While you might not know producer John Davis’ name, I promise you’ve seen his work. As the Founder & Chairman of Davis Entertainment, he’s produced over 100 feature film and television projects in his career and his movies have collectively grossed more than $5 billion worldwide. You can check out his full resume over on IMDB. With his latest film, Jungle Cruise, now playing in theaters and available on Disney+ with Premiere Access, I recently landed an extended interview with Davis and John Fox, President of Production at Davis Entertainment, to talk about making the film.

During the wide-ranging interview, they shared some great stories about making Jungle Cruise, how they landed Dwayne Johnson, and balancing the nods to the ride with a great story. But the best thing they shared was what it was like to visit the secret Disney vault in Burbank with Dwayne Johnson and Sean Bailey (the president of production at Walt Disney Studios) in preparation for making Jungle Cruise. I’ve heard about the secret vault many times but very few people get inside.

In addition, Davis and Fox talked about talked about how the movie industry has changed during Davis’ career, how the industry has shifted to an IP driven model over movie stars, having studios that aren’t as willing to take risks, how Davis been trying to make Tricksters in the Madhouse (based on the true story of the Minneapolis Lakers playing the Harlem Globetrotters in 1948) for thirty years, how they’re shooting a movie using The Mandalorian technology, and more.

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With Old now playing in theaters, I recently landed an extended interview with writer-director M. Night Shyamalan about the making of his latest film and career. During the wide-ranging and very fun conversation, Shyamalan talked about his favorite movies, collecting first edition Hitchcock posters, what he’s learned during his career that he wishes he knew early on, why working with lower budgets has been his secret sauce, what happened with his Labor of Love script that was originally going to star Bruce Willis, how The Sixth Sense changed during the writing process, why Spilt has so many deleted scenes, the way he directs on set, meeting with Steven Spielberg to write the fourth Indiana Jones movie, and more. Of course, we also talked about the making of Old, how he charted the age of every actor for every scene, how he came up with the Old ending, and more. If you haven’t seen the trailers, Old is about a family on a tropical holiday that discover the secluded beach where they are relaxing for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly. The film was inspired by the French graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters. Old stars Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Alex Wolff, Rufus Sewell, Thomasin McKenzie, Ken Leung, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abbey Lee, Aaron Pierre, Embeth Davidtz, Eliza Scanlen, Emun Elliott, and Kathleen Chalfant.

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With director Abel Ferrara’s Siberia now playing in select theaters and available On Demand, I recently landed an extended interview with Willem Dafoe to talk about his extensive career. Even though I had thirty minutes to talk with the fantastic actor, it would be impossible to cover even a fraction of his amazing resume. So going in I decided to use some of the time to talk about his film work, and the rest of the conversation about other subjects like why he never directed, or when he felt like he made it as an actor and could pay rent just from acting.

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However, before going any further, the reason I got to speak with him was his new movie Siberia. If you haven’t seen the trailer, I’d watch that first. As you can probably gleam from the footage, the movie is not easy to explain because Dafoe and Ferrara designed the film to make the audience think, and they leave many of the things that happen up to the viewer to decipher. What I’ll say is if you want to check out something a bit more enigmatic that doesn’t follow the typical narrative structure, check this film out because it’s not like most movies and Dafoe delivers a great performance.

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During the interview Dafoe talks about what it was like working on Heaven’s Gate so early in his career, how he adopted a greyhound rescue, how the business has changed since he started in the industry, auditioning for Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, why he loves Robert Eggers’ work and what he’s excited for people to see in The Northman, making Nightmare Alley with Guillermo del Toro, David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, and a lot more.

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