Director Ari Aster on ‘the movie that Twitter wrote’

Director Ari Aster on ‘the movie that Twitter wrote’

Mixed Signals from Semafor Media · 2025-07-18

Ari Aster, the filmmaker behind Hereditary and Midsommar, is out with a new movie today called Eddington. The new film is a modern Western placed in the height of lockdown during the 2020 pandemic, where the real villain is digital media. This week, Ben and Max bring on the writer and director to talk about why he decided to make a film set during Covid when the rest of Hollywood is running in the other direction, how his relationship with social media led to Eddington, and how researching for the film made him more empathetic to conspiracy theorists. Plus, Ari reveals which Marvel movie he turned down.

Sign up for Semafor Media’s Sunday newsletter: https://www.semafor.com/newsletters/media

For more from Think with Google, check out ThinkwithGoogle.com.

Find us on X: @semaforben, @maxwelltani

If you have a tip or a comment, please email us mixedsignals@semafor.com

Mixed Signals from Semafor Media

Every Friday media reporter Max Tani and Semafor Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith pull back the curtain on the most important stories about media, revealing why you see and hear what you see and hear.

Mixed Signals from Semafor Media is supported by Think with Google.

Where can you listen?

Apple Podcasts Logo Spotify Logo Podtail Logo Google Podcasts Logo RSS

Episodes