Benny Safdie has confirmed earlier reports that he will not co-direct the next Safdies movie with Josh Safdie, who will be directing the film on his own.
This is from a GQ interview with Safdie. It’ll be the first time that Josh and Benny, one of the best young filmmakers out there, haven’t directed a film together.
It just felt like, OK, there’s things that I want to explore that don’t necessarily align right now with Josh. So it’s a divide and conquer mentality. He wants to tell this story, he can go and do that. I’m going to go and do a couple of other things. It seems like a natural progression for how things have happened.
We can thank Jeff Sneider for initially reporting on the split. It does sound as though Safdie, who has starred in “Licorice Pizza,” and “Oppenheimer,” will be focusing on his acting career. “It was just a matter of, ‘This works for me right now and this is what I’ve got to do,'” Safdie said.
Josh’s upcoming Netflix film, starring Adam Sandler, is now aiming for a September 25th production start. It was originally supposed to film this past winter but delays occurred.
The film is rumored to star Sandler, Ben Affleck, Steve Harvey, Megan Thee Stallion and Gael Garcia Bernal. Here’s the plot synopsis:
“Set in the world of high-end sports card collecting in the 1990s, a retired Baseball pitcher (Affleck) attempts a comeback as a sports memorabilia agent (Sandler) attempts to capitalize on his success. Megan Thee Stallion is said to play Affleck’s girlfriend.”
The Safdies are coming off the two biggest films of their filmmaking career, “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems.” Hopefully Josh will get to shoot this one and premiere it at Cannes next May.
Remember when, back in August, we learned “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth” would be playing in only around 350 U.S. theaters, "maybe fewer"? Well, it's fewer. A lot fewer.