Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert talk a lot about worst-case scenarios.
For Everything Everywhere All Once
This personal negotiation strategy marks a career built through troubleshooting, budgeting, and managing expectations. Analyzing their approach, Kwan says: “Our brains always work that way because the industry is so unpredictable. It’s a miracle anytime anyone allows us – or anyone – to do anything with their own voice. “
But what happens when the filmmakers finally face the best-case scenario?
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Everything Everywhere
close. Scheinert noted, “We thrive on being moderately rejected,” adding, “I worry about the budget keeping us from having those tough conversations.”
Kwan and Scheinert met at Emerson Students of the academy, they readily admit that they don’t like each other. In class, Scheinert is involved, perhaps to the point of being annoying, while Kwan is deferential in a way that could be mistaken for aloofness. “It turned out that I was more humble than I looked and he was more arrogant than it looked, and we actually met somewhere in the middle,” Scheinert said. Kwan chimed in: “It’s a classic rom-com.” They’re now When Harry Met Sally
The directors—collectively known as Daniels—but in conversation, Only one is Daniel (Scheinert) and the other is Dan (Kwan) – in the early days 1000s, with bands such as Foster the People and Manchester Orchestra. They are well known in the music industry for being able to produce ultra-cinematic shorts for very little money that always go viral. Their 2011 Lil Jon’s “Turn Down for What” video features apartment complex residents who The body – the genitals, mostly – is overtaken by the beat and wreaks havoc on the building. It has over 1 billion views on YouTube.
Daniels’ output in 2011 includes over six music videos, Three commercials and four short films. Kwan recalls, “After that we were like, I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s too much. It’s really laborious. You get a thousand dollars for a month’s work, which is to the next level, whatever that is.”
So they started writing. Their first effort was a play titled Code Name: Operation: Heist School the Musical … 4?
With producibility in mind, they came up with Swiss Army Man
Headlines and tweets ahead of the movie It started rolling in. Scheinert recites a memory: “Massive strike from Daniel Radcliffe’s Farting Corpse movie.”
Strike – rare at non-European festivals See – Becoming the biggest story at Sundance, even though most coverage only reveals that 30 to017 People leaving a 1 seat theater, 125. The directors were largely unaware of the media cycle on premiere night. “We wondered if there was going to be a bidding war that night, and it almost didn’t happen,” Scheinert recalls with a laugh. When reality started to set in, Kwan admits, “I didn’t sleep well, I was kind of scared, like: ‘What do we do? How do we get out of this situation? ‘”
The directors were determined to Recapture the storyline, and Kwan stayed up writing long essays to answer lingering questions about the film. He said of the ensuing press, “I’ve been working really hard for the next week.”
By then, A13 has become an ambitious, director-driven title, commercial Synonymous with feasibility be damned. The New York firm acquired Swiss Army Man
The filmmakers had a markedly different experience with Everything Everywhere
2022
Everything Everywhere had an impressive seven months in theaters, winding down $75 Million Dollar Earnings, never grossed more than $7 Million in any given weekend. Now, Kwan is even further away, analyzing the success, saying: “We have this viral video mentality, which is very important in the current version of the attention economy that we’re in. Everyone’s talking about how indie films can’t Breakthrough. They’re not viable anymore. That’s why we made Everything Everywhere In her first When watching Everything Everywhere, Universal Pictures chairwoman Donna Langley knew she was “watching the work of a filmmaker who Tell their stories and be very specific about what young people are dealing with today.” The studio offered Daniels an exclusive five-year feature partnership, which is a rarity. The only filmmaker in recent history to land such a deal is Jordan Peele, who worked with the studio on Get Out. Before getting inked, Kwan and Scheinert spoke with Peele and his partner, Win Rosenfeld. “We’re always looking for calculated risk,” Kwan said. “It felt like a really good way to make sure we were able to make a big splash, but with very little censorship and pressure.” While their first Universal film hasn’t been finalized yet, they’re sticking with original ideas — and looking forward to Don’t worry about queuing up for funding and issuance. Still, Scheinert said, “Now that some of the old stress is gone, we’re going to find something more anxiety-inducing.” This story first appeared in November. Issue of The Hollywood Reporter Magazine. Click here to subscribe.
