Hinge, the dating app that promised a better set of prospects by suggesting matches who share Facebook friends, is about to radically change its course: it’s ditching its requirement that users log in with Facebook. The change will go into effect on Monday, June 5th on Android, followed by a June 12th release on iOS.
While the option to use Facebook won’t be fully removed, users will instead be able to choose to authenticate using their phone number, the company says.
The decision was prompted by ongoing requests from users who have asked for a non-Facebook login option, Hinge founder and CEO Justin McLeod says. This is especially important to the company as people “move away from Facebook and onto other platforms,” he notes.
This may refer to younger users’ preference for different social platforms, as reflected by a Pew Internet survey released this week, which found that teens are dumping Facebook proper for YouTube, Snapchat and (Facebook-owed) Instagram.
But Hinge isn’t the first dating app to go this route. Bumble also recently said it was removing the Facebook requirement, in response to user feedback.
In Hinge’s case, however, the decision changes the dating app’s fundamental value proposition, which was focused on matching singles with people they were already connected to by way of Facebook friends, up to three degrees away. The premise was that this would make online dating feel less creepy. And, because you shared mutual friends, you’d be less concerned that the person was a total nut.
This also helped Hinge stand out in a space that’s dominated by Tinder, which could often seem random and filled with those not in search of “real relationships,” let’s say.
Over the years, Hinge doubled down on this brand position with call-outs like “meet friends of friends, not randos” in its marketing materials.
Its user profiles, meanwhile, focus less on users’ looks – unlike the Hot or Not-ish Tinder. Instead, users answer getting-to-know-you questions and share fun, personality-revealing facts on their profile, along with photos and videos. But the goal is to present not just the person’s face or body, but their goals, interests, and way they view the world.
It’s unclear how well these moves have paid off for Hinge in the long run, as the company won’t share user numbers. It will only say the active member base has doubled since the beginning of the year. However, Sensor Tower estimates Hinge has more than 3 million worldwide downloads across both iOS and Android, 94 percent of which are in the U.S.
The removal of the Facebook requirement, not at all coincidentally, comes at an interesting time for dating app businesses in general, who have just learned Facebook now aims to compete with them directly.
In May, Facebook announced a new dating feature that would allow people to meet non-friends. Hinge took notice, as did others.
“Facebook Dating Looks a Whole Lot Like Hinge,” wrote Wired, for example.
“It’s interesting to see a company facing so many privacy concerns enter one of the most intimate spaces in tech today,” McLeod says of Facebook’s dating plans. “We’re flattered they chose to copy our designs, but ultimately we’re not worried about them as a competitor – our members are increasingly moving away from Facebook as a platform.”
Burn.
The updated Hinge app will offer users three ways to use Hinge: 1) they can continue to log in with Facebook as usual, 2) they can log in with their phone number, or 3) they can log in with a phone number, but use an option in the app to import select bio information from Facebook, for convenience.
After filling in the profile, users can disconnect from Facebook without losing the imported information, Hinge notes.
Hinge doesn’t believe the move away from Facebook as the underlying network will have an ill effect. Because of its robust profiles which allow for the liking of individual pieces of content, it thinks its machine learning algorithms have advanced to the point where they can surpass “friends of friends”as a predictor of compatibility, the CEO says.
“Friends of friends is a symbol for what Hinge truly stands for: humanizing modern dating and fighting against the culture of shallow swiping,” says McLeod. “As the Hinge community continues to grow and evolve, we’re not relying on a single feature to best match our members; instead we’ll remain at the forefront of product development and double down on giving our members’ the best offline experience,” he adds.
It’s not hard to get on board with Hinge’s overall vision, but its app is still dwarfed by Tinder, which is now estimated to have over 50 million users. Rival Bumble is growing as well, with some 22 million+ users. And since dating is ultimately a numbers game, Hinge needs the no-Facebook-needed policy to really boost its own.
According to the calendar, it’s somehow already June. That means Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference is just around the corner. As matter of fact, things kick off in San Jose on Monday morning at 10AM PT (1PM ET).
As ever, the main thrust of the show will be focused on developers — it’s right there in the name — but Apple also loves to use yearly spotlight as an opportunity to make some big announcements on the consumer side, as well. iOS and MacOS will no doubt be the focus of the show per usual, but ARKit, Home Kit, Watch OS and some hardware are likely to make strong showings at the event, as well.
Apple’s certainly surprised us before, but here’s our best (educated) guesses at what the company will be showing off in the next week.
iOS
The company dropped the latest update to its mobile operating system just week. 11.4 provides some key insight into the state of the ecosystem and, perhaps, a glimpse into where Apple is going as it continues to build connections between its various software offerings. The home was the key this time out, as the company added AirPlay and improved HomePod functionality, among others.
