Catch-22

And I am a big fan of Mike Nichols, and I had always dreamt of trying to make something that was really inspired by a lot of his work, but specifically, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And in terms of the trajectory of his career, I always thought that it was kind of incredible that Mike Nichols did so many different things.

And after going and directing Catch-22, he kind of boiled it back down and made Carnal Knowledge.

And I loved that idea of being able to kind of take it down to a simple place, down to kind of like the bolts and tie your hands behind your back and say like, can I still tell a story without a lot of the toys, you know? And I also just think that everything I do is motivated by material and this script really jumped out at me and it offered an opportunity to create a production in the way that I'd always dreamt, which is one that we could shoot in sequential order with rehearsal time and shoot it on film.

Though I will always thank Adam for pushing me to really fight for shooting it on film because that was not something that came automatically and it was something that we really dreamt of and fought for together.

But he always picked well.

He was in Catch-22 with an all-star cast.

He was in Cold Turkey, which was written and directed by Norman Lear.

A movie called Cool Millions in the late 60s with Peter Ustinov.

Before that, he had done Rosemary's Baby, a small role.

And he had done Catch-22, a small role.

And then he did The Heartbreak Kid.

And after those three roles, in Rosemary's Baby, he's the doctor who turns Mia Farrow over to the devils, you know.

And in Catch-22, he's the crazy soldier who throws a woman out the window, you know, to her death.

And in Heartbreak Kid, he's a guy who leaves his wife on his honeymoon to pursue another woman.

So he wanted to do something that he was just a nice guy.

But when I showed it to some writer-director friends in a rough cut, they were saying, You know, are you sure about that? That sounds a little, not self-aggrandizing, but just like, is that the case? So I then found the footage of Steve Martin saying, I'm not sure if that was the case or not, that Mike Nichols would have definitely chosen him.

That is crazy.

A long career in film and stage directing would follow, including directing 19 feature films, including Catch-22 in 1970, Regarding Henry in 1991, The Birdcage in 1996, and Charlie Wilson's War in 2007.

And he continued, like I said, he worked on stage many times.

I think he was the main producer for Annie.

I was told that it was, firstly, actually not very good, and secondly, quite racist.

I haven't read it, so I can't say whether that's true or not, but obviously I've read Catch-22 instead.

Right.

I mean, yeah, it very quickly gets optioned.

back to, Definitely come back to.

Yeah, those are the only three that still have made more money once you adjust to inflation.

That year, you also have Tora, Tora, Tora, which made 30 million and Catch-22, which only made 25 million.

And from what I understand, going into 1970, the expectation was that Catch-22 would be the bigger film because it was widely regarded as the better book.