why is that your favorite movie?
Max Landis: I don’t have a favourite movie I have a movie I’ve seen more that every other movie and I have a movie that I think it’s the best movie ever made but that’s not my favourite movie the movie I’ve seen more than any other movie is ground most two and I’ve seen ground most two almost 300 times I watches it every Friday for like 4years ammmm and I think I missed like 2 Fridays cos my dad will be like you excited to watch …… and I’ll be like sure and he’ll be like and then you get to watch ground most two I’ll be like yeah so I just you know I had the biggest thing my dad gave me is he has basically turned old classic movies into my brain by the time I was 13and you know that was incredibly helpful in terms of thinking of movie ideas cos I’ve just watched and read so much especially at an early age ah but you know the best movie ever made is love exposure which is siyoung who is s director im gonna work with soon ahh siyoung is crazy ah he’s genius but he’s an actual crazy genius its wonderful its wonderful its very interesting to talk to him he’s the ground most in filmmaking and we made eye contact for a second so ahhh love exposure is 4 and half hour long and it’s not an earth movie it’s a Japanese movie it’s a really funny, violent, sexy, expensive, romantic it’s everything cos its 4 and half hours teen comedy and dude its not boring you laugh in the entire time you watch the whole movie it has to be the best movie ever made I’ve seen it 5 times what’s 4 and half hours X 5 I can’t do the maths I’ve spent a full day of my life watching this fucking movie I’ve watched it multiple I was like the first time I saw it I was like that’s the best movie I’ve ever seen cos I got out of it and I was like it wasn’t part of that movie this happens this happens this happens this happens this happens this happens this happens this happens oh the mad thing happens this happens this happens this happens this happens this happens this happens this happens this happens and I went when ill I cut out and I went none of it and I was just like fuck you I walked out of the cinema like this and when I finally met him and he was like hello I really love American ultra I’ve seen it this week I was like you do and now he challenges you he’s brilliant he’s just a genius he’s an incredible output and not all these movies are great but most of them are really good all of them have at least one thing that you will like best I’ve never seen that in a fucking movie before Sion sono love exposure the best movie ever made but not my favourite movie
Thomas: thank you can I ask you one more question?
Max Landis: yeah sure hit me
Thomas: I just really wanna know why you thought of the star wars trailer
Max Landis: I thought it was good I mean like how old are you
Thomas: 18
Max Landis: here we go when I was 15 I saw a movie named star wars trailer episode 1 and it was so fucking good and I was like Jesus Christ this is gonna be fucking awesome and then when I was 30 I saw a movie called star wars the awakenings and it was so fucking good and me though Jesus Christ this is gonna be Ohh lets see it on Monday and the trailer was like fun it was weird the one weird thing was like unpractical sex practical makeup real stuff the moment of truth all CG and one practical vin ma trailer what are you doing? Did you trick me? But I’ve decided to see that movie I’’m pull on top
Thomas: cool thanks
Max Landis: no problem men yeah men get up there ok you get up there first you raised your hands first anytime I see someone walking down the aisle
Student: my name is Daniel
Max Landis: hi Daniel
Daniel: I got like 3 things to change into 1 question
Max Landis: sure
Daniel: 1 is I love your thing you did in screen jonkees about what the men of steel sequel would be like
Max Landis: it shouldn’t be better I came up with that better on my head by the way if you love my super slandering superman dc gave me a 70 issue run comes out in the stores November 11 please buy it cos it’s the best I think it’s the best thing I’ve done as a writer
Daniel: ahh another is I love the American ultra
Max Landis: thank you, men, its pretty fun movie
Daniel: it is
Max Landis: it’s interesting it seemed very ugly for a kind of fun it is I think because it observe 2 different standards but we gat exactly the same reviews as the movie that inspired it true romance court when it came out pretty much the same box office too#
Daniel: finally some years later it will be considered a classic
Max Landis: oh yeah sure use your cd to shelter me from the sun o thank you so much I’m so happy that’s your favorite
Daniel: definitely there were final shot out