A glimpse at iOS 12 could well be on the schedule for Monday morning. From the sound of leaks, rumors and the like, this latest major upgrade is more about increasing the overall stability of the operating system, rather than focusing on the latest flashy features — including bug fixes and helping improve the updates introduced in its predecessor.
That said, there’s likely to be at least a few interesting new, consumer-facing additions to iOS this time out. NFC-based door unlocking is one of the more compelling rumors, this time around, bringing even more highly personal functionality to Apple’s handsets.
A bigger push into personal health seems like a no-brainer, given everything that Apple’s been focusing on with its wearable. Just this morning, word of a new digital well being features made the rounds, bringing into sharp focus the amount of time users spend on their devices. If “Digital Health” does get added here, it will join the likes of Facebook and Google in a push to give users more insight into their hardware habits.
MacOS
Apple’s desktop operating seems poised to get a little less love that its mobile counterpart, this time out — but honestly, what else is new? In fact, the biggest rumor on this front is the addition of so-called “Universal Apps,” which further blur the line between desktop and mobile. The system would essentially provide seamless syncing between apps on the two operating systems, allowing users to switch between devices, picking up where they left off.
WatchOS
In spite of a recent rename, Wear OS got virtually no love at Google I/O the other week. But Apple’s own wearable initiative has been a much more consistent success story for the company. While the company seems unlikely to actually show off a newer version of the watch itself, we’ll probably get a glimpse at Watch OS 5. What, exactly the wearable OS will look like, however, is strictly conjecture at the moment, though the long-awaited addition of Spotify has been rumored, and fitness features, as ever, seem like a no-brainer.
ARKit
Speaking of no-brainers, Apple could use some news on the augmented reality front, after a full year of hype. ARKIT 2.0 has been rumored for the event, bringing the ability for multiple users to share the same AR environment, to facilitate IRL multi-person games and other activities.
Hardware
This being a developer conference, hardware is never the primary focus for the event, but it always seems to sneak its way in. After all, Apple’s already got the eyes of the tech world on it this week, so why announce some new gadgets?
New MacBook Pros seem like a reasonable candidate for the event. New Intel processors under the hood are the likeliest addition on that front. And then there’s the whole keyboard bit. The new switches have been a headache for the company since they were launched back in 2016, including reports of increased failure rates and the looming specter of class action suits. Now would be the perfect chance for the company to introduce a new-new version of the QWERTY.
Rumors have always been floating around with regard to a new MacBook Air — a product that’s been MIA for some time now, particularly in the wake of the new standard MacBook. A cheaper version of the once revolutionary laptop is said to be coming at some point this year, and WWDC could be just the right launching pad.
iPhones seem pretty unlikely here, given the release schedule the company has adhered to, but much like the MacBook Air, the iPhone SE is due for a refresh. Perhaps the company will mix things up by tossing the four-inch iPhone into the mix.
AirPower is yet another wildcard. The company announced its all-device wireless charging pad in the fall, and we’ve not heard hide nor hair of it since, which is pretty unlike Apple. Maybe we’ll actually get a release timeframe this time out? Also potentially on the list are a refreshed iPad Pro, which was missing at Apple’s recent education event and a cheaper HomePod. The latter seems the least likely of the bunch, but Apple’s smart speaker will likely get some love this time out.
On the heels of Hulu’s news of its growing live TV business, which has now reached 800,000 subscribers, the streaming service today announced a major re-organization of it business focused on four strategic priorities, effective immediately. These include “the subscriber journey, technology & products, content and advertising,” says Hulu. The changes see three major execs departing: Chief Content Officer Joel Stillerman, Senior Vice President of Partnerships & Distribution Tim Connolly and SVP Experience, Ben Smith.
In addition, Hulu has hired two new executives to help it with its goals: CTO Dan Phillips, previously of TiVo, and Jaya Kolhatkar of Walmart Labs, who will claim the newly-created Chief Data Officer role.
Phillips had previously led TiVo’s engineering, product and professional services workforce of more than 1,000 members, and helped TiVo shift its business from being known only as a DVR maker, to a cloud services provider as well. He also previously worked at Uniscape, Crossworlds Software, and co-founded enterprise software company Metasystems, Inc.
At Hulu, Phillips will oversee a now unified Technology & Product organization, which includes engineering, Hulu’s data center operations, its network and broadcast operations center, I.T. and program management, plus product management, user experience, and product development.
Hulu’s Santa Monica, Seattle, Marin, and Beijing teams will report to Phillips, who’s based in Santa Monica, on his first day, June 4.
Meanwhile, Jaya Kolhatkar, previously Senior Vice President, Global Data and Analytics Platform for Walmart Inc., is being appointed to the newly-created executive management role of Chief Data Officer, which reports directly to CEO Randy Freer. She will also be based in Santa Monica as of July 2.
