On episode 180 of the Director Watch Podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter are joined by joined by the Senior Talk Strategist for The Ringer and co-host of The Big Picture podcast Sean Fennessey to discuss the final film in their Richard Kelly series, The Box (2009).
Welcome back to Director Watch! On this Awards Watch podcast, the boys attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema's greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you've got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love.
After the disappointment of Southland Tales, Richard Kelly had gone from the hot, independent director to a voice with a big miss on his record. His next film, adapted from the 1970 short story "Button, Button" by author Richard Matheson, and his biggest budget yet, turned out to be a real breaking point for Kelly, as audiences barely went to see his latest science-fiction thriller about a suburban family having to make a dangerous choice of whether or not they should press a button in a box that would give them one million dollars, but would kill someone in the world that they don't know. Inside the conspiracy theories, alien observation, and his signature portals, Kelly layers in the personal stories and lives of his parents, making it his most personal film yet, and a movie that put him in permanent director jail, as it's been nearly two decades since his latest feature film release. But why hasn't Kelly been able to make his follow-up to The Box, and why did audience distance themselves from it the moment it came out? Ryan, Jay, and Sean discuss their theories as to where the director has gone, why he's primed for a comeback, what works about The Box and what doesn't, as well as what their favorite movie candy is, their mutual admiration for physical media, and their rankings of Kelly's filmography, and the Director Watch co-host preview their film director series of 2026.
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This podcast runs 1h24m. The guys will be back next week to begin their series on the films of Michael Mann with a review of his first film, Thief. You can rent it via iTunes and Amazon Prime rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let's get into it.
Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and "B-3" from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).
