Followed is a horror movie from Global View Entertainment, starring Matthew Solomon as DropTheMike, a vlogger who takes his crew on a three day journey to the infamous and allegedly haunted Lennox Hotel. To read our full thoughts on the film, check out our review here. Following a successful opening weekend, the film recently expanded it’s theatrical run.
On Monday, June 21, 2020, we spoke with Antoine Le, the director of Followed in order to discuss the film’s past, present and future. Please enjoy our interview with the up and coming director.
Followed Director Antoine Le
The Illuminerdi: Hi Antoine, how’s it going?
Antoine Le: Hi Corbin!
Thanks for meeting with me today.
Yeah, no problem, thank you for having me on.
So I’ve got Antoine Le here, he’s the director of Followed. It’s a new horror movie that just wrapped up its opening weekend at drive-in theaters. For my first question, how do you feel having your first feature length film have its opening weekend come to a close. What’s that experience like?
The experience is amazing really. We were anticipating it to be in the traditional hardtop theater, but you know, I’d never been to a Drive-in, right? I went to it and having seen the movie there and seeing it underneath the sky, I thought it was amazing. So yes, it’s an experience I won’t soon forget, it is awesome.
On top of that, right now it seems like we hit number one at the box office over the weekend, so I think that’s a badge of honor that all of our cast and crew should wear. Again the numbers are not 100% recorded yet, it looks like we had the highest per-screen average in america, so I love it.
[This interview took place on Monday, afternoon, before the numbers were made official. Congratulations to Followed for reaching #1!]
That’s super exciting. So for all of the fans that are getting to see this movie for the first time, what is the biggest message or take away you would want someone in the audience to have after watching Followed?
So after watching Followed, not only do I want you to just look at what you see onscreen, but also question yourself. You’re watching a movie from the perspective of a vlogger right? So how truthful is that? You gotta ask yourself that right?
When you watch anything online, any YouTube videos, there’s many vloggers out there, you’re gonna say, “Hey what’s behind this scene, what’s it look like?” So that is something that I definitely wanted to be out there as well.
The film is constructed in a way that there are clues, there are things in there that [unintelligible]. The universe built out and hopefully the sequel will be able to flesh things out, and that’s something that I wanted to, you know, to put it out there. That hey, whatever that you guys are seeing, you’ve got to question yourself. “Am I seeing something that’s true, or is this staged? What’s behind this scene?”
Absolutely. One of the beautiful aspects of the film is that it is told through a series of vlogs, it’s one long screen recording. When I rewatched Followed, I found myself asking, “Did that actually just happen or is it possible that this was staged and just acted out by the crew?” Could it be that the DropTheMike team is making these bizarre unexplainable occurrences at the Lennox happen, or is it something that’s just truly paranormal? Additionally, you mention the sequel. I’m eagerly looking forward to it. I was so happy to hear that one was in development. Is there anything that you can tell us about what we can expect in a sequel?
So currently, myself, the screenwriter, Todd Klick, Matt Brewbaker, we are still just conceptualizing. We have kind of like a basic as far as the universe that we set out to be, to do it in. But we’re trying to figure out a way to do this well.
Now, one thing that we still are trying to figure out is whether or not we should make this in the same style as the first one, which is found footage. Or should we do more of a traditional filmmaking with a found footage element or vlogging element. That’s one of the biggest questions that were still trying to navigate through. But a lot of other questions will be addressed.
A big question when viewers watch the first film is “Hey, where do ghosts come from, what is this, what is that, what happened?” Hopefully in the sequel, we will be able to flesh things out and let you see that there is a bigger universe in this world, where this Followed thing takes place, rather than what they have just seen. So what the audience will be able to see from the first Followed is that it’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s more out there that needed to be expanded. And again, we’re still conceptualizing it within the team so hopefully, we’ll be able to let you guys know something else.
[Click on Page 2 for Followed’s Cinematic Inspirations and Spoiler Talk]
