To be frank, Book Club: The Next Chapter is not the type of film that I'd usually find myself watching. With the likes of Downton Abbey: A New Era (a fellow Focus Features release) and 80 for Brady coming out in the last year, it feels like the subgenre of films targeting a slightly older demographic than my own has seen a surge. And like A New Era, I thoroughly enjoyed The Next Chapter.
Led by four of the most iconic actresses of all time — Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen — The Next Chapter continues the story of the four ladies as they travel for a girls' trip to Italy. Don Johnson, Andy Garcia, and Craig T. Nelson all return as their characters from the first film as well. It's the perfect film for Mother's Day, but it's really a film for anyone as I've come to learn. Before you scoff at this 22-year-old who's a self-proclaimed “old soul,” give it a watch and tell me you aren't at least entertained by it.
ClutchPoints was able to chat with The Next Chapter power couple made up of Erin Simms and Bill Holderman. The duo co-wrote the film and the latter directed the feature. We discussed their New York City premiere — which I happened to walk past on my way to see Bono at the Beacon Theatre, transitioning from Paramount to Focus Features for the second Book Club film, and potential ideas for a third film in the series.
ClutchPoints: I was actually in New York City the other night and I was walking past Lincoln Square and I saw the AMC theater and I saw this white tent and I wasn't sure what was going on. I peeked in and I saw the logo for Book Club: The Next Chapter. I didn't catch a glimpse of any of you guys or the stars, but assuming you were both there, what was that experience like for you guys?
Erin Simms: We were there [laughs]!
Bill Holderman: Yes, we were definitely there. That was our premiere [and] all four ladies [Diane Keaton; Jane Fonda; Candice Bergen; Mary Steenburgen] were there. The first movie premiered in Los Angeles, which was really fun and exciting. I think we did post [production] in New York, so there was something special about being back in New York City with all of our post team and all the ladies and it was pretty — it was a great night.
CP: You said that you premiered the first Book Club in LA, and I actually was curious about this because in New York there's only so much space in the city, right? So what does an LA premiere look like compared to a New York one?
BH: I think the main difference is in LA, there's more space just in terms of a bigger carpet, so the press can be a little bit more spread out. But the truth is, the event and the afterparty was at Tavern on the Green, and I don't think I've ever been to a premiere party that was better than this one.
ES: It was like a wedding [laughs] — it was unbelievable.
BH: They went all out, so that was pretty amazing.
ES: Yeah, so our theater was smaller in LA on the first one. We were in Westwood and it was like a 1,400-person theater. That's not happening here [in New York City]. But the party was just incredible [smiles] — I didn't even see half of what was going on there by the end of the night.
CP: That sounds amazing — are you both still in New York or did you go back to LA?
Both: Still in New York.
BH: Happily — [we're] very happily still in New York.
ES: We love it here. No, no disrespect to LA, [we] just love visiting New York. Love the energy. Love walking everywhere.
CP: I was curious about the relationship between you guys. I don't know how long you guys like known each other, so I was curious if you two started working together first or if you knew each other first.
ES: Well, we definitely were working together first. I'm Canadian — I'm from Montreal — but I was living in Vancouver [and] had just moved there to work in the industry. Bill was working for Robert Redford and was producing a movie that he was filming in Vancouver. And I interviewed to be Redford's assistant. And so Bill actually interviewed me first, really gave me the gears, grilled me [laughs], and then I got through that interview and got to meet Redford and I ended up getting the job. So we worked on that movie together, and he can correct me if I'm wrong, but they had just let somebody go at their company in LA for development.
And once we had made the movie together in the four months and had the great experience, I was sort of like, “Well, I'm 30-whatever I was, do you have more experience than being an assistant? Maybe there's something more here,” because we all got along so great and Redford offered me the job. I moved to LA and we worked together for a few years before “dating,” as they say [smiles]. So that's what happened.
And it was at the company that we had the idea for Book Club because we were working for Redford and we were actually trying to think of movies for him to play a romantic lead again because he had been doing a lot of political thrillers and stuff like that and we both felt his fan base would wanna see him back as, you know, “proper” Redford. Anyway, we ended up leaving the company and making it elsewhere. But that was the initial impetus for creating that movie.
