Last Interview on the Left: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett - Ready or Not 2: Here I Come

All right, today we are joined by a directing team. We're joined by the directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillette, the men behind Radio Silence. You've seen their movies. You've seen Ready or Not. You've seen Scream 5, Scream 6, Abigail, Devil's Due, and you are going to see on March 20th their new movie, Ready or Not 2. We're here with the Radio Silence boys. How you doing, Matt and Tyler? Hey! Yes. So good. Extremely excited to be here. I know we said this earlier, but like, my God. Now you have to say it. Yeah, in the preamble. In the preamble. Yes. So let's run it back, guys. What makes you fans of us? How long you got? Where do we begin? Yeah, where do we begin? You know, when we used to do our own shorts, I'm not even kidding, and we used to do shorts and we'd drive up to like Lone Pine, we would listen to your guys' episodes the whole way. Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. All the time. I can comfortably ask because we talked about this. We want to keep this light. We want to keep this fun. But would you feel that your entrance into the major Hollywood system has given you information that you're trying to disseminate through your pop culture films in a way that we would find entertaining and not frightening due to the truth of the information that you hold? Yes, they're warning. Yeah, we're just going to train the masses. Interesting. You're going to get us killed. Are you excited that there's two of you? That way, if one of you mysteriously has a heart attack after this comes out, they can't do it to both of you. Yes, the Radio Silence legacy will continue on. It's a long game. We've been planning. If there was a way for the government to leave your bodies, how would you want that? Like, honestly, how would you choose the government to kill you both? Oh, man. I want to be found in, like, a fountain at a shopping mall, like a busy shopping mall. Okay. I think would be great. No, we can make that happen. Yeah, no problem. Oh, we can have you fall through the skylight to make sure that it's, like, at the busiest time of the holiday season, you fall through the skylight and into... Impaled into the middle of the fountain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, of course, a little girl must scream. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Matt, how do you want to die? By the government. By the government? By the government. Oh, boy, geez. Could it be one of those things where it's like there's a bunch of versions of it, so there's a bunch of conspiracy theories? I hope so. And it becomes one of those is-he-dead things. You're poisoned. You're shot. You're hung from the seal and you're electrocuted. Yeah. In, like, different countries, and so there's a bunch of mystery. his suicide note was just the letter Y. Just know, I will make sure your penis is preserved in formaldehyde for the rest of time. I didn't want to ask, but... The Moody Museum's already on the line. It's great. We're going to have it there for you. They're desperate for cock. So let me ask you guys, why do you hate the rich so much? because obviously I'm looking at your home I don't know it's weird you ain't it desperate climb to reach that it's very odd how critical we are out there right yeah but I mean because the Ready or Not films like both of them are definitely like criticisms on the rich and how they play with the rest I mean we're doing a series on the like we're working on a series on the DuPont's right now. And, you know, you know, the DuPont foxcatcher murder was very much just a man playing with the lives of those that they see below them. Like, what is it about that with the Ready or Not films that you guys, you know, wanted to bring to the forefront? Abigail, too. And Abigail as well. Yeah. Yeah. Abigail is a lot of it. It's I think it's something that it just I mean, it's unfortunately just a truism. It's just it's an evergreen truth that the rich will take advantage of everybody else, right? At the end of the day. Yeah, and that a long enough timeline, if you've achieved that level of success, there's no way that you've avoided exploiting somebody or something on the path to that. That's just how the world operates, unfortunately. Yeah, so you have no grace for good billionaires. Who are the good billionaires are there good billionaires do you not have any empathy for billionaires do you think of how much pressure it is give it all away yeah the ones that give it all away i mean come on did you see how concerned bill gates was about his wife's sti he was super oh my god yeah uh but but how much money has mckinsey scott given away now do what's the That's Bezos, is that why? I think 70 million. Yeah, the running tally. She must have so much fun throwing his money into every single place. But, like, she must – that must be a blast. This is so satisfying. Yeah. This is one billion to keep men bald. This is – The anti-viagric donations. Has the last podcast got any of that McKenzie Scott dough? Has she kicked any of it your way, guys? Uh-uh. We haven't, have we? Obviously, you could see I had my tits enhanced. I mean, all of this body is reconstructed. This is no way no one would choose this naturally. This doesn't happen naturally. Yeah. It is interesting to see in horror movies how it mirrors society a lot of times. And I feel like you guys are really hitting that nail on the head. Did you grow up wealthy? How do you know so much about these societies? You know, it's funny. I actually had a brush with it when I was a teenager. One of my really good friends who I was in a band with for a lot of years was Daniel Steele's son. And it was a very funny, I was like in a punk band, just a bunch of scrappy kids. And then our singer was Daniel Steele's son. And he was a lovely, wonderful person who was like one of my best friends. But it was a weird toe dip into, I live in Oakland. I'm up at my parents' house actually right now. And he lived in San Francisco. And it was a weird toe dip into this entire other world that, you know, I don't think most of us are familiar with. Daniel Steele, the author? The author. Yeah. Do you think that? Yeah, her son was this guy, Nick, and he was wonderful. And he was really complicated. But it was complicated, right? It was really complicated. It was a complicated relationship with his wealth. And