If you watch a lot of Netflix films, you may have noticed the original movies they’ve been producing have been getting a lot better. This trend continues with director J.C. Chandor’s Triple Frontier. Loaded with some fantastic actors – Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, and Pedro Pascal – the action-thriller, written by Chandor and Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty), centers on a group of former Special Forces operatives that decide to steal a South American drug lord’s money. while you’ve seen a ton of movies about big heists, what’s refreshing about Triple Frontier is that most of the film takes place after they’ve done the job. Trust me; if you have Netflix, you absolutely want to check this movie out. For more on Triple Frontier, you can read Vinnie Mancuso’s review or watch the trailer.

Shortly after seeing the film, I got to sit down with J.C. Chandor for an extended interview. He talked about why he loves Netflix, the changing marketplace for watching movies, how the film changed in the editing room, the deleted scenes and if fans of the film will ever get to see them, how they got Metallica in the soundtrack, the ending of the film and what it means, and a lot more.

Finally, spoilers were discussed during this interview so if you haven’t seen Triple Frontier yet, I would not read this interview.

Check out what J.C. Chandor had to say below.

Collider: First of all, congrats on the movie!

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Image via Netflix

J.C. CHANDOR: Thank you.

You did a great job. I was asking everyone downstairs, and I was going to ask you, there’s been a lot of talk in the last few days about Netflix, and Oscars, and people having different opinions on stuff. I’m of the opinion that if it plays for one week in theaters, it’s eligible. Have you heard about all of this stuff?

CHANDOR: A little bit. I haven’t heard about this latest. These guys gave me a warning that a prominent member in the community has spoken out quite clearly on it. For me, and this going to Margin Call - you remember the way that was released. My career, when I got my first chance to do this, was the first days of this world kind of changing. That movie was released day and date. Would I have loved that movie, for every person to come and get a babysitter and see it in a movie theater, yes. In the last 10 years or whatever, since that filmed played, the world just keeps changing. I think as storytellers, and as an industry, to sort of fully put your head in the sand is not really an option. For 800 bucks you can have a movie screen in your house and have any movie ever made delivered to it. To sort of deny that the market place has shifted, is a fool’s errand, just as an industry. That’s just my personal opinion about where we are.

As it relates to this particular movie, and my career in more specificity, it’s like, look, my specialty and what I find enjoyable and what I want to watch as a viewer is original story telling. I want to see stories that I haven’t seen before, and I want to see people put in situations that have a real relevance with what we do in our daily lives. I want it to be kind of original and have a storyteller be thinking up some new thing that hadn’t been thought of, or a reinvention of a classic story. The studios, for whatever reason, have not been embracing original storytelling. I think that’s pretty clear. So, you have this marketplace, totally bifurcate, in what I think is an unhealthy way, which is north of $175 million dollar movies and under $13 million dollar movies, or whatever the magic number is on the low end. Everything else in between is tough to get made. So, I think, I’m appreciative that they’re there because I’m trying to tell original stories, and they’ve been supporting this one in a great way.

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Image via Netflix

Technically speaking, I think there’s going to be some really interesting things in the next five years, with these windows. My hope is the window disappears, and if you want to go see a movie in a movie theater go see a movie in a movie theater. There’s going to be a great compromise that comes out of it. I think to just deny the fact that I can watch any film in the world at any given time, to pretend that that’s not happening, is dangerous With the Academy, I had some long, rough goes on a couple films with them. I felt like what we went through on All is Lost with the Academy was just a tough experience. I really believed in Mr.Redford’s performance and it was heartbreaking that they kind of turned on him a little bit, in like a weird way. I think, I’ve chased Oscars in my first couple of films, in ways in which I’m a little embarrassed about now. I wish I’d just let the movies stand for themselves. I know that that’s a big important part, and it does define a certain thing. Not to point it out too obvious, but I bet if you actually ran the numbers Roma was probably seen by more people in theaters than some of those other smaller films that were also nominated. Margin Call was only at $6 million of gross. I feel like it’s because of the Netflix thing right now. It’s got a target on it’s back in an interesting way. I think there’s going to be some interesting -

It’s also going to be very interesting when Time Warner launches a streaming, and these other people launch streaming because they’re going - anyway that’s a whole different thing.

CHANDOR: I love this just from an interest standpoint. My hope, if you wanted to say what I would hope would happen in five years is that, what I keep saying is, if Game of Thrones, each week - and how many episodes is it?

10 episodes.

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Image via Melinda Sue Gordon / Courtesy of Netflix

CHANDOR: So, 10 episodes. So you have a 10 week period where that show comes out, a new one, right, every week. How many people do you think - you guys have an audience that’s so in that world. How many of them, would it be 2 million people would go to the theater?

I had this conversation with someone else recently. If they could get the VFX and prevent leaks, I believe the final season coming up, if they release those in theaters every week it would be a madhouse.

