EXCLUSIVE: At the height of Peak TV,Greg Berlantis career took off like a rocket.
Its the first film Berlanti has directed since 2018sLove, Simon, a crowd pleasing theatrical release.
Apple Original Films originally intended Berlantis new film to go straight to streaming on Apple TV+.
(L-R) Scarlett Johansson, Woody Harrelson, Greg Berlanti and Channing Tatum on the set of ‘Fly Me to the Moon’Sony Pictures
DEADLINE:An odd starting point, but I gotta ask.
Except for Channing Tatums Cole Davis, who stands out in these bright blue and yellow polo shirts.
Did you fear we might otherwise lose him in that crowd of egghead scientists?
Channing Tatum and Ray Romano in ‘Fly Me to the Moon’Sony Pictures Releasing
GREG BERLANTI:Why did I have him dress that way?
He was a figurehead amongst those guys, and dressed with that same flair and style.
With each one of the characters, we tried to use some NASA touchstone.
How did you get them, and what did you see that might make a good chemical match?
BERLANTI:Scarlett was developing the project and she sent me the script.
Wed met on another project a couple years before that, and she thought of me.
Channing was the first conversation I had after getting the job.
We came in at the same time.
This was summer two years ago and it was happening in the fall.
Lot of prep and hiring everyone in each department and casting.
But I knew it was a go film.
Why do I have the sickening suspicion that the three of you probably werent even born then?
BERLANTI: Im the closest.
It all brought me right back to my childhood.
DEADLINE:How big a space nut were you?
A life-sized photo of Neil Armstrongs suit when they took it off of him.
You felt that still in the 70s when I was a kid, for sure.
DEADLINE:Scarletts Kelly Jones character probably tells more lies than Donald Trump in a debate.
And here you got Cole, who it seems like has probably never told a single one.
What was the challenge in keeping her redeemable and him from seeming too much like the stoic Superman guy?
The sophisticated New Yorker and the working class man.
Even moreso than some other screwball comedy heroes and heroines.
That she was this artist and this cynic who becomes a believer.
Thats very resonant with the time that were in, especially looking back at this moment.
For me, she was the one that had the arc.
Of doing the impossible, together, and that sense of unity.
That felt like just the jumping off point, for him.
They took all that and developed such a strong dynamic together.
DEADLINE:What two-hander rom-com was your North Star?
They really did a number on us.
My holy trinity in this space wasWorking Girl, TootsieandBroadcast News.
They were workspace environments with sophisticated comedy and drama, and a blend of tones.
And I mustve watched each of them a hundred times.
They were very much on my mind when we set off on this journey.
Thats how I wanted the performances to be, as captivating as rockets going off.
BERLANTI:Well…I will say, Ill give you the real origin.
So he wasnt written as Jim Rash, as Jim does this thing brilliantly in the film.
Jim came in, he was one of the first auditions I had, if not the first.
And he began to improv for about a half hour.
He just went off and it was so brilliant.
I definitely have friends in the business who were cited.
DEADLINE:But youre not going to tell me?
BERLANTI: I dont want to get in trouble this early.
What sold NASA on taking part?
BERLANTI: We were very cognizant of it.
I dont think you’re able to do that by being timid.
And so we kind of owned that part of it.
We have fun with it, but I do think our heart is in the right place.
Is there a moment that proved to you this chemistry works so well?
Everybodys always asking you about it and the studios executives are asking you about it.
On the day people are asking, do I want to keep watching what theyre doing?
Do I wish I could just spy and watch these two people talk for hours?
And from the second they were around each other, that was how I felt about them.
Whats brilliant about these two actors is, you never dont believe them.
I just felt like, okay, I got to just figure out the best way to capture that.
We had inclement weather on one of the first scenes we shot, on a pier.
Hes seeing for the first time that theyre on equal footing for the first time.
We shot in inclement weather and it still worked.
Everyones like, well, it works and Im like, yeah, but the weathers horrible.
Its supposed to be Florida.
Now Id like to do in when its beautiful outside, and dreamy.
DEADLINE:This was destined directly for Apple TV+.
Tom Rothman had a pleasant surprise when the Sydney Sweeney-Glen Powell rom-comAnyone But Youover-indexed and made Sony a fortune.
Its understandable hed want to put another rom-com through his marketing and distribution pipeline.
BERLANTI: We started testing it this time last year, in Denver, then California and Texas.
The not really knowing is part of the fun of going to the movies.
They did that at the end of last year, and Sony raised their hand and it worked out.
Suddenly the stakes rise, because now youre exposed.
Youre wondering what the box office is going to be.
I think that the world can use more unifying forms of entertainment and were happy and excited.
DEADLINE:Its the opposite of Rick LinklatersHit Manwith Glen Powell and Adria Arjona.
It killed at Toronto and got bought there for $20-something million and opened directly on the streamer.
Apple has embraced the hybrid strategy more on films likeKillers of the Flower MoonandNapoleon.
BERLANTI: I think for me, as an audience member, it does matter.
Theres a wider berth of people who know about it, and it gives it a longer shelf life.
