It sounds weird to say it, but I’ve missed you guys. One of the things I enjoy most about Ask Drew as a format is that you are the writers of the show. You’re the ones telling me exactly what you’d like to know about, and as much as I can without getting anyone (including myself, hopefully) in trouble, I will answer whatever questions you send me. I’m going to confess to how fragile I am sometimes here. When I saw Steve Weintraub from Collider start using a nearly-identical game to my Movie God (created almost 20 years ago by myself, Patrick Morgan, and Scott Swan) in his interviews, it bummed me out so much that I sort of gave up on Ask Drew as a whole. I’d played the game for years as part of my now-defunct podcast, and here on the TV segments, and...
- 7/16/2016
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
Our new video series Backstory uses personal experience and insider's perspective to illuminate some of your favorite films and TV shows in different ways. It was a pleasure to have Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick drop by the HitFix studio last week to talk about the long road to get their version of Deadpool onscreen, and I'd like to use that interview as a way of putting one of those persistent-but-untrue stereotypes about critics and entertainment reporters to bed. People love to accuse critics of hating movies because they are bitter and frustrated screenwriters themselves. If that were true, then I should have hated Deadpool sight unseen because I pitched on that film as a writer almost fifteen years ago. Wait… what? No one was interested in making a Deadpool film back in the year 2000, were they? Actually, Marvel Studios was indeed trying to figure it out at that point,...
- 2/17/2016
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
It is not often that I get to offer you something special of my own here at HitFix. That's not to say I am not personally invested in my writing here. Of course I am. I think over the last five or six years, I've turned a corner in terms of my own understanding of what film criticism can be, and for me, it works on a very personal level. But when it comes to my creative work, there's not a lot of it that I've been able to share in a finished form. I could publish my scripts, I suppose, as long as my co-writer Scott Swan agreed, but a script is a suggestion of what a movie will eventually be, not the movie itself. When I wrote about my quarter-century here in La, I wrote about the production of our play, "Sticks and Stones," at the Met Theater in La.
- 7/25/2015
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
One of the great things about having friends who are film nerds is that you end up having a lot of phone calls about nothing urgent. You end up talking about alternate theories and dream casting and things that might have been. I've got some other things I'll be posting tonight that speak to that, but first up, let's just play a little bit. The conversation I was having with Scott Weinberg today was about the way I find casting shortsighted in movies sometimes. In particular, I love comedians who push themselves, and Scott's article about Robin Williams (it would have been his birthday today, something that makes me unspeakably sad this year) focused on some of his left-of-center choices as an actor. Scott's fond of "Insomnia," where Williams gives some really good creepy, something that doesn't surprise me at all. Of course Williams was effective at playing dark and dangerous.
- 7/22/2015
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
Yesterday, I wrote about my first year in Los Angeles, which was all just a matter of settling in. Remember, when I moved to La, I knew a grand total of zero people who lived or worked here. I was not laden with contacts and strolling into a situation where everything was guaranteed to work out. Scott Swan and I took a huge chance when we packed up and moved out, and I am so horrified by how little money we had saved that I'm almost embarrassed to say the number. I was insanely naive when I arrived in town. I am still haunted by a choice we made in those early days, when we answered an ad in one of the trades that was looking for writers willing to work on a "per sketch" basis. I forget how much the rate was… $100 or so, but definitely not more than that…...
- 6/9/2015
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
When I left Tampa, it was the crack of dawn. I was in the passenger's seat of the Chevette that Scott Swan owned, and we were on our way to California to be rich and famous. I was 20 years old. I thought I had all the answers. I had a screenplay called "The President Must Die!" with me that I was sure was going to be produced by the following summer with an all-star cast. We had all of them picked. Harrison Ford, Robert DeNiro, Robin Williams. Scott and I had spent the entire spring writing it, and we were done. Absolutely, completely, positively done. It was perfect. It was going to be a huge hit. This was the logical next step. This wasn't our first script, either. We had written a script together called "Moondance" during my first year of college, and a script called "A Weekend Away" during my second year of college.
- 6/9/2015
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
Been a while, hasn't it? There is only one problem with our video team, and that is that they are a finite number of human beings, and we throw more work at them than anyone could possibly accomplish. Yet they do, week after week. Part of the reason "Ask Drew" was on vacation was because there just wasn't time to get it done on top of everything else we were doing. Thing is, it's going to stay busy here, so we're going to do our best to get this back in the rotation every few weeks. When I put out the word about this week's episode, you guys sent in plenty of questions as always, including a pretty ferocious Movie God challenge. A quick note about Movie God. The game was created by me, Scott Swan, and Patrick Morgan back in the early '90s, and for the longest time,...
