Swiss Army Man

Buyers walked. A24 bought anyway.

Friday night at Sundance, January 22, 2016. Paul Dano is about to hang himself on a beach when a corpse hydroplanes past on its own gas. Daniel Radcliffe plays the corpse. Variety ran the walkouts as news. TheWrap sat the actors down after. Radcliffe said, "It's nice to be divisive." latestnetflix.com's read is that he also said making people uncomfortable with farts in an emotional scene was "kind of great."Dano did not want anyone else on that jet ski. "I thought it was brilliant. I was like, 'I want to be the person riding that.'",

The Daniels, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, had been carrying the image for years. MovieMaker has Scheinert remembering the 2011 pitch. A man riding a dead body's farts across an ocean, set to beautiful music. They almost cut the jet-ski scene four or five drafts in. Then they mocked it up at the Sundance Directors Lab in 2014 on a furniture dolly rolling down a hill. Deadline put Dano, Radcliffe, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead into the cast in June 2015. Cameras rolled 22 days, July 14 to August 7, in California. Wikipedia lists San Pedro and Humboldt County. The New York Times has 14-hour days in Half Moon Bay and the redwoods outside Eureka. Budget about $3 million.,,,

Radcliffe told Slate at the premiere party that people assumed computers. "I would like to take this opportunity to say that it's mostly me. And I'm proud to say it!" Dano told TheWrap the absurdity was "kind of glorious." The Times has him in from page two or three. "It was so funny and absurd and beautiful and glorious, I was like, why didn't I think of that?" Music was written before a camera moved, which Radcliffe said never happens, and they could hear it on set.,,,

A24 took U.S. Rights after the festival, then the world. The Daniels won the U.S. Dramatic Directing Award. Kwan, in TheWrap's Q&A, boiled the plot to one sentence. "A suicidal man has to convince a corpse that life is worth living." Scheinert admitted it started as a fart joke, then became a way to talk about dying. No Film School printed their working line. "We like to think of our movies as orphans. They're bad ideas that no one else wants to make." Limited release June 24, wide July 1. Box Office Mojo has $4.2 million domestic and about $4.9 million worldwide. Rotten Tomatoes later sat at 73 percent. The same pair later made Everything Everywhere All at Once. The A24 trailer still opens with 7 billion people and one corpse.,,,,