- 4/22/2025
FRIEND OF THE SHOOOOOW!!!!!! MICHAEL GIACCHINOOOOO!!!
Michael isn't just doing the music for another Marvel project... He's a directing one! Michael talks about some of his inspirations and teases some details about the project. Also, his parents make a surprise appearance (in this interview but maybe they're in Werewolf By Night too?)
Michael isn't just doing the music for another Marvel project... He's a directing one! Michael talks about some of his inspirations and teases some details about the project. Also, his parents make a surprise appearance (in this interview but maybe they're in Werewolf By Night too?)
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00:00all right our guest is ready he's all set to go and he is making his marvel cinematic universe or
00:08marvel i guess in disney plus directorial debut on this whole thing he's holding what is he what
00:14he's holding up a video or something i don't know what that is i think that's someone that he's
00:17he'll explain well we have him via zoom this morning and you know him from his world of uh
00:23composing for incredible films left and right but now he's directing
00:28our friend michael giacchino is on the line
00:31hey how are you doing hold on one thing are you taking a call just good no i'm on with my mom
00:38right now hi mrs giacchino they're saying hello to you so ma just go to wmmr.com and go to the live
00:47stream okay go to the live stream all right okay i'll talk to you in one second bye-bye
00:53that's great michael is she tech savvy will she be able to do that or is this going to be a nightmare
01:00she should be able to do that she should be able to do it she you know it's believe me the one thing
01:05that my mom has gotten amazing at over the pandemic has been the technology and i'm constantly impressed
01:11with how much she can do so excellent yes so so so we're going to trust that that's going to happen
01:17you know preston was mentioning the the marvel thing which we're going to talk about but you are
01:21you are in both marvel and dc because you believe you did what i believe should be the academy award
01:27winner for soundtracks the batman which was sensational michael you just fun movie you
01:34destroyed it it was a masterpiece and your music is essential to it i just loved it i mean it's it's
01:41just incredible so we haven't talked to you since you kind of teased it on the air for it's been way
01:45too long yeah it's been way too long i know i know well you know that was an amazingly fun movie to do
01:50and that was done obviously during the pandemic so normally i'd be able to go to london where we
01:56recorded it and be there with the orchestra and all of that but i did six movies this year uh including
02:02the the werewolf one but i scored six movies and none of them i was able to go to the sessions for
02:08by the way home let's remind people spider-man no way home the batman thor love and thunder uh you know
02:14a huge so you're obviously your your dance uh bill is filled up with music but then
02:20at the at the d3 a rollout where they're showing all the teasers for all the things that are coming
02:26up in the next year what do we find out you've directed this project for marvel and president
02:32we were blown away blown away i've been wanting to tell you about this for so long it's been something
02:38we've been keeping a secret for a very long time i've been working on it for almost two years now
02:42and i actually shot it in atlanta so i was there for several months and every morning i kept thinking
02:49like oh i'm now on the same time zone as you guys i can call in and it could be like fun it could be
02:55i don't have to get up so early and all of that stuff but i i just wasn't able to say anything about
03:00it well we know that it's for rare wolf by night which and i did a little bit of research on it i was
03:06vaguely familiar and apparently this was it's it's gone through many iterations and it was considered
03:11almost too much for comic books they they used to be a sort of a judging council uh you know that
03:17that sort of uh made tales from the crypt and all that stuff was reboding for a while but then it was
03:23sort of rediscovered in the 70s i guess yeah and so what happened was it like the comics code didn't
03:29allow for horror comics didn't allow for anything like that was like you know showed monsters or the
03:34occult and all these crazy things right back when they had a real iron fist on what you could and
03:39couldn't do and then in the 70s that opened up and marvel was just like great go so they they started
03:45doing all of this horror uh affair which was amazing which i loved as a kid oh i still have my
03:51i still have my werewolf by night comics from when i was a kid so awesome you know i i loved it so
03:57when marvel kevin feige at marvel asked me he was like well what what is it if you know if you're
04:02going to direct something what do you want to direct and that was the first thing that came out of
04:06my mouth was werewolf by night and he was like really i was like yes really because in philly
04:13growing up my brother and i was we would just watch on saturday mornings the creature double feature
04:18you know love it shock and all of that you know it was just like the greatest thing in the world so
04:23i love that whole whole area that whole universe and then jack uh was it jack russell was the uh
04:29jack russell right he he sort of he was the one who yeah all right so so the the um that's that's the
04:35incarnation that you're doing yes i but but we are taking some liberties with it and and and i know
04:41you can't talk a lot about it i can't say too much about it but i can say that the original comic was
04:46about a a very rich white kid from malibu who uh you know had so many problems you know millions of