CP: I didn't realize this until recently, but the first film actually made over $100 million at the box office. I was surprised because it's not a comic book movie, so congratulations on that, but because you were so involved, did you guys expect it to be such a smash hit?
BH: I don't think we expected it to go as big as it ended up going, but I think we felt having been inside, as Erin was saying, you know, we had worked for Redford's company, I'd made a few movies that were targeting this demographic and you could feel that there was an untapped market here. And truthfully too, [there was] the untapped market of [the] audience, but also an untapped amount of talent sitting with these actors who just weren't getting jobs. And so for us, I think we believed in it more than anyone else did. I don't think we would've said it was gonna go and make $106 million — maybe Erin would not.
ES: I did! I mean, maybe I was an idiot, maybe I was naive, but I 100% believed that it was gonna be huge, and I kept kind of banging that drum [of] “You guys are wrong — this is going to be huge,” mainly because I was a huge fan of The First Wives Club and I could give you a list of movies and all of those movies made over $100 million, it's just that nobody was making it. And these were my favorite actresses and I wanted to see them on the screen and I believed that because I felt so so aggressive about it, I had a sense that other people would as well. So I wasn't as surprised as you would think I should have been.
CP: Before getting fully into The Next Chapter, I noticed watching the first one that it was a Paramount release, and then the second one is Focus Features — so that's two separate companies. And I was wondering for you guys being so involved in it, what does that shift kind of look like? I know it happens with movies, but from an outsider's perspective, it seems like it'd feel like changing schools.
BH: I mean, it was honestly just a matter of timing. I think the whole executive team at Paramount, after the first movie, had left, Jim Gianopulos and his whole production team had left, and the company that financed the movie was this company that was Endeavor Content at the time, and they're now Fifth Season, were controlling the rights. Paramount had an option on it, [and] it expired during the transition and so Fifth Season took it back to the market.
Truthfully, there was a tremendous amount of interest from all the other studios because, like you were saying, I think it surprised a lot of people that it the business that it did, and ultimately, Hollywood, they chase dollars and so we had the opportunity to go to another studio and, lucky for us, Focus came in and the team there is absolutely incredible and loves the movie and believes in the movie.
So, yeah, it's a little strange on one hand, but on another hand, we were very lucky to sort of fall into another family that just loved us and we loved our Paramount team and Focus has filled those big shoes.
ES: Unfortunately, there's no scandal.
Both: [laugh]
ES: But, I mean, it is strange to move studios. I mean, I think it really was Jim Gianopulos leaving and probably having a lot of other things on his mind than the option for Book Club, and c'est la vie, as they say.
BH: The nice thing for us, the big driver for this sequel even before the first movie came out, was the cast. And this is a movie built around its cast. Obviously those four women, they are Book Club, both on and off screen — they're the heart and soul of it — and I think the fact that they were so excited to get back in and work together again and make another movie with us was the highest compliment for a filmmaking team that can be paid. It's the first time Jane Fonda ever reprised a role in her incredible, storied career, which is another huge compliment.
Studio shift aside, I think the fact that they all came back with such enthusiasm and were so excited to come back and make this movie was a testament to the experience on the first one. And frankly, I think the experience on the second one even exceeded that.
CP: I will touch on the cast in a moment, but Bill, you mentioned that you'd done some films like Book Club that were for a similar demographic, and Erin, you're a woman, so I was curious about writing this type of film. You guys are both young, yet you're writing a film for a demographic that is a little bit older and that also has the female gaze given that this is a female-centric film series. So I was curious about the challenges of writing something like that.
ES: Well, I mean, I don't know if it's embarrassing to Bill, but he has an incredible ability to understand women. Nobody knows why. I think he understands women better than I do a lot of the time [smiles]. But for us, yes, we are not that age yet, but we've had a lot of experience being around people who are older, who are incredibly ambitious and smart and talented and all these things, and you realize they're just like us — the [age] number is higher.
