Greg Berlanti Talks Fly Me to the Moon, End of the Arrowverse 5

Fly Me to the Moon director Greg Berlanti doesn’t think of himself as a director first and foremost. He’s a storyteller with a keen sense of how he can best serve a project, be it as a producer, writer or director. In the case of Fly Me to the Moon, the New York native had been talking about working with Scarlett Johansson for some time, and the opportunity to helm a hijinks-filled romantic comedy-drama that’s set in and around the Apollo 11 Moon landing was something he couldn’t resist. 

His reasoning for signing on was also the polar opposite of why he chose to direct his previous comedy-drama, Love, Simon (2018), which chronicled the coming out story of teenager Simon Spier. (The critically acclaimed hit paved the way for Hulu’s spinoff series, Love, Victor.)

“Love, Simon was an opportunity to do a movie that wasn’t there when I was a kid, while Fly Me to the Moon was an opportunity to do the kind of movie that was there every weekend when I was a kid,” Berlanti tells The Hollywood Reporter.

Berlanti is referring to star-led original movies that offer wide audiences a little bit of everything, something the Rose Gilroy-penned Fly Me the Moon does in spades, whether it’s romance, drama, comedy or clever action. Johansson’s character, Kelly Jones, combines the marketing savvy of Mad Men’s Don Draper with the con artistry of Better Call Saul’s Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler. She is then recruited by Woody Harrelson’s shadowy G-man and tasked with rebranding NASA during the 1960s Space Race with the Soviet Union, all so that government funding can be upheld for Apollo 11’s mission to the Moon in 1969.

Eventually, Harrelson’s character asks Kelly to stage a backup feed of a manufactured Moon landing in case something goes wrong with Apollo 11’s actual endeavor. At the risk of hurting her budding relationship with NASA director Cole Davis (Channing Tatum), Kelly still proceeds to hire a director (Jim Rash), a DP and actors to play Apollo 11’s astronauts, in order to pull off her most daring and ambitious act of deception.

In the end, Berlanti’s film celebrates not only one of America’s greatest accomplishments in landing on the Moon, but also how critical the truth is to a well-functioning society and country. To make these points, the storytellers needed to confront one of the oldest and most persistent conspiracy theories involving the Moon landing, and despite how conspiratorial our present day is, even NASA welcomed the idea of using the conspiracy to drive home these greater themes.

“NASA was also interested in being involved because their ethos was ours, which was: ‘To look at the event of what was achieved, we have to embrace this conspiracy theory …,’” Berlanti says. “So we did not shy away from it because, ultimately, the movie is about why the truth is so important. There was no more important time to do this, but still in a fun, entertaining and lighthearted way. Underneath all that, one of the core things that we’re dramatizing in the film is … what we can achieve when there’s unity, not disunity.”

Berlanti is perhaps most known for being a prolific TV producer, namely the Berlanti-verse that consisted of such shows as Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning and Batwoman. He actually prefers the term Arrowverse, but Berlanti-verse is more all-encompassing since Superman & Lois is technically not a part of the Arrow universe. (Superman & Lois characters have appeared in the Arrowverse, but producers opted to set the series on a different Earth since a number of those Arrowverse shows were in the midst of wrapping up.) And now, with the final adventures of Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman airing this fall, Berlanti is beginning to zoom out on everything Berlanti Productions achieved on The CW. After all, the Berlanti-verse, along with the MCU and the Conjuring universe, are among the few shared universes that managed to have longevity.

“The wish fulfillment of creating these stories that I grew up with — and to do it with the kind of actors, writers and directors that we got to work with — was a really Camelot-esque kind of time,” Berlanti says. “It was not thought of at the outset [as a universe], but it became larger than life and larger than itself. So that was a real special time in my life … I’m very wistful about the kind of good fortune I had at that time, and I wish all those individuals the best.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Berlanti also discusses how he overcame his cat allergy to direct the film’s feline scene-stealer, Mischief.

Love, Simon was a well-received, successful film that also spawned a spinoff series, Love, Victor, and normally, that would lead to another directing opportunity rather quickly. Did the double whammy of the pandemic and labor stoppages set you back like a lot of people?

No, weirdly. I am so particular. I’m not a director by trade or nature. I don’t wake up every day, thinking, “What am I going to direct today?” I am very much drawn to certain stories, and I’ll realize: “Oh gosh, I’m supposed to direct this,” or, “I should show-run this,” or, “I’d be the best representative for X and here’s why.” So I don’t feel compelled to do [direct] unless something comes along where I really feel like, “Oh, I should do this and I think I could do a good job for everybody.”

