Dreams are important.
Your dreams. Our dreams. And Steve’s dreams.
When we learned Steve was diagnosed with incurable liver cancer, we called and asked if there was anything we could do. “Well, actually…” he began.
You see, his dream was to one day perform stand-up comedy on David Letterman’s show…something he’d aspired to since he was 12 years old. Now he was running out of time. More than anything, he wanted to dedicate the rest of his life to chasing that dream.
That said…if he could wish for just one more thing…it would be to document his journey. “I’d like for people to know that dreams are important, and that we don’t always have decades to achieve them.”
As directors, our vision for the documentary started with a single statement:
This is Not a Depressing Cancer Movie.
There was no desire to make a movie that wallowed in the pain terminal illness can bring, was an indictment of the health care industry, or a conspiracy film that exposed “cancer cure cover-ups.”
As directors, the movie the two of us wanted to make was about a guy chasing a dream.
Dying to do Letterman, we felt, should be an underdog story about standing up to adversity, standing up to long odds…and standing for dreams. Claiming one’s right to chase a dream, no matter what.
And it should be funny sometimes. Steve’s a comedian, after all.
So we filmed for five years…
…and have boiled 300 hours of footage down to just 78 minutes.
Sure, we hope to bring Steve’s story to theaters everywhere, millions of viewers, and world-wide success. What filmmaker wouldn’t want that?
The truth is, no matter what happens, simply making Dying to do Letterman has already changed our lives. Because in the end, we not only made a movie about our friend, but we had a front row ticket to see someone chase their dream with beautiful abandon.
And there’s nothing more important than chasing your dreams.
Just ask Steve.