Journalistic thriller doesnt really qualify as its own movie genre.
TheresAll the Presidents Men, of course, andThe Parallax ViewandState of Play, to a degree.
Spotlight, however, will have journos and cinephiles sitting on the edge of their seats.
Credit: Kerry Hayes
The stories were proved to be a bombshell, and the impact reverberated far beyond Boston.
(Cardinal Law resigned less than a year after the news first broke.)
In 2003, theGlobes Spotlight team was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.
Consider this his penance.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You have thiswonderful ensemble piece with A-list actors.
The idea of an ensemble, as ideal as that sounds was that something you had to fight for?
But we got to build this story around one guy or just two people?
TOM McCARTHY: Happily, not with the studio that we ended up with, Open Road.
That was obviously not the right fit for this movie.
But I understood it, right?
Movies like this are very difficult to make.
When you have one person out front, it becomes an easier product to market.
Open Road and our producers and other partners, Participant, they understood my vision.
They understood the script that Josh [Singer] and I wrote.
But you dont know quite how its going to work.
I feel like every movie has its inherent gambles.
What were you nervous about?
I feel like I could write a profile on any one of the actors and the journalists they play.
Marty is the guy who cant be buddy-buddy with the rest of the reporters.
Did Liev embrace that status on set… or is that stupid journalism question about acting?
Im just going to ignore it until you move on.
Literally, wed have these exact conversations.
But its not stupid at all.
And he was like, Really?
Id be like, Yeah, hours.
Just doing my faces.
And then I would number them.
And he was like, Reeeeaallly?
Hes the nicest guy.
It was just such a great character, right?
This was a man who was leading with his mind, and hes very reserved and very restrained.
And I was excited to see Liev go there.
As his friend, I hadnt seen him do that, quite exactly.
I just think its a beautiful performance and I think it does Marty justice.
And thats a hard person to do justice do.
I think it was.
The Spotlight reporters, to me, are heroes.
But this movie doesnt crown anyone.
And I think everyone should, right?
Or, it needed an outside perspective.
It needed Marty Baron saying, Are we connecting the dots here?
Did that exist or not?
Thats certainly a question worth asking.
TheGlobeis not a monolith, and the Spotlight team is not a monolith.
When they saw the finished film, what was the reaction?
Because you have to tell the story, and its not going to be 100 percent anybodys story?
I was very curious, too.
Curious is one word; anxious might have been another.
Someone said to me recently, Well, you made a movie about reporters.
You knew reporters were going to like it.
I was like, Unless we didnt do it right!
and then reporters would rip us apart.
We were calling them all the time, and yes, they read a lot of drafts.
And then the conversation started and it was clear that they were very excited about it.
And that we got it right, for the most part.
The idea that hes skirted accountability, does that deflate their saying the right things about the film?
Yeah, Law will always be a bit of black marker.
People are always going to have a hard time with that.
Its tough for people to swallow that.
Hes still living a very comfortable, nice life, and thats too bad.
Words are not strong enough.
Theres got to be laws put in place.
The big problem here is the statute of limitations.
Its allowing the Church to deal with this internally and not legally.
People should at least know when theres bad priests in their towns and communities.
I was saddened to hear that theGloberecently cut staff, with layoffs and buyouts.
It underscores the reality that papers arent getting Spotlight-like resources any more.
In 2015, does this story make it to print?
Possibly, yes, at theGlobe.
So possibly, yes.
Does it happen as frequently as it used to?
Is it a great time to be in local corruption?
Those assets are disappearing daily.
