E57 • From Collab’ing With Coppola to Creating ‘The Purge‘: 30 Years in Hollywood • James DeMonaco, dir. of ‘The Home’ starring Pete Davidson, now in Theaters via Miramax

In this conversation, filmmaker James DeMonaco discusses his journey from writing the comedy “Jack” and working with Francis Ford Coppola and Luc Besson, to creating the successful “Purge” franchise. Up next is his latest, a psychological horror film, “The Home” starring Pete Davidson, which is releasing theatrically July 25th via Roadside Attractions. 

DeMonaco shares insights on genre forms in screenwriting - and a 30 year career as a Hollywood screenwriter, the challenges of production, and the importance of audience engagement. He reflects on his experiences with notable actors and directors, and the creative process behind his films, emphasizing the need for authenticity and emotional connection in storytelling. 

Many past inspirations are discussed including the 1977 supernatural horror “The Sentinel” directed by Michael Winner, as well as James’ ongoing passion for Fellini films. 

Listen to all episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more, as well as at www.pastpresentfeature.com. Like, subscribe, and follow us on our socials @pastpresentfeature

Chapters

• 0:01 Past Present Feature, Hosted by Marcus Mizelle
• 0:20 Presented by Valerion Projectors
• 1:02 James DeMonaco, dir. of "The Home" starring Pete Davidson, now in Theaters via Miramax

Transcript

Marcus Mizelle (01:03)
In this conversation, filmmaker James DeMonaco discusses his journey from writing the comedy Jack and working with Francis Ford Coppola, as well as Luc Besson, one of my favorites,

to creating the successful, the very successful Purge franchise. I'm sure you've heard of

Up next is his latest...

a psychological horror film called The Home starring Pete Davidson, which is releasing theatrically July 25th via Roadside Attractions.

D'amonico shares insights on genre forms and well as being a working screenwriter for the past 30 years in Hollywood. mean, a very impressive resume.

He reflects on his experiences with notable actors and directors and the creative process behind his

emphasizing the need for authenticity and emotional connection in storytelling.

by Michael as well as James' ongoing passion for Fellini films.

Marcus Mizelle (01:57)
you doing? What's going on? Great movie. Thank you for sharing.

James Demonaco (02:00)
⁓ man, living

the dream in this crazy world we live in.

Marcus Mizelle (02:04)
Damn, yeah, I know. Yeah, it's a constant barrage, seems like.

James Demonaco (02:06)
Exactly.

dude, Wisconsin Barrage so much show that my wife has made me ⁓ kind of drop out of society because it was leading to some very bad moods on my end. So it's time to stop reading. Exactly, it's time to hide. Hide and hibernate and not much we can do right now so it's kind of scary.

Marcus Mizelle (02:22)
That sounds like a good idea. Time to hibernate.

You know, I've been having a lot of conversations like this with my friends and people, and I think it always circles back to the same notion of the gratitude of being able to have these movies that we can make, you know? It's therapy.

James Demonaco (02:41)
Indeed,

I'm trying to focus on the same thing. But then I get caught up in AI and get scared about our future and that then leads to more anxiety.

Marcus Mizelle (02:49)
Yep.

Well, you know, in chat GPT, and this is all relatable, man, ⁓ chat GPT, I've been chat GPTing it up. It's been helping me as far as just like, you know, cutting down on research times and organizing kind of my structures a little better as far as interview structures or something like that, you know. But I feel a little funny about it. You know, it's like, ⁓ do I not use this? It is a tool. You know.

James Demonaco (03:12)
Yeah, yeah,

I know writers who use it and use it like you said for research and to help with outlining. I'm worried, I think I'm worrying more on the visual side. I've seen some stuff that scares the hell out of me that they can do visually. ⁓ So I do wonder five years from now if you and I will be kicked to the curb in some way. I'm not sure.

Marcus Mizelle (03:35)
Look, I interviewed

a girl out of Berlin Film Festival last year. but she made a film entirely AI. it, yeah, yeah. And it was premiered at Berlin, at Berlin Alley. And it was like ⁓ in the main section, I believe. And I'm like, whoa. And like, it was more about, she made it over six days and ⁓ no sleep. And it was, I was just like, what prompts did you put in? And it was all about just the prompts of like,

James Demonaco (03:41)
my God.

Marcus Mizelle (03:59)
It was a very meta thing where it's like, is AI going to affect humankind and et cetera. But as far as the visual, yeah, it was clearly AI and I, know, it was, it was a special thing, but I guess we're a ways out as far as it being able to replicate what we can still do. But that said, it's like, what does AI know about loss and grief and maybe, you know.

James Demonaco (04:22)
That's what I'm hoping. You just nailed it. I hope there's a

human element they can't mimic at any point in time. I saw a trailer a friend of mine made for a, I guess a film he wrote and he wanted a trailer. So he spent about 15 grand and he worked in an AI company. And the trailer is, it's mind blowing, my friend. it looks like, I mean, it's still, you're right. We're still a generation away, but I'd say it was 95%. I was watching something, one of us shot, or someone shot.

I was like, well, we're really close. that just, that truly scared me. Because I have friends of mine say, I'll never accept a movie that's made by AI. go, but if you see Apocalypse Now, something on the level of Apocalypse Now that was made by AI, and you don't know and you're moved, your soul is moved by it, I think you'll accept it. I think. And if you're moved by it in your heart and soul, and that makes me fucking, it breaks my heart in a way, strangely, yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (05:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a wild time and it's happening so fast. know, but apparently we've got about four years left according to the Google. I forget the guy's name. The guy who runs Google or one of them about four years away from AI. If you're not on the train, then you're going to be left behind, whatever that means. anyways, whoo. But as far as as far as your film, the home.

James Demonaco (05:37)
Wow. Anyway, yeah. Lament on you. ⁓

Marcus Mizelle (05:44)
⁓ man, ⁓ I watched it last night and, I actually just got a projector too. So I've been, I watched it the right way. Yeah. And yeah, it was very, very cool movie. Very cool movie. Pete did a great job. You did a great job. It's got vibes to it. I liked the editing a lot actually too. The editing really, I really liked that. It just something that stuck out to me. ⁓ script was very tight.

James Demonaco (05:49)
Cool. it's nice, man.

Thank you. ⁓ thank you, man.

Yeah, that last response,

while we spent all the money I'd spent on the last 25 minutes, my friend, it was, you know, I knew this was different than the Purge movies and that it was more of a psychological horror, but I did want to give an authority to the last 25 minutes of the audience where I could not pull my punches and kind of go all the way with it. And I hope it's satisfying for people.

Marcus Mizelle (06:13)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, no, it's, I'm looking here. Yeah, it was really good. I'm looking here now. So let me read the synopsis real quick. The Home is an upcoming American psychological horror thriller film directed by James DeMonaco written by DeMonaco and Adam Cantor and starring Pete Davidson, John Glover and Bruce Altman. And it was Miramax production company produced by Bill Block. Was Andrew Golob over there when you were doing this?

James Demonaco (06:47)
Yes, we have a work financial. He was on set with us.