yeah. We didn't know that he was her. He joined the band. We were kids. I mean, we were like teenagers. And he joined the band, I think, when we were like maybe 16 or something. And it was at least probably, I mean, it felt like forever as a kid, but it was probably like six months before we even knew that his mom was Daniel Steele. But there were like weird tells where like someone would drop him off at practice and there was like a car phone. This is like in the 90s. Yeah. It was like, what? You have a car phone? Do you feel like it gave him extra room to just be something extra and something special that was harder for somebody like you? what's weird I mean again I could go on about this forever because he's probably one of the most charismatic talented people I ever knew and he had this and he had this like real there's a duality that was obvious all the time where he was he had this life that was different than the life that we all kind of lived with him I mean we just did it like normal like in a van with a bunch of guys sleeping on floors and then he'd come home and he had a different life And, but he was, he was, it's like, we were saying a second ago, he was always very conflicted about it. And it was, and he was kind of embarrassed in the way that a teenager is embarrassed about anything that they're not comfortable with around their friends. Yeah. I don't know if that answers the question, but yeah, it was weird. I'm just going down memory lane now. No, no, this is a, this is a great, actually a great No Dogs in Space moment where we get to have that little trivia of the lead singer of Link 80 was Daniel Still Steels' son. That's incredible. I didn't, I didn't know that. Cause yeah, you guys were the, y'all were the first band signed to Asian Man Records, right? That's right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. You got a little bit of punk. So like in that, like, have you ever thought about like using that punk past to kind of make a like green room style, like punk horror movie? I mean, we've talked about it a lot, right, Tyler? Like, there's been a lot of... Yeah. It's such a fucking rad subculture and a world to live in, especially in the 90s. It was so, like, special, and at least it felt like that to me at the time. But you're always... The entire experience is you're going to, like, the worst places with, like, the scariest people who you've never met before, and then you're like, let's play songs and run into each other and jump on each other for a few hours, and then go to somebody's random house in the backwoods somewhere to do whatever shit we're going to get into every, every turn in that feels like there's an on-ramp to some great movie. Yeah. Yeah. But that sort of band past, I mean, that's very much built into like just how, you know, the two of us work. Like it's, you know, we were a band of five when we started out and, and now we're just a sort of shitty old duet, but like the idea of just like, you know, normally it's the opposite normally they start as a hot duet and then all of a sudden there's like a horn section you know we started with the horn section and now we're down to like some ukuleles yeah do you guys that's how we run everything you know like we're just we we show up on set and we want everyone to just play their instrument as loud as possible and and i mean it's it's we it's very very similar in you know in its process to just playing with your buds yeah do you ever look at uh directors who direct movies alone and think that they're chumps who work too hard dude yes we have buds i mean so many friends like they're just on an island alone with their anxiety fuck that we have our buds who are directors we talk to them about it and there's a there's a very consistent from everything like oh wait one of you can just go like to the bathroom during the day without no entire crew knowing yeah it's not like i got eyes on i got eyes on tyler he's going into the bathroom uh it's just a hey man i'll be right back um to the to the moment to moment thing of like hey this isn't working how do we get through this and it's so nice to not be stuck in some world where you have to believe you have all the answers and they have to be perfect to have that relationship where we can just be like i don't think this is working what do we do and in the moment you know like a sport or like a band just kind of get through it together it makes kind of the dialogue about it and it probably also helped to spread the success and failure to two you know what i mean like it can't be so because i'm certain that you woke away you and you have a massive success one of you walks away and was like thank god he has me you know like one of our favorite things to do is to go on amazon and read like for something that we've made and read the worst reviews. That's no fun to do by yourself. It's only fun if you can, like, screen grab it and send it to your friend. Is there one that, like, really stands out in your mind that, like, actually that was very clever? Oh, shit. I mean, we can pull some up and read them. We can do a lot. Don't give them any fucking credit. Don't fucking give them an inch. You guys ever commiserate with the Filippo brothers? Do you know them at all? You ever talk about being directing duos? no we've never we've never yeah i haven't met them there's it's actually it's a small group of people when the dj occasionally puts on these events and all the co-directors end up sitting at the same table and it's a small it's a small it's the kids table it's the outcast table yeah and we're all looked down on by the rest of the dga you know and it's like like phil and you know phil lord and chris miller i mean like good fucking like great people great directors but we're all we're all the stepkids do you think that's what happened to the cohen brothers is they were so sick of that fucking table yeah we they were never at our table weirdly enough can we get them at separate tables just to get them back together we uh they they do the the president of the dga one year did come up to us at our table and i I remember it was like Akiva and Yorma from Lonely Island and us. And I think Chris and Phil, but they were just, they straight up said, so it's like a half a brain each. How does this work? And you're like, why do you need each other? We're both going to attack you. That's how it works. Yeah, totally. The other's attacking from behind. I actually, I have