The Big Picture · Interview

Aneesh Chaganty on Leaving Google to Make 'Searching'

August 31, 2018/ 34 min/ Sean Fennessey

Sean Fennessey talks to Aneesh Chaganty the week 'Searching' opens wide: quitting his Google job for a movie told entirely on computer screens, writing a script that isn't a script, losing and re-landing John Cho, and shooting the whole thing in 13 days.

7 films across 1 segment.

AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.

In conversation

Aneesh Chaganty on

Searching 2018

His first feature, a thriller that plays out entirely on computer screens: John Cho's David Kim hunts for his missing teenage daughter through her laptop. Grew out of a Basilevs pitch to follow 'Unfriended' with a screen-based anthology; Chaganty and co-writer Sev Ohanian broke it open with a seven-minute opening montage he pitched as 'Up meets a Google commercial.' Shot in 13 days off a scriptment rather than a screenplay, then cut over a year and a half. Premiered at Sundance; Sony bought it 12 hours later.

Aneesh Chaganty on

Unfriended 2014

The earlier Basilevs/Timur Bekmambetov screen-based movie that seeded the pitch and became the comp Chaganty kept trying to escape; John Cho watched it before initially passing.

Aneesh Chaganty on

Up 2009

The reference point for the wordless prologue told through 17 years of a family's home computer; he pitched the sequence as 'Up meets a Google commercial.'

Aneesh Chaganty on

The Oath 2018

Sean caught Cho in a supporting role the day after screening 'Searching' and wanted more of him; opens that October.

Aneesh Chaganty on

Tigertail 2020

Named as a just-announced Cho project with Alan Yang, co-creator of 'Master of None,' as evidence Cho should be getting leads.

Aneesh Chaganty on

Run 2020

Chaganty's next feature, described here as an in-the-works contained thriller about a mother and daughter, shot with regular cameras in regular spaces.

Aneesh Chaganty on

Election 1999

His pick for the last great thing he'd seen: an old favorite he rewatched for Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor's framing, which he says he plans to steal for a thriller.

Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads

TV Master of None

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