By Ramona Saviss By Ramona Saviss | December 1, 2021 | People,
PHOTO BY NICOLE CALDWELL
ON THE HEELS OF HIS LATEST FILM, NETFLIX’S RED NOTICE, THE WRITER AND DIRECTOR TALKS ABOUT HELMING ONE OF THE BIGGEST FEATURE FILM COMMITMENTS BY NETFLIX, THE STATE OF COMEDIES TODAY, BEING A GAMER AND HIS NEXT PROJECT.
As the writer and director, how did you come up with the idea for Netflix’sRed Notice? I’ve always loved heist pictures and swashbuckling actionadventure films, and Red Notice kind of became a way for me to get to blend and play with those genres in one globe-trotting, fun movie. Big action, big stars [Gal Gadot, Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds], big laughs—big budget!
Let’s talk about the big budget. Did you know Red Notice was going to be one of the biggest feature film commitments by Netflix to date, at $130 million? I knew that the movie wasn’t going to be cheap—that’s for sure. When your three leads are each above-thetitle stars, you know you’re going to need to deliver the goods, and I worked my ass off writing the script—draft after draft—to ensure that the film we were making together would warrant not only the budget but the talent we’d attracted. The tricky thing narratively, when you’re dealing with three giant movie stars, is that you don’t want to waste their talents. You need to make sure that each character has something to do, something to contribute, not only in every scene that they’re in, but throughout the entire movie. [The film] is a crowd-pleasing movie, built to entertain the world: young and old, men and women, left and right. Everyone’s welcome.
Writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber on the set of Red Notice, his film for Netflix. Budgeted at $130 million, the project was one of the network’s most expensive film projects to date. PHOTO COURTESY OF NETFLIX
What can you tell us about your next film? Right now, I’m hard at work on The Division, [a feature film adaptation of the record-breaking Ubisoft video game of the same name]. We’re in the midst of writing the draft and looking to start shooting early in 2022. I’m incredibly excited about it, especially at the prospect of getting to work with Jake [Gyllenhaal] and Jessica [Chastain]. They’re unbelievable talents and I’ve been a huge admirer of their work. I can’t imagine a better cast for the movie.
PHOTO COURTESY OF NETFLIX
Is there a challenge to adapting a video game into a feature film, and were you a fan of the video game before taking on this project? I know folks have struggled adapting video games into feature films many times before, and I can see why; they’re two fundamentally different forms of entertainment and narrative, but it’s easy to not see that and confuse the two. The way one experiences and enjoys a great video game is completely different from the way one experiences and enjoys a great film, so it makes sense to me that they’d prove to be a tricky thing to adapt. I’m a massive fan of The Division—I play the game every Tuesday night with three of my dearest buddies, kind of like a bowling league. I waited in line for three hours at E3 in 2013 just to catch a glimpse of the game. As my older sister will tell you, there are certainly better directors than me out there, but there is no director on the planet who’s better for The Division than I am. It’s the film I was born to make, and I can’t wait to get started.
PHOTO COURTESY OF NETFLIX
PHOTO COURTESY OF NETFLIX
Talk to us about the state of movies and comedies, specifically under the eye of cancel culture. What’s the fine line between what’s funny and what’s not, and how do you navigate that? I think we’re in a place right now, culturally, where it can be very difficult to be funny in a way that doesn’t injure or alienate someone. It’s an incredibly challenging time to make comedy because, it seems to me, everyone’s sensitivities are on high alert; everyone is spoiling for a fight, looking to be insulted and exact some measure of revenge be it online or otherwise. There’s very little grace or understanding or, indeed, appreciation toward intent versus expression.
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