04:54dollars and so many problems uh so it was always a little bit janky to me that whole thing so i i i
05:02wanted someone different in that role and from day one the only person that i could imagine being this
05:08character was gael garcia bernal who was hector and coco but was also in a show called um uh uh uh
05:17uh mozart in the jungle plus a million other things he's he's he's one of the most famous america uh
05:23mexican actors in the world you know that that from that country and he is just for me for my money one
05:29of the most talented people i've ever seen so i just love the guy so i was just like it's got to be him
05:33so it's it's done clearly at least from we got from the trailer and there there's there's a bit of
05:38tongue-in-cheek there's a bit of um old style universal uh um love in the in the black and white
05:46in the approach a little bit of operatic uh method to it and and it's i i love it i love stuff like
05:53this oh good yeah i i had a feeling you would i had a feeling you would it was yeah it's all black
05:59and white and it's all you know it's it's a love letter to all of those things while at the same time
06:05doing something new and fun and fresh for for marvel now is it is it a one-off or is it it's a
06:10one-off correct it's a one-off yeah as you're sort of tilting your head to the side yeah special
06:16yeah yes yes you know i mean look one of the things that i wanted that i said to them i was
06:24like let's let's you know the big discussion was well let's just do something that belongs just within
06:29itself let's not worry about it connecting to a million other things let's just do this idea it's
06:35like a great episode of the twilight zone or or night gallery or something like that where you go
06:40and say let's just tell a story and then we'll see what happens and then after that we can decide what
06:45we want to do but but for now it's that was the idea it's just to do this one thing so this is going
06:50to be out on disney plus on october 7 so that's that's approaching did you did you compose the music
06:55for this on top of directing it too i did what and yeah i did are you out of your mind
07:01it was i'm not gonna lie it was an incredible amount of work it was a lot of work throughout
07:10the entire thing but i had a great crew and my editor jeff ford and jeff ford and i had worked
07:15on many films together me as a composer him as an editor so this is the first time working together
07:20with me as a director composer and him as an editor and one of the things that i was worried
07:24about going into this as a composer was normally i have the director and we keep each other straight
07:29and we bounce ideas off each other this it would have been me talking to the wall and uh and yelling
07:36at myself complaining about what i'm doing and all of these things and but but jeff really was
07:42the the the counterweight for me and it was great so working together i could be with him because
07:48we know each other so well after working on so many movies together that it was just wonderful
07:52and the whole experience he would be in one you've been to my office right no you haven't well i've
07:57seen i've seen it on zoom yes you've seen yeah so so we we edited the whole thing there in my office
08:03and um so he would be in one room editing i'd be in i'd run over to the other room write a piece of
08:09music bring it back as he's putting it together we put it in and we'd be like oh wait let me go fix
08:13this i go back it was just such a fun experience it was really like being kids again
08:18and just being left to our own to do what we wanted to do we had the greatest time ever
08:22that's great that's great michael speaking of your office preston and i were lucky enough to visit
08:27a few years ago and uh we also met your friend uh kirk thatcher and kirk is in where we'll find
08:32night as well i saw him on the credits thatcher is in where we're finding i know it's hilarious
08:37it's it there's this subset of people in the world that just went that lost their minds when they
08:43saw that trail because it takes a very special person to really be like in on the in on the joke
08:52like in on what kirk does you know so kirk has had a couple cameos in different things in star trek he
08:57played punk on the bus and that alone is great giving them this like groundwork of fandom uh from
09:04these from this wonderful group of people and so when they saw that they were just so happy that he
09:09was in there so well you're amassing your the way uh of course he has his go-to's and tarantino
09:15now that you're entering the realm where you're going to have to decide how much
09:20do you live your life as the goat of composers or the goat of directors uh yeah it'll be something
09:26to consider but i mean it's it's amazing because we've talked about this a number of times i think
09:31the key to the success of your soundtracks and the music that you compose is that it you can hear it
09:36and know it's cinematic i mean you you know what i'm saying you you're informed by your abilities
09:40and you've you you have certainly trained for this and you're you've directed before uh but uh now
09:46you're kind of able to turn it the other way coming in from that side which is which is wild because
09:52again i i going back to the batman i you know i'm watching sequences where where the batman first
09:59emerges on the subway platform and that music is critical and and um so all of that is i'm just
10:07it's so incredible to see it all come together in this in this thing such a it's such a you know
10:12it's all about storytelling right and and and music is no different music is all about storytelling and
10:18if it doesn't tell the same story as the movie you're in trouble so so so when i was filming when
