Here's an excerpt from Lussier's interview with Schrader at io9:

io9: As writer and filmmaker yourself, how do you see the podcast as a new form of storytelling going ahead? Is Blockbuster the first of its kind?

Schrader: I started my career as an investigative journalist with CBS and NBC, and I left to pursue my first documentary. After doing the whole theatrical release campaign for that, I really fell in love with this idea of immersive true stories...that I think transcends whatever platform it is, because there are so many ways to create stories nowadays: movies, TV, web videos, podcasts, Snapchat, etc. It all starts with a powerful story.

Steven Spielberg once said in an interview, “a great story is a great story,” which actually made it into one of his conversations with George in Blockbuster. So in some ways, I don’t know that the platform matters if it’s done well. It just so happens that podcasts are this massive new expanding world people are discovering right now, and sound and music are so vitally important to the story we wanted to tell.

io9: Did you have to get permission from anyone or any company involved to do this, or is it all fair rights? Meaning Fox, Universal, the individuals dramatized, etc.

Schrader: It was a very extensive process because these huge movies are part of the story arc, and how can you tell a story about Star Wars without mentioning Star Wars? I always kind of chuckle when I’m watching something on TV and there’s a generic version of “Coca-Cola” and it’s called something like “Cool-Cola.” We all know what they’re referencing, but it really takes the viewer away from the story. We wanted to make sure we weren’t overstepping anything creatively but could be realistic and use archival audio and music and film clips to tell the story. It did require the help of a legal and clearance team so we knew how we could include the opening of the 1976 Academy Awards telecast, for instance. I’m glad we went that route because it’s much more authentic and feels real.

io9: What were some of your primary sources in piecing together this story? Did any of the actual principals help at all? Did you reach out to them?

Schrader: Oh, so many sources. It ranged from letters and documents from their offices during that era, to newspaper clippings, and lots of video interviews. There have also been a number of books that touch on this era of filmmaking, so we were really trying to pinpoint the friendship of George and Steven in all of these sources, and create a biography of their friendship.

In my experience as a journalist, biographical stories can come off as “staged” if they directly involve their subjects, and we wanted to maintain journalistic standing, and avoid any criticism of being part of someone’s “public relations” team (which would do this story a disservice too). This is such a powerful story of inspiration, and struggle, and triumph—and it’s done in such respect and admiration for what George and Steven ultimately accomplished. We felt Blockbuster was best created 100 percent independently and journalistically. It’s always important to get as close as possible to the setting, however, so we prioritized interviews from the 1970s to try to get the most accurate descriptions of how it all really happened. We actually included one scene in which George meets one of the journalists who wrote about him on the set of Star Wars, which actually happened. So there are parts that can be very meta.

io9: The actual dialogue and interactions, closed-door private stuff—is that mostly educated guesswork or how did you go about approaching the writing of those scenes?

Schrader: It was one of the most interesting research projects I’ve ever done, and arguably the most unique part of this series because we started to piece together these moments, sort of like a detective would if investigating something. We would find these old archival interviews where George talks about meeting Steven, and someone else’s interview that says where they were, and someone else who described the environment that day. We started to take those millions of little jigsaw puzzle pieces and start to form a picture. Where we could, we tried to use their exact words, like when Brian De Palma saw Star Wars for the first time and asked George, “What is this shit?”

io9: Did you have any trouble putting together a crew, both above the line and below the line, for this mostly unfamiliar approach to storytelling? Were people skeptical?

Schrader: Well, it’s new and new things always require a little explanation. I was fortunate to meet some of the crew on my 2017 film Score: A Film Music Documentary, but this was an entirely different format. We kind of settled on this as being a “biopic podcast series” or “biopod,” which is a term for this genre we’ve sort of coined now.

Fortunately, sound designer Peter Bawiec was into this idea from the very start, and his passion shines through this series, especially in the scenes where we see Steven and George grappling with chaos around them.

I realize I just said “see,” which isn’t technically accurate, but it’s kind of like a good book in that your brain puts you right there with them on the set of Jaws and Star Wars.

When you developed SCORE, you spoke to several industry professional in addition to the impressive line-up of composers. Who were your go-to subjects for Blockbuster, and what went into your research?

I come from a journalism background, so I’m comfortable in the deep dive research side of things and pulling information that can contribute to a broader understanding of what’s going on. We discussed the idea of doing a documentary, but I wasn’t sure this was the right approach, mainly because that, in some form, has been done before. What’s brand new here is this friendship and relationship between Spielberg and Lucas and how they support each other and are competitive with each other in this era. It really inspires them to keep going.

That’s a story that’d never been told. In the hundreds of archival interviews, books and other research documents that we sifted through for this, that’s a storyline that not been shared, but it’s one that any struggling artist relates to. It’s really interesting to me to see how these people who became the most influential people in the last four decades were just kids tying to aim for an achieve their dreams. That’s really powerful on a personal level aside from the fact that their work revolutionized the entire film business.

