“Don’t Look Up” has hit a nerve in a way that’s rare for films to do. That’s partly because it addresses an urgent, hot-button topic — climate change — with a film that’s partly a cry for help, partly a black comedy. The movie, written and directed by, with a story by David Sirota, boasts a starry cast, including Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchett. People love it or hate it, with no middle ground, as McKay says.
Risk-taking is rare for a film these days and “Don’t Look Up” swings for the fences; it could have gone wrong in so many ways, but even detractors have to admit it’s interesting: It’s epic, covering a wide range of geographical and emotional territory, with so many characters and subtle shifts in tone. And it seems to be a shoo-in for multipleMcKay, editor Hank Corwin and composer Nicholas Britell had worked together on “The Big Short” and “Vice” before this film.
After that we thought “This is going to be much harder than we thought.” It took a lot of tweaking, nuance, trial and error, looking at different takes. This was meant to be a world movie. It’s on Netflix for a reason. We’re freaked out about what’s happening. This movie was designed as a conversation with the audience. That’s what make it harder.I think we were all quite shocked. The reviews were pretty much 50-50, and that’s fine, we’ve all been through that.