The Fall

AMY: Today we’re in Niagara Falls. The project is The Falls or The Fall, depending on which deck you’re looking at, or which script you’re looking at. We’ll get to that later. It’s a dark comedy that lived through the early aughts indie boom almost cast John Turturro, was a script of the week for CAA and resurfaced a decade later with an executive plan that had a whole new configuration.
AVI: The creator is Joe Maggio. Joe’s indie film career started back in 2001 with Virgil Bliss, which earned a few indie independent spirit nominations. He went on to make Milk and Honey, which premiered at Sundance, The Last Rites of Joe May.
And what I think he’s told me is his most commercially successful film Bitter Feast. He also made Paper Covers Rock and most Bliss, which was a continuation of the Virgil Bliss saga epic - I’m not sure how how Joe you would characterize it. He also has quite a secret career in comedy, which perhaps we’ll touch on later.
AMY: Thanks for joining us, Joe. We have Tom Hall, artistic director of Montclair Film. He has decades of experience in film festivals programming. He’s a walking encyclopedia of film and music. He has an amazing blog called The Backrow Manifesto.
AVI: Total fan. Off there (Back Row Manifesto) I’ve watched films that I either hadn’t heard of or had put on the back burner for so long I forgot about. It’s always worth checking out.
AMY: Okay, Joe, can you tell us about The Fall or The Falls? Like how would you describe the project?
JOE MAGGIO: Wow. I haven’t had to do that in many years with The Fall. But The Fall is the story of a very moral, upstanding family man, an attorney who commits a terrible sin and is rewarded with everything he’s ever wanted coming true in his life. But then of course his life spirals out of control and that’s really the story. Can I just say one thing? It’s The Fall. It was The Falls for like a second. Someone convinced me that they were going to make The Falls if I put an S on the N. And so I put an S on the N. But that was never really the Falls. That was just a very brief iteration of the title. We’ll get to that part of the saga.
This was going to be my big film. I had made two films that had done very well on the festival circuit and had actually done well commercially. You know, had been released in theaters and on streaming like Showtime and the Sundance Channel, had won awards and you know, I felt like I proved myself and wanted to make something bigger.
AMY: I wanna start to Tom for a second because you’re always tracking filmmakers and films and like does this sound like something that you would program or where would you slot it? Do you have any thoughts?
TOM HALL: Yeah, sure. I mean obviously everything depends on execution. So what I’m excited about with this conversation is seeing where we get to on the execution side because pitches are great, but movies are what people go see. So I think it’s exciting to hear about this project. It certainly has big concept vibes for me, just listening to the pitch it seems very like a Faustian bargain type of movie with, you know, the sort of classic vibes to it. So I’d love to know more details about what these dreams are that come true and how bad it is when they do. And that’s gonna make all the difference.
…pitches are great, but movies are what people go see.
AMY: Hey Joe, I wanna know where you were in your life and career when the project started. Like did you have a family? Were you single? What was your head space?
JOE MAGGIO: This was right after Milk and Honey, which was my second film that had been picked up by Ryan Werner and Marie Therese Gurgis at Wellspring. I was getting married. I had just gotten married, and before getting married, before going on our Honeymoon, we went and spent a month in Barcelona. I had just written a draft of The Fall and I gave it to a guy named Cedric Jensen who used to work at Green Street Films. He was at Miramax for a while and then Green Street Films. I was like, I’ll get a French guy. He was one of the producers on Milk and Honey. And so I just sent him the script. This was back then. I’m sure I didn’t email him the script, I’m sure I printed it out and brought it to him. Of course, the day before we were leaving he called me and said, dude, he used to call everyone dude in with his French accent. This is the best thing you’ve ever written. You know, we have to make this film. I have a few notes, but this is really, what were you thinking? How did you come up with it? Why didn’t you tell me about it?
I’m sure I didn’t email him the script, I’m sure I printed it out and brought it to him. Of course, the day before we were leaving he called me and said, dude, he used to call everyone dude in with his French accent. This is the best thing you’ve ever written.
He was very excited. He was not an excitable guy in that way. He was always very, very - he would look at things with a colder eye. He was very level. So I was like, wow, this is great. Well, I’m leaving for a month, but I will certainly, you know, consider your notes. So I just felt great. I felt like I just got married. I was going to spend a month in Spain.
I had just gotten this call. I’d made two films that had done very well. They were my first two films. And I felt great. And so I did go to Spain and I did consider Cedric’s notes. They were great notes. And while we were there, we had rented an apartment in Barcelona and I just worked on the script and had fun with my wife and saw some friends. I lived in Barcelona for some years, in the late eighties and early nineties. So, it was just a great time.
And when I got back, I showed Cedric this screenplay. He asked if he could help in any way and I think it was Cedric or my manager at the time who set up some meetings in Los Angeles. And one of them was with Anonymous Content with Alex Madigan, who I’d just met after Virgil Bliss and Milk and Honey. And Alex really loved this screenplay and said that she felt like, you know, this was something that Anonymous would like to get involved with. And that was it for me. They were Propaganda Films before Anonymous. I loved everything they did, you know, and that was all I needed to hear. I told her I had one idea. It was written for John Turturro. If we could get John Turturro, I could die a happy man.
