Unreleased movies
If you’ve happened upon Liberty Village at any point in the past few weeks, though, you’ll likely have discovered that that’s not the case.
His next project, Journalism 101, inspired by the real-life case of a Toronto journalist-turned-drug smuggler, is deep into filming in the neighbourhood — which just so happens to be the exact neighbourhood where all the coke-fuelled drama went down in real life.
“Every single movie I’ve made has basically been about a bunch of young men making a movie,” said Johnson, this week’s guest on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. “Whether that’s the kitchen at the Flagship (‘Tony’), or it is the engineers at Research In Motion (‘BlackBerry’), or Matt and Owen in ‘The Dirties,’ or our CIA crew embedded at NASA in ‘Operation Avalanche,’ or Matt and Jay trying to get a show at the Rivoli (‘Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie’), I’m constantly just reliving the feeling of being in film school, trying to figure out how to create myself and become an adult.”
This article is a companion piece to Why Do Most Biopics Stink? ‘Tony’ and ‘BlackBerry’ Director Matt Johnson Explains, taken from the interview in Indiewire’s Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast.
Similar article from the Toronto Star.
McCarrol says the experience exposed him to a more regulated production environment, with stricter rules around unions, actors and what filmmakers can do on set.
“I think where the movie started to really come alive is when Matt returned to Canada, and all of us at Zapruder got to weigh in and watch it and discuss how to support certain sections, fix certain sections,” said McCarrol. “It’s a very collaborative process.”
“Australia?” he says, visibly stoked. “I’m a huge Aussiephile. Australia means a lot to me because I’m Canadian and I grew up skiing and snowboarding, which means I grew up skiing and snowboarding with Australians. I love …” – he draws a name out of his memory – “… Civic Video. I love Chris Lilley. He’s a major influence on me, major, major. Peter Weir, I probably love him too much.”
“Within 30 minutes, I was like, ‘Dom, we’re going to make this movie about Anthony Bourdain.’ It was us getting excited about exactly the things you see in the movie,” Johnson recalls. “A young man lying to create status. What’s it like to have all your self-worth tied up in how women see you. The power of homosocial relationships as a developmental tool. And then my job was to bring Bourdain into this conspiracy and read everything that he’d written and go, ‘Okay, let’s see where you agree with us.’”
In the wake of his two buzzy 2026 movies, Johnson is staying busy. He directed comedian and Tony actor Stavros Halkias’s upcoming Netflix special Uncle Stav. He’s developing a Toronto crime movie starring Finn Wolfhard for Neon, as well as a TSA comedy with Josh Safdie for A24. And he’s currently hard at work on a live-action Magic: The Gathering feature, while also chasing down a green light for the long-awaited third season of Nirvanna the Band the Show.
Johnson took the stage first, thanking the crowd, who were cheering loudly. After introducing himself as Matt, he told the crowd that he worked for Live Nation and “had some kind of bad news.” According to Johnson, Wolfhard’s band wouldn’t be able to take the stage, but Wolfhard himself would still be there and play some music for the attendees.
Instead, he brought out McCarrol, in his Fire from the Hip attire, which elicited many screams from the audience. “Hi everyone, I’m Finn,” he said. The comedic pair launched into a back-and-forth before Johnson asked a key question. “Is there anything you want to see before you leave Toronto?”
The story is inspired by true events that saw a Vice Canada editor recruit drug mules for an international cocaine smuggling operation, including out of the media giant’s offices. Wolfhard will play the Canadian investigative journalist who helped break the story.
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