PD: This season will see a prequel to your first film, Life of a Champion. Is there a reason you want to continue the story of these characters, and why you chose to focus it on a character from the first film that was not particularly well-received?
AC: For one I felt that Life of a Champion Part 2 was a needed prequel because what people didn’t understand about Charlie which is our fault is that underneath the violence and the beating and everything he is a broken man someone who you’ll see in the film is really messed up. I wanted to make a movie about that character.
PD: Hippies in New York became the lowest grossing film in the studio's history upon its release last season. In hindsight, what do you think went wrong?
AC: Hippies is a script I’m really proud and a film I’m proud of. No matter how many bad reviews or bad box office happens I love that movie and I think Greta did a great job bringing it to the screen and we really worked on it together. What I think went wrong is the critics didn’t like it and small indie comedies don’t really fare well unless they are reviewed well. I think film is subjective and what I like is not what other people like. Also the film is in a lot of ways a metaphor for the Vietnam War and how the baby boomers were so fiery and progressive and then when they’re in power they support Bill Clinton and neoliberal policies. I’m not sure people really enjoyed that but I thought it worked.
PD: You've started talking about directing films. What made you decide to try your hands at directing?
AC: Honestly two things. I was writing Oh Johnny Boy and I was scared to send it to the studio because it was a passion project and it was so personal but then I saw Somewhere, Somehow and I saw a friend of mine direct a kick ass near perfect movie that was funny and everything and I love that movie. Then I sent Oh Johnny Boy and it was approved for me to direct it and now I’m working on it now and it’s being released next season. I have a couple ideas I want to do next as a director I have an adaptation of The Virgin Suicides that’s a lot different from both the novel and the film but in interesting ways. I also have a coming of age comedy I'm working on.
PD: Lately you have dipped your toes in the collaborative waters working with some of the studio's other writers on some films. How is that process going for you?
AC: Yeah, it all started out of my admiration for Chad Taylor. I talked to him one night and I pitched some ideas and we settled on Isla Vista which is a film about Elliot Rodger the Santa Barbara shooter who aimed to take revenge on the women that rejected him and started the whole "incel" movement that is going on today which has contributed to other attacks like the shooting in New Mexico and in Toronto. Anyways we wrote it together and it’s more than a biopic it’s a story about fame and sex and money and the desire for those things. But anyways I really enjoyed the collaboration and I was looking for another co writing partnership and I had an idea for a Cobain biopic and so did Lon Charles and we're working on that now.
PD: You're now entering your third season as a writer for Last Resort Films. How do you think you have grown as a writer during that time?
AC: How I’ve grown is when I started writing I really cared about critical reaction and box office but then when Hippies came out and it bombed critically and commercially I started to not care obviously I want to deliver people’s money back but my reaction to that is you can’t please everyone and I think Hippies in New York is a good movie so what if some critic disagrees. I have nothing against critics but film is in the eye of the beholder. Won't You Be My Neighbor was a movie I loved but I have a friend who thought it was meh when it was a movie that made me cry. So anyways I believe film is subjective.
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