Here's our extended conversation with VancityReynolds and ShawnLevyDirect on TheAdamProject, their working relationship, and what would surprise people about making a movie.
If you have Netflix and want to check out an awesome new movie, I’d suggest pushing play on The Adam Project this weekend. Directed by Shawn Levy and starring Ryan Reynolds , the original film has Reynolds traveling back in time to get help from his younger self and his late father to try and save the future.
COLLIDER: The first question actually goes to Shawn. Shawn, I really need to know probably the most important thing I’m going to ask today, how did you get involved as the dad in the Taylor Swift music video? Ryan, your better half recently directed a Taylor Swift music video, made me think about you and directing. Have you actually thought about it? Or is that something that just doesn't interest you?
REYNOLDS: I would say that, look, there's, there's vast differences between a set you might find yourself on of ours and someone else's. They tend to have their own language or feel, but it's like running any other business. That's the thing at least I find most shocking is that it's important.
LEVY: Well, the script had been developed for six or seven years before it came to Ryan and then me. So Jonathan Tropper, it was an idea that some other writers had and Skydance had developed it for six or seven years, with Jonathan Tropper. Then David Ellison told Ryan, Ryan and I were in post-production on Free Guy, David said, "I have this movie that I think you might like.
So for me, tone, Free Guy is a very specific tone and it's very different than Adam Project. Ryan and I loved, by the way, that our back to back movies would be very different from one another. But on Adam Project, an old school blend of spectacle, warmth, humor, and aspirational wish fulfillment. It's a lot of words. It's a lot of hands on faders, to go with the mixing board analogy. As to where things go up and down, that's instinct.
In the film, you reference a lightsaber. There's also a nod in the third act that I won't reveal that happens. I'm just curious, with your relationship with Disney after Free Guy, was it easy to get these things in the movie or was it still a challenge? But you say lightsaber. LEVY: He has to deliver a performance and he has to be believably young Ryan. So those are different things. He needed the emotional heft and dimension to deliver pretty important emotional content, but he also needed be a freaking smart ass punk who probably got beat up a lot because of the mouth on him. I have no knowledge about that being a part of your history, Ryan, but it wouldn't shock me to hear that maybe it was, or certainly that your mouth was a weapon.
You guys have worked all over the place in Hollywood. Shawn, both of you have worked for Netflix before. Can you talk about, is there any difference to making a film at Netflix versus the other studios or other streamers? I'm just curious about the dynamic behind-the-scenes. But also, one thing I love about Netflix is their real commitment to telling original stories. This doesn't happen every day, a movie like this, getting to make this, which isn't based on anything. And we felt so spoiled that we got to make Free Guy at Disney, which was another totally original, new idea and new concept, and they embraced it so wholeheartedly. But Netflix, that's what they do over here and it's pretty awesome, I've got to say.