At Walmart, Kolhatkar oversaw a large global team responsible for its enterprise data warehouse, big data environment, real-time predictive analytics platform and business intelligence tools, Hulu says. She also previously held senior roles at PayPal, eBay and Amazon.
At Hulu, Kolhatkar will now be responsible for all Hulu’s data decisions, including customer intelligence and data governance, and will help Hulu make data-driven business decisions.
The “Subscriber Journey” priority – meaning everything from user acquisition to viewer experience and research – will be a focus for an expanded marketing organization, led by CMO Kelly Campbell, a Google marketing vet who joined Hulu last year.
Meanwhile, Hulu’s current SVP Experience, Ben Smith, will retire in July.
Smith had led the somewhat controversial revamp of the Hulu’s app, which saw the company retroactively responding to consumer complaints about the layout and organization of items in its user interface. It later rolled out updates to address some of these concerns, like a grid guide for live TV, for example.
The Content organization is also being re-organized into two groups, one focused on acquired on-demand and live content partners and another on Hulu Originals. Senior Vice President of Content, Craig Erwich, who will report to Freer, will run the Originals side.
Senior Vice President of Partnerships & Distribution Tim Connolly and Chief Content Officer Joel Stillerman are leaving Hulu as result of these changes, and Hulu is now searching for a new head of its Content Partnerships group. The Chief Content Officer role is being dropped.
“Ben, Tim and Joel have all played a significant role in getting Hulu to the strong position it is in today. They will forever be a part of Hulu’s success story, and we wish them the very best in their next endeavors,” said Freer.
The combination of live TV and subscription video on demand (SVOD) content licensing, acquisition and business functions, into a single organization reflects Hulu’s interest in making more unified deals with content providers, instead of addressing all live TV and SVOD content separately.
Hulu says it will also bring more premium add-ons to its service as a result. (It currently carries HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime.)
Hulu’s ad sales group will continue reporting to Senior Vice President of Ad Sales Peter Naylor, and Hulu’s shared services functions – Finance, Legal, Corporate Communications and Talent & Organization – will continue as usual.
This is the first major change to Hulu’s operations since Freer joined as CEO in October, replacing Mike Hopkins. It indicates a desire at Hulu to grow its business into even more of a major player, beyond the 20 million total subscribers it has today.
The company has benefitted from the increased exposure provided by its Emmy winning The Handmaid’s Tale, but has largely failed to establish itself as a truly viable competitor to Netflix, in terms of originals. Stillerman, who was president of originals at AMC and Sundance TV, had helped developed The Walking Dead, and its spinoff, and the Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul. But Hulu hasn’t had a series of its own hits of that scale.
The changes also come as the future of Hulu seems uncertain. With Disney’s proposal to acquire Fox’s TV and movie business, it would also gain its 30 percent stake in Hulu. Combined with its own existing stake, Disney would become a majority owner – that could be a concern for Hulu’s other shareholders NBCU and Time Warner. And Disney is launching a Hulu / Netflix rival of its own in 2019, muddying the waters even further.
“As one of today’s top direct-to-consumer entertainment brands, led by technology, innovation and data, Hulu has an enormous opportunity to lead the media and advertising industries into the future,” said Freer, in a statement. “By adding new expertise and capabilities to our executive ranks and creating greater alignment around our customers, we are positioning Hulu to grow more rapidly, innovate more quickly and connect consumers even more deeply with the content they love.”
Instagram users were missing 70% of all posts and 50% of their friends’ posts before the app ditched reverse chronological feed for an algorithm in July 2016. Despite backlash about confusing orders, Instagram now says relevancy sorting has led to its 800 million-plus users seing 90% of their friends’ posts and spending more time on the app.
Yet Instagram has never explained exactly how the algorithm chooses what to show you until today. The Facebook-onwed company assembled a group of reporters at its under-construction new San Francisco office to take lid off the Instagram feed ranking algorithm.
Instagram product lead Julian Gutman explains the algorithm
Instagram’s Feed Ranking Criteria
Instagram relies on machine learning based on your past behavior to create a unique feed for everyone. Even if you follow the exact same accounts as someone else, you’ll get a personalized feed based on how you interact with those accounts.
Three main factors determine what you see in your Instagram feed:
Interest: How much Instagram predicts you’ll care about a post, with higher ranking for what matters to you
Recency: How recently the post was shared, with priortization for timely posts
Relationship: How close you are to the person who shared it, with higher ranking for people you’ve interacted with a lot in the past on Instagram, such as commenting on their posts or being tagged together in photos.
