Great list. No “The Seven Ups”? That has an amazing car chase in it.
Oh, I love “The Seven Ups.” You know what, I didn’t put it in the season because I already had “The French Connection” with Roy Schieder, and I only had ten slots. The car chase in “Seven Ups” is fantastic. The rest of the movie is good, but it’s not as good as “The French Connection.”
Fair enough!
The other big influences on the movie would be “The Getaway,” “Sugarland Express,” “The Hot Rock,” and then in the ‘90s, there’s the trifecta of heist movies that have the biggest impact on “Baby Driver” are: “Reservoir Dogs,” “Point Break,” and “Heat.” And they’re all amazing, evergreen classics.
I just watched “Point Break” again because we did a double bill of “Hot Fuzz” and “Point Break” and my god, that movie and the cinematography, it does not age at all. It still looks fantastic. The photography and actual filmmaking by Kathryn Bigelow — it’s that thing. People need to talk about Kathryn Bigelow as one of the greatest action directors and lose the qualifier of her being female. That’s the thing that should be dropped completely. Kathryn Bigelow is one of the great action movie directors ever, period.
The precision of the movie and how every shot lines up with the music, you had an editor on set cutting the movie: I assume it was the most difficult film of yours to shoot?
Yeah, cinematographer Bill Pope said, “There’s no easy scene in ‘Baby Driver’ because if it’s not cars, it’s running or shooting, but if it’s not that even the dialogue scenes have music and choreography in them.” Setting everything to music and playing music on set to pretty much every single scene — though sometimes just in Ansel’s headphones — it just makes it that there’s no easy scene in the movie. There’s always a complicated element.
The stunt team — who had done a lot of action between them — had never been in situation where they had to think of car chases in terms of how long a guitar solo is. And they actually said it was an unique and amazing challenge and I felt good about that. I mean, we had a choreographer on set every day as well.
The Phil Lord and Chris Miller story with “Han Solo” has reminded a lot of people of what went down on “Ant-Man.” So, I wanted to get your thoughts on distinctive filmmakers working on big, expensive, often micro-managed blockbusters. Is there any point to directing one of these if you have a very distinct POV?
Well, I don’t want to speak too much about “Han Solo” because I know everyone involved in that situation — Phil Lord and Chris Miller came out to the “Baby Driver” premiere right after that announcement and I was like, “You guys are going to come out tonight?” and they did! I love those guys dearly and they’re very talented and they’re going to be absolutely fine. I will say this, because I don’t want to say too much about [“Ant-Man” or “Han Solo”], but I feel incredibly fortunate and grateful that my next movie after the [“Ant-Man”] situation was to do an original story with a studio. And I must give credit to Tri-Star, MRC and Tom Rothman and people and Sony who had faith in me to do my thing with an original screenplay. So it’s possible to play within the studio system. It would seem like, in this day and age, when you look at the calendar, everything’s a franchise or a reboot or existing I.P or part 5, so… I don’t know how to answer that question other to say then I feel very fortunate. I feel like for every franchise movie they make, the studios should make an original movie, it feels like the only way forward.
People forget in 1977, “Star Wars” was an original screenplay. In 1979, “Alien” was an original screenplay, so it doesn’t mean you can’t have popcorn movies that aren’t original. That’s what we striving for as well as awards seasons movies at the end of the year. There can be both and there should be both.
Right, you can’t have a franchise without an original property to launch it. I’m wondering if there’s a big exception or outlier for you though. I know Rian Johnson said he was going to stick to original films that he had written, but then “Star Wars” came along and he understandably couldn’t resist. Is there a property like that that’s your kryptonite?
Well, maybe. I’d be a fool to say never say never though. I just don’t know what that thing is.
And if you got offered something like a “Star Wars” movie?
Hmm, I don’t know. I think it’s like the same thing when people ask you if you’d ever do TV. Ultimately, it’s about the story, it’s not about… you have to approach it from [the perspective] of “What can I do with it? Do I have a smart take?” But even if you like a franchise, unless you have a take that you are dying to do, I don’t know whether that’s something I can do. I honestly don’t know how to answer that question. Every cultural touchstone I love has already been done already [laughs]. I’ve got no hot take.
You’ve got a ton of projects announced that could go next. “Shadows,” Neil Gaiman’s “Fortunately, the Milk” with Johnny Depp and “Grasshopper Jungle,” the list is long. Do you know which one your doing next and or ones you’re no longer attached to?
It’s a very good question and one I have to keep track of myself [laughs]. I think “Shadows,” for example, is on the backburner because I wrote three drafts of that and I’m sure you read that there’s total regime change at DreamWorks, so most people that hired me for that job are no longer there. The truth of the matter is I’m going to get through this press tour, look at what I’ve been developing, but also write something new as well and I’d like to continue doing things in the “Baby Driver” vein.
“Baby Driver” opens on June 28th.