CHANDOR: Imagine a movie theater that is the place where your readers meet every Friday night for those eight weeks that those episodes are coming out. You’d have a real community, I heard someone the other day refer to it as, “If you could turn the movie theater into an Apple store for movies.” A place where people go to hang out, maybe you go see a film. Some of these TV shows - that feels like the future to me. People don’t want to sit in their freaking homes all day, right? There’s a huge percentage of the audience - I’ve got young kids. For me, it’s like a $200 evening if we get a babysitter, you go to dinner. Just watching the distribution model of this film, It’s like so efficient and so effective. This movie is going to be in 135 million homes in one day, which is crazy. I think it’s very easy for that filmmaker, not to get too cute about it, but that filmmaker you’re talking about, can get a movie made in a different way, that the other 95% of filmmakers in the world - it’s a little rich because the market has changed.

I could actually dive so much deeper, but I have so many questions about the movie. I’m fascinated by the editing process because that’s the final re-write. I’m curious how the movie changed as a result of any early screenings.

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Image via Netflix

CHANDOR: It got tighter, which I think is so cool. It feathers right back into what you’re talking about. One of the things that Scott Stuber, who’s running this shop, and was my boss on this movie, one of the things he really stressed in a positive way for me was no matter how we’re delivering, this the two hour movie is not dead. It’s such an efficient, beautiful, well-timed - going back to Greek plays, most of them were somewhere between an hour and half and three hours long, in multi-parts. To tell a story over ten hours is fun, and there’s a lot of people doing it right now. Even in your home, as that filmmaker would say, as a TV movie, the two hour time table is something to believe in as a true storytelling technique. I was sort of imagining that I would have a little more freedom and willingness because of Netflix and because of the difference of the movie, to kind of let it wander the way some of my other films had. What I realized in the editing room, especially after the first screening we did, which was a mall in New Jersey, you know 400 people. It was a pretty brutal screening because halfway through it I realized that this is a freaking action, fun, adventure film that’s operating on two levels. It needs to be this tense, fun thrill ride.

How long was the cut that you showed?

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CHANDOR: Probably 2:27 or something. Like, 32 minutes longer than what you saw. The other thing that’s fascinating now, they make people when you do those test screenings leave their phones outside and people are having - you can see them. When you’re in that test audience you’re looking around. It’s the most stressful thing in the world. I could literally notice that people were having physical reactions, because they’re so used to having that damn thing, so the fact that we had taken it from them, it was like - of course they wanted it shorter. They wanted to get outside and get to the little ziploc bag, and get their fix back. It was like, 2:32 and it was too long because the movie was meant to be this great pot boiler.

One of the things about Netflix is they typically don't release extended cuts or deleted scenes. I actually premiered a big deleted scene from Outlaw King, which was great. So you cut 32 minutes out, are people ever going to see it? What was the stuff that you actually cut?

CHANDOR: It was not, I’m proud to say, it was not a lot of scenes, which is brutal. It’s so much easier to just *imitates cutting noise*. There’s not really a lot of deleted scenes that I would want out there because the one’s were just didn’t work. Most of it is the painstaking, brutal, time consuming process of just sanding. You know, tighter, tighter. I would say 10 minutes of it were a couple scenes. During the travel log section of the film, which I had built up in my brain that I really wanted that journey to feel almost endless, but one of the things I realized in that first screening sitting there was that when that scene happens in the farm field, when the movie kind of - and they make a mistake and kill those people, that the audience thought they were kind of watching the fun, swashbuckling thing up to that moment. When that scene happens, they realize this is going to be a little bit tougher of a journey for the rest of it. It felt endless. Not even endless. That’s the wrong word. It felt like they were idiots to even walk away from that village because it was like where are you going? That was one section of the movie where I tightened things up so that - now they come to the top of the mountain and they can see the ocean there, and you think they might make it, and they crash. It’s a small thing, but it did allow me to shorten up some stuff in there. What I wanted to do was make sure the characters didn't feel like they were on a suicide mission to do that walk. That there was a goal, and if they buckle down they might actually survive and make it. So that helped me tighten up some stuff. Most of it was just brutal word by word, line by line, trying to see, do you really need it? Do you really need it?

I’ve heard that from a lot of filmmakers.

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Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon / Courtesy Netflix

CHANDOR: (laughs).

That it’s a sanding process.

CHANDOR: It’s brutal, but it feels good when it’s done. I remember my first ever screening of Margin Call - the first public screening of anything I really ever created was at Sundance. We were young filmmakers, we didn't know what we were doing. We didn’t test the movie or anything. We just want to Sundance and premiered it in front of however many people fit in the Eccles, you know a thousand people. I remember we cut four and a half minutes between Sundance and Berlin of that movie. My editor and I were sitting near each other, and there were things, you would just sit there and go, “Oh..” Things that you had left in that weren’t necessary, or were misleading, or just wrong. You’d sit there and see the audience and it was like someone was crying. That was my first lesson in tighten it up. If it gets the point across and it’s still allowing the actor to communicate what they were trying to do, tighten it up.

I definitely want to be specific and talk about the ending of the film, again spoiler for down the road. Was it always Ben’s character that died?