You know, I didn’t go to film school. I have no formal film training. I’ve always just been kind of like by force of will, we’ll make this. It’s going to happen. You know, it’s just going to happen. I know it is. How could it not happen? This is a great script. There’s good people involved. We’re gonna make this happen. And I don’t really sweat the details too much. And that’s how I made my first two films in the space of like three years. I had made, you know, these two films. And I thought that’s just how this was going to be as well. And I think that was one of my first big mistakes in this whole endeavor.
I’ve always just been kind of like by force of will, we’ll make this. It’s going to happen. You know, it’s just going to happen. I know it is. How could it not happen?
AVI: What was the inspiration for this? You’re just getting married and then you write. I mean you write this movie about basically a guy who blows up his marriage. So I mean, one thing we should mention is that, you know, on the show we ask for people to come on and to bring their script and look book and casting and all that stuff.
Joe went an extra layer for us and he actually gave us his notebooks and diary entries for this entire time. And so we have a little bit more of a peeling, we peel back not just the development process, but also the psychological journey and process that that Joe went through, which is super interesting. So I’m just just hearing you, you know, basically you’re on your honeymoon.
And you write a script about a guy destroying his marriage. So you know, you talk about in your notes about Camus and Sisyphus and Antonioni, and I’ll just let you just catch us up on a bit of the Joe Maggio psychology.
JOE MAGGIO: Okay. The biggest inspiration was my maternal grandmother. My mother’s mother.
At the time I was writing this and from and for my entire life. My mother is the classic Sicilian daughter. She has two brothers. The brothers were the princes, and my mother just took care of everyone. If anyone was ever sick, if anyone needed anything, my mother took care of them. My grandfather started having strokes and heart attacks at a very young age.
And my mother, I mean, my childhood is my memory is getting into my mother’s car, picking up my grandfather, taking him to physical therapy, taking him around to see all he was like a short money hustler. He was Joe May, basically. So my mother would take him around to see all the people that owed him money or people who had a little something going on for him.
She took care of everything. She would make dinner for my grandmother. She was constantly shuttling back and forth meals to people. And my grandfather eventually died. And then there was my grandmother living alone. And my mother took care of her as if she were one of her children. And my grandmother was very much like the character that you’ve read in The Fall. She was a very hard woman. She was a very tough woman.
Now looking back with you through the lens of being middle-aged myself now and having children, I realize, I think she was deeply depressed. I think that she had a lot of things going on. I think she was profoundly unhappy. She was constantly on the phone, making mischief in the family, vendettas, not talking to her sisters for years on end.
Drawing, dragging everyone into these dramas, getting in between people’s marriages. This is who she was. We’re four boys in my family. My mother would go pick her up, bring her to our house for dinner. You know, I’m what? I’m 14 years old. I’m starting to be interested in girls. I’m thinking about my body. I was always kind of big and I got into really good shape finally, 13, 14 years old, but my nickname was Meatball growing up.
And I’m thinking about working out, not wanting to eat. And my grandmother is sitting at the table looking at me. And when no one’s looking, she’s calling me names. Like what is she saying? Or bizarre things, like commenting on how little I’m eating, that I’m a little girl and then when no one’s looking, she would say, “blow job, blow job”.
Like really crazy, crazy stuff. Just to just to enrage me. You know, she would insinuate that I was gay, all this old school little girly boy stuff. She was my grandmother. As we got older and we had licenses, we would be the ones, my brothers and I would be the ones to drive her home. And every time I drove her home, I would have to go inside with her, walk her up these stairs, we’d get to the top of the stairs, and I would take her coat.
And it just would occur to me. I was like, this woman is killing my mother. She is a cancer in the family. If I just turned and bumped her, it would all be over. All our problems would be solved. Of course I never did that.
So anyway, that is why that’s a long, very long circuitous route to the genesis of the idea. And I thought, what would happen? What would happen? I mean, and I just started thinking it through because really when you think about it, how could you prove that? If you did that and that person tumbled down the stairs, they’re eighty some odd years old.
It could happen. They fell. They had a fall. And I started to think it through and I started to imagine, well, who would be an interesting character to be in this position? Well, it would have to be someone who’s very moral, for whom this would be real. Torture, someone who’s very attached to his mother. Maybe someone who’s who’s who’s not quite that hasn’t quite matured really that much. Because the character is if you know, as you get into the script, you realize.
He hasn’t quite gone through puberty yet himself. He’s still very much a little boy. He’s an attorney. He’s a Eucharistic minister in his church. He’s very attached to the priest. He’s super attached to his mother and so it all started to fall into place. I was like, that would be a great character. Then I was thinking, what could happen? Well she doesn’t die right away. So now he’s got to deal with whether or not she’s going to regain consciousness long enough to incriminate him. That doesn’t happen. And we think, okay, it’s all over. She’s gone. He’s gotten away with it. And then it was just a process of, what would happen? What would happen in that situation? I was thinking of Kafka and that sort of concept around Kafka unlocked the rest of the script for me. Kafka’s protagonists, once they’re incriminated, once the stain is on them, the mark is on them, suddenly everyone finds them very attractive. It’s like this guilt, this guilt makes them appealing in some way, sexually appealing, or more potent. And I thought that could be really interesting. So I came up with this character of an organist, this young church organist who, Bud is aware of her, aware of how very attractive she is, but he would never, of course, do anything. And she’s indifferent to him until after his grandmother’s funeral. And then suddenly she’s noticing his hair and she’s noticing things about him. And so opportunity presents itself and this is where we get into trouble, right? And so that was sort of the concept for Bud. It’s that as soon as that door opens and he starts to see opportunity.
