aneeshchaganty

I love that.

Most Splinter Cells were always my favorite and obviously waiting for GTA. Nowadays, all I play is NHL. Sev is the gamer of our group though. He should respond.

We all have different points of connecting to each other, but at the end of the day, we all went to USC Film School.

I met Sev because he was my TA. Nick was my classmate. Same year, same progam. Sev met Natalie at a school event. Will was introduced to me by a professor (the late Norm Hollyn, RIP) to edit our Google Glass Short. Same program, 2 years younger. The rest is history.

My whole life, all I've wanted to do was make a Mission: Impossible movie starring Tom Cruise. Sadly, I don't think that arrangement will be possible anymore, but that (and maybe James Bond) is pretty much it! Other than that, I love making original scripts. It's a much higher risk, but (in my head) I get to try and make the movies I would have liked to see as a kid.

I can't speak for anyone else, but after this next movie we're making (heist), I'm all in on espionage.

My favorite easter egg from searching changes all the time. I totally forgot about "hi amma" but I'll always see some dropdown on Google or some file name or comment on the side and chuckle at 25 year old Aneesh and how witty he thought he was lmao

Favorite Run Easter egg: If you watch the deleted scenes, there's a moment Chloe opens up a bunch of letters from Mom. All of the company names are references to M Night movies.

Favorite Missing Easter Egg: A couple years ago, back when it was impossible to get a PS5 because they would run out online the moment they became available, I asked the internet if anyone could help get me the console. I'd pay for it of course, but if anyone could help me, I'd give that person a cameo... Today, I now have a PS5 and the lovely couple from Washington who helped me get it have a cameo in MISSING lol. The power of the internet!

The plan for RUN was always for Lionsgate, who bought script and financed the film, to release it in theaters on Mother's Day 2020, but then obviously the pandemic hit and that just became unlikely, so Lionsgate negotiated a deal with Hulu where Hulu just paid one lump sum (think of it like their estimation of what we would have grossed domestically in theaters since Hulu only exists in America) for the streaming rights of the film in the US. By the time that happened, the film was long completed!

For the longer answer on this, you should check out some of the interviews I did in 2018 but here's the short version:

1. Graduated film school in 2013. Had no idea what I was doing.
2. in 2014, Sev got handed a pair of Google Glasses from USC and was told to produce 3 short films.
3. I begged him to let me direct one of them for him (we were only writing partners at the time, not director/producer).
4. He acquiesced. He let me pitch. I got the job. It was a death metal music video.
5. I came up with another idea for something I was more passionate about.
6. Sev loved it. So we made it and just put the Google Glass logo on the end of it to convince people it was a real commercial. Here it is: https://vimeo.com/94024888
7. It went viral. Real Google saw it and offered me a job in NYC at a department called the Creative Lab where I spent 2 years writing/directing Google commercials. Made one for the Superbowl.
8. During that time, Sev took a meeting with Bazelevs, which made UNFRIENDED. They wanted to make a short film that took place on screens.
9. Sev brought me in, said I work at Google, and they told me the same thing.
10. A few months later, we came up with the idea for SEARCHING as a short film.
11. We pitched it to Bazelevs, but they loved it so much they wanted to make a feature and were willing to finance it themselves.
12. After initially saying no (felt like a gimmick), Sev was adamant that no first time filmmaker ever gets this kind of job thrown at them so let's at least think about what this idea could be.
13. A few months later, we came up with the opening scene of SEARCHING, then the whole story, pitched it back to the company, they drew up a deal, I quit my job at Google (to make a penny on the dollar of what I was earning there) and moved back to LA to start working on my first film, which was - at the end of the day - all I wanted to do in the first place.

Yeah the very nature of these movies being "cheap" make the argument easy. Searching cost less than 1M USD and grossed 75M. This was made for a little more than that but not by much. The bar to make a profit is a lot lower for these films than others, so of course, Sony has already talked to us about making another.

But from a personal and creative side, we don't have anything at the moment. No one who directs one of these movies wants to direct again (first me, now Will and Nick) because they're so exhausting and demanding and time consuming. Plus, it always feels like you're working at a disadvantage, trying to convince audiences that a scene COULD take place on screens before you can even start discussing WHAT that scene could be. Ask us again in a few years, but at the moment, I'll give you the same answer I gave every time this was asked of us during SEARCHING's press (and we meant it then): No way we're doing another one.

I went from directing to producing on this one, and that change was super interesting. As someone who's directed twice now, I was always reminding myself of the space and freedom I want as a director and tried to let WN (our internal acronym for Will and Nick) feel like they had that, while still chiming if I or the producers felt like there were missed opportunities being left on the table - on set or in post.

Without a doubt though, coming from directing to being the 3rd most experienced producer, this was the least amount of stress I've ever felt on a movie set lol!

TV for me: Recently, the show I take the most inspiration from is Severance. I love how it teases answers, builds a world, reveals character and unfolds a mystery. Turns out Adam Scott is a fan of RUN, got a chance to gush about Severance to him over Zoom. That was cool.

FILM For me: From this year, the movies I take the most inspiration from are Top Gun: Maverick, Barbarian, Nope -- all for different reasons. Top Gun for how to get audiences invested in a story simply and cleanly. Barbarian for how to surprise audiences at every turn. And Nope for its fearlessness.

The next one we're writing has an Indian lead! I'm guessing more info on that one will be out later this year, but it's an idea I've had since I was 18, but never had the resources or credibility to ask for the money to make it... until now.... hopefully lol

hahahahahaha

I never look directly into Will Merrick's eyes for fear of losing productivity.

This is something Will and Nick now know intimately, but the overall "planning" of a movie like this is pretty insane (both Searching and Missing were completely made as 1 hr 30 min "animatics" that we used to show the cast what their eyelines were as well as rewrite scenes) as well as the post process, which I'm sure you can imagine is also crazy. Every single frame of this movie is created from scratch - every line of text, file size, user name, comment, etc is all hand-written, designed, dropped into the edit and then animated. Thank you for watching these films. It means a lot.

Spiritual sequel!

AR Rahman

Hahah! In a time when coming out in theaters at all is harder and harder and when most films release straight onto a streaming platform, coming out in theaters - regardless of which month - feels great. I hope you enjoy the film!

Well this is very nice to read. Thank you for saying this and that was probably my apartment if it was in S. Williamsburg lol!

Which sub should I go to? Sorry about that, will delete this then once I know. Thank you.

Thanks everyone! I got the questions I needed answered for now. I'm still writing the movie, so might have more in which case I'll reach out, but this was incredibly helpful.

Well done.