Ruben Östlund Admits He Bought a Plane to Make ‘The Entertainment System Is Down,’ Cast Keanu Reeves as an Electrician and Says It’s About Today’s Society: ‘We’re Harming Ourselves and We Know It’

It follows passengers on a long-haul flight who are suddenly forced to confront their boredom when the entertainment system fails, as advertised by the title.

“Sometimes [the film] starts with a scene – like with ‘Force Majeure’ and that avalanche sequence. This time it started with a title. I was traveling a lot with ‘The Square,’ we were flying over the Atlantic and me and my wife were discussing that it would be an interesting set-up: What if all these screens stop working? Then we started to play around with it.”

“I would tell people about it and when you have a strong set-up, they share their stories. I stole them immediately – I don’t ask for permission. I didn’t know how it should stop working, though. One journalist told me about her flight: a man had a heart attack.