AMY: Let’s talk about casting because that’s the next step that happens. You get the producer and everyone’s happy with the script and you’re at the beginning of things and you come up with these cast lists, right?
You know, and over the course of my decades of developing projects, a lot of those cast lists are the same 10, 20 people. What was your cast list, your producer’s cast list? Was there a negotiation going on? How did that go about? Who is your choice? Who is Alex’s choice?
JOE MAGGIO: Well, this is one of those learning curves for me because I thought you just came up with the best people that you can imagine and that’s it. It doesn’t matter who represents them. It doesn’t matter where they are, whatever. Like those are the people you want. And I quickly realized that that is not how these films come together. I knew I wanted John Turturro. And so we’ve just focused on getting John. And we did. We got John. John loved the script. He came on. I feel like Alix wanted to go with Paul Giamatti. Paul Giamatti had just exploded.
Paul Giamatti was very hot at that time. Turturro was in a kind of a valley. He hadn’t achieved emeritus status that he has now. And, you know, the Coens had kind of trailed, like their activity had kind of cooled a bit. And you know, [premium] TV hadn’t kicked off yet. Like, you know, like these big actors weren’t doing big TV necessarily.
The Sopranos was out, but it wasn’t quite what it is now. John had told me he would not do TV. It was something he was not into. I think his star was not what it is now, obviously, in terms of bankability or you know how an investor might look at it. And so Paul Giamatti, for sure. Maybe Philip Seymour Hoffman.
AMY: Philip Seymour Hoffman, yes.
JOE MAGGIO: Yes, I forgot.
AMY: So so Tom Hall, like you’re looking at these films, you’re tracking these films, Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Tuturo. What’s the film you want to see?
TOM HALL: I mean, this is the time when those guys were the independent film generation, in my opinion. You know, this is right around American Splendor, it sounds like when when Paul was on the rise and I can already tell this character is this downtrodden, very put upon person. They’d all do a great job. I love the Barton Fink inspiration as well. You can see he’s sort of struggling with the ethical dilemma of writing this wrestling movie versus his own vision for what he wants out of life. You can see how that would translate to the story. I can’t imagine if you attached them, anybody would be hesitating to… It was right at the peak of that post-Tarantino wave of the Sundance independent film. It just seems like it would be obviously a go if you had them attached.
JOE MAGGIO: So the other film that I forgot that was very heavily on my mind was Magnolia. That was another because it’s fairly episodic. I thought of The Fall as sort episodic The Fall was, where we would just pick up the action at a later date here and you like different characters.
TOM HALL: And so men dealing with unhappy relatives as well. You’ve got all the guys dealing with their dying fathers and yes, all of that. I mean, it was very much men grappling with their emotions about family movies.
JOE MAGGIO: And again, Paul Thomas Anderson, a lot of the films are absurd, but it could all really happen. Nothing happens that is impossible. Even in Magnolia, the crazy things that happen, the frog drop, that actually happened. So I like that it’s the absurdity of life, but none of it is fantastical. It’s all rooted in humanity. These things can actually happen.
That was the moment I’d forgotten. We were in that moment and Alex persuaded me, and I think she was right. She was like, look, these are the guys. As you say, Tom, these were the guys. Like, let’s try. Because if we can get one of these guys, the film is made.
AMY: Well, that’s the producer’s job, right? I would do that too. Exactly. Like, they’ll be pretty good. Like, Joe, won’t they work? They’ll work for you.
JOE MAGGIO: And so Alex was great. Alex was never pushing anything, but she knew a lot more than I did. I knew nothing about the business. I could make a film with a few of my friends and a little spit and a little bit of sweat, you know, equity, but I didn’t know how the business worked. So I would really defer to Alex all the time. And I remember now those conversations where she was like, I know you love John. Let’s at least try for these guys.
AVI: So did you get the script to any of them?
JOE MAGGIO: Yeah, I recall, one of them read it and I think liked it and passed, and then another person we just couldn’t get an answer from. And Paul Giamatti, I think, was done playing the schlubby guy and wanted to sort of try something different. And he did. He started to play more kind of leading man roles.
AMY: So we’re at lunch. Tell me about that.
JOE MAGGIO: My God. I don’t know how to explain how excited I was for this. And it’s so heartbreaking when I think about it. I had no money either. Like I was poor. You know, I really was not a player. I didn’t know how these things went and I remember thinking I need a watch. And so I went and got a Casio watch at Kmart.
AVI: Just just jewelry, like an accessory.
JOE MAGGIO: Yeah, just cause I should have a watch. Like my the watch I had was an old Casio watch, cause I was really into running at the time, like my whole life, actually. But it was this beat up old, sweaty Casio, and I thought I need a new Casio watch. That’ll really knock John’s socks off, you know. And I remember I showed up very early, like two hours early. I was so nervous and I was just walking back and forth on Avenue of the Americas and Houston. And I remember walking by Film Forum and thinking this film someday it’ll be at Film Forum and then I’d look at my watch and it I was still an hour and forty-five from lunch.
And I was so nervous that I went to The Cub Room. The Cub Room had recently opened. I think they had just opened. It was like noon. And John and I were supposed to meet at I think 130 or something.
AMY: And don’t tell me you had a drink.