Then three additional factors that influence rankings are:
Frequency: How often you open Instagram, as it will try to show you the best posts since your last visit
Following: If you follow a lot of people, Instagram will be picking from a wider breadth of authors so you might see less of any specific person
Usage: How long you spend on Instagram determines if you’re just seeing the best posts during short sessions, or it’s digging deeper into its catalog if you spend more time browsing.
Instagram Mythbusting
Instagram’s team also responded to many of the most common questions and conspiracy theories about how its feed works:
Instagram is not at this time considering an option to see the old reverse chronological feed because it doesn’t want to add more complexity but it is listening to users who dislike the algorithm
Instagram does not hide posts in the feed, and you’ll see everything posted by everyone you follow if you keep scrolling
Feed ranking does not favor the photo or video format universally, but people’s feeds are tuned based on what kind of content they engage with, so if you never stop to watch videos you might see fewer of them
Instagram’s feed doesn’t favor users who use Stories, Live, or other special features of the app
Instagram doesn’t downrank users for posting too frequently or other specific behavior, but it might swap in other content in between theirs if they rapid-fire separate posts
Instagram doesn’t give extra feed presence to personal accounts or business accounts, so switching won’t help your reach.
Shadowbanning is not a real thing, and Instagram doesn’t hide people’s content for posting too many hashtags or taking other behavior
Apple is fixing one of the worst parts of the concert experience: waiting in line for a beer while you miss your favorite song. Last week’s BottleRock music festival near San Francisco was the first to try a new ‘order ahead with Apple Pay’ feature that Apple hopes to bring to more events. You just open the festival’s app, select the closest concession stand, choose your drinks, Apple Pay with your face or fingerprint, and pick up the beverages at a dedicated window with no queue.
Check out our demo video below.
BottleRock’s upscale wine & oldies music fest, 100 miles from the tech giant’s headquarters, has become a testbed for Apple Pay. Last year, every concession stand got equipped with the Square’s Apple Pay-ready point of sale system and special fast lanes for customers who used it instead of cash or credit card. 30% of all transactions at BottleRock were made with Apple Pay, according to an Apple spokesperson, proving people wanted a faster way to get back to the show.
With order ahead, your drinks are ready for pick up so you don’t even have to break your dance stride. Having gone to 14 Coachellas, I’d learned to forego booze rather than risk losing my friends or a chance to hear that hit single while stewing in the beer garden lines. But Apple Pay powered the best concert commerce experience I’ve had yet. I’m sure I’m not the only one who knocked back a few more drinks last weekend because it was so convenient.
That’s why I foresee music festivals jumping at the chance to integrate order ahead with Apple Pay into their apps. They and their vendors will see more sales, while attendees see more music. Meanwhile, it’s a smart way for Apple to reach a juicy demographic. Apple Pay is especially helpful when you’re in a rush, but festival goers will return home more likely to use it day-to-day.
Often times, music festival tech like friend finding apps and location-based alerts can interrupt the moment. Apple Pay succeeds here by fading away, keeping you in harmony with the present.
Lyft is getting close to acquiring Motivate, the company responsible for Ford GoBike in the San Francisco Bay Area and Citi Bike in the New York City area, The Information reports. The deal will reportedly be worth at least $250 million.
Lyft declined to comment and Motivate wasn’t available for comment at the time of publication. This deal would put Lyft ahead of Uber in terms of bike-sharing. Uber bought bike-share startup JUMP, a dockless, electric bike-share service, earlier this year for about $250 million. JUMP’s footprint is currently much smaller than Motivate’s, but Uber is certainly working to grow Jump’s presence.
Photo by MRD/TC
In April, Motivate deployed electric bikes in San Francisco. Once JUMP’s 18-month pilot program with the city is up next June, we can expect to see companies like Motivate, Lime and Scoot apply to deploy their own dockless bikes in the city.
Just this month, for example, Scoot launched its take on dockless, lock-to electric bikes in Barcelona. Scoot CEO Michael Keating told me he wants to deploy in San Francisco, but currently can’t due to the exclusive permit the city has with JUMP.
What’s happening right now is that both Uber and Lyft are aggressively trying to become multi-modal transportation companies. That means they no longer just want to offer ride-hailing, but seek to become a one-stop shop for all your transportation needs. Uber, however, is a bit ahead of the game at this point, given its recent partnership with public transit company Masabi, car rental service Getaround, active deployment of electric bikes and plans for uberAIR.
TechCrunch is building an epic Disrupt SF (September 5-7) and we’re proud to announce another major building block for the show, this one in line with TechCrunch’s Include program and the Justice/Diversity track at Disrupt.
The recently launched All Raise will run a three-part workshop for women founders over two days at Disrupt SF. In case you missed the news, All Raise launched in April thanks to the efforts of 36 women partners at venture firms committed to promoting diversity among “funders & founders.”
