Adam McKay may be on a roll with his latest movie Don’t Look Up gunning for Oscar glory on Sunday evening, and his TV show Succession topping everyone’s list for the year’s must-watch, but it seems even he can admit to a mistake.
“I f***ed up Vice,” he told the UK’s Sunday Times, referring to his 2018 Oscar-nominated biopic of Dick Cheney, which saw Christian Bale winning a Golden Globe for his transformation into George W Bush’s controversial vice president. McKay told the broadsheet, “I regret not giving more blame to the Democrats, who went along with the war in Iraq.”
He revealed, “I had a heart attack in postproduction. I made mistakes, read the reviews and went, ‘Yes, fair.’”
McKay seemed less philosophical about critics who piled in on Don’t Look Up. He said, “No comedy is for everyone. I was still surprised by the anger from critics.
“Critics are split. But, whatever. It was made for a global audience to call out a system ignoring the greatest threat to human life in history — climate crisis.”
While the world waits for the fourth season of Succession – of which McKay will only reveal that showrunner Jesse Armstrong has shared with him the plot and, “It’s a humdinger” – the director has turned his attention to another pantheon of ambition, ruthlessness and pursuit of glory, the NBA. His drama show, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, premiered on HBO in early March and will make its UK debut this week. McKay hopes it will satisfy a far bigger audience than just ardent basketball fans, with its exploration of race, class and sexism in the late 1970s and its heroes, including sports legend Magic Johnson and team owner Jerry Buss. Stars include John C Reilly, Jason Clarke, Gaby Hoffmann, Rob Morgan and Adrien Brody.
McKay told The Sunday Times, “We tell it like it’s the reign of Louis XIV. Nothing matches that era for sheer hedonism.”
Deadline previously revealed that McKay has also teamed up with writer-director Billy Ray for J6, a feature film detailing the assault on the US Capitol last year, considered the worst domestic attacky on democracy since the Civil War. McKay will produce the project, along with Todd Schulman, Josh McLaughlin, Cullen Hoback and Shane Salerno.