Marcus Mizelle (06:48)
That's my man. That's my

man. Golov's my man. He was in one of my movies, Just a little micro-budget movie I made called Chameleon. I had him come out and play a scumbag husband. you know.

James Demonaco (06:52)
Get out, we're wondering which way, where you work with them at.

Andrew

was tough on us, but in a good way. I would say that I think having a studio, a smart studio, throwing parameters at you and budgetary parameters forces you to be a little more creative. And Andrew was one of the good ones. I've dealt with bad ones, Andrew was one of the good ones.

Marcus Mizelle (07:16)
Nice.

Nice, yeah, he's always been very supportive of me. Always actually cared. Yeah, I need to call him. Nice, well, okay, so this movie. Well, let's go with your origin story first, actually. Let's go with you, James DeMonaco. ⁓ Got you right here, actually. You are an American filmmaker. You are best known for creating the Purge franchise, writing all five films in the series and directing the first three. Big deal. You, this.

James Demonaco (07:20)
That's great.

Marcus Mizelle (07:42)
Crazy. D'Monica's first produced screenplay was the Robin Williams comedy Jack. Really?

James Demonaco (07:47)
Yeah, it was my friend.

Marcus Mizelle (07:48)
Directed by Coppola.

Whoa. You wrote Jack.

That's really cool. Okay, okay. Wait, you wrote that in film school. How did that get into Coppola's hands, I guess? Or how did that get made?

James Demonaco (08:04)
Yeah,

so I was at film school for about a couple of months before I quit. But I met a buddy there who had some... So it's weird when you're at NYU, I don't think you did the film school thing, but...

Marcus Mizelle (08:15)
Behind me is my film school, you know, and also I did go to a film program if I was on film sets as a grip for seven years and out of Wilmington, North Carolina. Yeah. Yeah. So yes, but not traditionally. Yeah.

James Demonaco (08:18)
Yes, exactly.

That's the best way. That's no more. Yeah. So I

exactly. But you did the real film school. So I quit because everybody there at NYU, I don't want to demonize anything, but a lot of the kids had a thousand. When I say a thousand dollars, 20, 30, 40, 50, some had 100 grand to make a short film. I was bartending at the time. I didn't have much money, maybe 500 bucks in my pocket. So I made a couple of tiny things, nothing big. But then I knew I'm not going to have the money for a senior thesis. I quit. But I met a dude who had about 40 grand.

from his father's friend who had just gotten out of prison. Weird story. Long story short, his name's Gary, great guy, Gary Nadeau, great director. And I wrote a lot of horror and crime stuff. Gary was more of a, he kind of a Chris Columbus, a Meccan, early Meccan director, and he asked me to write something with him. So right after I quit, we wrote this idea of Jack in about a month. And I'd also written his short film, Gary's short film that he had the money for, and he won the Student Accounting Award simultaneously.

Marcus Mizelle (09:04)
Mm-hmm. Nice.

Gotcha.

James Demonaco (09:21)
So

they're flying us out to LA. I'm gonna go quick story. Flying us out to LA for the student economy awards. And we gave them the script of Jack. somehow it made its way. Literally we were flying on a Friday. We landed, neither of us had a Potsdam piston and all the students wanted the script. Long story short, Disney bought it in a bidding war. They quickly fired Gary. I Gary was gonna direct it. And somehow Robin Williams signed on and he wanted Coppola.

and we was in production, my friend. It was the weirdest experience. I got to live with Coppola, my childhood hero, for a month up on his vineyard. He was a wonderful man. But I can say that the movie didn't come out, think. Listen, Francis said it's one of his least favorite films that he's made. It's a weird film. Yeah, it come out. And I get it, it's an awkward film. I find it to be an awkward film in all honesty, and it was a great experience making it.

Marcus Mizelle (09:54)
Damn.

he said that.

James Demonaco (10:18)
got to live with France if I learned so much from him. He's a wonderful man. I remember the day they started shooting on that. I'm reading William Goldman's book. It's a true story. Exactly. a chapter begins with that the hardest part about it being a screenwriter is you don't know who's going to direct. You have no control of who's going to direct your material. God forbid you write a comedy and Francis Ford Coppola is going to direct it. I swear to God.

Marcus Mizelle (10:26)
yeah, secrets to the screens, right.

Mm.

Wait,

that's what he said in the book?

James Demonaco (10:44)
nothing to do with my movie, it's just literally, I think it's chapter six, it's the opening sentence of the chapter. And not that it was a great comedy, but it was just something awkward about the marriage of Francis and this material. I think his heart was in it. The theme of the script was that you can live 20 years and have a full life. And I think that's how he looked at Gio's life, his son who passed. But there was noble intentions, it was just something off. He did have a cut that I saw.

that the studio rejected that was actually a very poetic, beautiful film, much better than the film that came out in theaters. But it was quite dark. It was quite dark. Jack and Robin finding a dead horse in a forest, very somber feel. But as we know, a summer.

Marcus Mizelle (11:18)
well. Okay.

Yeah. My

recollection is distant because I haven't seen it in years, when it around when it came out, 98 or what was that? 90 something like that. 95. Okay, okay, okay. I remember it being wonderful and Robin Williams. How was he? ⁓

James Demonaco (11:36)
95? I think was shot in 95, yeah.

⁓ wonderful man. He was in character

when I met him. was in character as Jack, so I only met Jack. And then at the premiere, he was just a wonderful, man. Just the sweetest man. Yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (11:55)
Yeah,

that's amazing though, amazing gift for you to have that, right?

James Demonaco (11:59)
Yeah, it

was a weird start to it was weird because I was kind of known for writing the movie Jack, which made a little money for the studios were somewhat happy. But that's not what I wrote after that at all. I was all in. was a horror thriller act, mostly action, to be honest, back then. So then segmented and luckily I had to negotiate a script, which kind of helped me kind of get into more of what I was more my my wheelhouse.

Marcus Mizelle (12:13)
Okay.

So how did that, okay, yeah, yeah. So let's go to from Jack to The Purge. Like what did that look like for you?

James Demonaco (12:27)
Yes. So the actor was always the director. It was a long journey. was a yes. Jack and I luckily had negotiated with Solve and we made that with Sam Jackson and ⁓ Kevin Spacey, Gary Gray directed. Yeah, I did that one. Came right in. Luckily that kind of started my real career. would say after Jack was not not really my my thing writing comedy, my comedy guy. so,

Marcus Mizelle (12:40)
that was a great movie. you did that one.

Thanks.

Well can I ask you this, I'm

sorry to cut you off, sorry to cut the flow off, but I'm just curious, when you rewatched Negotiator, which I haven't seen in years, how does that one hold up?

James Demonaco (13:00)
Pretty good, pretty good, man. I think that's the hardest part about being a writer is, and I would say that it could be, my version could be parallel or worse, but it's just different, so it's hard to marry. And I love working with Gary Gray. We got along, we became friends. So Gary had one vision, I had another. I think Gary made a good movie. The movie that's in my head could be worse than Gary's, but it's just not my vision, so it's always hard for me to go back and watch. But I think Sam's really good.