“Our mission is simple — to accelerate the success of female funders and founders,” All Raise co-founder Aileen Lee wrote on Medium. “We believe that by improving the success of women in the venture-backed tech ecosystem, we can build a more accessible community that reflects the diversity of the world around us.”
All Raise will organize the following activities for female founders at Disrupt SF to participate in.
On Thursday, September 6, All Raise will hold a roundtable workshop for women founders at Disrupt SF with the opportunity to participate at one of 12 tables, each representing a major challenge facing female founders. Richly experienced mentors, including Aileen Lee (Cowboy Ventures) and Susan Lyne (BBG Ventures), will lead discussions on topics, including: fundraising, recruiting strategies, company culture, sales and marketing strategies, board/investor management, M&A and more.
The roundtable participants will discuss their experiences as well as strategies for success.
After 90 minutes discussing those topics, the workshop will shift to an AMA with select All Raise leadership. Workshop participants will have a chance to ask the top women in venture questions about whatever is top of mind.
On Friday, September 7, All Raise will host Female Founder Office Hours at Disrupt with 18 or more All Raise VC and founder mentors. All female founders at Disrupt may apply for a 30-minute session. There will be 108 sessions over three hours.
Here’s how to participate:
Buy a pass to Disrupt SF. All pass types have access to the All Raise workshop and office hours, but a Founder pass provides access to all of the show’s vast programming, networking and several other female-focused activities to make the most of Disrupt SF.
Can’t swing a pass? All Raise has 50 available to distribute. Apply here.
Eligible pass holders will receive an email from TechCrunch as we get closer to the event with information on the All Raise workshop and office hours, including:
When and where to go to attend the roundtables and AMA on Thursday — first come first serve. (Any female founder is welcome.)
Apply up for Office Hours on Friday. (Open to all female founders; applications will be reviewed by the All Raise team to select those founders who might most benefit from an Office Hours session.)
There are many reasons to attend Disrupt, including three days of programming and workshops across four stages, the hugely successful CrunchMatch founder-investor matching service, Startup Alley exhibit area and, of course, the legendary Startup Battlefield competition.
Thanks to All Raise, Disrupt has another fantastic attraction, this one designed specifically for female founders.
Less than a month after announcing its “hateful content” and “hateful conduct” policy,Spotify is backing down from one half of the equation. Following staunch criticism, the company has issued updates to its guidelines, noting that the roll out arrived in contrast to the company’s own longstanding policies.
In a news release the company acknowledged that the initial implementation was “too vague,” creating confusion around precisely what shape it would ultimately take.
“We created concern that an allegation might affect artists’ chances of landing on a Spotify playlist and negatively impact their future,” the service writes. “Some artists even worried that mistakes made in their youth would be used against them.”
The “hateful conduct” aspect focused on issues involving artists’ personal lives, and Spotify also appeared to make a point to single out two musician — R. Kelly and XXXTentacion — in the process. CEO Daniel Ek apologized for that latter bit earlier this week and noted that the policy is continuing to evolve, as rumors surfaced that XXXTentacion’s music would be added back into curated playlists.
The company also clarified the “hateful content” part of the equation, while noting that it would continue to bar songs that fit the bill. “As we’ve done before, we will remove content that violates that standard,” Spotify explains. “We’re not talking about offensive, explicit, or vulgar content – we’re talking about hate speech.”
Spotify also promised to continue working with artists and advocates, in order to continually shape the policy.
If you’re in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or Atlanta, you’ll soon be able to play mini golf (or putt-putt, as some people apparently like to call it) and learn about the Google Home product range in the meantime. Sounds like a corporation’s idea of a good time.
“We wanted people across the country to feel the magic of what Google Home can do in an environment that’s slightly more exciting than your typical living room,” a Googler connected with this project says in the announcement video. “Everything you can do here, you can do at home,” another Googler says. “We just took your home, and put it into a mini-golf course.”
Unsurprisingly, part of the gimmick here is that you have to talk to the Google Homes spread across the course to navigate the obstacles. You can also “win stuff,” which seems to involve lots of Google-branded socks and Home Minis. And it’s all family-friendly, of course.
The New York course is now open for business, with the other cities following in short order. You can reserve your tee time here.
All joking aside, Google is clearly riding the positive news around Home right now, which includes the fact that Google Homes are now outselling Amazon’s Echo devices. It still doesn’t want to talk about its creepy Duplex Google Assistant demo at I/O earlier this year, but feel free to ask the Google Home devices at the Google Home Mini Golf course about that.
Bonus: If you live in Portland, just come to Twin Pines Country Club and play some putt-putt without all the corporate branding, because that place is about as Portland as it gets — and it’s free, too.