10:23i was shooting with the with the cast and on set we did the other great thing about this was we
10:27built sets it's all on sets there is uh as much practical as we could do we tried to do it as
10:33as much as we could in the vein of what they used to do in the in the 30s uh with the universal films
10:38and all of that and the hammer films later on um but as i'm filming and and and i'm with like say
10:45with kirk for one instance and i'm like kirk and i'm filming a scene where he has this this axe
10:50and he's making his way through this like uh this area of the set and then he's going too fast i'm
10:55like kirk slow down slow down because this is going to be the rhythm here's the music
10:59yeah this is that this is how slow i need you to go and then he would go oh okay i get it or i could
11:05play a piece of music and say here's here's the vibe here's what it's going to feel like and it
11:11really kind of can set a tone in your head as an actor of okay now i know what you want to do so i
11:16was sort of like pre-composing ahead of oh i love that yeah doing that like we were shooting
11:20ennio morricone on the um on the thing that john carpenter's the thing that there's a beat
11:25that goes throughout and i mean again yeah that movie would not be what it is without without that
11:33so i i love that so what did you take from the set because these guys tell me that you have this
11:38amazing collection of if you had all these practical sets built what did you steal well i don't know
11:45marvel's listening i have i have a couple things plus i have a list of things i want to go back for
11:55actually oh wow so i'm like you know i have a few things a few key little uh items that were you know
12:01part of the story and all of that which are which were really fun and uh it was honestly it was very
12:07hard being on that set and not being distracted by some of the props going like where i should have
12:12been thinking about directing my brain was going how do i get that into my office i need to get
12:17that to my office you know as instead because there was just so many cool things that we built
12:22we literally built you know everything the whole the whole notion walk onto these sets yeah the whole
12:28notion of practical sets is so i mean you know nick murphy who does the video stuff uh for us us here
12:33we we talk about you know the mix of cgi and practical and and um they're using what is they
12:39called the wall or they this this new thing the volume the volume that's revolutionized you know
12:44it's a huge screen that they can be enveloped in and they can get in fact it's used in the batman when
12:49they're up in the building and the the sun's setting and they're getting on the natural light
12:53that's wonderful but there's something about knowing like in the old like the uh son of frankenstein
12:58those practical sets were just amazing it's the best because it your brain doesn't have to do
13:05as much work right to to to legitimize it in your head and you don't even know that your brain is
13:11doing that but your brain is constantly doing that work and when it doesn't have to do that work
13:16it allows you to just like immerse yourself even further into what you're watching and i for me i i
13:22just didn't want what i didn't want was the actors to have to over imagine do all the work of trying to
13:30imagine what's around them on top of doing what they had to do all right which was to help us believe
13:34that what we're watching is actually going on actually a true and real story um and and and
13:40all of them all of the actors were just like couldn't we're so thankful that there was all
13:44of this stuff in front of them because they could really treat it more like a like you would a play
13:48or something with a really great set you could go in and just be there that's great speaking of
13:52really of plays uh michael we we noticed something steve pointed this out we were talking about uh
13:57whose birthday was it today the egot it was a jennifer uh hudson jennifer hudson's birthday she's
14:02you know i mentioned she's an egot winner and steve goes you know michael's a t away from an egot
14:07you are and i wonder if that might be a goal down the road uh you know what if it happens it happens
14:15it's it's one of those theater is really hard theater takes so long to produce and and to come
14:22about and and i love theater i mean in a lot of ways i started in theater in high school i i did so many
14:27plays through high school and into college and i love it uh but who knows maybe a werewolf musical
14:32i don't know werewolf by night the musical they hey they did dracula right yes of course why not
14:37why not i always stick with just being an ego ego's good too there you go yeah people tell me that
14:43already so it's okay i always said that the the movie saw could be a stage show it really could
14:50and and so no no hear about because he you said that ethel merman would have been perfect for it
14:57but again we're pressed in and ethel merman
15:00it could end up being like rocky horror picture show people like squirting blood
15:05hey uh michael in about a week and a half i'm going to be in la i'm driving out there i'm driving
15:12across the country i leave a week from today and we're doing it running from something no this this is
15:17something he's wanted to do forever and we're doing it all throughout the week live he'll be
15:21checking in around the clock yeah yeah so on friday go ahead i'm going to la i'm going yeah can i come
15:27over sure why not there you go all right cool that was simple that was really really easy all right
15:34what what days will you be in la uh friday and saturday friday and saturday of next week yes sir
15:42he's leaving he's leaving monday the 23rd and 24th well let's we'll figure something out i don't even