a technical question. Because ready or not, Abigail, these are, a lot of it has really, really intense, awesome action pieces, which I think are probably the hardest thing in like stunt action. Things are probably one of the hardest things you shoot, right? When you, when you're going through this, when you are building these things out, how specific are you in the script versus it changing as you go on the day? Like all of the things that Samara Weaving goes through in Ready or Not is all of that fully scripted or are you also playing things by ear and changing things as you go It always pretty loose I mean I think you have to have a you know somewhat of a blueprint There has to be some specificity so you can design the set and, you know, get every all of the ingredients for the sequence have to sort of show up. And so that that has to be present in the script. But with Ready or Not 2, I mean, we were we were moving so fast and flying so by the seat of our pants with a sequel that we knew, you know, the sort of broad strokes of how the thing was going to start and like what, how it had to conclude and what that had to sort of mean emotionally for the characters. But within that, if you've got a great stunt team that is really good at improvising, I mean, it's like watching any sort of great, you know, performer improvise. They, you sort of look at the set and what you have and, oh, we've got these things are all break away and, and the brainstorm in the, you know, in the moment of, well, shit, let's throw this person through this. And it's, it's one of the most fun things because it is, it is so alive. And I mean, the only big stunt things that have to ever feel for us anyway, are like super, super planned and rehearsed are the things where you're like pulling people up into the sky and, you know, wire work, things that require real rigging and, and there's real danger, you know, you just have to premeditate all of that. But the fight stuff, man, it's really fun to watch. And by the way, to throw at a cast member like, hey, we know you rehearsed this. What if we do this? It's amazing to see how, you know, most of the fighting in our movies, it's not like John Wick shit. You're watching people like in a bar fight, basically. That's the kind of action that we love. And that stuff, like it lends itself to this very improvisational kind of style. But it is the hard stuff to shoot, man. Samara Weaving's a fucking star, and she's also one of those people. She sells the physical acting of abuse. Because normally you got these skinny leading ladies. They don't look like they can't kill people. They can't kill fucking people. Samara, I believe, can kill people. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Did you know that she had that guttural primal scream is one of the best in the business? did you know that she could do that before you got her on set no we had no clue when she did that the first time i remember us being it was very early because we shot we shot the end of the first writing or not first it was all in the first week and when she did her she like rolls off the table and does like screams and that was the first time we heard it and it was like oh my god what everybody on set yeah yeah and then when we went into this movie to the sequel we definitely that was the thing we were like where is the right moment for this yeah and we found we found a really good one that we were like oh yeah that's that's when this has to happen because you can't overuse it no you can't make it yeah you have to like save it you have to be like this is you're waiting for this it's like we're waiting for like that special part of a song but sam's a unicorn i think one of her superpowers is like she is one of the most beautiful human beings you'll ever see but there's zero vanity in the way that she approaches like every moment of her life she's so gross and silly and isn't afraid to like fuck up and be weird and you know there's there's she's fearless and and you need that for for that character very specifically you're saying she so in other where she's Australian. Yeah. Yeah, totally. I remember I met Margot Robbie and she was like that. She'd like burp and spit and then go like, sorry there, mate. Like do that and you're like, I'm mesmerized. You're literally, you can do anything. You can do anything. I love you. Anything you want. It's the best. There's actually a moment in Ready or Not 2 where Sam was like, I want to spit at the end of this. Is that cool? We're like, absolutely. Please hawk a big loogie. Yeah, Ready or Not to, it's, like, we got to see it. It's such an incredibly fun movie. Yeah, it's a lot of fun, man. I had such a great time with it. It is so much fun, just as good as the first one. But, like, I mean, you guys, like, one of the things that I love about y'all's movies is that your sense of pacing is so fucking good. Like, you really know how to pace a movie. So, like, when you approach a movie, like, as directors, do y'all see yourselves as, like, primarily, like, horror directors or action directors? because y'all are just action you're so fucking good at it thanks man yeah thank you i mean i you know it's like it's we never like think about it too specifically because i think the way we came up it's like like we both like raised on twilight zone you know like that was like the touchstone that started everything for us and so it was sort of like we love genre stuff we love sci-fi we love horror we love action we love adventure and so like when we first started working together a lot of our stuff would kind of dip into it would be like one little 10 minute short would be sci-fi horror and adventure all kind of mixed up together and i think we just taken that with us because it's like we feel weird when something's not edging towards scary we feel weird when something's not edging towards action and we also feel weird when it's like lacking emotion because that's kind of what we always tie everything together with is how do you get you know someone like samara at the center of this that can kind of ground all of the action all of the horror all of the emotion and make it feel like it's cohesive in one thing is always sort of the goal but it's it's a bit of we love it all and we get to play you know kind of for a living now which is incredible so it's this how can we how can we make this more action how can we make this more scary. I mean, that's a conversation we have, I