Write On: 'Blackberry' Writers Matt Johnson & Matthew Miller
December 22, 2023
Final Draft's Write On Podcast sits down with Blackberry writers Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller to talk about how they wrote this epic story of the rise and fall of the world's first portable email phone machine.
Johnson and Miller loosely adapted the script from Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff's book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry. The bio-pic dramedy follows the fictional story of the Blackberry creator Mike Lazaridis, played by Jay Baruchel and his main investor played by Glenn Howerton.
“Because we had the book, it was the blueprint for the movie. It has so many of the facts and details that we extrapolated and then sort of placed in the script," said Miller.
The production of the movie was a bit like the push to get Blackberry into the marketplace - there was a lot of hustle. “The structure of the movie as it stands came from needing to reuse the same locations over, and over again,” says Johnson.
We sat down to hear about this wild ride from true story to script to on screen production. Click below to listen to the podcast.
Written by: Sade' Sellers
Sade Sellers is a screenwriter and producer based in Burbank, California. Originally from Michigan’s capital, Lansing, Sade’ has been working in the entertainment industry since 2009. In 2017, Sade’ was a finalist for Tv One’s Screenwriting competition for her teleplay The Replacement. This achievement motivated the network to hire her as a writer for their upcoming movie of the week event, Deadly Dispatch, which premiered on the platform in the summer of 2019. Through that production process, Sade’ met casting director Leah Daniels-Butler who was in the midst of staffing her production company, 1oneninety5. Sade’ then rose to the role of Vice President of Content Acquisitions and Development and spent the next year learning the ecosystem of film and television development from pitching to production. Using that experience, and bound at home due to COVID-19, Sade’ made a return to her first love, screenwriting, utilizing her free time to write new content. www.sadesellers.com- Topics:
- Podcast
- Film
- Interviews