Max [email protected] oh yeah in the mascots
Daniel: yeah
Max Landis: that was so fun to write if you read the script ahh I make all these jokes during it as I’m writing the different things he’s doing well I’m like it’s gonna be what we can afford for the day I’m an action director don’t make me type all this he picks up the pencil and drives it in the man’s eardrum I have to type that why are you making me type all that all of my script like talking to the person reading it but that in American ultra-it’s a world time high of me doing that because I’m going you really want me to write 2 pages of him killing people he scarved grabbing the cliver and chopping the man’s head one of his dreads flying off in a different direction he’s different by the blade this is awesome I don’t like writing this but thank you so much and then what was the third question
Daniel: one more thing before the question the third thing is I love your dads work with Louis brothers and the American wellwith in London
Max Landis: thank you so much you know that American wellwith is really one of the favorite movies of my dad and it’s the one I see the most order than into the night ill tell him you said that
Daniel: ah my question is I don’t know if you’d be able to answer this or not but as an up and coming screenwriter like a new screenwriter what do you think the best of all the WGAA agent would look out for in new screenwriters?
Max Landis: the recent one there is no big agency that is good for new screenwriters there are plenty of management companies that are great for new screenwriters the one I always recommend like large suckle of confusion I can go online and those are the two that I’ve been rep by I always suggest them because they didn’t write by me when I was a new screenwriter but yeah like I said agents are not there to help you they are there to help YOU does that make sense they are not there to help you they have other people that they have to help they need to … how are they gonna focus on you Chris Mullin needs another movie you know when they gonna focus on you when you make their money how do you make their money cos you sold that thing remember when max sold that thing and then he made me money ok ill work for him I mean like I was a working screenwriter and I really enjoyed myself at WMA they have treated me pretty damn good but you can never expect too much from your agent I like all my agents and they’ve helped me they wanted to help me because I help me
Daniel: so I should look less of agencies and more like a manager?
Max Landis: you shouldn’t look at all for agencies only for managers
Daniel: ok
Max Landis: and don’t do any management company ok let’s say you’re in a unique position which is a management company really likes your spec, by the way, its very rare keep them minds how many news there are its everyone in this classroom plus millions of people who couldn’t afford this classroom plus a billion other people and that’s like what 200 150 300 400 movies a year I mean yikes but what you should actually remember is never if the management company says we also rep this huge writer what that means is you should start thinking about time economy how much time are they spending on you a day versus how much they are spending on anyone
Student: hi max I’m Geamo but you can call me memo I’m from Mexico city
Max Landis: cool ill visit you I’m sure that your parents will say Geamo said you guys will find me drugs so wats up Geamo
Geamo: well amm I just wanted to know because you mentioned this earlier so when you have 2 ideas that you consider ahh equally good
Max Landis: ill write them both
Geamo: how would you know which one is easier to sell? You said good question so
Max Landis: that’s not a good question and its an impossible to answer question
Tova: you take them both to the industry and you’ll see the one that doesn’t
Max Landis: you compare it I use my managers’ barometer but I also now have a little bit of a taste for what’s selling right now cos what’s selling right now is contained makeable in the 15 in under range and the finance is fair also my obsess IP like small IP finance but they’ll never be all the way the truth is there is two things it’s the one that’s more complete here and that you can finish quicker cos they will never be two equal things there never will be equal but they you look at them in your goal ABCDEFGHIJKPQRYZ you go that’s pretty good and there’s this other one that’s totally equal ABCDEPZ oh wait I should do this one and it will spell it out for you I wish you ask me the one you can write you as a young writer should not be thinking about what you can sell how long are you gonna be in for?
Geamo: ahhh 3 years
Max Landis: ok write a fuck load of script do not be concerned with what you sell write only what thrills you write only what excites you, you will eventually write something good do not worry about what can sell yet very few people the point 2 preceded people sell a script we write them out of film school and that the point 2 preceded people of the burning sandal you know of the tiny precept so just write what thrills you don’t worry about that yet but that was ahh it’s a hard question Geamo but next guy
Student: hello max my name is timothy
Max Landis: hello timothy
Timothy: amm I just wanna know amm since I saw a lot of your work like American ultra and amm this chronicle amm am just curious what is the hardest part of writing a story for the film is it ahh the characters, the plot or the entire structure?
Max Landis: none of that ahh none of that is hard if you know the story ahh once you’ve learnt the format you can act the format really quickly style and screenwriting is only what you say and what you don’t say cos sometimes you can say a lot but usually you shouldn’t say nothing you shouldn’t be directing so that pretty easy ahhh the hardest part of my job is notes I am impure in the end then do the actual job of a screenwriter is been forced to reconfigure what you wrote for someone else nut it’s also a wiser job it isn’t a hand job factory we are not handing out free hand burgers in like you get to make out with the queen of England it is a job that’s gross do the queen of England eat the hand burger before you made a sound that terrible you’ve created dystopian hellish the hell you gonna get home but no I ahh I ahh I really think the hardest part of the job is taking notes and learning to do that in a way that you are able to address them quickly if you have trouble with things like creating characters creating plots for stories or finding structure there are touch tones you could go back to figure out how to do that but if you still can’t do it maybe you’re not a screenwriter maybe you’re not a writer some people I know ask me repeatedly how do you sit down and write I’m a writer if I don’t sit down and write I get unhappy ahh so you know not everyone is a writer not everyone is an athlete you know I can’t not be that Mike Tyson I can’t not beat up the most scariest face in the world I would get my ass smoked I probably can beat up most people in this room except you I remember you but you know there are certain things I’m not good at running am not good at football am not good at talking to people I’ve never met before making first good impression but am good in writing and so like that’s parts easy the job part is hard if you love writing you should just do it and do it until someone tells you are good at it and that means you are ok at it or kit means you’re an idiot either way it’s fun did that answer your question?
Timothy: yes
Max Landis: ok thank you timothy
Tova: thank you
Student: hi max I’m Sam, first of all, I wanna really thank you for coming out here to talk to us cos I know I got a lot off this so and I think other people have benefited too
Max Landis: its my absolute pleasure Sam thank you for saying that after that I’m gonna go home (singing) I’ve been trying to date since the breakup and most time it just made me really sad so ahh I gat some auks to kill brother and I gat some auks to befriend love shadow of water
Sam: I’m not gonna lie that sounds like a lot of fun
Max Landis: yes it’s good I will probably just send a blighting till 3 am and shadow motor will be on and ill be procrastinating
Sam: yeah so I just have a question real quick you talked about how IP have kinda taken over
Max Landis: (cuts in) they’re not kinda taken over they have taken over yeah
Sam: yeah they have taken over the movie industry right now do you think a lot of that originality did go in the movies in the past going more like TV like neph LEC Kis stuff like that
Max Landis: a little bit when you say originality you know I went on a rent about originality and all I met was non-IP there’s plenty of great original stuff in a lot of user IPs like really cool meet cheap I mean like I forgot which movie I just saw I saw a good movie I got Goosebumps. Goosebumps is an IP but I thought it was fun I was like I would never have thought to do this with the Goosebumps movie I wasn’t like this movie is so good but I was like real funny did anyone see Goosebumps? What do you think it’s like not bad I didn’t think it was bad that kind of fun adventure movie but like you know everything is IP now even things you think aren’t the merchant ahh so you know there’s a lot of tricking you into thinking it’s not IP its in the parted you know great always based on Japanese movie or not Japanese movie its Korean yeah Korean there’s originality of T.V but that’s going away too a lot of the T.V shows pinch and green light right now or based on something golf them it’s sort o based on batman I guess but ahh don tell batman that but you know that going away too everything is going away original new content is going away and it isn’t that sexy? And weird? What are the fucks gonna happen?
