Michael Giacchino's Short Film 'Monster Challenge' Starring Patton Oswalt Is Available Online Now

Two years after Michael Giacchino's directorial debut premiered at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Monster Challenge finally stalks online today. The short film, which stars Patton Oswalt playing himself as an unwitting participant of a series of outrageous challenges inspired by Japanese game shows, is available to watch online now.

Monster Challenge originally premiered in 2018 at Fantastic Fest, but hasn't been available online. But that has all changed. The long-awaited directorial debut of renowned composer Michael Giacchino, who has won an Oscar for his score for Pixar's Up and has composed for everything from Mission: Impossible movies to Jurassic World, is available to watch online now.

The short film, which runs 13 minutes, stars Oswalt as himself, leading a cast that includes Dermot Mulroney, Amy Brenneman, Taishi Mizuno, Ann Madox, and Teruko Najakima.

Here is the official summary for the short film:

Famed composer Michael Giacchino catapults a hapless Patton Oswalt (as himself) into an outrageous series of challenges in his infectiously silly tribute to the eccentricities of Japanese game shows.

Monster Challenge marks a long-awaited directorial debut for Giacchino, who initially set out to become a filmmaker. Giacchino has long talked about wanting to be a filmmaker first, even majoring in film production at the School of Visual Art, before he fell into music scoring after a stint at Julliard. His interest in filmmaking began all the way back since he was a 10-year-old boy, when he would make stop-motion animated films and set those experiments to his own homemade soundtracks.

It only took 40 years, but now Giacchino is finally realizing his dream of becoming a filmmaker. And with the online premiere of Monster Challenge, he has what every filmmaker dreams of, in this time of social distancing and self-quarantines: a captive audience.