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[Thisstorycontainsspoilersfor[Thisstorycontainsspoilersforsummit.]
The silver linings during the pandemic have been few and far between. But in the case of screenwriter Jeremy Robbins, getting an involuntary break from the fast pace of television writers’ rooms gave him the opportunity to write a special script called summit. What also started as a way for Washington, D.C. residents to not scroll through social media all day, is now Netflix’s newest series, starring Charlize Theron and Taron Egerton.
Set primarily in an Australian national park, Kormákur’s thriller Baltasar “Balt” tells the story of a melancholy adventurer named Sasha (Theron) as she explores the home terrain of her recently deceased partner, Tommy (Eric Bana). After the latter’s tragic accident while climbing the Troll Wall in Norway, Sasha is more focused on kayaking than on the summit, at least until she encounters a cannibal hunter named Ben (Egerton). Sasha is then forced to play a ritualistic game of cat and mouse, which Robbins views as a tribute to him. enough (1972) and Wild river (1994).
After the film’s opening tragedy ends on a mountainside, Sasha eventually faces another mountain to climb. The necessity of this moment is not only about fending off Ben, but also processing the grief and guilt she feels toward Tommy. The metaphorical mountain is something Robbins became deeply connected to throughout the process of writing for Career Ascension summit.
“I found that my mountain was a career in Hollywood,” Robbins says. Hollywood Reporter. “I was holding on with all my might when all the cracks you could put your fingers into began to disappear. I was staring into the face of a huge abyss that felt impossible to climb, wondering, How will I find my way up?”
Robbins may have drawn inspiration from the action figures he consumed during his childhood, but it was Egerton’s involvement that added just the right amount of creative fairy dust. He saw Ben as a deranged Peter Pan who navigates the film’s national park as if it were Neverland. Thus the film develops into a twisted take on the maternal bond between Peter and Wendy Darling, especially when Ben is unable to strangle Sasha to death during the film’s climax.
“In every version of the script, that was always the hardest moment for me to write. Any viewer would see it differently, but I think [Ben] “He sees his mother in Sasha,” Robbins says. “There’s a moment of fragility in her embrace that I think is really beautiful. I also think he realizes that if he kills her like that, it goes against the ritualistic aspect he’s built his entire identity around.
Below, during a spoilery conversation with THRRobbins also discusses his rewrite once Theron signed on, as well as the story behind the film’s memorable beef jerky. He then displays the properties he would like to study next summitsuccess.
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Last year, I covered a writer-director named Drew Hancock. He has written primarily for television, and during the pandemic, he decided to recalibrate through writing and work his way into a distinguished career. This decision led to a text called companion. So, when I first glanced at your resume, I got the impression that you might have a similar story. Is this the case with summit?
You are not far away. After I graduated from film school, I was just looking for work. I loved both TV and movies, and TV was where I got my first toe in the door. I was excited to move from room to room and get ready. You learn a lot about the process of making something from text to screen.
Then 2020 rolled around, and the writers room I was in closed and never reopened. So I stood in the room I’m in now, thinking, What do I want to write that will get me out of bed so I’m not scrolling through the news for several hours? The answer was to return to the types of films and stories I’ve loved since I was a kid, which are largely survival action thrillers.
So this was an opportunity to write something that I loved and wanted to see as an audience member. Everything that has happened to her since then has been unexpected and surprising in the best way possible.
Hollywood loves reductive comparisons: It’s Sicario meets Steel Magnolias. It’s Die Hard meets Mystic Pizza. I have linked summit like enough meet Wild river. Have you ever specified that in advance? In those terms?
I didn’t, but you just named the two movies I was going to point out because that goes with that. Once my producers, agents, and manager started reading it, they discovered it Free solo meet Silence of the Lambs It was also an apt comparison. but enough and Wild river They were such touchstones in my childhood and high school life that I was completely writing towards them. So I’m very proud of these comparisons to two films that I’ve loved dearly for most of my life.
Scripts are always evolving as different producers and companies join the fold. How do you compare previous versions of summit What is it like now?
The first and most obvious difference is that I originally wrote it for the United States [the Pacific Northwest and Southwest]. I was drawing on places I hiked and camped – the Southwest, Yosemite, Zion, and the Narrows. But once Netflix, Charlize [Theron] And Balt [Kormákur] We got on the plane and talked about where and when to shoot. Charlize wanted the water to be warm, so we knew we had to explore somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere in winter time. So the production’s big rewrite was to embrace Australia, not as it was post-apocalyptic Mad Max Hell, but Australia for Australia. It should have explained why Sasha and Ben were there.
The other big one is that of Tarun [Egerton] He had a really specific idea of what he wanted to bring to Ben. He saw a monstrous Peter Pan stuck in Neverland, and that was different than he was on the page. If Charlize was moving toward a more demure, more inward persona, he tried to balance that by heading 110 percent in the other direction. He was about to grow up to be as big as this high-frequency, completely external, charismatic kid who possessed the Baccanal, and he ended up being so perfect. So once he said yes, that energy and backstory was another big rewrite.