Marcus Mizelle (13:24)
Mm-hmm. Right.

James Demonaco (13:28)
think the cast is really fun. got David Morse and John Spector, really kick-ass, Ron Rifkin, super fun cast to work with. When I was on set, J.T. Walsh had become friendly with him. was this incredible wit and interesting man. So yeah, we had a really fun time on set. Gary wanted me and my buddy at the time there, who I wrote it with. yeah, so that led to, was writing, that led to writing big action films for the studios and nothing was getting made because it was so expensive.

Marcus Mizelle (13:39)
yeah.

James Demonaco (13:57)
And then I segued purposefully. I got a call to write the remake of Assault on Precinct 13. I did a little TV stuff. And then the remake of Assault. Ethan, brother, yeah, yeah, Ethan and, yeah, Dre Di Matteo and Lawrence Fishburne, fun, fun cast. And, ⁓ Brian Dennehy. So anyway, I took that job with the caveat with French production company, ⁓ called Why Not? Wonderful Company. They make songs with Jaco D'Ardo, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Marcus Mizelle (14:04)
yeah. Was Ethan Hawke in that? Who was in that?

⁓ yeah.

James Demonaco (14:27)
in France. So I made a deal with them saying if I write this, I love the Carpenter film, I want two things. want Carpenter is okay, that he's okay with us doing it. So we met with John and we spoke to him and he was great. He actually gave me some story ideas. And then I also said, please help me. You've got to help me get this movie financed that I had. And they did help me. They got the finance and put the first movie I directed called Staten Island, New York with Ethan Hawke and Vincent D'Onofrio and Seymour Cassell. They got that out of Luke Besson's company, EuropaCorp.

Marcus Mizelle (14:56)
Uh-huh.

James Demonaco (14:56)
So that started

the actually then to I made a film in New York with my producer was a guy named Sebastian Mercier, he's now my partner, producing partner, and he's produced every Purge movie. I wrote the Purge, he and I had been sent it. You know, it got passed on, we counted about 35 entities passed on it before Jason Blum saw something that we saw in it. And then the Purge, yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (15:16)
Got you. Okay,

hold on. So your first directing debut, what was it called again? ⁓ New York, okay, okay. And how was that experience? When you first directed for the first time, how the fuck was that? It must be wonderful.

James Demonaco (15:22)
Staten Island, New York. Yeah, it was a fun one. That was great,

Oh, first time, yeah, dude, the best. And it was, I had complete creative freedom. I don't know if this would happen without three times about the amount of money I had to purge one. So I had about six mil from Luke Hassan. He was incredibly supportive. I had this great recovery. Yeah, it's gonna be our dude. And he was wonderful to work with. And he came to set, gave me great pointers on set. And I had this great cast of, know, Ethan, who I knew from assault, Vincent D'Onofrio and Seymour Cassel and Julian Nicholson. And I grew up being

Marcus Mizelle (15:43)
huge Bassan fan over here.

James Demonaco (15:59)
I guess my favorite filmmaker gone to my head would be Fellini. So it was my ode, I guess, to Fellini. I think the tone of the movie, I would say, if I to analyze my own self-critique, my stuff is, there's an absurd absurdity like Fellini that I grew up loving in Fellini's films. I'm not sure the audience knew how to tonally accept the film because it's odd. It's an odd film. I love it.

Marcus Mizelle (16:02)
Nice.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

American audiences too are a little different, right? Than the European.

James Demonaco (16:28)
Yeah, think so. That's what I was going to say.

I didn't want to demonize the American ones, but I do think the European audience and it got accepted to every European home console and it did well actually in Europe, but we barely got a release here and it get accepted to one festival here. So it was completely different.

Marcus Mizelle (16:41)
Just had this conversation

with a Carla Bivari ⁓ filmmaker who we had, a third of the conversation was just like European versus American, you know, the differences between the two audiences.

James Demonaco (16:51)
It really is different though. I don't, neither is right, neither is wrong, but I think it's different. And I don't want to say my, don't want to be pretentious and say my taste is somewhat European, but I do watch a lot of European film, like we're all watching that. And I think I sometimes mix genre, which I think is demonized, not demonized in America, but is more accepted in the European or international.

Marcus Mizelle (16:54)
Yeah, sure.

And think we're so

good at, Americans are so good at genre filming.

James Demonaco (17:17)
Absolutely, dude, right. So it's even with the Perch films, people want to like say it's horror, but I'm like, well, it's not really horror. They're not horror films. They're more action dystopian. But yeah, we are very good at singularity, I think, in films. Whereas, you know, even watching a Fellini film, it'll go from something horrific to something sexual to comedy. We don't see that. I don't think we see that here, that kind of change of tone much. We'll write a role.

Marcus Mizelle (17:30)
Mm-hmm.

the shades or yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very interesting. mean, yeah, the, it's almost like we've got it. You got to package it and make it nice and neat and digestible. And it's like a vending machine in a way where it's like, this is what you're getting and that, that, that, yeah.

James Demonaco (17:51)
Thanks.

Exactly.

Digestible is the perfect word. It's business. Yes. It ain't no friends. It's no business. Exactly.

Marcus Mizelle (17:59)
The business, that's show business, I guess. my God, that's Hollywood, baby. ⁓

Okay, cool, so Purge, obviously a huge success. That was a fun time for you, I'm sure, when that blew up.

James Demonaco (18:13)
do crazy, completely unexpected. thought, and this is the God's honest truth, we thought it was, was writing like a, know, Staten Island again didn't like the world on fire, so Sebastian's like, write something small, something we can contain and shoot. And we thought it would, we don't, you know, shoot it really small to play the Angelica in New York. And we thought it was like a Hanukkah film, like funny games. don't know if any of these videos, but anyway, Jason Blum saw something else. He saw a wider audience for it.

Marcus Mizelle (18:24)
Hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

⁓ oof.

James Demonaco (18:41)
You know, there was a couple of things I hadn't thought to get into that. ⁓ Just one thing, really. ⁓ And then Jason saw something and it blew that weekend. Even the prognosticators were completely wrong. that. called my agency and I said, I just want to make another movie. Obviously I want this to do well. What does it have to financially make so I can get another movie made? And remember the head of the agency said, you just got to do about 10, JD. And you'll be OK.

Marcus Mizelle (19:06)
Oof.

James Demonaco (19:07)
So I was like, hey, let's do 10, fantastic. And then it had that, you know, I think $38 million opening. I was with my mom and dad here on Staten Island and we were just like looking at each I had a studio call and I'm like, this is surreal. This is weird. It weird. Yeah, it was a fun thing. It was fun because, and I kind of had, I had an idea of what two should be. So it was nice. It was nice to know where to go on part two and not force it. So.

Marcus Mizelle (19:19)
Man so exciting. I'm sure that's so cool

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you've had some, I mean, you've had some blessings, it sounds like, to a degree. mean, I'm sure you're deserving, but you've been able to, you've, the Coppola and the Bassan and the Blum, yeah. It's amazing.

