Sam Esmail, director of Leave the World Behind, has recently clarified the extent of former President Barack Obama’s involvement in making the apocalyptic film.
The nature of the end of the world flick has led to many conspiracy theories surrounding its themes, which have been amplified by the Obamas role in the film.
After leaving the White House, Obama and his wife, Michelle, formed Higher Ground Productions, which signed a deal with Netflix to produce for the streamer.
While Leave the World Behind is the most recent film to emerge from the years-long collaborations, Esmail has been forced to address Obama’s specific contribution.
“I think the silly thing about the whole thing is President Obama really came on a couple of months before we started shooting, so the script had basically been written and done,” he told Collider.
“He obviously gave notes on the script, but the bones of the story and the sequences were already written. I would just say they’re pretty wrong in terms of his signalling. It had nothing to do with that.”
He continued: “Because President Obama is such a movie lover, he really focused his notes on trying to cinematically portray what was in the book in a really interesting way.” He explained the novel on which it was based, Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel by the same name, was on Obama’s reading list.
“It’s one of his favourites, and he really wanted to do justice by the book and this theme about mistrust and this being a cautionary tale about what could happen if we don’t have that community or bond that holds us together,” said Esmail.
“He really gave notes with regards to character, empathy, and also the disaster elements. It was really across the board. And again,” he clarified: “It was all in pursuit of making it into a good movie. That was his main focus.”