I think ultimately, you're just a human being. I don't think your brain changes as drastically as we think when you get older. It's like you're still kind that teenager in your head, still have the dreams, you still have the passions, the desires, and we've had a lot of people come up to us being like, “That's how we are! That's how we talk!” It's like, yeah, because I'm still gonna be me 20, 30 years from now and I'm still gonna have the same kind of perspective on life. I'm just gonna be a little wiser, have more experiences [laughs], but I think oftentimes in movies like this, we project like that you don't know how to use a phone [when you're older], you don't how to do anything and everybody has to help you and you're kind of like this useless thing on the side and we don't subscribe to that.
BH: I think ultimately for us, these stories, age aside, they're really about human experience and it's about shedding light on some element of humanity and the relationships that we all have. And I think they are relationships that people in their teens and twenties and thirties and forties and fifties have, and then they are relationships that continue on if you're lucky in your sixties and seventies and beyond. So for us, it's rooted in a very human story. But I think, yeah, a lot has been discussed about that.
Ultimately, too, we have a great arbiter of truth in that our cast, they're the ones that have to breathe life into the words we put on the page. And if there's anything that they ever feel [is out of place], we're extremely collaborative with them and love them, and they're so smart. They have so much experience both on and off screen. If anything ever feels like it's a false note for them, we talk about it and we make sure it doesn't so everything feels really authentic. It's a great governor for us. But luckily, it's rooted in humanity and it connects.
ES: I'll also say though, for me, I mean I come from Montreal and obviously there are a lot of great people in Montreal, but there's like a little bit of a vibe of you get a certain age and everybody kind of goes in the same direction. Obviously, there are some standouts, but when moving to LA and getting out and meeting other people, there were a lot of women that inspired me to realize there are other ways to live, there are other ways you can still take chances. Book Club was me trying to inspire other women and help them realize that there's a lot of opportunity out there if you want it.
CP: I wanted to ask you guys about the cast — I usually play this game with composers, asking them to describe their score in three or fewer words, but for you guys, you have four amazing leads in your Book Club films and I was curious if you could describe working with each of them in three or less words.
BH: To me, it's one word. It's inspiring.
ES: For all four, or are we doing each one individually?
CP: Oh, you could have done it individually, but if you wanna just do all four that's fine as well.
ES: I think we should do each woman. That's a lot of pressure, though.
BH: Oh my gosh. I like it.
ES: Let's start with Diane.
BH: Really? Go for it. What do you got?
ES: Wonder. I've never met anyone like her! So what's a word that would describe it? [She] just reminds me that not everybody's the same. I don't know…unique? Wild…
BH: Artistic — it's a lot of words [smiles].
ES: Yea, whatever [smiles]. Unique, artistic, and wild.
BH: Who's next? Go for it.
ES: Candice Bergen.
BH: Oh my gosh. Hilarious.
ES: Witty.
BH: Night-shoot. Those are my three words to describe her [laughs].
ES: Teenager! She's a teenager at heart. Teenager, witty, and hilarious. Jane Fonda?
BH: Inspiring [and] wisdom.
ES: Beauty, but inner beauty. Everyone always talks about her outer beauty, but I would talk about her inner beauty.
BH: Mary [Steenburgen]! Heart — has to start with heart.
ES: I mean, she is love. She's so talented!
BH: They're all inspiring. They really all are, truthfully, and I don't know — it is such a complete and utter embarrassment of riches.
ES: But [for] Mary, I would also say risk-taker. She's a much bigger risk-taker than people understand — she's always pushing and trying new things, it's just not as reported on. She's a real risk-taker.
CP: That was great. You two put so much more effort into that than most and I think those are the best answers I've gotten. So Book Club: The Next Chapter takes place in Italy, I imagine shot on-location, and if so, I wanted to know if you guys had any sort of fun memories from that set, whether it's with your cast or if it's just you two.
BH: Well, we shot the entire thing in Italy.
ES: We lived there for like five months.