JOE MAGGIO: Absolutely. I had a tumbler. I had a quadruple gin and tonic. I drank that. I mean, I was really nervous. And then I went and he was there. And I couldn’t read the menu. It wasn’t like I couldn’t read Italian. I lived in Spain. I grew up surrounded by people speaking Italian. Like somehow I just couldn’t read the menu. I didn’t know what anything was. I was just really out of sorts. I have to tell you, Barton Fink, all Turturro’s films, they were everything to me. When I was living in Spain, I thought I wanted to just be a writer. And to avoid actually writing, I would go to the movies all the time. In Barcelona in the late 80s and early 90s, there were great movie theaters. And to see Turturro’s films, I mean to me, he was the greatest living actor.
So there I am sitting in front of him. Even now I’m sweating, just trying to remember it. Anyway, so we ordered our meal and we talked. He wanted to talk about our families. Like we talked about just life and I remember him saying something,
“Sometimes these things don’t get made”. And he said sometimes filmmakers don’t last. He’s like, I’ve got a lot of friends, super talented. They had great ideas. And they’re just doing other things now. You know, they’re selling insurance. They’ve moved away. I hated hearing that, but you know, there you go. That was, you know, that was one of the things we talked about. I thought that I would meet John and then the next week we would begin pre-production. Like I thought that was really how it was gonna go. Totally.
And he [Turturro] said sometimes filmmakers don’t last. He’s like, I’ve got a lot of friends, super talented. They had great ideas. And they’re just doing other things now. You know, they’re selling insurance.
AMY: Amazing.
JOE MAGGIO: I didn’t understand how drawn out these things are. That just having lunch with him was probably just this side of not entirely meaningless. Like he was just having lunch. He probably has lunch every day with someone.
And this thing may happen or it may not happen. But for me, this was the first volley. Like the cannon was fired and I thought we were ready to go. He had a studio that was on Center Street that he shared with, I believe it was Robert Longo, the artist. And we would meet there and work on the script.
I don’t know how long it was. It was probably a couple months after that lunch and working on the script, he had ideas of who he wanted to cast. But here’s the thing. Christina wanted as many CAA actors as possible. So that’s all we were getting. Like if it wasn’t CAA, there was always a reason why it was a bad idea. And I started to see that. You were hip to that eventually.
And all the lists packaging. Packaging, exactly. That’s what it’s called. At the time, Six Feet Under was, I think, either just wrapping up or it was kind of hot. And he loved Lauren Ambrose. And so that’s who he wanted. And I was like, that’s good for me. Let’s go, Lauren Ambrose. And so I had lunch with Lauren Ambrose at the Odeon. A much better choice for me. Another New York New York staple.
AMY: I love Odeon. They have great French fries. It’s like a go-to classic. Good martinis. At this point, do you have deals, like signed deals with everybody? Or is this just all handshakes and just…
JOE MAGGIO: None of this was papered. Like it was all just okay, it was agents and managers talking to each other and trying to sort of, I think, informally put something together. and we didn’t get to the paper deal until Jason Kliot and Joanna Vicente and HD Net got involved.
AMY: So why don’t you tell us about HD Net for those who don’t know?
JOE MAGGIO: Mark Cuban was financing HD Net. HDNet was just making these two million dollar films. I was like, I could make this this film for $2,000. just give me a chance.
AVI: You were ready.
JOE MAGGIO: And I was ready. So we brought it to HDNet to Jason, which was being run by Jason Kliot and Joanna Vicente at Open City Films and they loved it. So I had a meeting with them and they were like, let’s do this. Let’s go, let’s go. Like, you know, Turturro, my God, amazing.
AMY: Yeah, they were great like that. I had a project and it was usually a fast green light because they’re producers.
JOE MAGGIO: Yeah. So we were off to the races.
AMY: And are you like storyboarding or getting ready or …
JOE MAGGIO: Absolutely. Like getting ready.
AMY: Buying some new sneakers, because you stand up all day.
JOE MAGGIO: Yeah. Yeah. Another Casio watch. An extra watch. Two watches. That’s when Alex was like, we need you need to get an attorney. We need to start doing some deals here. And very soon after we did our deals.
Then Jason and Joanna told me we need to recast John. He’s not a big enough star for two million dollars.
AVI: Who did they want?
JOE MAGGIO: My God, I don’t remember, but it was absurd. Their ideas. It was Jason’s brilliant idea that it had to be called the Falls, actually, towards the end of my relationship with them, he was the one that insisted that we change it. The problem was that it was The Fall and not The Falls.
AMY: How did the S help?
JOE MAGGIO: I have no idea, because it does center around a woman falling down the stairs. It’s just one. It does, but it’s also falling down. And then of course you have Diplicker falls. I mean and we get it, you know. It was tight. It could have been like today. The themes were tight. Yeah.
AVI: That’s true. I guess there are many falls in the film. There’s the grandmother falling, there’s Niagara Falls, and then there’s the moral fall.
JOE MAGGIO: Like tasting from the tree of knowledge. Yeah.
AMY: Did they want Will Farrell or something?
JOE MAGGIO: At one point they did. Yeah. They wanted Nicholas Cage. And what’s funny is it’s for a two million dollar film.
AVI: What year is this?
JOE MAGGIO: That’s like two thousand seven, maybe. So how many years have you been plowing into this at that point? It’s been like three years. I remember it was so long. At one point I was like, fuck this. I’m gonna make a movie. And I made Paper Covers Rock for six thousand dollars. Just me and my DP Sam Shin. And that premiered at SXSW and I sold it to IFC.