James Demonaco (19:36)
Dude, yeah, yeah, like you said, the cinema god smiled on us. Yeah, yeah.

I can't complain. I do complain a lot, but I shouldn't probably.

Marcus Mizelle (19:44)
Well, you seem super

cool. I nice to, you know, it happens to the good people. Okay, so Purge, between Purge and The Home, what were you doing during that period?

James Demonaco (19:46)
Thank you, man. Thank you.

I did, like I said, wrote the Five Burgess, did two seasons of the TV show. I always saw it, I didn't run it, but I always saw those two seasons. I wrote a couple books actually in that time, one called Pharaoh and another one called The Peculiar Adventures of Jack Bo Kimmel, the children's book. So wrote a couple books. So that was fun, something different. And then I did an independent film, I made an indie that was my old, my love of movies called This Is the Night.

Marcus Mizelle (20:13)
wow, that's cool.

James Demonaco (20:25)
You're clearly a cinema, cinephile. You should check it out, dude. It's a fun and weird movie. It's when they, Naomi Watts, Bobby Cannavale and Frank Willow called This Is the Night. And it's about, it's about the night. Oh, dude, oh my God, you're much longer than we meant. We have a bad feed, so I can't tell it. So yeah, it's about the year Rocky III opened on Staten Island and how it kind of, it inspires people to.

Marcus Mizelle (20:28)
Yeah, 2021.

Hell yeah.

my birth year, 1982.

Yeah.

James Demonaco (20:53)
fight their fears and rise up and do things they would never be ⁓ courageous enough to do without the inspiration of the film. So it's my, I guess it's my cinema parody. yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think you'll dig it through. It's funny. It's good. Naomi's wonderful. ⁓ They're all great. Bobby's great, Frank's great. There's three boys in it. I think what I did do, want to be so curious to what you think. It's exactly what I-

Marcus Mizelle (21:02)
Okay, okay, this is the night, okay. I love movies about movies, I love them. Or even just like the backdrop.

James Demonaco (21:23)
was just talking about. think I mixed genres, meaning you get a little bit of American graffiti in there, but then there's a storyline about a young man who's struggling with his identity, and he's coming out on that evening. And then there's a surreal mom storyline. There's no singularity in tone. I guess I'm mixing absurdity with very serious drama, with comedy. I think some...

People accept that and some people don't. That's just the nature.

Marcus Mizelle (21:53)
I love,

I mean, I'm a huge, I try to just mix my genres up, you know? I just finished a documentary, it's called ⁓ Hollywood PI, it's about a doc, it's a real life documentary about a real life PI, but it's totally a detective comedy, because he has this sidekick, it's like this fucking two-hander that I've stumbled backwards into. I would be so jealous of this movie, but anyways, if it wasn't mine, but it's like, I'll send you a link, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just,

James Demonaco (22:06)
now.

This is my take.

with that's the animals guys you that i was at

It's cross-moving.

Marcus Mizelle (22:19)
it turned out good,

but as far as just the genre ⁓ techniques, know, like just understanding memoir and comedy and detective, and specifically you have the sub genres too, right? The two handed kind of comedy, the odd couple comedy, you know, that's what it is. Like a 28 year old PI in training and a 65 year old salty veteran, you know, trying to solve the murder of the 65 year old's mentor. Yeah. he, yeah.

James Demonaco (22:30)
Exactly. ⁓

This sounds fantastic.

Marcus Mizelle (22:47)
Yeah, I tried, tried, you know, ⁓ but it's a lot of juxtaposition, a lot of sunshine too, you know? So we just watched that. The Altman, the Altman one? Yeah, it's such a weird, cool film. Such a cool film. Yeah. even with documentaries.

James Demonaco (22:53)
Yeah, just watching Long Goodbye talking about great LA noir. The Altman one, yeah, it's a beautiful film. Isn't it, man? It's fantastic.

Marcus Mizelle (23:04)
love trying to take the genre beats and put them into the real world. And it's so fun once you do that. And the power of genre and the power of understanding genre is so big, so huge. So I can talk about it all day long.

James Demonaco (23:19)
genre,

I think it could be the most powerful, the most powerful vessel to get something close to an audience, something about genre that's just, think, the way Carpenter and Romero handled it back in the day. Yeah, it's just my favorite.

Marcus Mizelle (23:31)
It's

like these, you know, like the mythic structure, the Greek structure, whatever, things we're so used to, the hero's journey, we're conditioned for that, right? At least in the Western side of things, and Eastern's got their own thing going on where it's not about the hero so much as the world. But as far as the genre and the Hollywood, know, the films that have come out and the way that these sub-genres have been created, they're like bite-sized, not bite-sized, they're like variations of that same idea, right? As far as these structures that we're familiar with.

James Demonaco (23:45)
Exactly.

⁓ absolutely.

Marcus Mizelle (24:00)
we're talking about show business and Hollywood and stuff like them being able to make the money to give this product to someone, they really seem to work when you honor these beats. You try to subvert the beats, of course, but yeah, genre filmmaking, man.

James Demonaco (24:13)
You're right.

you are saying, subverting the beats. But like you said, the paradigm works, right? There's something about the Conrad model. It's just that hero's journey. It just works, man. But trying to subvert is the hard part for us, right? How do we, within that, I don't want to say it's cliched, but the structure is, we've seen it a million times. How do we do something different within that journey? that's a Yeah, exactly. How do we transcend that? Right, exactly.

Marcus Mizelle (24:27)
It just works.

transcend.

Yeah, hell yeah. Okay, this conversation is great, but I got to move on to your moot. Well, it's gonna still gonna be great. But I want to keep talking to you. But I guess we should move on to the home. I want to hear about more about your past, but we can't spend too much time in the past. You got to move on at some point. My podcast is called past present feature. Who am I to say anything?

James Demonaco (24:46)
Exactly. That's it.

Exactly.

Marcus Mizelle (25:02)
You know what I mean?

But it's just such an interesting concept time, you know, looking back, it's a valuable thing, right? Especially with film and cinema as far as like being able to honor and be inspired by all these past movies. know, cutting to the now, like what right now, and, you know, it's like, ⁓ tell me about the home and like how it started, it, and maybe how you, ⁓ how Pete came on and yeah, whatever else that comes to mind as far as kind of pre-production and development and stuff.

James Demonaco (25:15)
It's everything.

Yeah.

Absolutely, yes. was COVID-19 just hit. I was actually writing a movie with Pete, Pete lived up the street from here in Staten Island at his mom's house. ⁓ He was there at the time, I should say. And we knew each other from a local restaurant where he was a busboy waiter. The purges had come out and he came up to my table. It was a local hangout called New Cheese. It's a very Italian American community here on Staten Island.

He was a way to come by introducing Phil to say I'm a young comedian and I love your movie. And we just, we kind of hit it off. And he was this great, great young man. And we kept in touch over the years, got SNL, but we stayed in touch. And he was always this hopeful man. I knew more, I guess I knew him as a human being, not as the comic. So when I finally, Adam and I wrote The Home, we immediately thought of Pete because I think his journey in some...

He could tap into what Max was going through, the trauma that Max has passed. Pete, I think we all know, had trauma in his past with his dad in 9-11. So we thought he was a nice fit for the movie. But the movie itself, the script came out of COVID too. I was sitting with ⁓ my best friend, Adam Cantor. ⁓

Marcus Mizelle (26:26)
Mm-hmm.

James Demonaco (26:37)
He's just, met another Staten Island guy and he's written a bunch of things on his own and I've always tried to help him. He's younger than me. So I try to help him with his writing. He helps me. Terry's one of my readers and he's very honest with me. I think we all need honest people in all the ways. I think it's the most invaluable thing. We write, don't you, I mean, I always say that. always, just sometimes I'll watch a filmmaker's movie and I'll be like, oh, they don't have any more notes. They only have yes men in their lives. No one's telling.

Marcus Mizelle (26:50)
How? Yeah.

Totally. Yeah.

Yeah,

you gotta be open-minded. younger version of me would be like, no, I've got it all figured out, because young and dumb. But now it's like, I wanna make this movie as good as it can be, because I can't put it back in once I put it out.

James Demonaco (27:08)
Exactly, dude. Yes. Here you go.

Marcus Mizelle (27:16)
know that, I've made five features and I know the deal now. And it's not about my ego, it's about how good can this film be. Anyway,

James Demonaco (27:17)
Thanks.

know, it calls you out on your shit, right? Because we all do our... You know, we rely, we fudge things, and it's great to have...

Marcus Mizelle (27:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, but also just

redundancies, know, take that out. You've already said that you don't need that. Why do you need that? You know, or even we're just in the weeds, you know, it's like you're seeing you got so much and you're so into it. So inside it that you need people. It's like a friend that's just talking you through a breakup or something hard in life, you know, where you're just in it.

James Demonaco (27:34)
exactly.

Marcus Mizelle (27:50)
Yeah.

James Demonaco (27:52)
The first map of Perch 1 before Sebastian's notes came in, it was unfilmable. I was just too in love with my own bullshit. And he just came in and called me out and he said, first of all, this is ready triple X for violence. And you need to, I thought I was doing this great dissertation on the nature of violence in the world. And it was like 200 pages. And he's like, just, you you're too in love with your own shit. Let's cut this thing.

Marcus Mizelle (27:59)
Okay.

James Demonaco (28:17)
And he just came in and gutted it. And it's a wonderful person to have. So anyways, Adam was my guy. I gave him stuff to read. He gave me stuff to read. And we were sitting in my yard. His two boys, my daughter, I guess during COVID they called it, like people are in a bubble together. So they were the only family we saw ⁓ during those early scary COVID days. Yeah, so we were sitting in my backyard with me and Adam. We both had strange experiences with...

Marcus Mizelle (28:35)
Yeah, well, wow, crazy time.

James Demonaco (28:44)
older people in our families when we were young had old age facilities. not to say that all these facilities have a creep factor, but the ones that we, you know, the ones that are on my end have a very odd feeling. as a young man, I was overwhelmed by the impending nature of death that was just in every hallway. I know there's probably places that don't have this, but the ones I visited had this kind of creep care. So I always wanted to do something in a ⁓ senior care facility.

Marcus Mizelle (29:08)
Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'd never seen that. ⁓ I was watching it last night. I'm like, I don't think I can remember ever seeing, I can't remember ever seeing a film like this that takes place in this setting. And it's like, it's a really simple, solid concept.

James Demonaco (29:27)
Yeah,

exactly. And I always try to go for that's why I people I think we're conceptually simple usually works best. So we were looking for searching for something simple. And then I think coupled with that, I always had this image. There was a movie called The Sentinel from 1978. Yeah, weird movie. But there was one image in the film that stayed with me with a nude old man running through this dark hallway. And I always say everything I do, have one plague with night terrors since I was.

Marcus Mizelle (29:43)
Okay, I haven't seen it.

James Demonaco (29:56)
boy I wake up screaming at night, I still do today. And this was one of those images that has stayed with me forever.

Marcus Mizelle (29:58)
Okay.

The Sentinel. A New York City

model with a troubled past, Allison Parker decides to make some changes in her life. Breaking up with her boyfriend, Allison relocates to an apartment in a brownstone building where the only other tenant is a withdrawn blind priest.

James Demonaco (30:16)
I wonder if that's the guy who's running down the hallway without naked and it's freaking this old dude

Marcus Mizelle (30:20)
Okay.

Allison begins to realize why

the holy man is present. The building has an evil presence that must be kept in check. Michael Winner is the director. 1977, 3.5 million. Universal Pictures, who also distributed your stuff, right? It's f-

James Demonaco (30:29)
Michael Wiener. Yeah, yeah. Great. Universal. That's right. Oddly, Anyways,

I had that image. And then the movie that really inspired me the most, as things coalesced in your head, is Robert, going back to Robert Altman we've talked about before, is, have you ever seen three women do the Altman film?

Marcus Mizelle (30:50)
I know of it, I never actually watched it.

James Demonaco (30:53)
I it's the weirdest, strangest two-hour film. It makes you feel like you're in someone's dream. To me, that's the greatest accomplishment of all filmmakers, you

Marcus Mizelle (31:05)
No shit.

James Demonaco (31:06)
But it takes place in an old person's spa in like the desert in New Mexico. it's, you know, those zooms, all the news is those beautiful, creepy zooms. And it's not a horror movie. It's just a weird psychological kind of game he's playing. Anyway, all that came together to, and we were sitting in our backyards and we're talking about, you know, as we do, retirement disabilities, the Sentinel, three women, aging. was, at time, it was just a funny aside.

Marcus Mizelle (31:16)
Yes, sir. I love them.

Mm-hmm.

James Demonaco (31:36)
I eat very unhealthy, and I guess I just eat a lot of pizza and pasta and so. know, exactly. But going out, we'd have Sunday's lunch. Yeah, exactly. So I started my wife would convince me to take that she doesn't do yoga, but she convinced me to take a yoga during COVID, which is not something I ever done in my life. But my feed, I noticed after I took a yoga. And this is what really brought everything home for the home was.

Marcus Mizelle (31:40)
Yeah, that delicious Italian food. temptations everywhere around there, I'm sure.

James Demonaco (32:01)
It was inundated, my YouTube feed was inundated with longevity supplements. I just went, so I went down the rabbit holes, hitting on all these links on YouTube. And I saw that this was a whole industry of longevity and elongating our lives. And then that was the final piece that pushed us into, there's something nefarious, happening at this old age home.

Marcus Mizelle (32:24)
Hell

James Demonaco (32:26)
why I layered in a whole thing in here. I don't even know if it's I learned a lesson on the purge movies. I think my politics got I started proselytizing and preaching in four and five. I think I've too far. I've always wanted a little sociopolitical element. I like layer it with that. It's growing up. You know, Romero and Carpenter.

