Since it was announced in May 2023 that Mike Flanagan would be tackling yet another piece of Stephen King’s literature and turning it into a feature-length production, fans have been stoked. The hype only continued to grow over the next few months when names like Tom Hiddleston, Karen Gillan, Mark Hamill, Matthew Lillard, and more were tossed onto the expansive call sheet. The movie recently celebrated its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September to a roaring audience clamoring for Flanagan’s take on the novella. By the time TIFF came to an end, the hype surrounding The Life of Chuck was at a fever pitch, with the film taking home the festival’s coveted People’s Choice Award.
The honor is a huge one, but is especially impressive for The Life of Chuck as, at the time, it wasn’t backed by a distributor. Now, the movie has an official release window for summer 2025 through NEON, but last month that wasn’t the case. During a recent conversation with The Life of Chuck star Kate Siegel, for a new installment of Collider Ladies Night, Perri Nemiroff got the insider scoop about why the movie’s win was such a big deal. First off, Siegel admits that she and Flanagan, who is also her husband, “slept through” the announcement, adding:
“Listen, here’s a little inside baseball: The TIFF audience award isn’t a paper ballot. You just vote for it online with an email address. So, let’s imagine that a
studio wanted to pad the ballot box
and pay a bunch of people to spend hours voting for a movie because they know that that award makes certain people think certain things. If that was something you wanted to do, it is possible.
Chuck
would have never done that because
it didn’t have a studio
, and so it’s even
wilder
to think that it won.”
Kate Siegel Explains That “Chuck Will Always be a Movie For Audiences”
After nabbing the impressive honor, the movie quickly became the title on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Critics took to Rotten Tomatoes, giving it an 85% rating, while the first reviews, like one from Collider’s Jason Gorber, praised the latest from Flanagan. As far as Siegel is concerned, there are both pros and cons to the wave of acclaim that followed The Life of Chuck from its TIFF debut. She told Collider:
“What happened was, I think, a positive and a negative in the sense that
Chuck
will always be a movie for audiences
. It
sweeps
audiences and I’m so excited for it to do that, but now it has a certain expectation that maybe it didn’t have before…But
I think it lives up to that expectation
. I think the people I talk to think that, as well. But yeah, we slept through it. We had no even vague concept of that. We weren’t in the Variety’s top 10 of possibilities.”
You can check out the full interview with Siegel in the latest Ladies Night video below.
This story, told in reverse order, begins with the death of Chuck at 39 and moves backward through his life, uncovering significant moments that shaped his existence. As the narrative unfolds, it explores themes of memory, fate, and the connections that define a person’s life.
- Release Date
- September 6, 2024
- Runtime
- 110 Minutes
- Main Genre
- Drama
- Studio(s)
- Intrepid Pictures , QWGmire