- 6/5/2015
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
I want to ask you a question. Do you really want to see "Ghostbusters 3"? Before you answer, I want you to consider every angle. I don't want the knee-jerk response, because I know what the knee-jerk response is, and so does Columbia, and so do Dan Aykroyd and Ivan Reitman. The knee-jerk response is easy. After all, I love the original 1984 film "Ghostbusters," and I'm more than willing to cop to a fondness for the admittedly-lesser sequel. On the surface, the thought of more "Ghostbusters" is appealing. Undeniably so. I won't lie. When I was 21 or 22 years old, my writing partner Scott Swan and I had an elaborate written treatment for "Ghostbusters 3" that I was convinced I was somehow going to get in front of the right people. After all, when I was 21 and 22 years old, I had almost constant access to Joe Medjuck, Michael Gross, and Ivan Reitman...
- 2/27/2014
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
There are very few perfect films. Part of what makes films so beautiful and rich and rewarding is that they are the result of a sort of mass insanity that happens when you have all of these people all pushing to create something tangible, something that moves us to some sort of real emotional place. It's easy to forget that movies are ultimately a bunch of people standing around playing make-believe, but with a crew there to capture it all. Considering how many moving pieces there are in any film, it's almost miraculous when they actually come together coherently, much less in a way that manages to make us genuinely lose ourselves in what we're watching. Harold Ramis made a perfect movie. "Groundhog Day" is one of the few mainstream comedies that I think actually grows and gets richer and more wonderful the more you revisit it, something which seems...
- 2/24/2014
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
I am disappointed. I really enjoyed the recording I did with Scott Swan for the new podcast. It has been, as it seems to be between all of them, a little while since we last recorded, and I had a lot of fun this time. Felt good. I also have some great other things lined up as part of the podcast, three full interviews that I think all are worth your time. So when I went to put it all together, I was shocked to hear something wrong with the audio. There's a strange sound, and I have no idea what...
- 6/7/2013
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
This is a long episode of the podcast. It sort of had to be. Consider this: Scott Swan and I met when we were in high school. We moved to Los Angeles in 1990. For much of the time since then, we have worked together daily, sometimes for up to ten or twelve hours. It is safe to say that there is no other person who I have had more conversations with other than, perhaps, my parents, and even then, I think Scott may still be the winner in terms of sheer hours logged. I'd wager that about 85% of that...
- 2/7/2013
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
Yes, it's true. I somehow managed to wrangle Scott Swan over to the house one last time for a final 2012 podcast. This has been a terrible year for the podcast, frankly, and Scott and I are both aware of it. I am tired of being a guy who is full of good intentions but who is also unable to follow through with those intentions. It does me no good to want to publish something unless I actually prepare and publish that thing. As the HitFix audience continues to grow, something that we here at the site are all intensely proud...
- 1/1/2013
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
We've had a strange run here at "The Motion/Captured Podcast." Technical issues, scheduling problems, and any number of bone-headed moves on my part have made the podcast a highly irregular proposition, and considering it is a show that largely works without a regular format, I'm amazed that we had any episodes at all that actually held together. Scott Swan is, of course, one of my oldest friends in the world and my screenwriting partner. Having him co-host the show with me made perfect sense because it allowed us to draw on the very real rapport that we have instead of me...
- 8/15/2012
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
There was a moment in the mid-'90s when Oliver Stone could get anything funded, and he was making giant studio movies that were unlike anything anyone else was doing. It felt like he was pulling something over on the studios on a regular basis. He was larger-than-life, and it was amazing to watch happen from the sidelines. During that time period, there was one project I partnered on with a number of people, including my co-writer Scott Swan. It was an animated R-rated horror film, mega-graphic and super creepy. And at that moment, Ixtlan Pictures, Stone's production company, was looking to...
- 7/4/2012
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
It has been a while. I could offer up excuses, but the truth is that things just plain got away from Scott Swan and me, and there's no other way to put it. Our best intentions were repeatedly frustrated by real-life obstacles, and we let them build up week after week. The only reason we finally sat down to do this again is because you have all been so vocal about wanting a new podcast, and I take your feedback seriously. This week, we decided to talk about Mother's day and the long tradition of mothers in movies. We also brought...
- 5/15/2012
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
It's a weird one this week. One of the first things that brought Scott Swan and I together as friends was our shared affection for all things "Star Wars." When we first met, "Return Of The Jedi" was only two and a half years old, and both of us were still operating under the impression that there would be more sequels, and that they would come fairly quickly. Now here we are in the year 2011, a full six years after the release of the final prequel, and I've just finished sharing the films with my kids for the first time. It...
- 11/11/2011
- Hitfix
Scott Swan is in rare form this week, folks. The more I hear feedback on the podcast, the more I want to push these to be casual conversations between two lifelong film nerd friends, with just the slightest hint of professional format. That seems to be what you like, if you like anything at all about the show. Scott and I could seriously just sit and gab about nothing at all for hours, so if I give us a few topics and a little bit of direction, it magically turns from "two guys sitting in my office" to "podcast," and this...
