MondayDec212020
Photo by 20th Century-Fox/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Brian Volk-Weiss is the guy behind Netflix's successful behind-the-scenes shows The Movies That Made Us, and The Holiday Movies That Made Us, among others.
The shows take a deep dive into how classic films like Dirty Dancing, Die Hard, Ghostbusters, and Elf came together — and unlike other documentaries, they're very funny.
Volk-Weiss tells ABC Audio this was very intentional. "I loved documentaries my whole life, like long before it was like cool and mainstream, and one of the things that I noticed was — and I always thought this was really weird — a lot of docs about jovial topics would have a tone more fitting, like- The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich or something. I'm like, "You're doing a doc about He-Man. What's with the horror movie music? It's He-Man. It should be fun."
The established producer, who has worked with the likes of Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, adds, "Up until Toys That Made Us, ninety nine percent of what I did was comedy, so all the people I know, all the producers, all the writers, all the researchers, they're funny people and they do funny work. So I just hired the people that I trusted and we just did what we always did, which was try to be funny."
However, we wondered one thing: Why is Die Hard in Movies That Made Us, and not its Holiday Movies cousin, if it is for many a quintessential Christmas movie?
"Take it up with my boss," Volk-Weiss laughs. "My boss's name starts with a big, bright red 'N' so you could you can talk to them about it, but I'm with you."
The Holiday Movies That Made Us is currently streaming on Netflix.
By Stephen Iervolino
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