think, all the time. It's like, let's lean harder this direction or that direction. Yeah. And it's so fun to like have a grab bag of tricks, right? Like you don't and tropes to play with all of those little sub genres. They have, they have little, little dials that you can turn at different moments. And so it's, it just means you have so much, so many tools at your disposal to, at the end of the day, like surprise, surprise the audience. And that's the movie, the movies that we grew up on did that so effortlessly. And it feels like, you know, I mean, we could go on and on about how the business and distribution has changed and how niche things have become because of streaming. Like we loved like, you know, Terminator and Aliens and like those movies that felt like they could do all of these things. And, and it all felt so, so effortless. And it was because, you know, these were big ideas that were being made for huge audiences for everybody to see instead of just one person interested in like robots sitting on their couch, you know, in their, in their house. And that's the, we have a real muscle memory for, for those, for those types of movies and, and are really just trying to like replicate the feeling of that in the stuff that we make. Yeah, man, going to the theater is fucking awesome. I love it so much. Your movie comes out on March 20th, correct? Ready or not? Yeah. Yeah, dude. So make sure you go out and see that movie in the theater. It's a big fucking action movie, big horror movie. You guys are going to love it. I'm sure it's going to be amazing. But I got to ask about like. Oh, I thought you were going to hardcore. We were talking about Gaza now, right? Yeah. Now it's a hardcore. You give them the flop. You set them up with the nice. Actually, yes. Not Gaza. But I'm excited when you see this because obviously we all want the movie theaters to survive. I go to the movies at least once a week. We want everything to be great. Now, when everything that's going on in the news right now with the files coming out, are you looking at this and be like, we can't buy this type of publicity? I will say shocking and disappointing how topical the movies that we make have become. And sad how unsurprising it is. But the weird thing that we saw bubble up when they released the new trailer was that this is Holly Weird conditioning people to be, Henry, I believe you were circling this at the beginning, conditioning people to be used to the idea. I'm sorry. I believe I just said it out right. Do the Lodomas family represent any particular family? Do you have an inspiration? oh man you are really trying to make a step in it um but it's the fun of like living in this sort of heightened world of these billionaires is it it feels like you can you can sort of be broad and specific at the same time and you know it also i mean it's it's fun to like look at a class that is so out of reach for for everyone that isn't in it that you you can just you like you you can dream up the wackiest thing and it's probably not that wacky and i think that was really the compass like the the sort of guiding light for us on both of these movies was well fuck we don't know like let's what's the craziest rich people shit you can you could think of. And yeah, just bummed that some of it is real. Some of it's real. Yeah. When you talk, when you go into these executives offices, this is one of my favorite phenomenons in this whole new awareness that we're getting as a country right now, I guess, which is you get to go into these very, very powerful people's rooms, the most elite of the entertainment industry and you pitch these things, what are the looks on their faces? Like when you say like, so this is when they systematically murder all of the rich people. And are they just sitting there just going like, that is simply fantasy. Like what a wonderful trip down a dream world that cannot happen. Like, do you think that like, how do you, like how do they react in those rooms? Like in being in that world? i i am actually i think we're surprised at how much everybody's always into it it always feels like i think there's enough self-awareness yeah and a willingness to kind of to hold up a mirror and because they better i mean i felt that way when i watched the um the hunt that came out recently and like how it showed like bloodthirsty democrats and you know i was like this is a lot of fun sure i had a great time with this you know and so i i'm i'm enjoying this, but you guys really, not only do you focus on the rich, you focus on Satan. Yes. And so Satan is a big part of your thing. It's Satanism. Are you all Satanists? Do you dabble? I was raised Catholic. You're halfway there, buddy. You're halfway there, buddy. I was raised Catholic too, man. Don't notice that I didn't don't think that I didn't notice that you slipped the satanic version of hallelujah and ready or not i i i heard it i was gonna ask what did you guys think this one it's there's and there's a lot of in this it was funny there was a lot of conversations when we were going you know going in like pre-production where we went back and we looked at there's this thing that the studios do where they do a toe dip with uh critics and so before the movies even finish they show like a dozen critics and then they tell you how shitty your movie is it's the worst and they tell you how it's shitty and then you're just kind of bummed for a few weeks until you totally forget about it which has happened in both of these movies and we went back when we were making this and looked at what the critics said about the first movie and like the number one headline was all the satan stuff is awful and horrible and needs to go maybe don't say satan so much what yeah and then and it was quite it was for us we were like well they're gonna hate this next one because so much harder it goes so fucking hard with the satanism and and i love that that's what i love so much about because i'm a huge fan uh like some of my favorite horror movies are the 70s hammer horror films uh that really dig into this like the satanism like was this movie like ready or not too is it inspired by movies like you know devil's reign to the devil a daughter like where there you know there's these cabals lurking in the background i mean all of it we talked a lot about uh and i think it maybe had to do with having come off of abigail because we talked a lot about like the christopher lee stuff yeah where it's just so