TORONTO-
Matt Johnson has been riding a wave of praise for his dark comedy “BlackBerry,” which last week became the most nominated film in the history of the Canadian Screen Awards.
But the director says one of the driving forces behind that film was a plan to drum up support for his real passion project: Nirvanna the Band.
The Toronto filmmaker’s series “Nirvanna the Band the Show” developed a cult following when it aired on Viceland in 2017 and 2018 before the TV channel folded. Johnson and co-creator Jay McCarrol, music composer and executive producer of “BlackBerry,” had been working on a third season, but experienced “endless bureaucratic delays” in trying to complete it.
“One of the secret reasons we made ‘BlackBerry’ is that we were trying to gather political power to finish the TV show because we just weren’t getting anywhere,” Johnson said during an interview at the Toronto Film Critics Association Awards. last week, where the film won the $50,000 prize for best Canadian film.
“And then as soon as the movie premiered in Berlin, we realized, ‘Oh, we can make a Nirvanna the Band movie.'”
Johnson said his next film will be based on the mockumentary-style series that follows two morons, played by him and McCarrol, who hatch increasingly complex schemes to get their group Nirvanna the Band a gig at The Rivoli bar in Toronto. The show, which originated as a web series in 2007, is a mix of scripted comedy and improvisation, often involving unwitting bystanders in town, “Borat” style.
Johnson said he had asked Telefilm to finance a Nirvanna the Band movie in 2012, but “they wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.”
The director, who helmed subversive indie films like 2013’s “The Dirties” and 2016’s “Operation Avalanche,” said he and collaborator Matthew Miller asked Telefilm and CBC to back several projects over the years, but “it was difficult for them to see how we fit into the Canadian model.
That’s why they made “BlackBerry,” about the rise and fall of the generation-defining smartphone and the people who invented it, to “try to forge a better relationship with the country’s national financiers.”
“Honestly, it was to try to convince places like Telefilm to fund us for bigger projects,” he said.
Johnson said they changed their “inaccessible” production model while making “BlackBerry,” which will compete for 17 trophies, including best picture and best direction, at the Screen Awards in May, to appeal to a broader audience. .
“It’s hard to get people who’ve never seen ‘Nirvanna the Band the Show’ to understand what’s good about it, so we thought if we made a big movie by Canadian standards, that had real actors, it would help us.” “Johnson said.
“That’s why we made it about ‘BlackBerry,’ something people know. We tried to be good kids so we could get back to doing things the way we wanted.”
The plan worked: Telefilm is financing the Nirvanna the Band movie, which Johnson said will be ready early next year. He said he will also dedicate the $50,000 Toronto Critics’ Choice Award to the film.
“People who like the show will really like the movie, because it has a lot of gimmicks, even in the way we’ve been talking about it in the press,” Johnson said.
“It’s not what people think it’s going to be.”
He adds that the year 2005 will play a big role in the film, which will have “exactly the same tone and approach as the series,” but will incorporate “big action sequences.”
“People who have never seen the series before will say, ‘Oh, wow, that’s a great action movie.’ And people who have been watching it since the web show will say, ‘I can’t believe they made this.’”
Johnson said they will release the third season of “Nirvanna the Band the Show” after the film’s release, and that it will be “connected” to the film. He doesn’t yet know where it will air.
During his Toronto Critics’ Award acceptance speech last week, Johnson said getting financing for “BlackBerry” from Telefilm and CBC after years of being an indie thorn made him “the worst kind of aging hypocrite.”
But in an interview after receiving the Screen Awards nominations, Johnson said he has begun to rethink his stance.
“Now I see that a lot of young people approach Telefilm and CBC differently, and think, ‘Oh, maybe those are places where you can do interesting things,’ which was not my perspective when I was young,” he said. saying.
“So I hope to go from hypocrite to pioneer. But we’ll see. Other people will have to go and do good work with these institutions for that to become true.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 14, 2024.