When You Finish Saving the World (film)

From his bedroom home studio, high school student Ziggy performs original folk rock songs for an adoring online fan base. This concept mystifies his formal and uptight mother, Evelyn, who runs a shelter for survivors of domestic abuse. While Ziggy is busy trying to impress his socially engaged classmate Lila by making his music less bubblegum and more political, Evelyn meets Angie and her teen son, Kyle, when they seek refuge at her facility. She observes a bond between the two that she’s missing with her own son, and decides to take Kyle under her wing against her better instincts. In his carefully observed, aesthetically pleasing directorial debut, Jesse Eisenberg adapts his audio project of the same name to tell the story of a mother and son who fail to understand each other’s values. With gentle humor and pitch-perfect dialogue, When You Finish Saving the World reflects a moment of internet fame and youth activism, but it also recounts the timeless tale of parents and children struggling to connect across the generational chasm that separates them.

— Sundance[2]

• Julianne Moore as Evelyn Katz
• Finn Wolfhard as Ziggy Katz
• Alisha Boe as Lila
• Jay O. Sanders
• Billy Bryk as Kyle
• Eleonore Hendricks

On April 9, 2020, Jesse Eisenberg, Finn Wolfhard, and Kaitlyn Dever were cast in the Audible Original When You Finish Saving the World, written by Eisenberg.[3] The story was told from the perspective of three family members, at different stages of their lives, with the audio drama released on August 4, 2020.

Additionally, the audiobook was planned to be adapted into a comedy-drama movie, When You Finish Saving the World, with Julianne Moore and Wolfhard set to star as mother and son, directed and written by Eisenberg with Moore, Emma Stone and Dave McCary producing under their Fruit Tree production banner.[1] The film adaptation was to take place in the present day and focus on the mother and son relationship, while keeping other details the same, such as Ziggy's mother running a shelter for victims of domestic violence, which she does in the audio version as well.[4]

In August 2020, it was announced that A24 was set to finance, produce and distribute the film.[5][6] It marks Eisenberg's feature film directorial debut.[7][8]

Moore and Wolfhard were confirmed as cast as mother and son, respectively, in April 2020.[1] Billy Bryk, in December 2020, and Alisha Boe, in January 2021, joined the cast in undisclosed roles.[9][10]

In November 2020, pre-production took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico,[7] while production began in January 2021,[11] followed by principal photography in February 2021.[12] Filming concluded in March 2021.[13]

The film is set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2022.[14]

• When You Finish Saving the World at IMDb