gothic and it's so there's such a vibe and our thing on this was the lodomases and the first one are like low rent amateur versions of satanist kind of like pretending because maybe they saw a movie once and they put on a stupid fucking robe and so with this one we were like it in the movie in the first one he's like oh it was the 80s it was like the first thing he talked about exactly they're playing make-believe it's like when you hear like how the mob watched the godfather and we're like oh we're gonna do that that's our new thing yeah and then for this one we were like yeah but what if these guys are good at it like what if they're they've got a cool temple and they've got the real robes and they like got the real goat pit and all this kind of fun stuff. So we, it's kind of a spoiler. Sorry. I didn't realize I was dipping into that, but audiences got to know. No, I think that brings them in. I think it brings them in. I think they going to like that Our audience is going to like that There more Satan They going to like I mean you use the words goat pit in relation to a movie Our audience is going to actually like a good thing for them Yeah, I like when sequels expand versus like, let's just do the whole thing again. Yeah, I love it. No, no. The world building in this was like so much fun. Like you really expand it because it's a direct sequel. I mean, it begins where the first movie ends. So was there any challenges to doing a direct sequel to a movie? I think the big thing for us was just knowing that over seven to seven years since we made the first one, that it somehow magically found a fandom, that we wanted to deliver something that felt satisfying and obviously in the world of the first movie without being overly precious about it. all of our favorite sequels, you know, like T2 and Aliens, like they take they take the DNA of what's great about the first movie and they they apply it to something new and fresh and surprising. And ultimately, like those movies, whether you see the first or not, like you're you're just you can be such a fan of and enjoy and enjoy them as a singular experience. And I think for us that the pressure was just how do we make something and not be afraid to in some ways, like maybe shit on the first movie a little bit and not be like overly like overly cautious and not try to be like too nostalgic about about what it is. But to maybe challenge ourselves and challenge the audience's notion of what the movie could be. And that was that was just it was fun. But there was a lot of pressure in it, too, because you obviously want to deliver something that people, you know, that people love and enjoy in the same way as, you know, as the first movie. The first movie felt really effortless. I feel like that's what's so beautiful about that movie is the reason why it found its audience is because it is wholly its own. And it like it's it's it feels real. It feels awesome. I love their reactions. the family's reactions and they're so fucking funny. And I guess that's also what works about it is that it's funny, scary, bloody. Yeah, totally. And I think that like so much is like, and what we were sort of talking about, like the Satanist stuff that we love the idea of a modern, the modern interpretation of something like really ancient and full of tradition and how just bastardized that has become. And by the, I feel like that happens with all old, old institutions. And we just, we love that you have people with all of like trappings of modern life, like still trying to like hold on to something that has its roots in a time and a mythology that are maybe like not even understandable. There's it's so old and so, you know, so uncanny and strange. And that to us is like where all of that fun lives, like people like not knowing if the fucking devil exists, Like all of that's just so it's just so sticky and fun. How important was it to you that you be incredibly accurate about Satanism? Were you? I don't even know personally, to be honest. Unfortunately, no, but I love you both. I would love to know everything that we got wrong and how we did. We really showed our asses with you, Henry. we had like a there's a whole like elijah uh does a whole um chant or speech or you know i don't know what you can sermon yeah you can kind of hear at the beginning of it before and and that was one that we uh ryan ryan one of the writers guy and ryan are the writers and ryan uh he's he's big into this stuff and he was like i'm gonna get you guys a nice long thing so he wrote us out and it was funny we did an adr and elijah wood was like okay so i'm just reading this what i hope i'm not like this is not some incantation like what is this entire paragraph no it's easy to write stuff that sounds like it you know what's funny is that in my mind when i look at those types of ritual sequences whenever it throws to satan it's like i think it's good for the audience to understand because they i think most people the audience doesn't fully understand satanism as a whole and all that. So it's fine. But to me, I always want to see a specific demon that is literally my actual nitpick with every one of these, which is I want a specific demon and a specific ritual for a specific demon. Otherwise, I'm good to go. Who is Belial? Belial's one of Satan's guys. Yeah, well, it's an anagram of Belial. Yeah, Belial. You know about that. Satan? Henry? Right? No, he's one of the guys. He's a figure representing ultimate wickedness. I've just always think of, oh, the guy in the basket. Yes! That's where I always go to. Because you know what it is, is that in Satanism, they replace blood sacrifices with sex sacrifices. So the idea was is that eventually Anton LaVey was trying to say, no, no, no, no. We don't sacrifice animals. We come. That's what to mimic the spurt of energy from the neck of an animal. Like essentially that's what you're doing. You are recreating the creative burst of life that is a flow of blood from a freshly open vein. But you are transmuting it with your powerful seed. Did you know your movie was about that? Yeah. And my question is now For Ready or Not 3 Are you going to have people explode With cum instead of blood And just have cum explosions I think you just unlocked How we up the end here You know how they said They pitched Aliens where James Cameron Went in the room and he wrote Alien And then he wrote like a dollar sign after Aliens You just write Ready or Not 3 Cum Like underneath on