Upgrade tells the story of a Grey Trace, a man in the near future who’s left quadriplegic after a car accident and mugging.
Following an interlude that sees Grey struggling with his new disability, an experimental computer chip called Stem is placed in his spinal cord, which it doesn’t just allow him control of his limbs again — it turns him into something close to a superhero, ready to track down the men who paralyzed him and murdered his wife.
The film, which comes out today in the United States, may sound like a straightforward revenge plot, but it was written and directed by Leigh Whannell, who’s best known for writing Saw and Insidious. (More recently, he made his directorial debut with Insidious 3.) He explained that he wasn’t interested in turning this into a superhero movie. Instead, he wanted to tell the “Taxi Driver version” of this story.
Without getting into details, it’s fair to say that Upgrade doesn’t feel that far removed from Whannell’s horror films. It also includes plenty of visceral action scenes and touches on bigger questions about our relationship with technology.
I met with Whannell in New York City last week to discuss the film, and an edited transcript of our conversation follows. There’s one passage that gets a little spoiler-y, but I’ll warn you so you can skip ahead.
Whannell shot Upgrade in his hometown of Melbourne, Australia, so we started off by talking about the rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne.
Leigh Whannell
Leigh Whannell: I’ve lived in L.A. for 12 years now, so I no longer care about Sydney-Melbourne. We shot this film in Melbourne but we actually edited in Sydney.
I was in Sydney for a few months and I absolutely loved it. I insisted on living in an apartment on Bondi Beach, which was not practical at all to the location of the editing room, but I didn’t care because I was like, “Look, if I was going to walk on ice, then I’m going to tap dance.” If I’m going to live in Sydney, I want to live on Bondi Beach.
TechCrunch: So the big science fictional idea of Stem, where did that come from?
Whannell: The idea really just came into my head, the way all my ideas do. It’s a very random process, and in its randomness it’s frustrating, because I feel like I’m always trying to think of movie ideas. And most of the ideas aren’t good, and they instantly get filed away in the drawer for terrible ideas.
Every now and again, something will pop into my head when I’m driving or I’m in the shower, you’ll just get an image and it stays with you. It doesn’t have to be much, it doesn’t have to be a story, it could just be an image. But it won’t leave your head and that’s when you know you’ve got something.
That’s how this started. It wasn’t like I read a magazine article about where tech is going. I was in my backyard, I remember that, and it was a nice day like this, and I just suddenly had this image of a quadriplegic in a wheelchair who stood up out of the chair and was being controlled from the neck down by a computer. That image and that scenario wouldn’t leave my head and I started reverse engineering a story into it. I kept writing away and making notes and then, cut to many years later, I’m sitting here talking with you.
Whannell: So the exoskeleton that helps people with paralysis walk and move, this movie is the internalized version of that, where it goes one step further and there’s nothing exterior. It’s a chip.
It has been interesting to watch the world catch up to my script. Because when I wrote the first draft of this script, automated cars and smart kitchens were still science fiction. And in the ensuing years, they’ve become ubiquitous. I mean, my wife’s car parks itself and talks to her. And my daughter thinks it’s perfectly normal to have a voice talking to her in the kitchen, and she asks it to play songs and it does. So in a way I feel like I’m living in the world of the movie I wrote all those years ago.
TechCrunch: And when was that?
Whannell: God, the first draft was probably at least six years ago.
TechCrunch: You said a lot of ideas will come to you, and you’ll think: Some of these are bad, some of these are good. Obviously, you’re known for horror, so in this case, when you think of a science fiction idea, does that create any trepidation?
Whannell: There was a bit of trepidation on my part as I was gearing up to direct the movie. Not so much when I was writing it. But I started to worry about science fiction fans because I’m very well-versed with horror fans, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet a lot of them, I feel like I’m in that community, and I was a horror fan myself. But I realized that science fiction has its own community of these staunch fans who pick apart things like Star Trek and Star Wars. And I did remember having a moment where I thought, wow, are they going to see this and think that I’m a fraud, that I’m a tourist in this world?
I’ve just gone through a two week trip around the country, screening the movie in different cities, and afterwards I’ll always chat to people. And in the acceptance of the movie, I realize that these genres, they’re not the province of any one type of person. What I feel like science fiction fans respond to is just people trying to hit them with something new, something they haven’t seen. And if you do that you’ll be okay.
TechCrunch: When you were directing, did you feel like you were using a different skillset?
Whannell: The mechanics of making a horror film are so specific that I obviously wasn’t using any of that. Those quiet moments in a horror film where you really lean on the anticipation of things, this movie wasn’t using any of that. But I felt like some of the rhythms and filmmaking beats that I’d learned in horror, I think they’re just naturally ingrained in me.
