The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood - 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' Co-Writer Chris McKenna

'Spider-Man: No Way Home' Co-Writer Chris McKenna

12/30/21 • 46 min

1 Listener

On this week’s episode, Sonny is joined by Chris McKenna who, along with his writing partner Erik Sommers, wrote Spider-Man: No Way Home, which has grossed about $1.2 billion around the world ... so far. In this in-depth interview, Chris discusses how a blockbuster of this nature gets made, from pitch meetings to brainstorming sessions to rewrites during the shoot to additional photography to tightening the ship following test screenings. We also talk a bit about the state of the business and why it’ll be a real bummer if the theatrical experience dies off. Plus, we learn that a very special Spider-Villain is a listener of this podcast! (Or, well, has listened to AN episode.)

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Previous Episode

The Greatest Movie Ever Made Hits 4K

Last month the Criterion Collection kicked off its new 4K lineup with what is, arguably, the greatest movie ever made: Citizen Kane. And the disc is absolutely loaded with special features, including a rarely seen BBC documentary on the making of the movie, multiple commentary tracks, and numerous interviews—including one with film historian Farran Smith Nehme. She joined Sonny to talk about Citizen Kane, how it got made, how William Randolph Hearst tried to smother it in the crib, and why it’s considered to be one of the great films. We also talked about her new Substack, which you can check out here, and the transformation of blogs into newsletters.

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Next Episode

'The Spine of Night' and the Business of Animation

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