AVI: I saw the premiere at SXSW.
AMY: So you were greenlit.
JOE MAGGIO: We were greenlit, but they were like, you need to recast John. And I said, no. I said absolutely not. Not gonna happen. We’ve become kind of friendly now. And also, he’s just the best actor for this role. And I think he’s I think he’s the greatest actor alive. And I was like, it’s not gonna happen.
And so they were like, okay, fine, fine, but we need but then we need someone bigger than Lauren Ambrose. And I was like, this is madness. So I’d go to John and I was very open with John and John hated these people. It was like, you remember Uncle Junior from The Sopranos, like when he would go on a rant? Like John could go on these rants about Jason and Joanna. It was so great.
But to me, like my fee for my deal, I was going to make a $120,000. for writing and directing this film. And John understood, like I couldn’t walk away from that. Like I had nothing. I had no money. I had nothing. I had no power. I was like, I can’t walk away from this. And he understood. So then it all became about the actress. So John’s still on and it’s the actress. And then they came back to me again. And they’re like, we gotta get rid of John. He’s just not a big enough star. And I was like, guys, it’s just not negotiable. I’m not gonna get rid of John. Then it was like the grandmother, and well, so like who’s gonna play the wife? And they’ve gotta be big. They were going for like the biggest names. Yeah, but the problem is not the biggest part. There’s one great part that’s complicated and super juicy for actors.
AMY: I’ve been in this situation before. We cast Maggie Gyllenhaal for secretary, for example, and that was a great, great part. She was not known. It was maybe her first or second feature length film. And we went through the whole thing. Like you have to get a big, big star, but the best part was taken. So how did this all end?
JOE MAGGIO: I sent you all the cast lists.
AVI: There’s a ton of cast lists.
JOE MAGGIO: Yeah. And so several weeks pass and then months pass and we can’t find someone to play the young girl. We can’t find someone for the wife. We can find people, but not of the caliber that HDNet is demanding. And then they come to me again the third, the cock crows the third time. And they’re like, you gotta get rid of John. It’s you know, we can’t, we can’t proceed with John Turturro in this role. I had either the flu or something, but I was in bed, my head under a pillow, with my phone under there with me. And John was in Hungary. He said, and this is a line my brother John and I use all the time now, Turturro said, I feel like I’m holding on to the horns of a bull and I’m wearing roller skates. And it was exactly how this whole thing felt. He said, you’ve got to get rid of these guys. And I was like, John, I can’t, I just can’t walk away from this deal. Like it’s two million dollars and I have no money. I can’t pay, like we had bought an apartment. It was like, I can’t pay the mortgage. Like, we, you know, I desperately need this deal.
Turturro said, I feel like I’m holding on to the horns of a bull and I’m wearing roller skates. And it was exactly how this whole thing felt.
And he said, then you need to do it. He’s like, I won’t stand in your way. He was like, don’t worry, we’ll be fine, we’ll do something else together. I felt like he was giving me, he was telling me, go ahead, I’m done. I’ve had enough. I remember calling Jason Kliot, and saying, All right, Jason, so no John, so we will move on without John. It’s one of the biggest regrets of my life.
AMY: And then what happened? Like you went out to like....
JOE MAGGIO: I said, but Jason, so help me God, I will come after you if you tell me in a week… I said I may be sacrificing a friendship with someone that I have revered my entire life. If you tell me in a week that that we are in turnaround or that this isn’t happening, we’re gonna have a problem. He’s like, Don’t worry, we’re good to go. We have the money. We’re ready to go. We just need to act. We’ll cast that part and we’re ready to go. It’s all papered, blah, blah, blah.
A week later, he calls me and he’s like, it’s not gonna happen. You know, we’re dissolving things. And that was the end of it. It’s one of the great regrets of my life because it did end the friendship and I haven’t seen John since then.
AMY: You went to the mat for him.
AVI: That must have been heartbreaking.
JOE MAGGIO: It’s horrible.
Horrible. It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made on a film. And I feel like it was a character flaw on my part. I should have, I should have said, you know what? I’d have walked away, but I was under so much pressure. My daughter had just been born. Like I was like, my God, I need to make some money.
AVI: Did you consider going back to John at that point and being like, look, they’re gone. Let’s go look for other money.
JOE MAGGIO: No, I think what happened was that it poisoned the well with CAA. It poisoned everything.
AVI: So part of the show is we’ve heard the Sisyphine tale and you gave us all the assets, all the scripts and everything.
AVI: So let me share with you what we’ve got going here in terms of a possible pitch deck. Here’s The Fall. I love it. Film by Joe Maggio. We have kind of like a full page image of a Brian Garretti like person on his back in what looks like perhaps the precipice of Niagara Falls.
AVI: So let me share with you what we’ve got going here in terms of a possible pitch deck. Here’s The Fall. A film by Joe Maggio. We have kind of like a full page image of a Brian Garrett like person on his back in what looks like perhaps the precipice of Niagara Falls.
TOM HALL: That is Paul Dano.
AVI: Paul Dano, you’re right. It is Paul Dano. It is Paul Dano. You’re right.
TOM HALL: It’s perfect. I’ve been thinking about him the entire time we’ve been having this conversation.
AVI: That’s pretty amazing. Tom, make it happen. You are gonna be amazed, Tom,
JOE MAGGIO: But wait, wait, go back. Can you go back to that quickly? Come on- Paul. We have to Tom, you’re on board. We have to get Paul Dano.
