From Screen to Page
The Oscar-winning film directors known as “the Daniels” also have a book to their name, and it’s every bit as fantastical as the movie it’s based on.
Directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert at the 95th Academy Awards where their film Everything Everywhere All At Once won seven Oscars including Best Picture. (March 2023). Photo by Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert swept last year’s Academy Awards with Everything Everywhere All At Once, an exhilarating depiction of the multiverse and the realities of life for one immigrant family being audited by the IRS—all while the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Accepting Best Picture honors after a standing ovation during the 2023 Oscars ceremony, Kwan pointed to interconnectivity as humanity’s primary secret power, saying, “The world is opening up to the fact that genius does not stem from individuals like us on stage but rather genius emerges from the collective. We are all products of our context. We are all descendants of something and someone.”
(Left) Promotional poster for Everything Everywhere All At Once. Courtesy of A24. (Right) The Wang family visits the IRS office in Everything Everywhere All At Once. (L-R) Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Michelle Yeoh, James Hong. Photo by Allyson Riggs / Courtesy of A24.
Channeling the playful profundity of the film is its companion book, A Vast, Pointless Gyration of Radioactive Rocks and Gas in Which You Happen to Occur (A24, $52), which takes on a wild multiplicity of stories and the cosmos itself. The hypercreative book-making approach taken by the Daniels and editor Meg Miller, who collaged together the musings of writers, scientists, and illustrators included in the volume, echoes the film’s freeform mix of genres and visual mediums. The book even includes pages of a script with an alternative introduction, adding to the film’s array of potential scenes and settings. It’s a perfect gift for fans of the film and anyone with existential wanderlust—not to mention lovers of beautiful books who will covet its shimmery cover and the bold, galactic design inside and out.
“This is what this book is here for. Not to give you a few quick science lessons on quantum physics or M-theory. It is here, in the absence of answers, to play with the possibilities.”
A24 is one to watch in the book world, wowing audiences with not just Oscar-winning films, but also standout book publishing. First launching with hardbound screenplay books for films like Moonlight and Ladybird, they now publish a wide range of coffee-table-worthy books that companion beautifully, but that also stand resplendently alone from their onscreen counterparts. There’s On the Dancefloor (a visual spin through some of cinema’s most iconic dance scenes), Can I Ask You A Question? (a book of photographs, interviews, and reflections from legendary casting director Jennifer Venditti), For Promotional Use Only (a quirky catalog of Hollywood artifacts from film’s most excessive era), and even children’s books (including two by EEAAO’s Daniel Kwan). All are richly-envisioned rewards for those whose path through the multiverse inevitably leads to the movies—and to beautiful books.
Look Inside the Book
About the book
A Vast, Pointless Gyration of Rocks and Gas in Which You Happen To Occur
Edited by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert