Film Stories with Simon Brew

Two films with very short titles in this episode, starting with a comedy favourite from the 2010s. Director Paul Feig broke out of movie jail with 2010's Bridesmaids - and he used his freshly-inked deal with 20th Century Fox to get his own take on a James Bond film to the screen. Thing is: how do you persuade studio executives that Jason Statham can be a comedy lead? And, come to think of it, how...

In a special episode of the Film Stories podcast, a pair of guests join Simon to talk about the really, really good indie film American Star, and the ecosystem of independent filmmaking. A guessable spoiler for the film is dropped by Ian McShane in the conversation. Director Gonzalo López-Gallego and his star/producer Ian McShane talk about how the film took years to come together, and then was sh...

The Fantastic Four take centre stage on the Film Stories podcast, with a pair of films that each had their demands. The 2015 Fantastic Four was set to reboot the characters on the big screen, and give 20th Century Fox another ongoing superhero franchise. Yet this didn't go to plan at all. Director Josh Trank was hired, and wouldn't get to make the film he wanted. Others were quite happy to point t...

In this latest episode of Film Stories, we start with sharks. Very big sharks. A story imagined by a young screenwriter's memory of a childhood incident, that he eventually turned into a script. Then that script would go on to become Deep Blue Sea. There were challenges, though: should the tone be Jaws-like? Or Jurassic Park? Or Alien? And then the very late need for more footage to be shot too. I...

In a special episode of the Film Stories podcast, Simon is joined by Oscar-nominated director of photography Hoyte van Hoytema for a long chat about his work. They talk extensively about Hoyte's work with Christopher Nolan, not least on Oppenheimer. But also, there's a bit of Dunkirk and Interstellar in there. Furthermore, a few words on working on the James Bond movie SPECTRE too. Plus: the chanc...

Neither The King Of Comedy nor I Love Trouble were met with strong box office or enthusiastic reviews on their initial releases - but one has fared a lot better since. 1982's The King Of Comedy would be the last time Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese would unite for many years - and for a long time it was a project that appealed more to De Niro than Scorsese. Still, after a damp initial response,...

Was there ever a bigger casting furore in the 1990s than when Tom Cruise landed the role of Lestat in Interview With The Vampire? Based on the book by Anne Rice, the author herself was incandescent, taking out advertising the slam the casting. Meanwhile, there were issues over keeping the rights - and problems that could have been avoided had John Travolta - as was once planned - accepted the role...

In a special episode, Simon is joined the writer and director Juan Antonio Bayona for a conversation about his work and his latest film. That movie is the Oscar-nominated (at the time of writing) Society Of The Snow, an extraordinary drama shot over more than 100 days. Bayona talks about his process and the duty of care involved in telling the story, as well as the importance to him of a long shoo...

Two individual filmmakers take centre stage in this episode of Film Stories, starting with Quentin Tarantino. For a decade, he was talking in interviews about making a World War II movie called Inglorious Bastards, but he swerved making it for a long time, in favour of the Kill Bill movies and Death Proof. He argued he didn't have writer's block: he just couldn't stop writing it. He changed the ti...

In this very special episode of Film Stories, Simon welcomes Oscar-winning writer and director Alexander Payne to chat, in part, about the newly-released The Holdovers. Yet this is a bit of a different chat, as their conversation not only takes in the film, but also the process of finding the spark for a movie, the process of being interviewed for the release of a feature, and some book recommenda...

This time on the Film Stories podcast, its 1985 animated feature The Black Cauldron. A film whose budget more than doubled, that arrived five years later, and nearly broke Walt Disney Animation Studios in the process. Plus, its legacy is such that you won't find it anywhere near a Disney theme park. The story of one of the most remarkable chapters in Disney animation history. Then the second film...

In a brand new special episode of Film Stories, writer/producer/director David Ayer joins Simon for a chat. It's Ayer's new film The Beekeeper that's their prime focus: an old school action film with some honey in it as well. It's a tonal shift for Ayer, and also a rare film that he's directed but not written himself. As well as talking about that, a few words too on the media ecosystem following...

In this episode of Film Stories, a pair of films that enjoyed varying fortunes on their original cinema release - both of which are said to have unreleased alternate cuts. In the case of 1995's Batman Forever, reports of a longer version of the movie - said to be a lot darker - started surfacing a couple of years after the film's original release. Then came a DVD release added some striking delete...

In a very special episode of Film Stories, Simon is joined by writer/director Billy Ray, to chat about his career and body of work. Simon quickly gets sidetracked by the fact that Billy started off by writing for The Jetsons, but soon they're into conversation about films as diverse as Captain Phillips, Shattered Glass, Breach, Color Of Night and Hart's War. They also chat about AI in the film bus...

In 1995, Kenneth Branagh - between the giant projects of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and his film version of Hamlet - made an utterly charming low budget comedy called In The Bleak Midwinter. He paid for the film himself, bringing together a bunch of actors to tell the story of, well, a bunch of actors. A company who happened to be putting on a Christmas Eve performance of Hamlet. In December 2023...

At the end of a busy year for movies, this episode of Film Stories is saluting some of the films that might just have passed a few people by. Simon, unusually, isn't by himself for this episode either, as the Film Stories magazine and website team each come along with their picks too. Chaos, as you might expect, is soon the order of the day. Although hopefully you might find a movie or two in all...

Ah, It's A Wonderful Life. A Christmas classic, that managed to basically bankrupt the production company of its director, and also lose money at the box office. In fact, were it not for an admin error, there's a good chance it wouldn't be regarded as arguably the best Christmas movie of all time. One that was targeted for original release in January. Lots to chat about here. A fair amount to talk...

In a special episode of the Film Stories podcast, Paul King (director/co-writer) and Simon Farnaby (co-writer) join Simon to talk about their latest movie: Wonka. The conversation covers the writing process, how they felt after The Bunny & The Bull struggled to find and audience, a bit of Paddington 2, and a tiny dab of The Phantom Of The Open. But also: the challenges of making a Willy Wonka preq...

Writer/director George Miller steps into the spotlight for this episode of Film Stories, as we dig into a pair of his sequels. The hugely-acclaimed Mad Max: Fury Road arrived in 2015, but it had a heck of a journey to get that far. An abandoned attempt to get the film made in 2003, and then the whole production having to be put on ice for a year after weather conditions meant a change of location....

In a special episode of Film Stories, writer, director, producer and a whole lot more Reginald Hudlin joins Simon. They're talking as Hudlin's new film, Candy Cane Lane, arrives on Prime Video. And Christmas is very much part of the discussion. But they also cover a bit of Marshall, why Hudlin put together his own website with quite so much detail, the curiosity of film critics and a whole lot mor...

A pair of late 1990s movies in this episode, both of which are remembered three decades later for differing reasons. In the case of 1999's Election, the Alexander Payne-directed movie remains one of the most scathing and cleverly dark high school movies of its era. Perhaps that's why Paramount Pictures at the time had problems with it, not least how on Earth do you market the film? 'Not well' was...

In a very special episode, Simon is joined by the Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios, Jennifer Lee. Jennifer Lee has also co-written and executive produces Disney's centenary animated feature, Wish, so there's some chat about that. But also, about Lee's journey from being the person brought into the Wreck-It Ralph writing team on an eight week contract, through to writing and...

In the latest episode of Film Stories, a deeper dig into 1992's Batman Returns, and how 1991's firefighter drama Backdraft suddenly hotted up. With Batman Returns, director Tim Burton had no original intention of coming back, after the problems he'd been through on 1989's Batman. But promised a freer hand, he signed on the dotted line - and it'd be fair to say didn't quite give Warner Bros the fil...

It's a special episode of the Film Stories podcast, and joining Simon for a chat about her career is writer, director and production designer Catherine Hardwicke. The pair chat first and foremost about her latest film, the indie comedy Mafia Mamma! that's now available in the UK. They talk logistics, the challenges, and the joy that is Toni Collette. The conversation also covers Hardwicke's breakt...

The impact of Pulp Fiction's success in the mid-1990s meant that ensemble films based on scripts from relatively inexperienced writer/directors were on the radar of Hollywood. Step forward James Mangold's Cop Land, which was a quick beneficiary. After an attempt to get John Travolta to star in the film failed, and incredible cast - led by Sylvester Stallone - started to come together. But had Pulp...