How ‘BlackBerry’ Director Matt Johnson Used His ‘Broke Filmmaker Tools’ With a Multi-Million-Dollar Budget to Tell a Great Canadian Story (Exclusive)

After breaking into NASA to make his last movie, “Operation Avalanche,” one would think that “BlackBerry” — a film that, on paper, sounds like a standard book adaptation about a Canadian boom-and-bust story — would be a walk in the park for Matt Johnson.
For anyone else, it might have been. But short-cuts don’t compute for the Toronto-based helmer. His outright rejection of Hollywood’s camera tricks in place of a wild do-it-yourself approach has made him one of the most radical new voices emerging from Canada.
In “BlackBerry,” which world premieres on Friday, Johnson tackles the story of one of Canada’s greatest modern inventions, the BlackBerry mobile phone — tracing its spectacular ascent into a global phenomenon that brought email to users’ fingertips, to its tragic downfall in the wake of corporate mismanagement and the dawn of Apple’s iPhone.
“It’s an odd couple, that’s for sure,” Johnson admits.
For anyone else, it might have been. But short-cuts don’t compute for the Toronto-based helmer. His outright rejection of Hollywood’s camera tricks in place of a wild do-it-yourself approach has made him one of the most radical new voices emerging from Canada.
In “BlackBerry,” which world premieres on Friday, Johnson tackles the story of one of Canada’s greatest modern inventions, the BlackBerry mobile phone — tracing its spectacular ascent into a global phenomenon that brought email to users’ fingertips, to its tragic downfall in the wake of corporate mismanagement and the dawn of Apple’s iPhone.
“It’s an odd couple, that’s for sure,” Johnson admits.
- 17/2/2023
- de Manori Ravindran
- Variety - Film News
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