AVI: That image speaks to you.
AMY: You don’t have to struggle with making decks.
JOE MAGGIO: God, look at that.
AVI: Here we go. The log line. I’ll read it off. A devout Niagara Falls attorney commits an impulsive murder and finds himself reborn into a mist soaked moral wilderness where faith falters, desire tempts.
AMY: And every choice pulls him further from the man he thought he was. Now all again, all this text is generated based on the material you sent us.
JOE MAGGIO: That’s great. That’s pretty good.
AMY: Yeah, is that a real thing? Is that in Europe?
JOE MAGGIO: That looks like the Canadian International Train Bridge, actually. Yeah. that that connects. no, there’s usually just one. We used to go fishing underneath there.
AMY: It’s a double banger bridge.

JOE MAGGIO: Yeah. That’s the Niagara, and that looks like the Canadian International Train Bridge. It’s not the Peace Bridge.
TOM HALL: I think that’s a mirror. It looks mirrored, right?
AVI: Like down the hill. It does. Here’s our casting, and look who’s first.
JOE MAGGIO: My god. my god. So it’s gotta be Dano.
AVI: We have an image of Paul Dano as Bud Rosenquist basically sitting in his office.
AMY: Yeah, and the cast list they come up with it’s top three ideas. We ask for three choices, and we have Paul Dano, Internalized Panic, Disguised as Decency. I guess that’s the vibe. Or you could cast Jesse Plemons, Eroding American Earnestness. He’s having a moment. Or my favorite, Scoot McNairy, Jittery Vulnerability.
JOE MAGGIO: What I like in this in the photo of Paul Dano, in the picture in the back, is a guy walking on a tightrope.
AVI: That’s in one of your scene descriptions, right?
JOE MAGGIO: Yeah. When the secretary comes in and asks him about it, he describes, you know, it’s this guy who successfully crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope. And it’s a true story. I’m blanking on the guy’s name, but he then goes out and gets drunk and comes back and tries to do it in street shoes and falls to his death.
AMY: Is this true or is this in your script?
JOE MAGGIO: This is true and it’s in the script. So the secretary is, you know, she says, wow that’s terrible and Bud’s response is, yeah “arrogance”. You know, he’s so moral. He’s like such a moralist about everything. And she’s like, yeah, or dumb luck.
AMY: Let’s go on to the next character, Daisy Pierce, a wounded, cunning young woman who weaponizes vulnerability because it’s the only currency she’s ever had, right? And three casting ideas. Lily McInerney, Wounded Innocence, Cunning.
Some other options are Thomasin McKenzie, sweetness fraying at the edges.
JOE MAGGIO: Now what’s interesting about that is she was in Leave No Trace. That was her big breakout film, I believe, and Michael McDonough shot that. That was a Deborah Granick film.
AMY: So you could get to her.
JOE MAGGIO: Probably could get to her.
AMY: And another idea is Lia McHugh, Tender Volatility with Hidden Steel.
TOM HALL: So she was in Chloe Zhao’s The Eternals.
AVI: Do you know what I just realized about this casting list? All their last names. Look at it. Mc, Mc, Mc. Irish. What is that?
JOE MAGGIO: That’s interesting, right?
TOM HALL: Nothing says church organist, quite like a bra strap sticking off the shoulder.
AMY: And the foggy night.
AVI: It’s funny, I ask it for a description of the character when it’s making the image prompt, and it’s gotta be in the script. At least one or two times where it’s like oversized cardigan hanging over the shoulder, it exposes a camisole or something like that.
AMY: I’ll continue with the casting. Holly Rosenquist, a painfully perceptive wife.
Who’s held the family together for years and finally reaches her breaking point? so we have Carrie Coon, Grace Under Fresh with moral clarity. It’s a good choice. I like Carrie Coon. Amy Ryan, emotional weariness with bite. Rosemarie DeWitt, softness edged with strength.
JOE MAGGIO: I love Rosemary DeWitt.
AMY: Tom, who would you cast?
TOM HALL: It depends on the emotional register, I think, of the character. I think all three of them bring something different. Carrie Coon for me always. I love her. She plays a little bit cerebral compared to the other two. So I’m wondering how much of that is what you’re looking for.
AVI: Father Gardner, weary priest juggling devotion and hypocrisy while hiding a secret that undercuts everything he preaches.
And we have a picture of him in the sacristy. Is that how you pronounce it? Sacristy. putting on his looks like he’s putting on his collar. There’s like a sensor behind him, robes. Looks like they were burning incense there. There’s a fog machine. And definitely the top choice standing front and center is Richard Jenkins. yeah. Weary authority, gentle sorrow. We’ve also got Stephen McKinley Henderson.
TOM HALL: He was in Severance, but African American, lighter skinned. He’s terrific. He’s also the therapist in Bo is Afraid.
AVI: Or David Strathairn.
JOE MAGGIO: I love David Strathairn. My God.
AVI: It’s great. benevolence tinged with secret guilt. The essence that our machine was going for is a man holding the line for everyone but himself.
TOM HALL: Let me just say this has to be John Turturro, or I’m gonna lose it.
AVI: What? The priest? Yeah, the priest. What do you think?
JOE MAGGIO: Yes.
AMY: Next. Okay, we have Rose, a vicious domineering grandmother whose cruelty reverberates through the entire family. This is the character that dies, right?