Sam: its gonna be a strange new world after all
Max Landis: the world is already there no one is noticing I mean Jurassic world Jurassic world is the most successful movie ever Jurassic world I mean avatar is a genius heartbreaking work of incredible work of inst…. But it’s good you know I watch avatar like times cool I cried a lot before movie even started
Sam: into the popcorn
Max Landis: no I was just scared they were like you gotta put on some clothes I was like I’m too scared you can’t come to this theatre naked I’m too scared I just want to see avatar, oh to be 16 again nut when did avatar come out it came out in 2009 (laughing) so I’m a writer not a mathsmatodist but yeah I think originality was going to T.V and now it’s going to nowhere its going to the smaller indie films which can easily find big distribution but originality again I don’t mean original ideas originality in storytelling there’s plenty of originality in storytelling what I man is original non-IPs best things strictly film things you know but what has ever come out of strictly film based things well like the matrix and pop fiction and rex word of and back to the future oh no you know it’s one of those amm pave new world that should be a movie no shouldn’t do that
Sam: thanks man
Student: eh hi am Nellie
Max Landis: wow your jacket is cool what’s your name
Nelli: thanks ah am Nellie
Max Landis: Nellie am max
Nelli: I found out that you mention the Tibetan monk and the Tibetan temple in the last 4 test I
Max Landis: yeah in the chronicle
Nelli: yes so I am a little bit curious about do you believe that some of Tibetan monster or some of Tibetan monk they have …..
Max Landis: (cuts in) have mysterious powers
Nelli: yes mysteriously is like something mysterious so what do you think about their mysterious power they have
Max Landis: Justin general does he believe in it?
Nelli: He believes
Max Landis: it was proven it was about the human mind and the human nervous system the fact that we still don’t understand that and you know the building I don’t think there are mysterious powers I think they have powers we haven’t even boring thing that’s in every fucking movie now and every fucking T.V show that’s just undiscovered science magic is undiscovered science I know and so like yeah I mean like I’ve seen a guy in person who is a departing monk covered in bees but like naked like he was wearing a thing but he was covered in bees he’s covered in fucking bees I thot he was oh wow he can make himself and they will sting him many got up and they fell off and they stung him and he was like this and I was like he can’t control his body in ways that are incredible you know they’ve proven that they can raise their body temperature and lower it I say its proven cos I’ve read it on the internet so proven I’ve always felt that not why I included it in the film this was the ending the studio they changed my original ending and then I wrote this ending because I thought I wanted to give Andrew send-off that meant something and I thought to bet was perfect because Andrew is more right now is in ruins you guys know all these its fucking horrifying all of the classical images have been better destroyed by the regime that doesn’t give a fuck it’s horrible and it’ll really upset you sooo stay in your bubble and don’t Google it but I chose to bet because classically it a place where one finds peace between a soul the body and the mind and even if it’s not supernatural even if it’s not powers I think meditation self-reflection are credibly important and I think if Andrew had had an opportunity to do that it would have really helped him I don’t think Andrew was a bad person I think he made some mistakes he got badly burned and then he was dosed through his eyeballs with painkiller and dealing with a lot of problems and not ready to make smart decisions so yeah I think Tibetan philosophy the east generally this Tibetan general philosophy is a lot more productive mentally and intellectually than a lot of western religion
Tova: well I have a question for you about chronicle
Max Landis: does that answer you question Nellie
Nelli: yeah
Tova: when Andrew makes his mother turn around this way have he killed her this way
Max Landis: no he’s just helping her
Tova: he’s just helping her
Max Landis: yeah Andrew loves his mother and she the meaningful emotional connection in his life until strive becomes that and then steve makes a dumb mistake but it’s not a mistake he could have ever predicted. Andrew doesn’t kill in the lightening it always makes me laugh Andrew killed him in the storm when did I show that you can control lightning it’s just you can’t fly in an electromagnetic wet particle field and be like everything is gonna turn out great for me and you know steve didn’t know that he would have probably been the super-hero steve would have been the one who would have been super-hero but instead he got fucking hit by lightening its fucking bullshit
