Everything Everywhere All At Once co-director Daniel Kwan has issued a message to the film’s more hateful fans.
Kwan co-directed the film alongside Daniel Scheinert. Released earlier this year, it became a sleeper hit thanks to word-of-mouth buzz and acclaim.
Unsurprisingly, the film is featured in lots of end-of-year lists that are ranking the best movies of 2022 (including The Independent’s) – but some of the film’s fans are now nastily questioning those who are not including it in their personal top 10s.
As a consequence, screenshots of such messages are being shared on social media, and they have come to the attention of Kwan, who wrote a Twitter thread in response.
“The algorithm pushed this onto my timeline, and as one of the people who made the film, this aggression will not stand, man,” he wrote. “I know the end of year discourse on film twitter can be toxic af with all of the ‘Best of’ lists that come out, but this really needs to stop.”
He continued: “These end of year lists are a great opportunity for people to discover films they haven’t heard of (our film doesn’t need that), to help smaller films make money (don’t need that), and to celebrate the hard work of filmmakers we admire (don’t need anymore celebrating).”
Kwan said that, while he is “so grateful to the fans who love this film”, the negativity they are spreading is “counteractive to the film’s message”.
He said: “Next time you see something about our film that makes you angry, take a step back, remind yourself why you fell in love with our movie.”
In the hopes of putting an end to the nastiness, he shared a message that the film’s nice fans can send to potential trolls: “Hi, I’m Dan Kwan, one of the directors of EEAAO. I appreciate your love of the film, but maybe next time you can try to cool it on the aggression. This place is filled w/ s***ty discourse, don’t add to it (what would Waymond do?). Don’t feel bad, it’s tough to keep ur cool here.”
The film is expected to earn Oscar nominations for Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan.