I was going to ask you about the fact that he plays a psychotic Peter Pan, and that he even shouts like Peter. These are often screams and calls made by birds of prey. Was that Tarun’s invention?
Man, I wish I could take credit for this, but I absolutely can’t. I remember hearing it for the first time in the dailies and getting goosebumps. That’s when I realized the story had become truly collaborative and better than I expected. It was taking shape. You just hope that actors like Tarun and Charlize will see something in their characters and want to deliver something they’re excited about. I don’t even know how I was going to write about the squawking of birds and the calls, cries and howls of birds of prey. That was just him. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. He really embraced the primitive, brutal, terrifying part of nature that Ben represents, and took a huge swing. I love him.
I appreciate how lean and evil the movie is. How many pages have you been cruising through with minimal dialogue?
I think most of these scripts hovered around 95 pages. I was always interested in seeing how much of a story I could tell through action, spectacle, and physicality. When you have these two actors telling the story through their movements, it was exciting to see that a lot of what I wrote was translated to the screen. I’ve already written a lot of the events, even if they were changed during the actual coordination by the stunt teams, pals and actors. I really tried to write the script so that it felt the same The kind of time, flow and rhythm that you’ll feel in the finished film. So, each draft hovered around that 90-100 page range.
Similar films might have a detective or park ranger working in the background to help the hero in the end, but you put the onus on Sasha to save herself. Was there a version where she got her copy from Al Powell[of[fromDie hard]?
Yes, there was an early draft where she was eventually rescued by a guard who was almost doing what looked like an investigation into Conspiracy C. But once Balt and Charles were on board, they were all about stripping away anything that could help Sasha in any way. This included things like removing her climbing shoes. I wrote her in her climbing shoes, and Balt was like, “No, let’s go to John McClane. Let’s get her up the mountain barefoot.” So we tried stripping her of her harness and a lot of her equipment — anything that could be even a remotely useful piece of hardware.
At one point, I wondered if these warring Hunters would come back and fight Ben for Sasha. It was a reversal of their previous function in the story. Have you ever made a habit of dying bravely?
They never did. At one point, there was a suggestion that they would be the ones to rescue her in the car at the end, but we ultimately decided that would make the story feel isolated or too small. One of the things I love about the movie is that even though it has two characters, you feel the scope of the wilderness. So it seemed as if the hunters had served their purpose early on as something of a diversion, and there was no real serious conversation about bringing them back in any meaningful way.
If they had picked it up at the end, they would have said, “We told you we were just trying to be nice.”
(He laughs.) exactly. The moral of the story is to be nice to the creepy people at the gas station.
Speaking of the gas station, Ben’s “beef” was a hit. What is the origin of that volatility?
The first draft of the script had Ben as a cannibal, and I deviated from that somewhat in some later drafts. I don’t think I’ve fully figured out how to make it work. It seemed a bit like an idea and not connected to the character. But when Netflix came on board, I was doing the first rewrite with them, and we really started talking about Ben as this enlightened hunter who was going to use every part of the killing process. There is an idea that the best hunters respect their prey by using everything. So once we came up with that philosophy, I went back to the idea of Ben being a cannibal and thought, Wouldn’t it be interesting if that’s what he does to his victims? What if he was using them as a source of livelihood for more people? I thought this was a really twisted thing for a killer to do.
It also allowed us to introduce him early on as this bumbling gas station salesman. He sells his wares like this Willy Loman-type salesman. But I think viewers know there’s probably something up with the jerky. It really started from just figuring out how to stay true to Ben’s character. He will treat his victims with what he He believes this is the utmost respect, and by providing sustenance for other people, he honors his kill.
As soon as Gas Station C Asher rudely said she wouldn’t feed it to her dog, I made a mental note.
Yes, if they sold like hotcakes and flew off the shelves, that would have been another way to go where you probably didn’t know there was a thing with jerky. But I certainly never thought it would be called Jenno’s Jerky [producer] Gino topping. I threw it in as an easter egg to make a chernin [Entertainment] The producers and executives at Netflix laugh, and she was great at it. I have obtained the necessary permits to produce the film. It was just one of those Easter eggs that was supposed to be an inside joke, and now it’s a much bigger joke than I ever thought possible. “I’m so happy to have been the inspiration for Ben’s mother and the jerky that has become such an integral part of the story,” Gino Topping wrote me an email saying.
As a snob, I have to say it looks pretty good.
I think so too. I hope it’s in the premiere. I was hoping to get some Jenno’s Jerky while watching the movie.
Yes, there should have been a gift bag.
This would have resulted in an audible drop in the stomach as everyone realized what it really was. It was really funny.