- 8/25/2011
- Hitfix
It's been a while since I've had Scott Swan over to record a podcast, and I could blame Comic-Con or I could blame other trips, or I could blame Scott's crazy work schedule or the films he's gearing up to direct, but the truth is, we just plain let it get away from us. My bad entirely. This weekend, though, I finally got him over to the house, and we sat down for what turned out to be one of our longest, loosest, strangest podcast recording sessions so far. The reason I enjoy doing this show with Scott is that I've...
- 8/17/2011
- Hitfix
The first call I had to make when I read the news that "Star Wars Episode I - The Phantom Menace" now has a release date of February 10, 2012, was my co-writer Scott Swan, who is the purest "Star Wars" fan I know. Sure enough, he was excited to hear that this is the official kick-off date for what we already knew was coming, a film-by-film re-release of the entire "Star Wars" saga for 3D screens. The thing is, if they were releasing the films in their original theatrical order, I would wait and show Toshi the movies in the...
- 3/3/2011
- Hitfix
In the last six to eight weeks, I've listened to a lot of other podcasts. I've been curious to see what I like, what I don't like, what aesthetic choices other people make. I've also gotten mail from many of you about what you don't like and what you do, and I'm taking all of this information and trying to incorporate it into a better podcast each time. I think it's pretty much set in stone at this point that Scott Swan is my co-host on the podcast, but I like treating him like a special guest each and every week...
- 2/19/2011
- Hitfix
Well, we made it through our first calendar year of podcasting, and now we're kicking off what we're going to call Season Two, and we'll be making some minor format adjustments as we go. Nothing radical, mind you. I'm hearing a lot of feedback about the podcast these days and it really doesn't seem to me like anything's "broken." That's not to say I'm satisfied with the podcast, because I'm not. It's just that we're doing it at a certain level of "well" right now, and I want to turn that up. It helps having Scott Swan here with me most...
- 1/13/2011
- Hitfix
Because a couple of people vaguely asked for it... the Motion/Captured Podcast is back. I kid, but I genuinely appreciate all the kind e-mail and messages you've sent me asking about this podcast, and I also appreciate your patience as I figured out the tech end of things. This week, Scott Swan joined me as we tried to sweep out the cobwebs. When I was Fantastic Fest at the end of September, I sat down with Steve-o for an interview that we've included in today's podcast, and we also brought back Movie God, the game that made Matthew Robinson curse at me when...
- 10/23/2010
- Hitfix
Rio's been on my mind lately. The new script I wrote with my longtime collaborator Scott Swan is set in Brazil, and we spent months researching the country and, specifically, Rio, which is a case study in contradictions. No other city I can think of makes the distinction between rich and poor so visually dramatic, so geographically symbolic. You can stand on Copacabana Beach, one of the most beautiful resort destinations on Earth, and stare up past rows of exclusive shops and expensive restaurants at the multi-colored favelas splashed across the hills above the city, poverty packed into carefully controlled areas and...
- 8/18/2010
- Hitfix
Director Dusan Strugar and writer Paul Birkett, who's behind the upcoming Altitude , are taking to the skies for a new horror film. It's called Night Wing and follows a red eye flight over the Atlantic. En route, a twelve-year-old boy tries to convince the crew that a vampire is among them, but no one believes him. This will be Strugar's directorial debut. He's background is mostly in FX having worked on Pitch Black and Resident Evil . Night Wing sounds a bit like Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan's Bat Out of Hell , another tale of a vampire menacing a red eye flight.
- 6/11/2010
- shocktillyoudrop.com
Third time's a charm, I think. Or at least, technically speaking, I think this is the best-recorded of any of the podcasts so far. I almost have it down to just "record/compile/publish" in terms of workflow, which is what I envision for these. I'm not sure about doing a live streaming podcast... I don't think that's as important to me. The point is providing something that is hopefully worth your attention and not just "nerd talk radio," as a friend recently put it. Having Scott Swan as my co-host again is just plain easy. I have no other friend who I've known as long and still talk...
- 4/23/2010
- Hitfix
Be gentle with me. Our TV guru and overall resident sardonic wit Dan Fienberg has been podcasting for the last few months with his partner in crime and good friend Alan Sepinwall, and the result has been a genuinely engaging listen. I'd been talking about doing this for a while, but talking about it and actually doing it are radically different things. So this weekend, I took the plunge. I downloaded Audacity, I invited over my good friend and longtime media collaborator Scott Swan, and I recorded and edited a podcast. A two-hour long podcast. And it was waaaaaaaaay too much. We've...
- 4/8/2010
- Hitfix
Welcome to The Morning Read. Friday and Saturday blended into one hellaciously long day for me. I worked on Friday, did some stuff with the family, and then Friday night spent about five or six hours working with my co-screenwriter Scott Swan for a while on a new project. Once we wrapped up work, he drove me to the Van Nuys FlyAway so I could catch a ride to Lax, where I took a one-hour flight north to San Francisco. I spent the morning doing interviews with the "Kick-Ass" cast and spent a few hours preparing for a panel on the film that I moderated at...
- 4/5/2010
- Hitfix
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