J.J. Abrams and David Robert Mitchell Explain Why The End of Oak Street Is About More Than Mystery

One intriguing thing about The End of Oak Street is the way it combines an ambitious genre premise with a family at its center. In my recent interview, producer J.J. Abrams and writer-director David Robert Mitchell discussed what drew them to the project, from the characters at the heart of the story to David’s approach to letting audiences experience a film rather than simply explaining it.

For J.J., it was the family at the center of David’s screenplay that first made him want to keep reading.

"What I loved about the script from the very beginning was that I saw there was a family, and each one of these characters was dealing with something," J.J. said. "They each had some kind of struggle, some kind of secret that they were wrestling with."

J.J. was also drawn to the combination of those characters with the film’s more unexpected elements.

"It really is a family story that was compelling and made me want to keep reading," he said. "Then it went into this kind of wonderful genre direction." He described the combination of the characters and the film’s "unlikely and impossible and crazy" elements as "the special cocktail of what David created."

David, meanwhile, spoke about what interests him as a writer and filmmaker, particularly the experience he wants audiences to have while watching his films.

"I guess there are the things that are interesting to me as a writer, as a filmmaker, and also just as a viewer," David said. "Sometimes the why is not always as interesting as what happens, as what it feels like to experience it."

For David, that means allowing audiences to experience a range of emotions rather than focusing solely on exposition.

"It’s about allowing the audience to feel suspense, to feel joy, for moments of humor and terror and all these things," he explained. "Sometimes the expository nature, the why, is just a little less interesting to me."

With The End of Oak Street, both J.J. and David offer two different perspectives on what makes a story worth experiencing: the people at its center and the emotions it can create along the way. 

Watch the full interview with David Robert Mitchell and J.J. Abrams.

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros. PH.