A column in which conversations and events on the award circuit are recorded.
Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 begins streaming on Netflix today after briefly running in theaters that are open across the country, not LA or NY, and are receptive to playing it. In a conversation I had with his Oscar winner this week, he sang the praises of Netflix for trying to save the movie by releasing it before the November 3rd election, which the original distributor Paramount thought was impossible in the current one Climate. But Sorkin hopes this won’t be the rule when COVID is behind us and the exhibition business can return to a sense of normalcy. “I hope people don’t get used to it. If it’s safe to go back to the theater, I hope people will remember that there is no substitute for the experience of seeing a movie with an audience, ”he told me. Sorkin added that he doesn’t have a single complaint about how this solid contender for Netflix’s awards season has been treated, but remains a champion of the theater experience nonetheless. “This will be the end of my PPE, but you and people like you will take us back to the theaters. So you have that responsibility. Bad luck.”
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A CHANGE FROM PARAMOUNT TO STREAMING
No pressure, Aaron. I wish I had the chance to see The Trial of the Chicago 7, a film set in the turbulent political air of 1968 and the aftermath of a divisive presidential campaign that is remarkably relevant today. It would have been great to share this rousing, uplifting ending with a packed movie audience. As it is, I had to get up from my couch, but it still had an impact. As a film critic, let alone an award expert, I usually put on one or two “premieres” of new films every night on my 85-inch television – no substitute for a theater, but it has to be enough – but I promise that I will I’ll stay a champion for theater, if there are still some, if we get through this. However, the studios are in charge of providing the films and without them it will be a grim task. In the meantime, Sorkin explained how his Netflix moment came about.
Talent roster calls on congress to save cinemas, grows to 120 as NATO, MPA and DGA warn that exhibitors “may not survive” –
“We can get out when we should be out about Netflix,” he said. “The distributor for the film was Paramount, and a few months ago I was on a Marketing Zoom call that included Jim Gianopulos, the chairman of Paramount. At the end of the call, Jim said, ‘You know guys, we really don’t. ‘I don’t know what the exhibition business will be like this fall. Shouldn’t we dip our toes in and just see if the streamers are interested? ‘And that’s exactly what we did, and then came Netflix, a lifeboat with luxury cabins and a buffet. You know? It’s a great place. Paramount was a great place, but Netflix is the reason we don’t have to wait a year and Steven Spielberg gets his wish that it come out before the election. “
Spielberg’s DreamWorks is a production unit of the film along with Paramount and Cross Creek. The film was shot for 14 years prior to today’s streaming debut – an idea developed by Spielberg who led Sorkin to write it in the first place. It was enough time before they could finally get Sorkin to direct Molly’s Game and be ready to take on both roles. With the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the need for this film became even more pressing. Sorkin initially refused to admit that he had no idea what this trial and the Chicago 7 was about.
Aaron Sorkin on the set of “The Trial of the Chicago 7”
Niko Tavernise / Netflix
“And I said, ‘Count me in, sure. ‘It was a great idea and I left Steven’s house and had to call my dad to ask who the Chicago 7 were and what the crazy conspiracy process was that? So I had a lot to learn, “said Sorkin,” but the last thing Steven said to me before I left his house was, “It would be great if we could release this movie before the election.” what choice. I feel like I’m on time, ”he laughed. And boy, with the recent race riot and other events, it has ever become topical.
Netflix
“We thought the film was relevant when we made it. We didn’t need it to be more relevant, but it did, ”he said. “We saw a presidential candidate and then a president rallying nostalgic about the good old days when they carried this guy away on a stretcher and ‘I’d love to punch him right in the face, beat the crap out of him out and the demonization of the protests and then with the assassinations of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and the protests on the streets that were faced with tear gas and night sticks. Like I said, I was asked if I changed the script to reflect events in the world and no. Not at all. The world has changed to reflect the script. “
“The Trial Of The Chicago 7” Review: Aaron Sorkin & Superb Cast deliver a warning shot from the past with strong resonance for America today
Aaron Sorkin, Scott Stuber
Netflix
Netflix, which has a ton of Oscar contenders this season, was hosting a theatrical premiere in the LA area this week – a drive-in showing with a ton of cars at the Rose Bowl (about 250 vehicles and 600 guests, I am told) . Scott Stuber, the director of Netflix films, offered a personal introduction, and Sorkin did a Q&A afterwards. According to a spokesman, it was very well received if you stick to the new level of satisfaction with the return of the drive-in: honking is the new applause – the film received several rounds of “honking” in the middle, including during Michael Keaton’s show -Stop scene where Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) drops the famous line “I’ve never been to court because of my thoughts” and of course when Tom Hayden reads the names during the court finale scene. “
THE URGENT RETURN OF ‘THE WEST WING’
Sorkin is very busy this election season. HBO Max just dropped another of his projects that are also designed to impact bottom line and encourage people to vote. That would be a West Wing special that we can all vote on that will run continuously on the new streaming service through November 3rd. The special brought the entire cast of the iconic Emmy-winning show back together, which was a very different way of managing what we have now. The idea started out as a benefit to the Actors Fund, especially since Sorkin’s adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird was under the Broadway closings and affected so many people working in live theater. It was supposed to be just a zoom table, but then, as he said, the floor began to shift.