So, for instance, I liked creating moments of silence that were suddenly punctuated by action. And I think I must be subconsciously looking for that vocal reaction that you get from a horror film. It’s almost like I was putting those horror beats into a sci-fi context: Build, build, catharsis. Build, build, catharsis. So maybe that’s in there, just ingrained.
[Skip the next few paragraphs if you don’t want to be spoiled for an early scene in Upgrade, as well as the general direction of the film.]
TechCrunch: That’s certainly true to my experience. For a lot of it I was incredibly tense, and the moment when his head gets cut open, I just screamed.
Whannell: [laughs] In the operation?
TechCrunch: No, in the first kill.
Whannell: Ah, yes, the Pez dispenser!
TechCrunch: God, yeah. That was very upsetting.
Whannell: If you look at that scene and you analyze the structure, there is kind of a horror-esque metronome to it, where it’s quiet, it’s tense, and then there’s an explosion of something.
And in watching it, it’s been interesting to see that that scene gets a vocal reaction. It’s not the same reaction that a horror movie gets, that sort of scream in the audience, but it’s almost like an adrenaline rush, and when he gets up off the floor, I see people clapping along. I’m like, “Oh cool, this is a spectator sport, they’re getting into it as participants.”
TechCrunch: When I read the description of the film — obviously, the marketing is emphasizing this dystopian, almost horrific element, but you still think, “Oh, he’s basically going to become this superhero, and there’s maybe going to be this dark side to it, but it’s still going to be this ultimately triumphant story.” Whereas throughout the whole film, there’s this darker undertone that feels very different.
Whannell: I feel like the superhero version of this movie where somebody is given something — a power or a computer chip, whatever it is — that’s been done, especially in this age we live in, it’s been done a lot. So I found what was more interesting was to do the Taxi Driver version of this, to do the version where you realize the bad guy is in your body and the fight is not between you and external forces. It’s actually two entities fighting over the same physical body. That was interesting to me.
[End spoilers]
TechCrunch: One of the things you also mentioned in the press materials was this idea of having the freedom of an independent film but also having the scope of a larger science fiction film. I don’t know what the budget was, but I assume it wasn’t Avengers-scale.
Whannell: [laughs] Very low.
TechCrunch: What was the overall approach you took to saying, “Well, we don’t have all that money but we’re still going to try to build a world that has scope”?
Whannell: It’s just been a real goal and a dream of mine to do that. To make a movie that enjoyed the worldbuilding of sci-fi but took advantage of the creative freedom of an independent. The problem is that one is supposed to cancel the other out. You’re supposed to need studio money if you’re going to go off and make the future-set action movie. So I really was trying to have my cake and eat it, but I was obsessed with doing it.
As a model, I used ‘80s sci-fi films that I grew up with. I used the original Terminator as a great example, because if you really study that movie scene-by-scene, the science fiction and the tech is doled out very judiciously and sparingly. It’s kind of this lean-and-mean, slash-and-stalk movie that is dressed in this sci-fi skin. And I loved that.
I feel like, if they can achieve that sort of sleight of hand in the ’80s, then we could do it now. Especially with the new advantage that they didn’t even have back then of CG. We could use CG to augment some of the scenes. We couldn’t go bananas with it, but we could utilize it at certain moments. And I guess I’m too close to the movie, I’ve spent too long with it to know if we really succeeded, but I’m hoping that audiences feel like they’re watching a bigger movie, you know? That they’re part of a bigger world.
TechCrunch: Right, and there’s a couple of things in the beginning that feel very big —
Whannell: Like, here’s the world!
TechCrunch: Which, if I go back clinically and watched it, I would see that those are doled out very strategically. But it does the job. And it also is an interesting constraint because it means that in a lot of the other scenes, you have one or two science fictional elements, but you’re using primarily a real world location or set, rather than a created world.
Whannell: Absolutely, and that was something that was a very conscious decision. Not just budgetary, but a creative decision for me was: Let’s set this movie in the very near future. Let’s build a world that the audience can see themselves in.
Also, the world doesn’t change completely overnight, it happens incrementally. In 30 years time, you’ll still have buildings from the 1800s in New York City. They’re not going to knock them down and build a glass tower. So what you’re going to end up in 30, 40 years is a landscape in Manhattan that is the future sort of jammed on top of the past and it’ll be this hybrid.
And people will still be driving older cars! That’s another thing that you see in a lot of future movies, all of a sudden everyone on the road is driving the future car. And I’m like, well no, there will still be people 20 years from now driving around in early ’90s Hondas, crappy cars, you know? That scaling of the world was important, but a bonus prize was that it helped us budgetarily.
