Edgar Wright never thought he'd make a rockumentary
Wright: "I guess like the Candyman, once you say it five times, you've got to do it."
Edgar Wright never sat out to make a documentary about cult band Sparks. He just always thought someone should do it—so much so that he talked about it for years before ultimately realizing in Los Angeles at a Sparks show that he was that someone. He told the band about the idea that night and they got on board. Of course, no one knew how they’d finance the movie, how long it would take to shoot, or any of the particulars, but details, details…. who cares about those when you’ve got a good idea? And so The Sparks Brothers was born.
As Wright explains to us in the video interview above:
I don’t really have a list of things I want to do. It’s more like things start to come around by osmosis in a way. With a narrative film, it’s usually something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. In this case, it wasn’t something that I necessarily thought I should do. I started to say somebody should do it because I feel, as a Sparks fan and having been obsessed with them for decades and—especially in the last 20 years, just really impressed by the fact that they’ve managed to keep forging forward and doing albums that were as inventive and ambitious as anything in… I don’t want to even say the “golden period,” because I think what this film proves is that the golden period is still going. The stuff now is as good as the stuff then…
I found myself in company saying, “somebody should do a documentary about Sparks. They’re one of the greatest, most influential bands and they don’t have a documentary about them.” I kept saying it out loud, and I guess like the Candyman, once you say it five times, you’ve got to do it.
Wright is joined in the video by Sparks’ co-founders Ron and Russell Mael, who also wrote the screenplay and story for the upcoming Adam Driver/Marion Cotillard/Leos Carax musical Annette, which is set to open Cannes in July. That makes for a pretty solid #SummerOfSparks.
If nothing else, Annette has Wright’s ringing endorsement. As he says in the video, “It’s like kismet that [these two movies are] coming out back to back. It’s perfect. And also, I can say that I’ve seen Annette and it is amazing.”
The Sparks Brothers hits theaters Friday, June 18. Annette premieres at Cannes on July 6. Wright’s next film, Last Night In Soho, will be in American theaters Friday, October 22.
Image Credit: Jake Polonsky.