In this one, wanted some, you this is a kind of a climate change kind of underbellied of what the previous generation is doing to the planet and believing, you know, the newer generation. I think, you know, Pete representing.

you know, a generation, I don't know if the generation names X, would he be X? And then there's the boomer generation raping off-line and of its resources. So the whole thing was a metaphor, but I think, you know, that's almost like a fun thing to do for yourself. You hope some audience members get it, but the movie's not created upon that, enjoying it for that layer to be there.

Marcus Mizelle (33:11)
Right.

It's this underbelly

thing, this, what do call it? This reservoir that does affect the film, but it's not on the net. People don't come away from it and say, I love those themes there mean, I don't know. Like also like, it's like, it's better. People don't want to be informed or preached to anyways. They want to be entertained and that's how you can get them, you know?

James Demonaco (33:21)
Thank

Exactly.

That's what I learned that in a harsh way. think on Purge 5, yeah, people felt I was getting a little preachy. But yeah, we learn a lesson. We learn. ⁓

Marcus Mizelle (33:39)
But also you got five films out of that. mean, Jesus, that's pretty impressive.

Okay, so the home production filming this thing, how did that go? By the way, I just wanna say this, love that when he arrives at the home, that fucking dolly shot, that was long lens dolly? Is that what it was, long lens on a dolly? Woo, so good. It's like, oh, I'm in it now, pull me in. Very good.

James Demonaco (33:55)
Yeah. ⁓ thank you. Don't. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. I love you. I'm a big fan of the old one. The three six

one eight and beautiful lenses. And yeah, we brought the human a lot here. Shooting was great. I was working with my D.P. from my he did one of my purge movies. He did my This Is The Night film. So we know each other very well. And it's Las Micos. Wonderful. ⁓ He did man. I what was it called? Man.

Marcus Mizelle (34:19)
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great.

James Demonaco (34:25)
Man in the Moon with Milo's performance, beautiful DP. Yeah, yeah, yeah, wonderful. And so I had a lot of my crew that I worked with before, and you know, that's a great shorthand. But it was a hard shoot, man. I didn't have enough time, you know, as it always is. Not enough time, not enough money. So we were up against it. And the place itself, Liz, we got incredibly lucky. was an old, we couldn't find anything to the point where we almost said, I don't know how we're gonna shoot this movie. Because we couldn't afford to jump low-key, and we had to find one place.

Marcus Mizelle (34:28)
I don't know shit. Wow.

James Demonaco (34:55)
And luckily my great location department found an old atrium that just shut down. So everybody had just moved out, it was run by nuns. And it was a creepy place. I'm not one of those people, there was some weird shit that started happening upstairs. yeah, found, well, the crew found, you know that song, the character of Norma, Mary, that Keel is singing at the piano. So, forgot who the artist is.

Marcus Mizelle (35:09)
really?

Yes, I remember.

James Demonaco (35:23)
Long story short, we're shooting in a room. Each room had the name of the previous occupant, and they also had a flag to the people who died before that occupant on the wall. So her character's name was Norma. We were shooting in a room where the previous occupant was named Norma. And underneath her bed, everything was cleared out. It's in for a little like, soma putraman, of the previous tenants. The crew found the music box playing the song that the character Norma was. Now I thought it was bullshit. I called my crew out and they're you're you're fucking with me.

Marcus Mizelle (35:53)
Yeah.

James Demonaco (35:53)
My DP who I know dearly is like a brother, like, JD, I was there and found it. It was literally a music box under the bed and it had three songs programmed in and one of them was, Let Me Call You Sweetheart with a previous document named Norma. So weird to me, we had a... This is weird, exactly.

Marcus Mizelle (36:09)
That music's weird in general too. That time period's fucking weird. Even when you,

you ⁓ use it in the movie, right? Whenever he's going through the thing and you hear that, when he opens the... I think it's also just the way it was, that music was recorded too. It's like hanging on for dear life with the technology. Something about it. It's like dying literally. It's trying to stay alive. Yeah. Fucking creepy. Creepy, creepy.

James Demonaco (36:18)
Exactly.

Yes, exactly.

Great pick up, yeah, yeah. So that was

creepy. We had a, it didn't make the movie, but we had a centipede in the movie. Big, big ass centipede about a foot long. And it's gonna be the dream sequence. So they make me pick the centipede out of a book. And I'm like, oh, I like that one. And they bring it to the centipede handlers and they don't tell anyone that it's poisonous. And if you get bit by it, you'll be, I'd say, I'm probably exaggerating. It was about eight inches long. It looked like a, it was bigger than a hot dog, dude. It was the creepiest.

Marcus Mizelle (36:39)
⁓

Foot long.

Jesus.

James Demonaco (37:00)
goddamn thing I've ever seen. And they tell us it's poisonous and if you if you get bit by it, you'll be paralyzed for about an hour and it'll be an appreciating pain. Long story short, the son of a bitch and thing gets loose on set and they can't find it anywhere and the whole world flatters. And they eventually find it. This is where it gets weird. found it. Remember that statue I keep shooting in the movie that that weird deus statue that's in front of the home? They said it was living inside that later that day.

Marcus Mizelle (37:05)
Jesus, no, no, no, no. Wow.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, with the hole in it.

James Demonaco (37:30)
it's sort of huge inside this statue that we got. Yeah, it was very quick. So we're, it was, yeah, know, Pete was going through a lot at the time. He was getting a lot of, I think I could say this, I shouldn't, I shouldn't get too much into it. A lot of weird stuff, Kanye West was doing a lot of weird stuff. So.

Marcus Mizelle (37:30)
Whoa.

⁓ yeah, okay. Well this places

it as far as time is concerned. Yeah, I remember that.

James Demonaco (37:50)
Yeah,

yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (37:52)
So much press, Pete's gotten.

James Demonaco (37:54)
yeah it was nothing of his fault is that the is a very strange things

Marcus Mizelle (37:59)
He seems

like a cool dude. I haven't met him, don't know him, but he seems like he'd be a solid dude, which is good to see.

James Demonaco (38:04)
⁓

he really is. He's just a guy who's got his head on shoulders, his head on right. ⁓ He's a soulful guy. think that each year he's getting better perspective on what the business is and how to handle the business.

Marcus Mizelle (38:21)
I want to say this too, as far as I was very impressed with his performance because there's, well, I mean, it's like, there's, it's not, I don't think it's very easy at all to, ⁓ like, I like that he didn't have a ton of dialogue. I mean, he had plenty, but he didn't, it felt like there was, he was doing a lot without dialogue, which is not easy, right? Yeah, so that was very impressive. And it was, it was refreshing to have him be in that role too. ⁓ Cause I hadn't seen him in something like that.

James Demonaco (38:25)
It's great to hear.

Yes, yes. I thought the same thing.

Yeah, something exactly,

exactly. And people were asking like, even the studio didn't at first know. But I'll give Andrew, going back to Andrew Golo from Bill Block, they were like, no, okay, if you see something, let's take that chance. Because they hadn't seen him like that. You they know him from SNL and King of Staten Island. And I was like, no, I know the guy. I know him as a human being, he's very soulful guy. I know he can do this. But I'll say this, I was even, you know, I was scared. You never know what you're to get. And here he's working with John Glover and Ethan Johnny Phillips. He's a great stage actor.