Tova: so it’s like that
Max Landis: it’s not always like that, that’s why chronicle made money from the time it was like that and every other movie Steve goes up there and Andrew goes you don’t understand Steve I’ve changed ehoooooo and then they have to fight and then Mark get killed I was like fuck that mark alone try to control your cousin idiot everything is fucked think next time call your friend clearly because of the bad relationship of his parent oh I’m sorry 15 being emotionally open with people isn’t easy it’s weird it’s a weird movie it’s an extremely weird movie and I’m very proud I happy with it
Tova: no it’s an incredible movie no the only reason why I thought you turned it that maybe happened on it because the father, later on, says she died
Max Landis: but we found out she died from Richard in the room he didn’t he didn’t kill her there he would never Andrew would never …
Tova: (cuts in) I thought he wanted he saw her suffering and maybe he
Max Landis: oh no he then goes into want those guys
Tova: he gets his medicine exactly that’s why he didn’t sit down ok
Max Landis: ok whats your name?
Student: thank you my name is Aina
Max Landis: what does it feel like to be the last question of the night?
Aina: ahhh a lot of pressures
Max Landis: it should it should
Aina: I’m from china so like Aina from china
Max Landis: how many times do you make that joke a day?
Aina: ahh depends on how many people I need to impress
Max Landis: oh I want to slip back my hair ok Aina wats up?
Aina: yeah just question about when you write story is it in case of game or you want to convince someone idea to the audience like some scene about the society or for the human being
Max Landis: it’s different every time ahh my messages in my film are usually having in all my works have to do with identity and ahh they all have to do to some degree with people who are unhappy and the thing I always try to convey to different levels of success because of course am just a screenwriter so ultimately in order for my work to be anything it will filter through a thousand others who are gonna change it however they want in a review a reviewer should never mention the script they haven’t read the fucking script
Tova: right I agree with that
Max Landis: use the word story or something they should bring up the script by the way that the other dumb thing I did by putting my face out there written by Max Max Landis but you know what I tried to do in my stories is entertaining I’ve written a couple of scripts that is more meaningful when you’ve written like 94 features you gonna have some of those but the truth is the one unified is not all of them but most of them unifying element is that being yourself isn’t good enough and that a lie typical culture you have to be better than yourself you have to change to find who who who you should be and that should you never stop until you’re like 60 and your brain starts falling apart well not even 60 like 75 you should always be in the process of growth and my movie is pretty much always the villains are people like I am who I am I’m happy with it and the heroes are people who are willing to learn and if they can’t learn and they make a misstep I punish them and they get a big spite but I but ahh you know it’s different every time the message that’s the message I’ve never really thought of it that way the message I try to convey is that the second you settle into being you the second you say I’m an asshole so I can do this I’m this type of .. I’m a good person I can do this so it doesn’t matter if I do something that maybe later will be bad the second you let yourself get away with anything you’re telling a little lie and little lies stock up and sometimes they lead to shooting out in grocery stores or a big monster you just brought to life and chasing you and your best friend in a castle or you know all different things but that’s why superman is my favourite hero doesn’t tell himself one lie he’s like oh I’m 5 I can kill everyone oh I should probably get a job like I mean that’s fucking awesome you think persuan will have a job if his parents are gun down in front of him? No Speter Parker I’m gonna be professional wrestler but my uncle is dead now I’m a superhero that’s why I relate back to that that’s why I write stories with that character because I love examining the flexible and ever-growing in changing nature of the person identity
Aina: thank you so much
Max Landis: no thank you so much that was a great question
Max Landis: thank you new york film academy this was so much fun how do we
Tova: yes thank you so much for coming
Max Landis: good luck good luck
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