I had danced around another project with Scarlett, and so we had gotten the conversation going. She was producing and developing [Fly Me to the Moon], and then she sent it to me to read two years ago, and I was smitten with the script. So I wanted to work with her as a producer and an actor. I thought, “Gosh, what kind of actor of her merit and experience and level and talent is saying, ‘I’m going to raise my hand to do an original story of this size.’” 

Love, Simon was an opportunity to do a movie that wasn’t there when I was a kid, while Fly Me to the Moon was an opportunity to do the kind of movie that was there every weekend when I was a kid. They just seem to not make these types of movies as much anymore. You would go to the movies on a Friday or Saturday, and you wouldn’t know what was going to happen because it’s an original story. You just know that it’s got big stars and the full support of a studio. So that was what really made me take the leap.

I remember a time when people enjoyed conspiracy theories as a means of entertainment. But, nowadays, they are so pervasive that it’s hard to really engage with them on that level anymore. So I appreciate that this movie had a clever way of making one of the oldest conspiracy theories fun again. Is that how you reconciled playing with a real-life conspiracy theory in a time where there’s a new one every five minutes? 

I’m so glad you asked that. NASA was also interested in being involved because their ethos was ours, which was: “To look at the event of what was achieved, we have to embrace this conspiracy theory and talk about, ‘Well, how would it have been done?’” So we did not shy away from it because, ultimately, the movie is about why the truth is so important. You see it in Scarlett’s character. So there was no more important time to do this, but still in a fun, entertaining and lighthearted way. Underneath all that, one of the core things that we’re dramatizing in the film is why our achievement is so important and what we can achieve when there’s unity, not disunity. 

Movies and TV used to do that so much more. One of our great commonalities as a nation and a world were the shows and movies that we watched and loved. Going to the movies and laughing was one of the things we all used to do together, and it made us all feel connected. A friend who saw Fly Me to the Moon recently said, “Oh, it’s the kind of movie we used to make about the things we used to do.” So I hope that it’s received in that way because, even though it’s a very loud era, we’re still capable of so much as storytellers and as a nation.

My colleague recently wrote a piece on the rise of cats on the big and small screen, and your movie’s scene-stealing feline character, Mischief, is the latest example to go along with A Quiet Place: Day One, Argylle, Ripley, and The Marvels. 

I read that piece! So I thought about our film, but they didn’t know about [our cat] then.

Yeah, no one knew about it at the time of that first trailer. So, what were the highlights of creating Mischief’s performance with little to no CG? 

We had to use a teeny bit of CG to put Mischief up on the rafters, but it was still him. I shot him six feet high, and then CG was used to put him up there. But that’s it. Otherwise, it’s the cat. In fact, there were a few scenes that I cut out that also had the cat. I’m actually allergic to cats. Sometimes, there’ll be something in a project that I am not looking forward to, so I was like, “How am I going to direct this if I can’t even be that close to him?” But honestly, I left with such a different vibe. The three cats who played Mischief were so amazing. We’d be on a whole new set, and they’d learn it right away, so they were unbelievable. They’re fun in the movie in the sense that there’s a raison d’être for them to exist. But I didn’t know all these other films and shows were going to have cats in them when I was working on this. I didn’t see that coming. So it’s a weird thing that’s in the ether, but I left this movie loving cats.

One of the earliest realizations I had as an adult is that most people are winging it. We’ve all had to fake it till we make it to some degree, and that theme is very present in this movie. As brilliant as NASA was at the time, did they actually have to play that game with the public? 

Yeah, part of why I wanted to do the movie was because I didn’t know if I could. When JFK said at the beginning of the decade that we’re going to go to the Moon, there was no evidence to support that we were going to get there, and I said to the actors at the start that Kelly kind of represents that. There’s two sides to the American experience. There’s the people who achieve these great things, but then there’s also these bullshit artists who say, “We’re going to do this,” even though no one knows how we’re going to do that. The American experience of people who dream the impossible and then the people who achieve it are not always the same individuals, and sometimes, they have to work in accordance with one another.

So we felt that even in making this. If you’re doing something artistically that you’re excited by, you don’t know if it’s going to work. If you do know it’s going to work, then you’re probably going to be bored with it at some point, and then everybody else is going to be bored with it at some point. So I can only imagine the awesomeness that they all felt over the course of that decade. 

There were a lot of individuals who were there and helped us on our movie, and I’d ask, “When you were working on the flight manual, did you know X?” And they would say, “Of course, we didn’t know. We hadn’t done it. We were guessing, but we had a sense of belief in ourselves.” So that’s the important part of all this: “I don’t know how I’m going to figure my way out of this, but I have a belief that with these people around me, or this cast and this crew, that we’re going to be able to pull something off.”