At the Oscars, Conan O’Brien joked about the old rumor that Netflix encourages its writers to write for a negative audience. summit It’s already such a straightforward narrative that this may seem unlikely, but have you ever given note to a viewer who’s folding laundry at the same time?
I heard those jokes too. It’s easy to take some pictures, and while I can understand where this talk is coming from, that certainly wasn’t my experience. The feedback I got from Netflix executives came from the perspective of an engaged audience. They really enjoy this type of film, and they pushed me to write a better script than the one they originally signed up for. This previous script wasn’t as good as the script they ended up shooting, and I’m really grateful that I was pushed to make it better. So I never felt like I was being asked to water down, over-explain, or simplify something. They just wanted to make the best movie possible, and they put a lot of power behind it. Charlize climbed a billboard in Times Square to promote it. So they let Balt and the producers and actors make this the lean movie it always was.
Late in the movie, Ben gets the upper hand, but he lets it go instead of strangling Sasha to death. She then proceeded to break his leg, paving the way for her victory on the mountain. Why did he back down? Did she remind him of his mother?
In every version of the script, that was always the hardest moment for me to write. I kept trying to figure out how to make that moment work, logistically, emotionally, and structurally. Any viewer would see it differently, but I think you’re right. I think he sees his mother in Sasha. There’s a moment of fragility in embracing it that I think is really beautiful. I also think he realizes that if he kills her like that, it goes against the ritualistic aspect he’s built his entire identity around. This is not the pure, sacrificial killing he needs. This is more interactive rather than ritualistic.
After the last two disasters, do you think Sasha’s adventures have come to an end? Or do you expect her to keep chasing the thrill in everything?
This is a good question. What she needed to learn was how to chase thrills in a mindful and conscious way. She was looking for something external, and I hope that what she found at the end of the story was an internal validation that wasn’t about proving something to anyone, including herself. There’s nothing wrong with chasing an adrenaline rush. It’s very impressive. But I think you can do it in an incredibly safe, careful, and thoughtful way.
So I don’t think the adventures are over for her. I don’t want them to be because they are an integral part of her psyche and personality. I just hope that when she goes out into the wilderness again, she feels more resilient than when she started the story—and without feeling like she needs to push her limits.
I’m sure there is a tremendous sense of accomplishment among people who climb mountains, but there are many other things you can do to achieve that feeling without risking your life to that degree. Have you ever been able to deal with the psychology of people who do this? Is it ego, as Tommy (Eric Bana) says? Or is it faulty wiring as Ben assumes?
Actually I don’t think it is. I’m not a climber, but I’ve done a lot of research to try to understand what draws someone to a mountain. I think some people are drawn to either of these reasons, but those two reasons are at the extreme ends of the spectrum. I think most climbers come to it because it is the purest expression of athletic achievement and being in your body moment to moment.
The mountain becomes a metaphor for summing up everything you need. It’s not a thing So changing and unforgiving that every person who decides to climb one of these mountains – whether professional or recreational climber – has the ability to project what they want upon it. For Sasha, it’s about pulling herself out of the depths of grief and guilt. But most climbers approach it the same way a basketball player approaches the game of basketball.
There is a real respect for the sport, the craft and the practice that is very similar to writing. For me, I found that my mountain was a career in Hollywood. I was holding on with all my might as all the cracks I had put your fingers in began to disappear. I was staring into the face of a precipice that felt impossible to climb, and wondering, How will I find my way up? So I fell in love with what a mountain could represent for a character.
I previously wrote to the disinfection TV show. Have you heard about the upcoming international romantic movie called Only one night? Instead of murder being legal for one night a year, it is premarital sex.
No, I haven’t heard of this, but this sounds really funny. the disinfection It’s such an interesting idea that it’s fun to see it cross over into all the different genres.
If a development executive were reading this interview, what IP would you like to come in and pitch?
I know this probably won’t get done, but I will stand by my claim for it. I am the eldest Indiana Jones Admired for all time. I’ve loved him all my life. This has always been the pinnacle of what one man’s wit and a whip can do. He is the ultimate superhuman. also, The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay It will be another one, as it will be james bond, Metal Gear Solid and [the 1987 novel] Grudges.
James Bond is one of those special characters that my father introduced to me, and I remember watching all the movies together, in order, over the summer. The challenge of telling a new, globe-trotting spy story, and one with real geopolitical stakes, will be a dream come true – especially as the cute super-spy enters his next chapter.
Metal Gear Solid He was the My childhood video game. There’s cinematic storytelling, a rich mythology, and some of the best action sequences I’ve ever played. There’s something I loved about him being a guy who relies on his wits and stealth skills to get through complex missions. Solid Snake has inspired many made-up adventures in the basement with my brothers.
and Grudges This survival story was poignant while I was growing up. I found it very inspiring to read about a child my age who lives alone. I know I read it countless times in middle school, but I think there is a way to make the story feel mature for all audiences. It has the potential to be a cult film that launches a new movie star.
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summit It’s now streaming on Netflix.
