"Everything Everywhere All at Once" Jonathan Wang Producer Couldn't have made it anywhere other than A24 [Director's Interview Vol.309]

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2023.05.01Fumio Koda

In order to realize Daniels' plan

Q: Daniels has been an ally since their music video production days, but I think it's difficult as a producer to realize the outlandish and new ideas they come up with. Daniels' projects are always unprecedented, but how does he make them happen?

Wang: I'm not a typical business producer. Although he acts as a producer, he is always trying to realize Daniels' ideas from the same perspective. We share what we're thinking with each other and try to be "one mind." To do this, it is necessary to understand what the work is trying to convey. This time, it is important to tell the story as a ``mother, daughter, and family story,'' without getting caught up in the superficiality of a complex and crazy multiverse. By doing so, I can package and explain my work in my own way when developing it for business purposes.

However, since we had only made two independent films, we were able to raise funds despite being relatively unknown. While we presented to various film companies, A24 was the one that offered us the closest budget to what we had envisioned. From there, we had a thorough discussion about how to make this work with a limited budget. It was like trying to get the Apollo 13 crew back to Earth alive. That's how difficult it was. But that's when the magic of movies happens. I think it was because we had budget constraints that we were able to come up with so many creative ideas.

It did not work for anything other than A24.

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