As a producer, you’re assembling new and pre-existing material into your product. To the listener, a podcast might not seem that difficult to pull off. But break it down for us. Do you have to know every single move before you something, or can you wing it?

Putting this together is like doing a jigsaw puzzle with a million pieces. [Laughs] Every piece relates to each other, but you don’t really know where each piece is supposed to end up. Short answer is that it’s harder than it sounds. [Laughs] When we started this, we didn’t know how many layers there would be to the research, the coordination, and the accuracy – journalistically and creatively – of all the elements that we’ve compiled over the entire series. It’s difficult to say without heavy creative feedback from legal consul whether we can or can’t do things in the storytelling, and it required careful navigation that to be able to bring all those elements together in a way that told a powerful story all the while referencing archival materials, books, documentaries, featurettes and interviews they had done. It’s part of what took so long to pull this all together; it’s a story, not just a set of facts.

(Thanks to Hugh!)

Shortly thereafter, De Palma asked Litto to represent him, but Litto told him he wasn't going to be an agent much longer, that he was going to produce. He said he was going to quit being an agent in a year, and De Palma told him, "I'll be happy to have you for a year." Litto's daughter, Andria Litto, tells The Hollywood Reporter's Mike Barnes that Litto went on to mortgage his own house in order to finance De Palma's Obsession. Litto was also instrumental as a reference for Paul Monash, who wasn't quite sure about hiring De Palma as director of Carrie.

Litto went on to produce two highly regarded De Palma films: Dressed To Kill and Blow Out. On the latter film, Litto agreed with Hirsch and Nancy Allen that there should be a happy ending. De Palma did not agree. In a Fiction Factory interview from Carlotta's 2012 DVD edition of Blow Out (quoted in the Douglas Keesey book, Brian De Palma's Split-Screen), Litto says, "I always felt that the girl should be saved in Blow Out and they should go see Sugar Babies, but [De Palma's] view was different, and the film still has many admirers that way. But I was a firm believer in the Hitchcock concept: you meet two people you like; they get into jeopardy; and you root for them to extricate themselves safely."

A couple of Letterboxd reviews have talked about Domino being a sort of Redacted meets Passion, and there is definitely a bit of truth to that. Passion opens with our two main characters watching commercials on a laptop, discussing and critiquing, yet we never see what they see. Later on, one of them makes a commercial, and we see the result afterward as it is screened for corporate executives. There is a lot of that sort of thing in Domino, except in the new movie, instead of commercials, the genre is terrorist videos, which brings us back to the world of Redacted. Our two main cops in the new film are seen watching terrorist videos on a laptop, commenting on how they're shot and edited, using drones, etc. We are not watching with them, but simply watching them as they watch, the look of horror on their faces. Later on, we see the videos being made, and then the way they've been edited.

I could write a lot more about Domino, but let me end for now by saying that Domino takes place in the future: an intertitle near the start of the film tells us the date is June 10, 2020. An intertitle near the beginning of De Palma's Mission To Mars carries the date June 9, 2020. If that's not De Palma's idea of a cosmic joke, it's a split in the horizon, for sure.

Brian De Palma is a friend of mine and was a mentor to me on the film. He said, “You know Jennifer this is a casting nightmare. How are you going to audition two versions of everybody?” But, we had really great casting help with casting director Matthew Maisto. We also had Oren Moverman as a producer. So, we did the best we could in every circumstance.

Description

P.A.X.A. was approached by HBO's The Tale to support its grass roots efforts to leverage the film and raise awareness of child sex abuse. After watching the movie, our organization wants to share Director Jennifer Fox’s true life story to as many parents as possible. It shows how a pedophile uses emotional manipulation and grooming to lead his victim into thinking that she’s making choices to be in a sexual relationship with him. Be forewarned: there are explicit scenes of sex with a minor (filmed with an adult body double) that will elicit disgust. But a greater good is served: this movie is impactful because it portrays the perpetrator—not as a monster—but as a nice guy who earnestly wants a sexual relationship with a child. This is the most insidious and disturbing part of the film: you will never think of sexual predators the same way ever again.

Why Attend this Screening:

P.A.X.A. invites parents to attend the screening of HBO's the Tale as a way to gain better an understanding about:

The type of settings where a child may find himself/herself vulnerable and a target for sexual predators.
Tactics predators use to manipulate a child into sexual abuse.
Tactics predators use to groom the child's parents.

Note: This film is intended for an adult audience only. If you are survivor or survivor parent, this film may trigger PTSD.

The Tale's Writer/Director, Jennifer Fox, will participate in this screening

Program Agenda:
10:00am – 10:15am: Introduction to P.A.X.A. and HBO's the Tale
10:15am - 11:15am: Movie showing (first 60 minutes of the movie)
11:15am – 11:30am: Break
11:30am - 12:20pm: Movie showing (remaining 52 minutes of the movie)
12:20pm - 1:00pm: Panel Discussion + Open Q&A with Audience and Jennifer Fox