the big day Here we come Two is here I come Big square around it Here we come with a U The come in the title Is not accidental guys But otherwise it was great I think the satanism was great Awesome Fantastic Let's take a break to thank Our sponsor Searchlight Ready or not to Here I come is a biting and hilarious satire revealing the absurdities underpinning wealth, tradition, and exclusivity. Moments after surviving an all-out attack from the Lodomas family, Grace discovered she's reached the next level of the nightmarish game, and this time her estranged sister Faith is at her side. Grace has one chance to survive, keep her sister alive, and claim the high seat of the council that controls the world. I can't wait for you all to see this movie If you liked Ready or Not 1 This one takes it up to Frickin' 11 The blood, the action, it's so much fun And guess what folks You get to see rich people die You love it Directed by Matt Bettinelli Open and Tyler Gillette The full tilt insanity of the action And combusting villains is a sharp And unsparing takedown Of the kinds of people that crave power Ready or not 2 is now playing only in theaters. Get tickets now. Speaking of the explosions, how much fun is it to make people explode on camera? To do those pops? Extremely. Yeah. It's evolved over the course of the many people we've exploded. The first movie was just a literal pyrotechnics in a plastic bag full of goo. and now we've sort of moved on to safer more reliable technology now our our guys on this movie engineered this blood cannon that looks like a drone out of you know star wars it has all these holes cut in the side and these kind of fins that stick out of it and they hook it up to a big pneumatic pneumatic tank and just like fire air through this thing fill it with blood and and fire pressurized air through it and it's i mean there there really is like a feeling of excitement on set those events are the reason you show up you know it's it's like there's a countdown and i mean everything about it it just feels so so grand and exciting and um and messy as hell it's just it's it's a blast it's how hard is that to live in it this level there you don't reset it's they're one and done they are it is it is and then the rest of the day or week or however long it has to be there the set is sticky and gross and over the rest of the time but it's a vibe it's fun it's you know i love that that's great what do you use caro syrup do you know what's your blood what's your blood mixture we use the same mix on on the last few movies and it's it's a mix of caro syrup And then, you know, they sort of thin it out for the blood cannons because you want more projection. And then the stuff that we use on the actors is just more viscous because, you know, it stretches better. Like you get the webbing and all of that, you know, that great effect that feels really cinematic. And so you can kind of water it down. Sometimes they put dish detergent in it, like dish soap. Yes. It also helps it not break up. And bubble a little bit. So there are a bunch of little tricks of the trade. And then it helps clean easier, too. We've used to say Nick's a few times. Yeah. One question I had you on set, you had legendary director David Cronenberg as an actor. Now, when you're looking at this fucking guy, how do you tell him what to do? Like, what is he doing? How do you tell him what to do? Is he one of those where it's like, I dare you to direct me? Like, is it one of those? i mean he's the nicest fucking dude he was he was that idea came about our casting director was we were trying to find some we had to cast it locally and he was like david cronenberg is a toronto native and might be into this and we were like oh my fucking god that is the best idea we've ever heard and he it was literally one call and cronenberg was like yeah i'm in and you don't have to push the script through like a membrane like i thought that you'd have to push it through an open sphincter into like a goo but he was so lovely though like just the sweetest guy and like was like i really like the way you run the set like just a lovely lovely lovely lovely dude but giving him any direction was i mean nerve-wracking starstruck the entire time yeah Yeah, but he couldn't have been kinder. He was like, he very much was like, you guys just tell me what you need, you know? And of course, it's like, do the thing that you do. Just do what you do, Mr. Cronenberg. And he's like, I will haunt your dreams. Yes, of course I will haunt your dreams. You know how many different ways I can have sex with surgery? I think about it all day. Organs and blood and organs. we had a little technical difficulty and we loosely talked about this, but I want to bring it back around. You, we love that you're doing all this action stuff and that you're bringing action to the horror movies. And of course you cast Sarah Michelle Gellar, like who better to like fucking do a bunch of action scenes than Buffy. Was that, I mean, we haven't seen her in a while. Was that one of your ideas? Was that the casting move? Like who was, who was this? This is great. My wife was so happy. well sarah was a she she raised her hand it was and it was late in the process we had been trying to cast that role and i i feel like it was like two weeks out does that sound right tyler yeah it was too close she was too it was too we were like oh my god how are we going to shoot this we had a lot of another story but samara's back was basically broken leading up to shooting and we didn't have either of the brother sister rules cast and so it was like oh my god how are we going to start this movie in two weeks and then we we got so lucky that somehow sarah heard about it and said i would be way into that and so we we zoomed with her and she was on a plane like a week later and it couldn't have been cooler couldn't have been like more just into everything and excited about it and i one of her first notes was though that her character before she had been cast her character's weapon was a crossbow and she was like this just might be a little too buffy yeah yeah fair fair fair he's such a pro though i feel like we've had the chance to work with you know a few actors that have just been doing it since they were kids and i mean it's insane to see somebody that's just that good at what they do they show up they like know exactly what the moment needs and and you nudge you nudge here and there but for the most part you