Marcus Mizelle (38:59)
Mm-hmm.

James Demonaco (39:15)
Mary Beth Peale, Jessica Hecht has been off of two Tonys in a row, so he has been working with craftsmen and craftswomen. And so I was a little nervous. like, wow, is he going to be able to handle himself? They were with Bruce Altman, I Bruce, another wonderful actor who plays Dr. Savion. He was blown away. He's like, this kid's an actor. He's just got it. So we got lucky. Well, he's got get lucky. Pete's talent is not luck.

Marcus Mizelle (39:15)
Mm. Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Fluid.

nice. Yeah,

sure. And there's still a little bit of not too much was a little bit of funny moments in here too. Like I was like a handful of come Yeah, it's good. It's good. Because it because it kind of breaks through the thick atmosphere a little bit. You don't expect it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, it's good.

James Demonaco (39:42)
Yeah, I think so.

Exactly, it's pretty thick. Yes, it gets a little thick. But Peter,

for fun, he gave us a take. I'll never be able to do this because you know how much it takes to edit and how much it costs. But he gave us one take per set up of something very funny. So there is a version of the film that's almost, I would say, almost straight comedy, but we had no time to edit that cut and it just exists somewhere on an applet. And I would love to go back and have that as a keepsake.

Marcus Mizelle (40:05)
Okay.

It's just editing. This is a logical turning point to go into post and distribution. But before that, I just want to say, I wish you guys, well maybe you did. I was going to say, I hope you guys filmed some behind the scenes. Remember how that was a thing back in the 90s because DVD, there was a place for them? They had movies, had documentaries that owned every movie almost, or not every, but a lot of them.

James Demonaco (40:17)
you couldn't contain yourself, had to deal with it.

was the greatest thing.

I wish I could show my camera. I'm like you. We have the same background, dude. I just got over like three, four thousand DVDs. the director's commentary is my favorite thing in the world. I think it's a dying thing. It's going away. ⁓

Marcus Mizelle (40:54)
Film school. Well,

I wonder why these streamers don't, maybe the audiences don't care. I don't know. But why don't the streamers have that option under the language button, know? Man. Or least criterion or somebody like this premier streamer that's for prestige films or whatever it is. Like give me that fucking director's commentary option. That's good idea.

James Demonaco (41:12)
Exactly. It'd be fantastic, man. We need that. That's how I learned.

Like you said, that's part of the great film school. I remember listening to even like Ron Shelton's bulldozer

Marcus Mizelle (41:22)
Just make a streamer with like, like, buy directors for directors and have it be a commentary situation.

James Demonaco (41:25)
Absolutely.

That's a good idea. should get that going.

Marcus Mizelle (41:31)
Post-production and distribution. Yeah. like a ⁓ production, you got through it, obviously. And then post, how was post? How was post and how was it getting around in the corner and locking that film?

James Demonaco (41:37)
through it.

I do not easy for me editing to me is I guess the hardest part of the whole thing because I could just I if they would let me and financially viable I'd still be editing right now it's an end you know this probably dude it's you just feel like you can always do better always

Marcus Mizelle (41:54)
It's the one thing

I do have as far as making these documentaries where I accept that the movie's gonna be done when it's done. But at least I'm not on the hook for millions. You know what I mean? It's different as far as the financial pressure isn't there.

James Demonaco (42:07)
Yeah,

that's something. So you burn it, you burn in what, 10, sometimes 20 grand a week on these, you know, studios. I guess this is a studio film, we're looking at, know, Miramix, they're not a distributor, but they are studios, so they're a financier. So we had some fights. I'll say to answer, I'll probably tell you the truth. had some, especially with me and Bill Block, but in a good way, I'd say to all the yielded results. The testing process, you know what that means, that's the worst.

Marcus Mizelle (42:12)
Shoo!

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nice.

The test screening, just getting people to watch. I like it, I like it, but it is not comfortable. It's very uncomfortable. Just breaks your fucking, yeah.

James Demonaco (42:34)
Good.

No, it's an yeah. You just nailed it dude. It's not comfortable, right? I can't even

go in malls anymore. They're always in malls. So every time I see a mall, get PTSD. they do sometimes yield. I'll say this. I think it's the key is interpreting the data. And you got to have a good team around you to interpret it. You know, you're getting 300 people, you get that booklet the next day. And some of it's, you you want to say, okay, what does this mean? And you got, and I think there's an art to the interpretation of the text audience.

Marcus Mizelle (42:44)
yeah. ⁓ I bit, ugh.

Sure. ⁓

James Demonaco (43:06)
But we got through it, we got through it, man. think we fought, we got there, and I think it was all good fighting and yielding something good. did a, Andrew and Bill gave us a day of additional shooting, which I think is always nice to just punch the holes. So that's a rare thing too. And then yeah, distribution, dude, we sold, we played up at the Toronto Film Festival, think a year and a half ago, and we sold there. We were one of two films that sold that year. So that was exciting. That was cool.

Marcus Mizelle (43:18)
amazing.

That's great.

⁓ okay.

Amazing,

amazing. So how was TIFF? So you said TIFF, that's where you premiered.

James Demonaco (43:37)
Yeah, exactly. We premiered there, but it was a weird section. It was the same section that the Holdovers played in the Every Folks Bill had produced at Bill Block. I forgot what it's called. It's called something. It was a weird section of movies that don't fit a genre like that are outside. It was very strange. But Lionsgate saw it, Nathan Cain at Lionsgate, and they bought it. They held it, which was a scary time because in these modern days, we don't know the actual such a...

Marcus Mizelle (43:48)
So wasn't like a midnight section, it was something else.

Okay.

Okay.

James Demonaco (44:07)
There

was a change of leadership over there. ⁓ Adam Fogelson, who I knew from Universal, came in and took over. And Adam had to deal with a lot of movies that were made by the previous regime. Luckily, I didn't like the home. And so he supported it. Now we come out of theaters finally. That's exciting. I think there was a point, as we both know in the modern world, that theatrical is no longer at all guaranteed in any way. It never was. But now I think it's even harder because the streamers are easily a viable avenue.

Marcus Mizelle (44:10)
Yeah, okay.

Mm-hmm.

It's a huge deal

like you're still seeing it, but not much, but it's great that you guys are getting it. It's really cool

James Demonaco (44:40)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah. Yeah, man. I'll just take it now. Who knows if it'll ever come again?

Marcus Mizelle (44:48)
Did you see the article?

I think it was five days ago-ish. It was these executives saying how they think that the theater experience is gonna last for maybe another 15, 20 years. But I think what's gonna happen is the boutique is gonna come back, right? Like how it was beginning, where you have these movie palaces, maybe not a palace, but like these single and double screen theaters. I think that could be the way. Again, they get rid of the megaplex.