BH: Even the stuff that is set in Los Angeles was shot in Italy. We recreated some of our sets from the first movie on-stage at Cinecittà [Studios]. Truthfully, going to another country with the cast, it's a little bit like camp and you all get to hang out together a lot more than you do if everyone's at home in Los Angeles going back to their houses at night. So, to me, the fondest memories are really the dinners that we all got to have together. I remember a year ago yesterday was Candice Bergen's birthday [while we were] in Italy, and we had a nice, fun dinner and surprised her.
ES: We did a big dinner and we all went to the Sistine Chapel for a private tour together. That was awesome.
BH: Yeah, that was pretty special. But truthfully too, it's work, but I heard Jane Fonda say this, the blur between vacation and work was hard to decipher sometimes. And like shooting on the Spanish Steps or shooting on the Grand Canal with these icons in these iconic places was, it's, I don't know, I don't think it gets better than that. So that was the memory that I will carry forward, and then cacio e pepe.
ES: Yeah, a lot of pasta. But you're standing on the edge of the Canal, as he's saying, at like 11:00 PM and the full crew and Candice in a boat [with] Giancarlo Giannini, one of the most famous actors in Italy, and you just have to ask yourself: “How the hell did we get here?” [laughs] And it's hard not to be very grateful. And he said it from the very beginning, we went out for dinner, we were in prep, we had a long day and we went down the Spanish Steps to a restaurant and the meal was incredible [laughs]. It was like melted cheese and something all over chicken, and he just said, “I am pre-nostalgic — I'm already nostalgic for this experience.” We hadn't even started shooting [laughs], so that's what it felt like.
CP: And I know you jokingly kind of described going to Italy as camp, so if you had to pick one person, it doesn't have to be from your main cast, but if there's one person from the crew or cast who would be like the counselor of this camp?
BH: Inti Carboni! Our first A.D. (assistant director) [was] absolutely camp counselor. He [was] the tour guide, he is Italian, [he's a] genius, he's everything.
ES: And our executive producer, Trish Hoffman, would be the events coordinator [smiles].
BH: She's social chair for sure.
ES: [laughs]
BH: Enzo Sisti, our other executive producer, is an absolute magician — we [always] tell this great story. We were shooting the scene where Jane Fonda's on the phone, it's supposed to be in Central Park, but we shot it in [Italy], and we were shooting at the same time [that] Fast X was shooting.
ES: They literally were around the corner.
BH: And they were shooting something where they had a helicopter — I think they were shooting some second unit [sequences], but we're not sure — but the helicopter kept coming over our set and we couldn't get our sound [and thus] we couldn't get the scene. And so, Enzo, by the way, this is I think day one or day two, and Enzo is like, “Let me take care of it.” He calls the line producer from Fast X and in Italian basically says, “Give us 15 minutes so we can get our scene” and next thing we know, we hear the chopper takes off, we get 20 minutes, no chopper around, and get to finish our scene [smiles]. And that's the power of Enzo Sisti.
CP: That actually sounds like an amazing crossover, by the way, if you do a third Book Club movie.
ES: Completely!
BH: A hundred percent.
CP: Speaking of another film, I know you guys are probably gonna say “We'll see what happens with the second one and how successful it is,” but let's just talk hypothetically, like let's just say this is another smash hit — which I hope it is — and you get a third Book Club film, should you wanna do it, is there anything that you'd like to explore in that film? Maybe a new location or just another storyline? Or maybe bring in Robert Redford?
BH: Yeah, I mean, we've talked a little bit about it. I mean, Candice Bergen has a lot of ideas — she was the one that came up with [Italy] for the second one — but I think mixing up the genre a little bit would be really fun. We love the idea of adding a murder mystery [storyline] or adding some other [story] born from like an Agatha Christie book or something like that.
Candice's pitch is, no matter where else we go, it has to open at Burning Man. So that's something that may happen — who knows?
ES: I think really, we wanna get a great book for the third one. I do think a murder mystery would be incredibly fun for them and us. So maybe less about location and more about what kind of hijinks we could get them into.
Book Club: The Next Chapter will be released on May 12.
Follow Us
Subscribe