Matt Johnson Opens Up About the Claustrophobic Shoot of ‘Tony’ and Whether Studio Films Are in His Future

Matt Johnson Tony film has built a career on turning constraints into creative fuel. From the micro-budget ingenuity of The Dirties to the period-specific analog texture of Operation Avalanche and the corporate-tragicomedy precision of BlackBerry, the Canadian filmmaker has consistently transformed limited resources into singular cinematic experiences. But his latest project, Tony, pushed him to a breaking point he hadn’t anticipated.

In a wide-ranging conversation with IndieWire, Johnson pulled back the curtain on a production that tested his endurance, his collaborative instincts, and his relationship to the filmmaking process itself. The director described feeling “trapped” during the shoot — a word that carries weight for someone who has historically thrived inside tight creative boxes.

A Different Kind of Pressure

Unlike his previous features, which Johnson wrote, directed, produced, and often starred in, Tony placed him in unfamiliar territory. The film — details of which remain closely guarded — demanded a level of sustained intensity and logistical complexity that outstripped even the ambitious practical effects of Operation Avalanche or the boardroom choreography of BlackBerry.

“There were days where I genuinely didn’t know how we were going to get the next shot,” Johnson said. “Not in the fun, problem-solving way. In the ‘we might not finish this movie’ way.”

That vulnerability marks a departure from Johnson’s public persona as a filmmaker who makes impossibility look like a strategy. The “trapped” feeling, he explained, stemmed not from external interference but from the sheer weight of responsibility — every department, every decision, every compromise ultimately landing on his shoulders.

The Safdie Intervention

Enter Josh Safdie. The Uncut Gems and Good Time co-director has become something of a consigliere for a certain tier of intense, process-obsessed filmmakers. Safdie and Johnson share a mutual admiration society rooted in formal audacity and a willingness to make audiences uncomfortable.

According to Johnson, Safdie’s advice arrived at a critical juncture — mid-production, when the director was spiraling. The core of it was disarmingly simple: protect the performance, everything else is negotiable.

“Josh told me, ‘If the acting is real, the movie will be real. The lighting, the coverage, the schedule — that’s all noise. Don’t let the noise win.'”

It’s the kind of counsel that sounds obvious in retrospect but requires a peer who’s survived similar crucibles to deliver with authority. Safdie’s own productions are legendary for their controlled chaos; his validation carried weight because it came from lived experience, not theory.

Johnson credits that conversation with reframing his approach to the remaining shoot days. He began delegating more aggressively, trusting his department heads to solve technical problems while he anchored himself to the actors. The shift didn’t make the production easy, but it made it survivable.

The ‘BlackBerry’ Afterglow and What It Changed

Context matters here. BlackBerry (2023) was Johnson’s breakout into mainstream critical consciousness — a film that premiered at Berlin, garnered rave reviews, and proved his idiosyncratic style could work at a slightly larger scale without dilution. The film’s success opened doors that The Dirties and Operation Avalanche had only knocked on.

But success brings its own pressures. Industry expectations, agent conversations, and the inevitable “what’s next” meetings all carry implicit demands for escalation. Bigger budgets. Known actors. Studio partnerships. The machinery of Hollywood advancement.

Johnson is candid about the temptation. “You sit in rooms with people who have real resources, and they say, ‘We love your voice, we want to protect it, here’s $20 million.’ And you think: okay, but what’s the catch?”

The catch, in his experience, is rarely explicit. It accumulates in notes, in casting suggestions, in schedule compressions, in the thousand small surrenders that turn a singular vision into a committee product. Johnson has watched peers navigate this transition — some successfully, many less so.

Scale vs. Control: The Real Calculation

When asked directly whether bigger Hollywood films are next, Johnson’s answer is neither a yes nor a no — it’s a framework.

“The question isn’t budget size. The question is: who has final cut? Who chooses the DP? Who decides when we wrap each day? If the answer to those is ‘me,’ then I’m interested. If the answer is ‘we’ll work it out,’ then I’m not.”

This clarity distinguishes Johnson from filmmakers who treat indie cred as a stepping stone. His entire body of work — including his television series Nirvanna the Band the Show — has been an exercise in building and defending creative sovereignty. The “trapped” feeling on Tony was, paradoxically, a product of that sovereignty: he chose the difficult path, and he owned the consequences.

Studio filmmaking, by design, distributes those consequences. For a director whose process relies on improvisation, on-the-fly rewriting, and a blurry line between production and post-production, that distribution can feel like amputation.

What Tony Represents

Details on Tony remain sparse — no distributor announced, no festival premiere confirmed, no release window. That silence is intentional. Johnson has historically preferred to let finished work speak rather than trade in anticipation.

What’s clear is that the film represents a pivot point. Not necessarily in genre or tone — Johnson’s work has always resisted easy categorization — but in his relationship to his own methodology. The “trapped” sensation forced a confrontation with limits he’d previously navigated intuitively.

“I used to think my process was just ‘how I work,'” he reflected. “Now I see it as a set of choices. Some of those choices served me. Some almost killed this movie. Knowing the difference — that’s what I’m taking forward.”

The Safdie Model: A Template?

Josh Safdie’s career trajectory offers one possible roadmap. After Good Time (A24, ~$2M budget) and Uncut Gems (A24, ~$19M), the Safdie brothers have maintained final cut and creative control while accessing progressively larger resources. Their partnership with A24 — a distributor that functions more like a patron than a traditional studio — has allowed scale without surrender.</p

Johnson acknowledges the parallel but resists the comparison. “Josh and Benny have each other. They’re a unit. I’ve always been the sole driver. That changes the math.”

It’s a crucial distinction. The Safdies’ shared authorship provides built-in checks and balances, a second perspective in the foxhole. Johnson’s solo authorship means every crisis is his alone — and every victory, too.

Industry Watchers Weigh In

Festival programmers and sales agents who’ve tracked Johnson’s career see Tony as a potential inflection point. “Matt is one of the few filmmakers whose voice is genuinely unmistakable,” said one prominent programmer who requested anonymity to speak candidly about industry dynamics. “The risk isn’t that he makes a bad studio movie. The risk is that he makes a competent one — something that works perfectly and feels like nothing.”

That fear — competence as erasure — haunts a certain tier of auteur. The system doesn’t always destroy vision; sometimes it sands the edges until the shape is unrecognizable.

What Comes Next

For now, Johnson is in post-production on Tony, applying the hard-won lessons of the shoot to the edit. He’s also developing multiple projects — some at scales that would require studio partnership, others designed for the controlled independence he’s cultivated.

“I have scripts that need $30 million and scripts that need $300,000,” he said. “The question isn’t which one I can make. It’s which one I should make next.”

That deliberateness — the refusal to treat progression as inevitable — may be Johnson’s greatest asset. In an industry that rewards momentum over judgment, he’s willing to wait for the right conditions. The “trapped” feeling on Tony wasn’t a failure of planning; it was the cost of ambition. Whether he pays that cost again, and under whose terms, remains the open question defining his next chapter.

One thing seems certain: Josh Safdie’s number is still in his phone. And the next time the walls close in, the advice will be the same — protect the performance, everything else is noise. Whether that wisdom applies inside a studio system designed to amplify noise is the experiment Johnson may or may not choose to run.