TechCrunch: You mentioned that this is something that you started writing six years ago. In that time, the technology has evolved, but also the ways in which we talk or think about disability, and the ways we talk about being quadriplegic or paraplegic has changed. To what extent was that part of your research, things like talking to disability activists?
Whannell: I didn’t talk so much to activists. When I was writing the film, I wanted the idea that a chip could cure paralysis, I wanted that to be a tangible thing and I talked to a surgeon and he said, “Look, what you’re talking about is hypothetical, but in theory, it could be done. That gap between our brain and our nerve endings could be bridged by a computer.” And that was great to walk away with, the knowledge that the tech was credible.
Certainly when we were preparing to shoot the film, we took the quadriplegic side of it very seriously. Logan [Marshall-Green], who plays Gray, he worked with a guy who was a quadriplegic who was nice enough to spend a lot of time with Logan, share his life with him, talk to Logan, let Logan see what his daily rituals were like, let him actually use a chair.
And Logan had a lot of integrity about that. He felt he owed this gentleman that he had worked with the responsibility of portraying that realistically, and he was really watching it, the way he held his hands. It’s not a long moment in the film that he spends as a quadriplegic, but it was important for us for that moment to have as much integrity as anything else in the film. Especially with something that in real life, people are experiencing. You don’t want to push back at them some wonky cinematic version of the real thing.
TechCrunch: Part of what I’m getting at is, is there’s this opening image that you mentioned of him rising out of the chair. It’s this incredibly moving scene for him because you’ve been through all of these terrible things with him. But at the same time, you can imagine somebody who is quadriplegic watching the film and you don’t necessarily want them to look at themselves and think —
Whannell: Them thinking, “Oh, you’re presenting this as triumphant, as if that’s much better.” Yeah, that’s interesting, that is part-and-parcel of putting films out into the world, isn’t it? The world reflects back at you and I think you just have to take those slings and arrows. Nothing was done with any malice.
And I don’t think we were trying to present the idea that quadriplegia is this hellish situation that only being able-bodied can cure. What I think we were doing is speaking to the story of a guy who hates technology becomes technology. The way that we were enabled to do that in the story was through his condition, his quadriplegia. So it’s the result of an accident, he’s given this chip, and now he’s completely reliant on it, you know? It’s totally a story point for us.
TechCrunch: And again, without getting into too many spoilers, you said that this is the Taxi Driver version of the story. How much of that was trying to express your own concerns about people becoming more automated?
Whannell: I think a lot of it. First and foremost, I’m trying to tell this genre story, I’m trying to build a unique movie. And then the themes and the questions of the film sit underneath it.
But I have a foot in both camps with technology. Especially in researching the script and reading books by Ray Kurzweil and authors that talk about the Singularity and the point at which humans and tech will merge. Because I didn’t want to make a robot film. A robot film has been done before and I wasn’t really interested in that. I was interested in human beings putting tech into their bodies voluntarily. That was something I felt I hadn’t seen a lot of.
Through my research and reading these books, I saw both sides. I saw the wonderful side of our reliance on tech in regards to medicine. If we can install something in our bloodstream or our bodies that cures cancer, that’s obviously going to be an amazing, wonderful thing. But there’s the other foot in the other camp, which is our overreliance on automation. I’m wondering if our cars do the driving for us and our kitchens do the cooking, are we actually designing ourselves into irrelevance? That’s an interesting road to look down. It seems to me the human instinct is to always make things easier. We’re always leaping towards convenience: “Oh, wouldn’t it be better if a machine could do that?”
I’m wondering where that road ends. The movie was definitely a reflection of that, too.
TechCrunch: The last thing I’m going to ask, which I think I’m sort of required to ask, is to what extent is this meant to be a completely standalone experience? Have you thought about a potential sequel?
Whannell: I haven’t. The thought enters my mind and I push it away. Because this is an independent film, and it’s really hard in today’s media landscape to get people to pay attention to things. We’re releasing the movie in summer, surrounded by giant movies. I can’t imagine what the marketing budget for the new Han Solo movie is. To compete against that is almost foolhardy, so I feel like planning a sequel is an assumption of success that I’m not ready for.
Sitting there being vexed about where to go with a sequel would be a great problem to have.
TechCrunch: Well, it certainly doesn’t feel like a movie that was written with a sequel in mind.
Whannell: No, it definitely wasn’t. I remember when James Wan and I did the first Saw movie, a lot of people would say to us, “Well, you left the door open for a sequel.” And we would say, “No, we literally closed the door!” We thought it was a nice ending. Little did we know that the producers had other ideas once the film was a hit.
To us, the ending to that movie, in our opinion, was the very definition of a cut to black, no more story. But then we got a lesson in commerce.
Over the years, Hinge doubled down on this brand position with call-outs like “meet friends of friends, not randos” in its marketing materials.
