👋 Your watchlist just got better.

• 🎥 The Amateur | 6.10

• 🎥 Materialists | 6.13

• 🎥 The Unholy Trinity | 6.13

Read time: 3 minutes | 629 words

TRENDING

• 🎟️ Matthew McConaughey and Paul Greengrass team up for The Lost Bus, plus trailers for Jordan Peele’s HIM, and Eddie Murphy’s The Pickup.

• 🎬 Christopher Nolan's debut short film Tarantella (1989), under 5 minutes, showcases the director's early cinematic vision.

• 👗 Deleted scenes from Sean Baker's Anora reveal what didn't make the cut, offering valuable filmmaking insights.

• 🐷 First clip released from Andy Serkis' animated Animal Farm featuring Seth Rogen, Steve Buscemi, Glenn Close, and Woody Harrelson.

• 💰 Keanu Reeves gave away $38-75 million from Matrix sequel earnings to crew, declaring money "the last thing" he thinks about.

• 🎥 Edgar Wright's handwritten list of 10 greatest films includes Raising Arizona, Carrie, Boogie Nights, and Evil Dead 2 (see all).

• 💥 James Bond film holds Guinness World Record for largest stunt explosion using 2,223 gallons of fuel and 72lbs of explosives in one take.

• 🖤 Ryan Coogler confirms Denzel Washington will star in Black Panther 3, marking the actor's MCU debut.

• 🪂 Tom Cruise performed burning parachute skydive stunt 16 times for Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning.

TOGETHER WITH FFN

After 600+ interviews with A-listers, one writer is finally making the leap — and sharing everything…

Brock Swinson spent a decade interviewing Hollywood's biggest names, like Aaron Sorkin, Edgar Wright, Ethan Hawke, Anne Hathaway, and Kenya Barris.

Now he's applying everything he learned to his own breakthrough, documenting the real process of turning industry knowledge into actual success.

The mission: 4 major projects in 12 months, leveraging AI tools, social media strategy, and insider connections. You're Invited to Watch (and Join).

This isn't theory — it's live documentation of script rewrites, producer pitches, social media campaigns, and inevitable rejections. Because studying successful filmmakers is research. Becoming one is the real work.

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FEATURE

🎬 The Seth Meyers Interview

The numbers tell the whole story: 300 jokes written daily, 12 make it to air, maybe 8 actually work. For Seth Meyers, this isn't failure—it's Late Night's secret formula. Here’s our conversation with Seth Meyers and head writer, Alex Baze.

When NBC offered Meyers the hosting gig, he had one demand: Alex Baze had to come with him. As Weekend Update's head writer, Baze crafted the jokes Meyers was "always most excited to tell."

Lorne Michaels initially refused. "He started listing off all his least favorite writers, telling me they'd be perfect for my voice," Meyers recalls. Eventually, Michaels relented—a decision that built Late Night's foundation.

Finding the Formula: Big Swings, Precise Edits. Hiring 12 writers at once let Meyers experiment wildly. "We took a lot of great big swings," he explains. The first wave prioritized variety; the second filled gaps. "We realized we needed more joke-joke writers."

The secret? Treat the writers' room like a grocery store, not a restaurant. "See what they have and make a meal from that," rather than ordering specific material.

The Authenticity Breakthrough. Meyers spent 18 months trying to prove he was "more than the Update guy." The result? Struggling behind a standing desk instead of embracing his seated, conversational strength.

"You learn quickly what doesn't work," he reflects. "The problem is figuring out what does." The breakthrough came when he stopped fighting his Weekend Update DNA and leaned into authenticity.

The Precision Problem. What separates comedy gold from dead silence? "Two or three words. An inversion in word order," Meyers explains. Editor Baze's philosophy remains ruthless: never add words, only subtract.

Even with precision, there's always "a 20% unknowable" about why jokes land or bomb. The solution isn't perfection—it's accepting controlled failure as the price of occasional brilliance.

The algorithm may have changed content discovery, but comedy's fundamental math remains unchanged: write 300, use 12, hope 8 work. Everything else is just details.

More: Listen to this full interview on SoundCloud or Apple.

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