HBO max
“With the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, it really moved faster between our feet. Ahmaud Arbery, ”said Sorkin. “Given the protests in the streets and the fact that an organization is as worthy as the Actors Fund, I felt this was too small to fill the moment, and we got together with a nonprofit, impartial organization called When We All Vote and ours put together Reading the zoom table became something else. Thomas Schlamme, who was my production partner on The West Wing and the show’s main director, recorded an episode of the show and it’s kind of an ode to voting, ”he explained. “He re-staged it as a play at the Orpheum Theater in downtown LA. – Changed without a word of the script. He re-staged the whole thing as a play and then filmed it in the style of a modern Playhouse 90, and that was shown last night and will continue until election day, ”he emphasized in the spirit of non-partisanship.
“They just want people to vote and they fight voter suppression, OK? They want you to know that voting by mail is completely safe and completely secure. There is actually no such thing as electoral fraud, and this year’s election night will look different from what we are used to. “
And with that he reminded me again to help the exhibition business: “Take us back to the theater when it’s safe.”
‘West Wing’ Reunion Review: HBO Max’s Staged Special is a sobering reminder of when presidents were president, at least on TV
OSCARS: NOW MORE THAN ANY TIME
I’ve been thinking about this admonition from Aaron Sorkin, the idea of bringing the indictment back to the movie experience, and all the conversations from different corners of the week sparked by a stupid Washington Post piece that got the Oscars lifted in this year, I thought, au contraire. In the past few weeks, I’ve also received a few calls from academicians asking if the Oscars were going to be canceled – a rumor that somehow got published on the internet. I don’t say a way. An AMPAS source called it “silly” when I asked and I agree.
AMPAS
In times of COVID and especially at the time when the 93rd Academy Awards will take place on April 25th, the Oscar is needed more than ever.
Indeed, the Academy will have the opportunity to conduct a very urgent cheerleading on a global platform to usher in the return of cinema on a large scale, not piecemeal, as is the case now in much of the country and the world. For the theater business to triumphantly return, you must have the films that draw people to these seats and that are better than Oscar’s to do so by getting every big star in the stratosphere on a show that can better stand out than anything other what we love when we actually go to the movies. Tom Cruise tried it on a smaller scale by attending a showing of Tenet at a newly opened London theater that summer and posting it on his Instagram. Now he and everyone else at his superstarry level can do the same on an Oscar show that can act as a public service, a huge publicity for the industry.
Tom Cruise attends “Tenet” screening in London: “Back To The Movies”
Via @TomCruise on Twitter
Of course, this all depends on a sunny prospect that things will be around the corner in seven months. We can only hope. And for those naysayers who claim there aren’t enough good movies, try another work. I’m assuming that after the extended funding period expires on February 28th, AMPAS membership will have more films in competition than ever before as a flurry of films comes swiftly and furiously towards them every week. None of them are “Oscar films”, not from a distance, but enough of them, and if we are sorely lacking blockbuster films, so be it. The race for best actress alone is already one of the most competitive of all, at least on paper, and I’ve seen at least three films this week alone that easily met the success criteria of previous award seasons. The show will likely have to be done virtual, but the Emmys have proven that this can be a huge boon, at least creatively. This is a year when no one should worry about ratings, only about the survival of the industry as we know it.
To paraphrase Aaron Sorkin, “Take us back to the theater, Oscar!”
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