15:48know what i'm doing next weekend but i think i'm here so you're probably busy if you're smart you'll
15:53be busy we all still need to come over yes i know it's so true we're working on that calendar here
16:01someday we gotta do that 18th right now it looks like i'm here
16:05the 23rd 24th oh 23rd and 24th um he's like oh no no i'm out oh actually i might well i'm i might
16:14be out of town but anyway we'll figure it out it doesn't matter we would yeah it'll be nice yeah
16:18speaking about it doesn't matter he'll just go to your house anyway yeah i'm on your list just leave
16:24the just leave the side gate open yeah it's like when you're you had somebody watching your animals
16:30just come into the side yeah exactly i texted uh michael over the weekend because i knew you would
16:36be a burning man and we'd read that the uh that this year's exodus was just a a total s show as far
16:46as the traffic getting out of there uh and people were were sitting like eight ten hours of traffic did
16:52you end up in that no i didn't i luckily avoided all of that uh i stay a little longer than most
17:01people i get there earlier than others so uh uh on those days that everyone wants to leave those the
17:07days to try to avoid i mean i've been going for a long time so you kind of you you you know that but
17:12some people just have to get back to work and i gotta go so uh i did have a friend that was in line
17:17for seven hours and you know and i you know usually when we leave i think the most it's been
17:23has been four for us over the years but it can get pretty hairy and this year i think everyone was
17:29still sort of like uh i don't know his first year back right two years off so such a release then
17:35right i guess everyone was fun yeah it was the greatest week ever we had the best time uh uh ever
17:42also uh yeah so andrea and i my fiancee andrea and i we put went and we've been going for seven years
17:47now together and this was our our favorite one so far did you know that uh cindy crawford and
17:54her daughter were on on site they were sort of uh they were they were they were sort of uh well
18:00cindy crawford's my my unofficial girlfriend we just found out today she apparently was i guess was
18:06kind of wearing a disguise of some sort but she said she was around all uh the air it was at kaya
18:12is that her daughter's name but anyway that's under that's weird yeah wear a disguise at burning
18:17man i'm the opposite way i don't i don't think we knew you were engaged congratulations that's
18:23fantastic oh yes yes that that happened actually a couple months ago uh we were on we went on a
18:28little trip and just sort of happened and we've been together for a long time so it's not you know
18:32uh everyone's like oh big shock so um but but it's it's been really nice is the toughest part of
18:39popping the question knowing that at some point you're going to have to address the fact of the
18:42preston and steve show that uh yes yes that that you'll have to bring that you guys are yeah she's
18:48she's marrying into
18:49i have to tell she goes oh my god he's he's going to tell me he's he's he's not heterosexual or he's
18:58and yeah and no it's what i listen to yeah he's gonna tell me he's polyamorous with wmr
19:04she's gonna have to make that decision it's it's a tough one we've been through it many times so
19:11um so this is this is great news we just wanted to touch base real quick because it had been
19:16so long michael but you know now we understand six projects and directing it's huge it's huge
19:23you know and the reason was because everything just got pushed with covid all the projects sort
19:27of like slid and they all landed on top of each other within the same it was madness this year but
19:33all fun all great with no fun things with great people so no complaints we're all excited just
19:38quickly have to ask uh so with the 44 000 things you're doing uh another album another travelogue
19:44is volume two uh oh that's interesting i i am about to to jump into a another album a completely
19:51different idea which which this actually we're going to solidify this week uh which i can't wait
19:57to tell you about because it's just weird and crazy and fun uh but yeah i'm going to do that and
20:01then after that probably i'll go back and do another travelogue uh on that and we're trying
20:07to also get a get it together to do that album live uh you know sometime soon too so that'll that
20:13would be fun excellent um yeah so more of that stuff to come to i'm not giving up music i'm just
20:18now in quote bringing in more hopefully uh being able to do more filmmaking and directing
20:23oh it's great it's so cool it's so awesome very happy for you man that's excellent oh thank you
20:28so much thank you yeah and give kirk our best as well because he's a great guy and uh i will and
20:34we'll be in touch about this out soon we'll be in touch about this casey thing see if we can make
20:37this happen all right yeah that'd be great excellent you are the best good it is uh werewolf by
20:43night disney plus october 7th directed by michael chicago yeah thank you sir take care michael we'll see
20:49you soon take care guys all right we'll see you man could there be a busier more talented nicer guy
20:56just the best well also preston the thing we talk about he genuinely is a fan oh my gosh loves the
21:05stuff big time geek when it comes to uh just films and genre and all that music every bit of it all
21:12that stuff that's what you want there's this new movie that's coming out about young basically it's
21:16young spielberg yes yeah i saw that it looks really really cool it's that and he always grew
21:22up as a fan when you have that happen it's it's magical yep
21:26you
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