CHANDOR: No.

Can you talk about the decision for that? With the very end of the film, there’s that note. I’m curious how did you decide on that? Was it always going to be that?

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Image via Netflix

CHANDOR: I’ll go in order. Ben, no. When I first read the script it was a secondary character, I can’t even remember which one of the other guys it was. It was someone else. It was very - it’s not fair to the original script because it was just marked first draft, but it was sort of a thing because it had to happen that one of them was going to die. It was actually in meeting with Ben for the first time, he suggested it. He said would you ever be willing to do that? I had actually moved it to a different character than the one that I originally read. I moved it to, I won’t get into who, but it was to another character and it was a more integral part of the movie, the way it is now. It was very secondary. He said, Would you ever be willing to, if I got the studio to agree to it, to allow that to be me?

You can ask him about this, but I think he had a version of a movie that he might have directed, I’ll let him fill in, where he wanted to do something like this before and wasn’t able to because of the studio. He had always regretted that. He said, I think this is such a neat opportunity to have the main character, that normally would never be allowed by the studio - it’s sort of a rule in the studio that you can’t kill the biggest movie star. He suggested it to me and I left his office that day and I was like, “YES!” I realized it was so neat that instead of it being the guy that should have died, it was the guy that shouldn’t have, in a way. Even though he’s the leader, and he should have known better. The end, end is really fun one. It’s the coolest lesson for me, as a writer. Filmmaking is like a compromise on top of a compromise on top of a compromise, from the day you start. From the day you start you’re just compromising because you can never do exactly what - maybe that other filmmaker gets to do exactly what he wants to do - but the rest of us are compromising at all times just to try to keep the vision.

There is someone else, his name is Nolan, and he does not have to compromise.

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Image via Netflix

CHANDOR: (laughs). Yes, and I love them both as filmmakers, but they’ve had success on levels that they’re allowed to do what they want. The rest of us are trying to fit our stories, and protect our story, and protect thing we love about our story. So Charles Roven, who has been on this project for 10 years - there was always an element of those coordinates but it was done in a different way that I didn’t think, structurally, worked. What I was trying to do - from the time that Ben, “Red Fly”, dies, they do self correct as characters. They’re like, “Woah, we got off line here,” a little bit. It’s that whole final 15 minutes before that big chase at the end. They’re kind of realigning themselves, which I think is awesome. What I love about the way it ends right now is -  and the music is what I love about it. It’s that second piece of Metallica that starts coming up right as he’s taking the piece of paper out of his thing.

What I love about it is, the testosterone that got him in trouble in the first scene, you think they’ve learned their lesson. They have a real moment on the top of the hill, their buddy dies, and it’s the testosterone that gets men with guns in so much trouble, and it starts coming out again the minute he takes that piece of paper out. It’s almost as if they have sort of learned nothing, (laughs), Which, I think is very human. It was a thing that was in the script and in a way it felt a little Hollywood-y, but then when I turned it on it’s toes, and realized if you use this as actually the thing that makes them human again, and it’s what human nature would want to do. You know, you can’t leave $100 million in the bottom of a ditch, that’s sacrilegious. So, I just love the way it creeps back in at the end there.

I love the fact that you got Metallica for the soundtrack. They way the film opens is awesome.

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Image via Netflix

CHANDOR: That was in the script. I wrote that in there. I love that song.

What I didn’t know is that Lars Ulrich did drums for the whole movie. How did you get Lars to do drums?

CHANDOR: Lars was obsessed with - he’s a movie lover - and he was obsessed with All Is Lost. He showed up at a screening at the Mill Valley Film Festival. I remember Ryan Coogler and I, Ryan was there with his movie. I was there with Ryan, with All Is Lost. I was on stage and there were lights in the Q&A. This guy asks a question, he was like, “When Redford…” I’m terrible at accents, but you know Lars’ accent. There’s only one person; its American, Scandinavian. I’m sitting there going, “Is that Lars Ulrich?” I’m walking out of the theater and Ryan was there, and a friend of mine was with me from my childhood actually, and I Iook up, and who’s standing there waiting for me. I literally go to my friend Marshall, “I think we’re about to go have dinner with Lars Ulrich right now.” (laughs). I walked up and he came up and it was him. I ended up having a little friendship with him. He knew that we were putting these songs in because we had asked him for rights. He is such a humble dude. It was one of those things, I just asked him. I said, “We’ve got this young composer on the movie. He could use your help, to protect it a little bit, and you drumming would help him. Would you help play some of Rich’s music?” He said yes. We literally got to have - I didn’t even get to be there because I was in New York, such a bummer, I was here trying to finish the movie. They got to have two days in Lars’ studio, and they played drums to our entire movie. It was a dream come true. Rich got to write - some of his music got to feel like it was melting into some of that hard rock that we use in the movie. So, it was such a cool experience. Netflix is doing a little film, I think, they are going to do a thing about the two of them. Lars and Rich are going to do a featurette. It was pretty awesome.

For more on Triple Frontier:

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Image via Netflix