just do a bunch of takes because you can't stop watching them be awesome and that was that was sarah every single day she's great yeah i i did you know i was looking at the you know the cast for all your movies and i know that you know you guys have worked with a lot of people who have done a ton of TV like people who were in you know for the OC for Friday Night Lights Friends Lost fucking Downton Abbey You know, you got Matthew for fuck's sake. The guy for the pit. He was great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But do you notice, like, as a director, is there a difference between actors who have done, like, primarily TV and actors who have done, like, primarily film? Oh, that's a great question. I do feel like... I think our TV actors always feel like they understand the sort of run-and-gun pace of things in a different way, right? Like, they're used to... I remember talking to Sean on this one. He's like, yeah, we show up on the set of The Pit, and we're jamming through 12 pages a day. And you land on a film set, and you're lucky to get through five and a half without it feeling, you know, really, really pinched. And so I think that there's, there's, they come into it with like an, like an energy. There's this sort of like caged animal, like, fuck, we got to like get out of the gate and run as fast as we can. And I think it's always, it's always, they're always, they love to have time to give more. And we've found that with, with all of, with all of the cast that has, has TV experience. They like show up super on book, super prepared because that's what TV demands of them, right? That you just, you got to get it and move on. You got to be locked in and they don't like when you're slow. Yeah, yeah. And because of that pace, like they get to do a lot of different things, right? It shows that, you know, like Buffy, for example, I mean, tons of action, tons of emotional stuff. And so there's just a, I think there's a real, there's a real sort of like school of work that comes out of that out of that process and it's also coming in with like a strong oh sorry i was gonna say coming in with like a strong choice already made because it's like i gotta be there on take one because i remember just talking about matthew good for a second and abigail i mean he shot for half a day on that movie it was the last half of the day of the whole shoot and he and he comes in and he's like you know i'm just gonna kind of have fun with this and like really take some swings and we're like that is exactly this is the end of the movie you're fucking dracula just be as big and wild and weird as you want to be like we are here for it you know i remember him coming up to us and like asking like is it too much and he even asked melissa like am i is this am i maybe is this weird and she's like no no no the guys will tell you if you cross the line yeah it's always easy to give more. You know what I mean? It's easy to give more. Well, I guess the difference between where you talked about television actors and film actors, it looks like you guys are working on the new iteration of The Mummy with Brendan Fraser. Is he bringing back his character from the whale? Top secret. You were saying about applying old ideas to new things. That's it. That's how we're doing it. can you just imagine if this isn't this isn't that mummy there's a brand new version of the mummy with that character wow that's amazing but honestly how is it going into this process of obviously you did scream films this is a like you did a reboot of ip you've done a couple other things this is big this big time old school ip yeah and they're they're bringing it like how's that there's a ride based off of this fucking yeah dude like how do you would like what do you have to do with that shit like do you have to go on the ride a lot yeah it's based on the ride the movie's actually based on the ride it's my best part of that movie's gonna be when it goes backwards the second half of the movie just rewinds we sort of told ourselves after scream like ah fuck we're not gonna we can't get involved in another like you know pre-existing franchise or something that we didn't originate and And then like we started working with with the writer, Dave Coggeshall, and our pretty our like dear friends are producing at the same dudes that we've been working with for for many years. See, that's a dream, right? Or not. Yeah. And got the band back together. And and when when we started breaking the story and hearing Dave like pitch on it, it was like, man, it just it's too it's just too good to not to not steer fully into it. And it has remained that I it's, it's like such a special, such a special script and to have the two of them back for it. It's, it just feels really good. It's one of those things that we've been doing this long enough to know that like, that's ultimately the thing that you follow is that feeling. And this one just feels, it just feels really fucking good. Rachel wise is coming back too. Yeah. She is. That's amazing. So is this, is it a, like a reboot with the same characters or is it like a continuation? of the, you know, the old, the 90s movie movies? It's, it's, it's finding them now. I mean, we, you know, we wanted to not overcomplicate anything. We really wanted to be like, here they are. It's been that many years. This is what they're doing. And here's their new adventure. And making, making sure that, you know, I think for us, and again, we did this on screen. We had to really focus on like, what is the thing that makes this special? You know, like what, what is it? And how do we, you know, Tyler, you mentioned this earlier. how do we create the feeling that we all had watching it back then it doesn't have to be the same thing it doesn't have to be like nostalgia overload or just like ripping it off but it has to create the same feeling and i think for us when you watch that movie then and now rachel and brendan are that feeling you know you're just like oh my god they're so good i just want to be with them doing their thing and so that was kind of our like headline going into this was this is about those two characters. Let's have fun with it. And the Brandon Fraser character has eaten himself into immobility into a wheelchair. And he has to. And then he's facing the struggles of being gay. Yes. He's the mummy. Mummy. The mummy. All of this you can take. Yeah. We're going to get fired now, guys. You guys are monsters. Yeah. My