Shawn Levy in Conversation: The Man Who Figured Out Hollywood
From 'Stranger Things' to 'Deadpool & Wolverine,' the director/producer goes from success to success with optimism, long friendships and unusual humility
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If you had to name this era of Hollywood, the Age of Confusion would be the most likely fit for a time when all our basic assumptions have unraveled. Get chatting with anyone these days, and you very quickly get to the head scratching over our most basic questions: Can studios survive? What’s a movie? What do people want to watch on TV? What is success?
High and low, it’s a mad scramble to find a path to stability in a world gone mad.
But while the industry at large might be in panicked freefall, there is one man at the center of it who definitely is not. Whatever the problems, whatever the questions, Shawn Levy holds the answers.
Rising steadily through the studio ranks from directing TV to journeyman feature comedies to nascent tentpoles to . . . the biggest franchises on Earth, Levy and his company, 21 Laps, have not only succeeded, but done so spectacularly on seeming every front in entertainment, from what is arguably the signature hit of the streaming era, Stranger Things, to scoring the biggest R-rated opening in history this past weekend with Deadpool & Wolverine. Along the way he has launched franchises (Night at the Museum), created original hits for both the big screen and the small (Free Guy, The Adam Project), and launched the studio career of the most original, impactful, non-superhero genre director working today (producing Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival). Among other things!
I joined him at the buzzing 21 Laps offices in West Hollywood on Wednesday, July 24, as he braced himself for the public results of Deadpool & Wolverine, which would go on to rake in a staggering $211 million over opening weekend. The hyperkinetic director’s infectiously sunny disposition got us rolling before we were even in the door.
Our in-depth conversation below contains minor plot spoilers of the new film so be warned (nothing that will ruin the movie for you if you haven’t seen it), and he reveals he’s talking to Marvel “about a possible future” as well as an aching nostalgia for Fox, his feelings on TV vs. film and modern marketing — and how his extraordinary career came to be. But our talk also was deeper, and personal, about the creative power of original stories, friendship, perseverance, humility and a belief in one’s talents (and certainly that of others).
“I read these forecasts of doom,” he told me, “and I acknowledge that boy, it is hard to keep morale up right now. Just remember that’s right now. Now is a hard moment. I don’t believe it will be forever. Great work will find its way through, even if it has to punch through 50 walls on its way to a yes.”
Please enjoy.
Richard Rushfield: So you do comedy. You do drama. You do literary adaptation. You do serious sci-fi. I read some early interviews you gave where you talked about how you don’t want to be pigeonholed. You definitely have achieved that. Do you feel it yet?
Shawn Levy: Maybe. But for many years, it really felt like that was a wish, not a goal. Because if you get success at one thing, they want you to keep doing that one thing. For me, that was broad family comedy. Because I’ve been spending a lot of time recently with Hugh (Jackman) and Ryan (Reynolds) and on airplanes, I’ve been thinking about the arc of my career, probably because I’m in middle life. (Levy is 56.) I’m having a unique moment with this movie. And I’ve been thinking back to the steps along the way.