Canadian movies are having a big moment. Over the summer, I fell in love with Matt Johnson’s riveting film Blackberry and found Chandler Levack’s small-budget flick I Love Movies touching, original and memorable. Emma Seligman’s film Bottoms—about high school friends who start a lesbian fight club to lose their virginity—was released a few weeks ago to tremendous buzz and attention. What’s up with Hollywood North? We’re so used to bemoaning our cinematic inadequacies that it’s a surprising joy to find a bunch of Canadian filmmakers at the centre of the cultural conversation.
No one is better equipped to answer this question than Shawn Levy, the Montreal-born director, screenwriter and producer behind box-office bangers such as Date Night, Cheaper by the Dozen and Night at the Museum. More recently he produced Stranger Things, and he’s partway through directing Deadpool 3. Levy’s production company, 21 Laps Entertainment, now has over 10 Netflix vehicles in the hopper.
In a wide-ranging Q&A for Maclean’s, Levy answers our questions about all the burning issues in filmmaking: the threat of AI, the streaming wars, how Canada has emerged as a cinematic powerhouse, and that up-and-coming generation of directors. “I cold-called Matt Johnson after I watched BlackBerry,” he admits. “It’s fun to tell someone you admire their work, even if you don’t know them.
—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