Im always trying to advocate for things to have as much life as possible.
DEADLINE:Its been six years since you last directed a film,Love, Simon.
I should do this.
I have a lot to say in this area and I can really contribute.
DEADLINE:Peak TV is over, you should have more time that youre not running 15 shows.
What do you want next in movies?
BERLANTI: I started my career writing and directing the first movie I did.
I probably would want to do something from scratch, and have to create the time to do that.
The women and men I admire greatly were often writers and directors.
And since writing is I came from, Id like to create something.
BERLANTI: I had about 15 shows then.
Honestly, I dont count them because there its more about the people I do them with.
Even sometimes after things are canceled in my mind, they still exist.
I have to keep believing in them even after were told they are not going to work out.
I go back to that story I told you about working the video store in my hometown.
Love, Simon was always that movie to me that wasnt on that shelf and deserved to be.
But in this case had a character at the center who had not been at the center before.
That was the spirit of that one.
That was incredibly, incredibly rewarding.
I think its community, who youre choosing to work with.
Im sure in your capacity youre with a bunch of different writers over the course of a day.
It wasnt any more unique than that, for me.
And thats been my guiding force.
Whether that leads to three shows or 12 shows or no shows, my day doesnt really change much.
And that is a very invigorating thing for me.
Whats your take on this change and how has your company pivoted?
Or the advent of streamers.
I would say a few things are obviously happening.
One, the episode count number is going down, whether thats on broadcast or streamers.
When we were doing these shows at the start of my career, it was 24 episodes a year.
You had a very clear year.
I think as money and the business contracts, originality tends to go up.
That ultimately can only be good.
I think TV is so much about character and so who youre casting.
It is vitally important to focus on those things.
And that is a cost savings too.
Even though we had a lot of shows, they were very affordably done.
It gives more chance for things to catch on and stay on for audiences to invest in those things.
And more great acting and good characters.
That would be good.
There was a vitality to television; it wasnt trying to be film in that way.
The process was not as slowed down.
It was so brilliant that we would go down and rip out the storylines and change it all.
That kind of vitality in the storytelling makes up for what people are spending on it.
DEADLINE:You were so prolific on the CW and thats been revamped.
You okay with that?
BERLANTI: We have a few that are about to come on for their last seasons.
We haveAll American, that was picked up for an additional season that well start shooting again this summer.
The joy of being at Warner Bros is we can make shows everywhere.
DEADLINE:You move from youth-centric and DC superhero stuff to procedurals.
Is that you evolving as you grow older and your interests change?
BERLANTI: Probably not.
I was auditioning for superhero jobs and I couldnt get them.
Then finally I did.
So it is always changing.
Its always about character for me.
Ill identify what that is, posthumously, to doing something that seems to click.
But right now were developing a bunch of new material and were selling everywhere, and its very exciting.
Maybe youve got 15 or 20 as opposed to what was many more withy all those shows.
The peak part of it was not the most peaceful place to create in.
James Gunn and Peter Safran now reign.
You haveDead Boy Detectivesreturning, but have your superhero ambitions waned?
To create in that way was such a joy and incredibly challenging.
But it is nothing I would try and replicate again at this moment.
That felt very singular.
I love Warner Bros.
I wish them all the best with these amazing characters.
Lets return them to the shelf more valuable than when we took them off.
DEADLINE:Whats cooking with your live-action Scooby-Doo series?
BERLANTI: One of my first jobs in this business was as a temp at Hanna-Barbera.
Id sit with Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna while they autographed animation cels.
I would go in the morning and I would retrieve with my boss a bunch of these animation cels.
Id go to Bill Hannas office first.
He was a very stoic guy.
His office was very spare.
And then came my favorite part of the day, going to see Joe Barbera.
He was such a life force.
He would sign the cels, but he would stop and regale me with the greatest stories.
He was such a raconteur.
When they pitched it to Bill Paley he was like, you need a dog or something.
And that was the birth of Scooby-Doo.
Joe was such a special storyteller, and I was so, wow.
Id always loved them as a kid.
You just go back to the spirit and the DNA of what makes em special.
I just was working on the pitch for it this morning, for the first episode.
So were really pumped.
DEADLINE:Your name surfaced during the strike.
First for donating $800,000 to the Strike Fund when it was badly needed.
And then when Warners looked to suspending yours and other big deals.
How long will it take the business to get back on good footing?
What gains made it worth the pain?
BERLANTI: It was a trying time.
You feel blessed though, so you give back in ways if you might.
You see the effort and the time and the energy thats going in.
What would he have done to verify everybody felt okay and safe?
So that was the emotion.
I was very concerned about the people I worked with, and still am.
You hear the emotion in my voice …
I am happy were on the other side of it.
You had 15 going at once.
Im not sure yet.
I think the shortening of the episode numbers is, to me, as destructive as almost anything else.
I think we can make the episodes for less.
Everybodys very creative in this business about how to figure out how to do that.
Im going to work 10, 11 months a year, and this many episodes.
There was a residual structure thats part of the economic model.