JOE MAGGIO: Yes. Yeah.

AMY: Okay, well, June Squibb, not a big part, but a good part. She’s sitting here in a plastic covered lounge chair.
June Squibb, who’s hilarious, vivacious, and heartbreaking. Lois Smith, who’s in, you know, New Yorker is in like every play. I worked with Lois Smith on a small film. Nostalgic Warmth Turned Bitter. Margot Martindale. Hurricane Force Meanness. Okay. my god.
JOE MAGGIO: You know who we had? Who we had was Elaine Stritch. My god. Elaine Stritch.
AMY: My god. That would have been amazing.
JOE MAGGIO: Yeah. Tell me about it. And then we’ve got some posters that we mocked up. Yeah. The con laurel.
AMY: Well you never know. You know, this is as if it happened.
AVI: The first one we see Daisy in the organ loft, sheet music around her feet, pull quote, a spellbinding moral fable, Maggio’s most intimate, unsettling film.
And the subtitles are Sin, Shame and Salvation.
AMY: It’s interesting that Daisy would be the image of the poster. I guess it’s Well
TOM HALL: the thing about Eve and The Fall in the Garden of Eden, obviously you have to center the woman as the blame and the problem for the reason why there’s fall and sin. Yeah.
AVI: Another poster where we see Sundance logo this time. In the stairs, Sundance. A slow burn moral thriller with ice in its veins. It says The Fall, every descent begins with a choice.
JOE MAGGIO: No, it should be every resurrection begins with a fall.
TOM HALL: How long is the standing ovation? Does it pick the w we have to clock the standing ovations now?
JOE MAGGIO: Sixteen minutes.
AMY: Let’s let’s show the trailer. Let’s do it.
AVI: Now it’s showtime. So buckle up.
TRAILER AUDIO:
I don’t know when it started, but I can see it clearly now.
Feels like a cinder block.
It was just a thought. That’s all. Thoughts can feel heavy soon. Tell me about it.
Did you think I wouldn’t notice you watching me? This is bullshit! You don’t have to pretend with me, Mr. Rosenquist.
I can’t fix this anymore. Please don’t leave me alone again.
I don’t know what you did, but I can feel it. I don’t know who I am anymore, Daisy. I think I broke something inside myself.
I did something terrible. And I didn’t stop.
I did everything they asked.
And it was never enough.
AMY: This is cool, that image. Well, so what do you guys think?
TOM HALL: They went for a Tim Blake Nelson Luke Wilson vibe on the lead actor there. That’s pretty cool.
AVI: Yeah. Thoughts, hot takes.
JOE MAGGIO: I’ll go first. So I I mean it’s so
AVI: stunned.
JOE MAGGIO: It’s so not my style of directing, or filmmaking, but there were some moments where especially where the dialogue actually was something from the script, where I was like, wow.
I told Avi this. I do feel like something psychically stopped for me when this film did not get made and so seeing it, seeing that trailer, it’s like it’s hard to see it, even though it’s not how I would direct it. I’m not a big dolly into the room kind of guy. You know, it’s not my palette or anything. But I think that it would have been a great film when we tried to make it.
And then we hit a period in our culture where it probably couldn’t have gotten made. It’s too, it’s too out there. But now we’ve come around and I think we could make it now. And so that’s when I see that trailer, I’m just like, I swore I would never go back to this well. But I’m like, I’ve got to make The Fall.
AVI: Now would be a great time to get our special guest, Finn, who is a creative executive.Because if you indeed are thinking about or even harboring ideas…
AMY: Now’s your chance to pitch it.
JOE MAGGIO: Well you’re putting me on the spot. I’m not ready. I didn’t know I was gonna have to pitch this too.
AVI: You don’t have to. I mean it’s just asking him questions.
AMY: This is just a conversation.
JOE MAGGIO: Maybe Tom can pitch it. Yeah, because Tom’s the producer now.
AVI: So Finn, we’ve got Joe Maggio here, we’ve got Tom Hall here, we’ve got my co-host Amy Hobby. We’re talking about The Fall. Just give us a hot take on the original stuff that we sent you.
FINN [AI FILM EXEC]: All right. So here’s my read on The Fall. So here’s my read. What works first? There’s a clear emotional core. You can feel the pull between intimacy and isolation. The lead dynamic has that quiet charge where even the silences are doing work, and there’s a visual grammar baked into it that could keep the film distinctive at a modest budget. Where I think it gets tangled is in tone control. Sometimes it leans toward existentialism.
Sometimes toward thrillers and the shifts aren’t always earned. Which, in practice, would make it hard to market and harder still to cast for the right audience. So my question back to all of you is, what’s the film’s heartbeat? Is it about the characters enduring something together or about the mystery itself? Because once we fix that, the rest has somewhere to orbit.
JOE MAGGIO: Wow. Well, that’s interesting because that was something. You’ve just reminded me that was something that people questioned, was this the tone, like, were we supposed to be laughing? Is this a thriller? What, you know, is it an existential drama? And so that resonates for sure.
JOE MAGGIO: But I want Tom actually to sort of answer that for me because you know, I’m really not –
TOM HALL: Finn, are you up for morally complicated comedies as a producer, or is that something that you’re not interested in as work? Because I think you can have both moral complications and have it be a darkly comic film. I think in fact they drive one another. So I don’t see that as a conflict necessarily.
