A24 released a great podcast episode titled Deep Cuts with Robert Eggers & Ari Aster this week, wherein the directors of The Witch/The Lighthouse and Hereditary/Midsommar have a nearly hour-long conversation about everything from Ingmar Bergman to whether or not Hereditary is a horror movie; in Aster’s own words, yes, it “unabashedly” is. Case closed.
During the chat, Eggers told a great story about A24’s marketing for his debut feature, The Witch, and how a certain hook nearly got him banned from filming in Poland!
“So we didn’t have any stars for The Witch. A24 felt they needed something special for marketing, and they wanted to have the Satanic Temple endorse the film,” Eggers recalled. “I don’t have anything against the Satanic Temple or their political agenda or anything like that at all, but I didn’t want the movie endorsed by the Satanic Temple like I wouldn’t want it being endorsed by something that called itself Christ’s Temple either. And I have tons of personal philosophical, semi-spiritual reasons for not wanting this, and also, I said, ‘People are going to think I’m a fucking Satanist.’ But they did it anyway, and I hope it helped.”
He continued, “But when I went to scout a film – that was not made – in Poland, the woman who was running the film office said, ‘We don’t want Robert Eggers coming to Poland because he’s a Satanist.’ So we had to spend a week convincing them that I wasn’t a Satanist before I could go scout in Poland.”
Eggers also made sure to note that he loves working with A24. He told Aster, “A24 gave me incredible freedom. I can’t believe I made that movie. It’s kind of nuts. So thanks, guys.”
A24 will also be releasing The Lighthouse, which is coming soon.