I’ve never commented on this before, but Scarlett’s smile acting really impressed me. The smile she gives after Cole (Channing Tatum) leaves the diner for the second time — or any number of mischievous smiles she delivers in other instances — was all really nuanced work. Did the two of you calibrate each one together, or was that all her own instinct?

Well, everything is ultimately her instinct. That being said, there were a lot of moments in the script where we knew we were going to be on her for a realization or moment. We’re almost always in her POV. So if we knew that we wanted to create a moment without dialogue, an actor of her caliber can give you something different every time. Sometimes, you recalibrate those things in post, but she gives you such a bevy of options that they always feel truthful. The thing about each of the actors in this is that they each have their own comedic and dramatic talents, but you always believe them, whether it’s their previous work or this. When do you not believe Woody Harrelson? When do you not believe Ray Romano — or Jim Rash at his level of commitment in this? Scarlett, Channing and even a lot of our emerging, younger actors are just truthful, and to be honest, they always gave me more than I needed. So my job was to isolate those things.

For people like DP Dariusz Wolski and Colin Jost who were already close to production, did you still make them audition for their roles and go through those steps? 

(Laughs.) No, for Dariusz’s role, I think everybody thought I was crazy. If you ask most DPs who their favorite DP is, they’ll say, “Oh, it’s Dariusz Wolski.” He’s that guy, so I was so blessed to have him. He was probably my greatest teacher throughout the movie. He taught me how to calibrate the light and the images in a way that would make us feel like we were back [in the ‘60s]. He also talked so much about how he would fake the [Moon landing], and as I was auditioning these actors [to play the fictional DP], I finally said to Dariusz, “Well, you should do this.” So he had the same trust in me as a director that I had in him as a DP, and I just said, “Don’t worry. Just be yourself.” When we were doing the film test for lighting and whatnot, I had him say a line to camera, and then I sent it to Apple and to everybody, saying, “This is actually who I want to play the DP.” And crazily enough, everybody supported it. It’s just a fun little twist in the film. 

And I was the one who begged Colin when he’d come by set. Of course, he said so many great things in the outtakes, but I couldn’t use them all in that one little moment. So I begged, and he was kind enough to come do it.

You’re at an interesting turning point in your career as The CW’s Berlanti-verse will soon be concluding after 12-plus years. Have you been able to put your accomplishment into perspective yet?

It’s funny you say that because I only like to call it the Arrowverse. I don’t usually use my name in association with -verses, but it is very sweet to say that. We all look back at our life in different decades and moments, and for me, the wish fulfillment of creating these stories that I grew up with — and to do it with the kind of actors, writers and directors that we got to work with — was a really Camelot-esque kind of time. It was not thought of at the outset [as a universe], but it became larger than life and larger than itself. So that was a real special time in my life, as was running my first TV show [Dawson’s Creek] when I was in my twenties, as was working on shows like Brothers & Sisters that were somebody else’s creation, as was something like Love, Simon. 

So I try to enter any new period or time of my life by surrounding myself with people I’m really excited to work with and stories that I’m really excited to tell. The only sad part is I keep getting older. (Laughs.) I can’t seem to stop that part from happening, but there’s always some great new Fly Me to the Moon-esque adventure around the corner. So I’m very wistful about the kind of good fortune I had at that time, and I wish all those individuals the best.

You’ve got other shows going already, but are you intending to build another sprawling slate? Or are you going to lighten your responsibilities a bit?

It’s a good question, but I try to tell all the people at our company that it’s not a numbers game. The thing that I’m most proud of about our company is that we’ve made other showrunners. It hasn’t been just like, “Oh, I created X shows.” It’s really been: “Let’s give these tools that I’ve been lucky enough to acquire to some other individual, and help them get one or two or three shows on the air, because they’re in that moment of their life where they want to do that.” 

I have almost always done the same amount of work every day. I’m just doing it between three shows or three shows and a movie. Or, sometimes, I’m doing it across 10 or 12 things, but it is roughly the same amount of hours. So I never really know. We have four or five shows now, but I could blink and we might have another ten series or two series. As long as it’s with people that we’re excited to work with and it involves stories that feel like they need a chance to get told, then I’d probably be equally excited. Obviously, you also want to think you’re doing a good job for the people that are paying you to put shows on the air. So it is a goal, but I don’t know a different way of doing it than the way I’ve always done it. Sometimes, it leads to a lot, and sometimes, it’s less. So I don’t know what will happen.

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Fly Me to the Moon is now playing exclusively in movie theaters.