James Demonaco (45:11)
Yeah,

read one article by a French article and they were saying that they think it'll American cinema, not French cinema, American cinema will become a more like Broadway where you'll have, like you said, movie palaces where it's more of an event. Yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (45:26)
Yep, yep, yep. Seems to be that, going that way. I went and saw F1 on Saturday at the,

what is it, 4DX? It's pretty fucking cool, actually. was like, whoa, the seat's moving. I enjoy the movie. mean, the first 10 minutes was, the first reel was bumpy, as movies can be, you know, getting in. But then it just found its legs. Yeah, I enjoyed it. It was good.

James Demonaco (45:36)
How did it look? ⁓

Oh yeah,

thought it was... And Kit is such a... He's a movie hero, man. He's just one of our movies. Dude, how is that man... Exactly! I'm so happy he's revisiting the Cliff Booth character. I just read that. This is the greatest news I've heard in years. My favorite. Oh, this is just... Heaven. It's greatest news.

Marcus Mizelle (45:49)
us. Brad Pitt, how are you 61 years old? the hell? Genetics. Jealous.

yeah.

I love this. And Fincher's directing with Tarantino's script with Brad Pitt. Come on, let's go. I love it. All right, cool, sorry, back to yours.

Back to your movie. Okay, so you had, so roadside attractions, is that correct? Underlines gets distributing. Yeah. Okay.

James Demonaco (46:16)
Yeah, Roadside is releasing Wit Lion's Gate together. And

yeah, we're working Wit Roadside, a great, Lion's Gate's been great. Yeah, then here we go, man. We come out July 25th, fantastic.

Marcus Mizelle (46:32)
This movie is going to play

well, I do think. People like Pete and people love horror. And this is fresh and it's going to do good. It's going to do good.

James Demonaco (46:41)
Thank you, man. Thank

you. Thank you. Yeah, you know, I'm just happy to be in theaters at this point, That is that's a yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (46:45)
That's amazing. So how do you prep for,

how do you prep for, well, I got somebody that's got a movie in theaters. How do you prep for that? how do you maximize that situation? know, like how, like the window of time, you know, as far as press and stuff, you're doing things like this and you're doing, you know, yeah.

James Demonaco (46:59)
Great question. It's great.

It's a yeah, you know, I always say I'm writing right now for her six actually. So I'm finishing that up and I'm trying to say it's such a rare it could be rare and it's getting rare to be the actual that I told like my wife and everyone like let's really try to enjoy this because I'm I'm quite an anxiety ridden man. So I sometimes work off of anxiety and fear. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to try to sit back and enjoy this one and not get too caught up in

what I could turn positive into negative very quickly, not to get too personal. But yeah, I'm just trying to enjoy. So this whole month I'm gonna kinda sit back and just hopefully talk to good people like you and just try to celebrate movies and know, sitting in the theater with other people and just sharing that experience which is so fucking rare, know. Yeah.

Marcus Mizelle (47:43)
It's the craziest

thing when you've done all this heavy lifting and this constant push, this rock up the hill, and then you finally get to the hill and now it's rolling back down, you're just kind of watching it at the top of the hill. And then everybody else gets to know of it, gets to know the movie, right? It's like the work is done, ⁓ the work on the film is done, of course, but then it's like the releasing strategies on this promotion. But yeah, it's the weirdest thing because you're so, well, least for me, I'm usually so tired of the movie at that point, which is a good thing, I think, because it means that

James Demonaco (47:57)
Exactly.

Marcus Mizelle (48:12)
Allen got nothing left to give it. But it's like also you want to still be present and enjoy all of the love that people hopefully give it, you know.

James Demonaco (48:13)
Exactly.

You're right, exactly. I told my right

partner, this is his first one, I'm like, just don't read comments. Don't read any comment sections.

Marcus Mizelle (48:27)
Oh,

yeah, that one that Golov was in, I made it for 12 grand, I think it was. And he was, it was cool, but it wasn't what I envisioned, you know, of course, but it was still, glad I did it. learned a lot of lessons and he was great in it. But the comments, that was the moment where I'm like, oh no, I suck, I'm no good, da da da, all these things. He wait a minute, fuck them. No, I did what I could with what I had, you know? That's why I did it.

James Demonaco (48:45)
Oh, no. I saw it. The greatest on Jacqueline. I'll never

get when Jack came out, the first critic. I was literally still living at home with my parents and we're watching the Today Show. And I don't remember, Gene Shallis was this guy. He a big afro with him. Also, he's very famous in New York. New York critic.

He hated jazz and he called my writing partner and myself. He said, the real villains here, no, the real problem here are those villainous income poops, DeMonaco and Nadeau. And I wrote to him, yes, later, he really loved to negotiate. And I wrote to him, I got his email, I wrote to him, that villainous income poop on Jack. And he never wrote back. But I always tell people, you know what, you can't really read. You just got to enjoy the process on your own.

Marcus Mizelle (49:23)
I just looked him up. know this guy. I've seen this guy. Whoa.

It's like that scene

from Birdman where he goes to visit, where see Michael Keaton goes to see the the critic at the end of the bar. Yeah. Nice. this has been a great combo. I'm you want to talk about?

James Demonaco (49:42)
Yes.

Thank

Exactly. I wish I

Good God, I'm trying to think. People should just go to the movies, man. I hope that, I think this is behind a movie. I hope people see in the theaters, not at home. I mean, listen, if they see it at home, that's great. People got big screens now. But I think it's fun to see. think horror is a great, I'm preaching to the choir here, but I think your audience knows that it's great to see horror with an audience. It's fun to share that. Especially the last 20 minutes, I think of bananas and fun to watch. So yeah, man, thank you. Great questions, dude. Great, great, great talk.

Marcus Mizelle (50:12)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

thank you so

much. Well, you were a great guest, Let me ask you one more question. Two more questions, actually. One, what is... Well, okay, the first one is, what would you say to your younger self when you were starting out? If you were a filmmaker just starting out, what would you tell yourself?

James Demonaco (50:33)
That's a great one. And I'd say don't worry about all the shit that you worry about. Try to be a little more positive. And work from the heart only. I've taken a couple of jobs that weren't going to come from my soul and they were bad. I actually did bad work. think we have to have a... I think it's got to come from the gut. And if it's not coming from the gut, don't work on it. Move on. Pass. Even if it feels like a great opportunity, you got to feel it in your soul. That's the biggest thing.

Marcus Mizelle (51:02)
Yeah, that was good. Last question, very simple one. What's the most recent thing you watched that you really love? Not rewatched though, just something that's new. Is there anything?

James Demonaco (51:10)
Something new, dude,

I saw an amazing film about two weeks ago that I wish I could tell everybody. He's one of my favorite filmmakers. name is, I don't even know if I'm saying his name right. He's from, I believe he's Turkish filmmaker. name is Nori Bilselan. He made a film called About Dry Grasses. And if you get a chance to see it, it's a beautiful film. He's made all the great films, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Winter Sleep. ⁓ But his new one, yeah, his new one's called About Dry Grass and it just blew me away.

Marcus Mizelle (51:34)
Okay, in this Premiere.com it looks like.

Hell yeah, nice.