The year is 1996, in Waterloo, Ontario, a city in Canada. Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and his business partner and best friend Douglas Fregin (Matt Johnson) are close to creating the world’s first smartphone. Struggling to keep their company in the business, Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton) agrees to join the company; as he sees the future with their new product, he also has the money and experience needed to create and sell a much-needed prototype of their invention. Most know the BlackBerry phone had a short run-life, yet most don’t know the entire story of its humble beginnings, the key players, the launch, and its growth to a billion-dollar operation. Sadly, most know of the demise, as the Apple, iPhone, tweaked the idea several times, especially in size, to mainstream the product, thus seeing a rapid decline in BlackBerry sales.
The film is directed by Matt Johnson, and co-written by Johnson and Mathew Miller, with beginnings in 2017 when asked by Niv Fichman, the President of Rhombus Media, created an adaptation of the bestselling book “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of Blackberry.” Johnson. “Johnson recalls,” The Blackberry was the status symbol of the early-2000s, and at the beginning of the social-media era, it made you part of a group. The BBM perfectly captured that, like you can’t talk to somebody on BBM unless you both have Blackberries, it opened up a new way of communicating, way before Instagram DMs or Snapchat.”
The more Johnson and Miller learned about the early days of Lazaridis’ company, Research in Motion, the more they came to identify with its culture and the environment the engineers worked in. When adapting the book, Johnson and Miller attempted to stay true to the story while also bringing their own unique storytelling perspectives and experiences to the film.
Recently, Matt was in Chicago with his film, “Blackberry,” which screened at the Music Box Theater on May 5, during the Chicago Critics Film Festival, of which I am a member. Matt spoke with me after he introduced the film.
Hi Matt, I want to thank you for making the BlackBerry movie because I learned so much from your film! I know you are between screenings at the moment, so let’s get to the fun questions.
Sarah Knight Adamson:
How many headbands did you use in the making of your movie?
Matt Johnson:
Actually, just one, and I tried to get it as worn-looking as possible. I would like to roll it in grease and roll it on the ground. And I never ever changed it. I wore the exact same one.
SKA:
Oh, that’s too funny. So what color was it?
MJ:
The color studio slightly tinted the film. It’s bright orange. I tried to make it almost exactly the same color as Michelangelo’s headband in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
SKA:
Oh, I thank you for that. I love that story. That was great. What did you find alarming about the creation and demise in your research?
MJ:
I’m being completely honest; I need to say that I knew nothing, literally nothing, about this story, before I cracked open that book. And so luckily, because I also wrote the script, everything that I found alarming, I put in the movie. There were some things that I couldn’t put in the film because of the runtime. There’s a really interesting story about 9/11, believe it or not. It was one of the things that really shaped the early days of Blackberry’s business is that right after 9/ 11, all of the networks crashed in New York and DC, and the only networks that were working were Blackberry Networks. So Jim, very shortly afterward, offered the American government a massive deal on blackberries, as they would always be working no matter what happened. They took that deal and basically mandated Blackberry use in the Senate and Congress. That was a huge, huge business for Blackberry.
SKA:
Oh, that’s fantastic. Thank you for that. My husband was in Monte Carlo at the Insurance Rendezvous. And he had a BlackBerry, and he did call it a CrackBerry.
MJ:
Yeah, it was very common.
SKA:
We were in Paris in 2002, and at a nightclub; he was so addicted to it, he had it out typing on it. At the same time, no one else in the club had one that I could see. He left it on our table next to me, and when I turned around, it was gone. Someone had stolen it.
MJ:
Well, it was that CrackBerry people wanted it.
SKA:
Have you heard of that before? Are people stealing them?
MJ:
No, in fact, that’s the first anecdote of a theft I’ve ever heard in my life. But it makes total sense. I’m not shocked by that.
SKA:
Your film is a really sad story. But the humor was such a big help for me to get through, as I’m always rooting for business and creativity. What scene did you especially enjoy?
I loved every scene when all three of us (Douglas Fregin), Glenn Howerton (Mike Lazaridis), and Jay Baruchel (Mike Lazaridis) were in the same room. So that first diner scene when we first meet him. (Glenn) And he says that I want to take over your company. I love that scene. I think it’s so funny.
I also love the scene when he (Glenn) returns from lunch with Carl Jankowski and says that we must sell a whole bunch more phones. And I challenge him, and we kind of have a head-to-head. I think that scene is hilarious. It was the moments when the three main actors were in a room together that I loved because I just found them to be so funny.
SKA:
Oh, that’s great. Yes, they were so funny! What are you most proud of for your country of Canada in making this film? I honestly had no idea that Canada was involved.
MJ:
It’s that we were able to make a hit product with the BlackBerry. That really revolutionized telecommunications around the world. And so few people know about it because we’re so humble. And two, I’m proud that we’re finally getting the story of these guys out into the world because, as I said, Canada’s kind of a shy country, and we don’t celebrate our heroes really at all.
I’m happy that people are going to know who these guys are, and they’re going to know what they did and hopefully think twice when they pick up their iPhone in terms of the genesis of
what got it there?
SKA:
I was just curious, how did BlackBerry get its name?
MJ:
Well, that’s in the film, it’s in that moment where they pitch it and Saul Ruben says, so what’s it called? And the camera zooms in on the blackberry stain on Mike, where he had dropped a bunch of fruit on his shirt. Mike was an inveterate fruit eater, and the name rolled out of that.
SKA: Thanks
Thanks, I remember the shirt part for sure! I’ll let you get back to your audience. What message are you hoping that your audience will take away from your film?
MJ:
I don’t know about a specific message, but I hope that when they watch it, they consider what it means for them to go to work every day. Why do you work? What brings you to work? Which of these three men embody your principles best? Or are you combining all three of these principles? Which is it? Are you going to work to accumulate power and money? Or are you going to work because you find it really fun and you like hanging out with your friends? Or are you going to work because you want to make the world a better place? Or maybe you have a vision of perfection? I think any one of those answers is actually valid. For me, it was my way of wrestling with those three motivations inside myself.
SKA:
I really enjoyed your film. I just thought it was fabulous, and I just want to wish you the best of luck. Hopefully, I’ll see you during the Critic’s Choice Awards.
MJ:
Yeah, I hope so too. Thanks
Sarah Knight Adamson@May 5, 2023