FINN [AI FILM EXEC]: Yeah, I’m with you on that. Moral complication and dark comedy can feed each other beautifully if you’re deliberate about tone. The tonal shift I’m reacting to comes right after that early inciting incident. Where your two main characters are pressed into closer proximity and instead of deepening the unease, the scene leans into sly, almost winking dialogue. It’s a nice beat on its own, but in the structure it cools the pressure too early. If we keep the humor tied to their underlying dread or moral conflict, it’ll land without cutting the spine out of the suspense.
Maybe let’s walk through your actual second act turning point and check if that’s where the tonal debate really lives.
JOE MAGGIO: Well, Finn, what do you consider the second act turning point?
FINN [AI FILM EXEC]: From what I saw, the second act turn is that moment when the central relationship gets irreversibly altered. When the incident they’ve both been circling finally happens and it forces them onto different emotional footing. Up until then, there’s still a sense they can walk away. After that beat, they’re bound to each other’s choices. In your script,
That’s the scene where the external event, the one tied to The Fall itself, shifts from background tension to something they have to actively deal with, and the stakes jump from personal unease to survival, moral reckoning, or both. That’s where I’d anchor the tonal decision. Do we lean into the dread or keep the ironic distance? Because after that, the audience is locked in one lane.

TOM HALL: This is too realistic. I can’t handle it.
AMY: Hey Finn, this is Amy, I’m a producer. So I want to talk a little bit about funding and production things. You know, we have interest from John Turturro. It seems like he’s gonna play one of the parts we’re not sure. And we think we can lock him in. Do you think this helps with our funding if we’re thinking around three to five million as a budget?
FINN [AI FILM EXEC]: Yeah, having Turturro in serious talks absolutely helps, especially at that budget range. He’s got the mix of artistic credibility and name recognition that can unlock certain financiers, and he plays well in both indie prestige circles and more commercial niches. At three to five million, you’re still in that space where a strong lead can be the tipping factor, but it won’t guarantee the rest. You’ll still need a package that feels totally clear and sellable. So the question is, with him on board, are we leaning into making this a character-driven piece that his fan base will come for, or are we hoping to broaden it? That choice will shape which funding tracks really respond.
TOM HALL: Finn, would you like to take over HD net?
FINN [AI FILM EXEC]: No. I think I’ll leave –
AMY: Do you know what HD net is, Finn?
FINN [AI FILM EXEC]: Yeah. Sure.
AVI: He hung up.
JOE MAGGIO: Am I the only one who feels a little uneasy laughing at Finn because in five years when Finn has got us all chained up and we’re begging for mercy…
AMY: One year. One year. There’s already a great program that does amazing script coverage.
JOE MAGGIO: Can I just say also I was getting that kind of gaslight that I always used to get on these calls? It’s really incredible. Like, maybe they’re right. Are they right? Is that right? That sounded smart, but wait, what are they saying?
TOM HALL: That was crazy. Wow.
AVI: I guess we kind of answered could you could you make it now. You know, that’s kind of the parting shot. Is this a closure or is this a reboot, a benediction, a resurrection?
JOE MAGGIO: It’s bittersweet. It was fun to sort of revisit and look at some of this stuff. Looking at the correspondence- it was painful. As I said, I feel like I made so many mistakes. I feel like there’s so many things I would do differently. And I still feel like the material, the script is so good. I’ve never had anyone read that script and be like, it was just okay. Everyone was like, wow, I was laughing out loud and it’s tight. I just can’t believe that it won’t ever get made. So I have all sorts of emotions. I don’t know. I feel like I want to just move on. I wanna be kind of stoical about it and just be like, it didn’t get made, and that’s life and we move on, we do other things. But as the author, I just think it’s too good. It’s really a good script. And we came close, I feel like we did come close, but you know, it’s the one that got away. It is a film that was not made.
AVI: So we’ll probably leave it right there. Is there anything you’re working on now or any place people can find you? Anything that you want to let folks know about.
JOE MAGGIO: I just did a radio play that I really love as part of the Tales from Beyond the Pale, Larry Fessenden and Glenn McQuay. I forget which season it is, but it’s episode fifty. I’ve done a few other ones. They’re very good. It’s just come out yeah, TalesfromBeyondthePale.com . It’s starring James LeGros and Alex Hurt and it was really fun.
You can go on my website, which is incidentalfilms.com, and all my stuff is there. And I’ve got a few films in the works and a one-man show, which I’m gonna be taking to Edinburgh in August.
AVI: Tom, you too. Where can people find you?
TOM HALL: You can read my film writing at backrowmanifesto.com, follow my film programming work at Montclairfilm.org. Film Festival, two cinemas operating year round, lots going on. We just wrapped the fourteenth annual Montclair Film Festival in October. So we’ll be having fifteen in October 2026 and busy keeping up with all that and keeping the gears going. So yeah, send us your work. We’d love to we’d love to look.
AVI: Montclair is a great film festival. I’ve had some stuff there. It’s super fun. They treat the filmmakers fantastic. It’s great theaters, great people.
JOE MAGGIO: I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been programmed there, Avi. I don’t know who to talk to about that.
TOM HALL: That’s gonna change with The Fall.
AMY: All right, guys. Thank you so much.
AVI: You’ve been listening to Films Not Made, but if you want an even better experience, check us out on YouTube where you can see all the new materials, including the pitch deck and trailer.
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AVI: Thanks again for listening and watching. We’ll see you next time.