primary memory with this movie is having a really awkward movie date in high school. What are you doing to erase that memory from my head? We gotta work that in somehow. I have a very funny story about it, but I'll tell you later off camera. Is the Tom Cruise version dead? Is that just like just have nothing to do with this? Yeah, this sort of resets with those original characters. And is this just, is it a part of the, like, universal monsters universe? Yeah. Yeah. Fuck yeah, man. It's gonna go in the amusement park, dude. You're gonna be the new mummy ride, man. Yeah. Fucking have it go upside down. Yeah, we're gonna scare him the shit out of you. No, what's it like to be a part of, like, arguably, like, the greatest horror movie tradition in history i mean it's it's unreal like honestly we we we text each other about it all the time it's like just like like a random text that like midnight like holy shit we're making a mummy movie like how is that real life that's it's hard to like crazy also kind of have to forget about that because you you know again you like don't want to you don't want to be hanging on to that too tightly i think you feel i think you can feel that in the in the wrong way and so it's finding out how to like express it in the right way and that's really just what you what you challenge and what you you know what you what you revive and again i just we can't say enough about how stoked we are i it feels it we feel so ready like just on a script level we could like start shooting now you know just it's just a lot to build a movie of of this size well let's you know though let's just i'll just have you know that the whole country will finally be excited by Project when you reboot George of the Jungle. And that's really not, unfortunately, until we're talking about that, I don't know where the excitement's going to be. I love the idea of just making a bunch of sequels, Brendan Fraser sequels, Airheads. Biodome! No. He shows up as a Cino man in Biodome, I believe. Briefly. Very, very briefly, he shows up as it's more of a Pauly Shore vehicle. Encino Man is now fucking caveman lawyer. Do you guys need Pauly Shore's info? I can get it. We can call Pauly Shore for you. We can give him your address. Are you willing to do an Encino Man reboot? A horror Encino Man reboot? Oh, the dream. The dream. I just watched it again. It's so good. We watched it within the past six months and I was like, this is a fucking great movie. You ever seen that thing where they showed what Neanderthals would probably sound like? Where they go like, ah! The high voice. That's what you gotta do. You reboot Encino Man with a real Neanderthal that they dig out and it's just like, ah! It's like a screaming monkey thing. We do the serious version of it. Yes, but with the screaming high-pitched one, two, three, four! guys this is awesome yeah yeah i mean is there anything you could tell us that like where where you at in the mummy production like where where are you have you started shooting yet have you got locations no we are scouting we we went on a really amazing scout uh to morocco just recently and so i mean it we're at the we're at the beginning we're at the bottom of a very you know tall tall mountain but we start prep in earnest in a couple months and um probably i think shooting by end of the summer you sweet little boys are living the dream i heard there's a lot of pyramids in egypt yeah you guys i know you went to morocco but you should try egypt think about it you know i mean it just seems logical to me it does it does seem logical i want this egypt place send me some links on egypt you know it sounds like you guys really aren't doing this radio silence thing right i think you need ed yeah i think i think you need you go to morocco and you take a right yeah you really gotta go you're just going around the top You gotta get past all the other bad guys. You know, you got your Boko Harams and your ISIS's. You just got to skip past them because that's bad for insurance. A lot of those guys you can pay off. You should run our production services department. If I got so well, ready or not to coming out March 20th, go see it in the theater. Seriously. Here you go. Here I come. It's going to be amazing. Yeah, it's such a great horror movie, such a great action movie. It's funny. If you love the first one, you're going to love, love, love the second one. And I also have to ask, how much fun is it to take someone like Elijah Wood and be like, you're going to be the devil's lawyer? Extremely fun. And that was a character on the page, too. that was, you know, it's a lot of exposition, right? It's a lot of like rules and talking. And we emailed Elijah and said, hey, this is super weird, very random. And it's an interesting character. He doesn't have a name. He's the lawyer. Would you have any interest in coming up to Toronto for a few months and doing this with us? And we can send you the script. And I think he emailed back like the next day. I love it, guys. I'm in. And he just made that his own. And I mean, and Avery, our costume designer, that costume he has is so it just it all works together so well and I mean Elijah's really like a lot of the magic trick of the movie right because he has to tell you everything in a way that's entertaining when it's rules rules rules rules yeah and he's the devil's lawyer which is he's a real G Elijah Woods a real a real motherfucker yeah I like talking to him yeah he knows what's going on he also knows movies I think that's also one thing we're kind of seeing too is a lack of what you're talking about is actors that know what to do It's because they have a wonderful understanding of film and of watching film. And I feel like that's one thing we're sort of missing. And that's why it's more and more like we got to go to the movie theaters. We have to see these things. We have to have a set of references. That's not just saying la boo boo FKA twigs over and over again. Yeah. I think for us, it's like, how do you find people that are like Elijah to do the most absurd possible thing with the most seriousness? Like with absolute commitment. And that's him. He's a good guy. Fantastic. It's a wonderful movie. And I forgive him for North. Sure. Guys, thank y'all so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it. Yeah, it was awesome. Thank you, guys. This is really fucking awesome. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, this is very special to us.