| My first agenda was to get the writers off the scene, that was a battle that took a lot of time and energy, but I won. Then the plot changed. In the original script there was no humor whatsoever and the Cop, played by Adam Scott, was just a straightforward older white guy chasing Ford all the way through and at the end literally says “good job,” pats him on the back and arrests Henry. It was incredibly lame. I turned down this movie twice because the script was so bad and the budget was only $35 million. The studio had every intention of making another Fast and Furious rip off with a hot music video director there to shoot it. They would then edit it however they wanted because that’s how it usually works. I felt for $35 million that’s all you could do the way the studio structured it. I changed the script and made a few things interesting, sold them on the concept of using hyper-reality, then convinced them to put in another $15 million to lengthen the schedule and allow me to have more control over the action. |
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That is when I finally came on board.
MVWire: Would you say Movies are more Producer-controlled than Music Videos?
JK: Ultimately the medium can go either way depending on what state of power you’ve reached. Music videos can give you as much control as possible, but for the most part they are artist controlled. On a film, the most powerful thing you can get as a director is final cut, which means that the studio cannot mess with your edit.
MVWire: What was the most challenging part of the movie as far as shooting like the action scenes?
JK: The technical issues weren’t difficult, because Gary Davis, the 2nd unit director, did most of the tough shots. He has been doing this for so many years, all I had to do was show him a picture of what I wanted and he knew how to do it. |
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