We spoke w/ Will Speck and Josh Gordon about directing LyleLyleCrocodile and the unusual way Javier Bardem works on set. They also talked about what it’s like test screening a movie for kids and ‘Distant’ with Anthony Ramos.
With Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile now playing in theaters, I recently got so speak with directors Will Speck and Josh Gordon about helming the adaptation of the popular children's books of the same name by author Bernard Waber.
“He rehearsed for almost five months and demanded when he showed up on set to do the numbers from start to finish because he was so proud that he had worked as hard as he had. He really did not want us to ever bring on a double or to have any other part of his work not be him. So, I think you would look at it and go, oh, that's Javier Bardem, there's no way he did all of that. He really did all of it. It was incredible.
SPECK: It's a small piece, and it's an odd one to choose because it doesn't really stand up in terms of length, time, or scope to any of the movies we've done. But it definitely speaks directly to our sensibility, which is what Josh said, which is the darkness and a little bit of the cynicism and the humor with a twist of heart at the end, because ultimately we're softies.
With Lyle, obviously, you need the lead voice. How did it actually land on Shawn doing the voice, and did anyone else come close to actually landing the role? I was just surprised Chris Pratt didn't get the voice role. I'm obviously joking. No matter how much money you had, there's always going to be an obstacle with time, budget. What ended up being the biggest hurdles that you were nervous about while making the film?
GORDON: We had such a strange way in which we found out, which is that we had talked to him over almost four long Zooms.GORDON: Ultimately, he told us, "I need the weekend to decide if I'm absolutely going to do this or not." But he was nervous about, am I funny enough? Can I do the singing? He had a lot of personal [reasons]. He's very hard on himself as an actor, and he really wanted to make sure he could deliver. He was on vacation with his family.
GORDON: Right. What we mean by that is we started in commercials before we did our features, and there were always these commercials that you needed to get an actor who could just make it work. There were five or six of them that they would come in, and they would just crush it. Believe it or not, Scoot was one of those guys.GORDON: Yeah, he was very, very funny. We knew him before he became this big dramatic actor as a very funny actor.
I think for us, the thing we were most afraid of was that they were going to make us make the character talk, because that was going to take it tonally in a different direction where he would be a wisecracking crocodile, as Will said, driven by a comedic actor. And they got that that was important to the tone of the movie and that he only expresses himself through song. So, we were able to largely avoid, I think, all of the big contentious things for us.
We only had two test screenings. They both did very well. But the thing that's crazy is you know that we've done mostly R-rated comedies, right? So what you're normally getting is very cynical people in their twenties standing in line waiting to rip you apart or in the best-case scenario just go hysterical at any of the vignettes you do. And the thing that was hilarious is you get there, and there's just throngs of kids.
I've spoken to a lot of directors who talk about how when you've been in the editing room for six months with something, you no longer find it funny, and you want to take it out of the movie. You need to be reminded, no, the sequence worked for a reason, don't mess with it.SPECK: I'm sure you know from speaking to directors, but having been through so many test screenings over the years, especially with comedies, we have such thick skins.
I love hearing stories like that, just people that are that professional and want to be there. There's a few other actors I've spoken to that like being on set in between. They don't want to go back to their trailer. GORDON: We're already starting to look at posters and trailers, so I think it's going to start gearing up soon.How much are you debating, or how much are you working with the studio in terms of how much you want to show in the marketing versus keeping those surprises under wraps? Because the thing that people don't realize is the average person goes to the movies two times a year, so a lot of the marketing is always geared towards those rare people that don't go that often.
SPECK: But we love to tease out stuff, and we rarely get to do it, as you said, correctly. On Office Christmas Party, we did a teaser trailer that was just a voiceover that we wrote for Jason Bateman to do over some images, and that was it. It did very well.SPECK: It's still one of our favorites, but you rarely get that opportunity. Usually, it's expensive to market a movie. I'm sure you know that. And it's more expensive now than it ever has been.
GORDON: For us, that's returning a little bit to our roots in comedy, marrying it with the fun of doing a big musical, and also just the ambition of taking that very seriously as well and making a big historical westward expansion epic that's also about dying from dysentery. GORDON: Role-playing type game. It always had this dark band of humor running through it, because your chances of dying from everything from dysentery to a cut to anything was... Basically, every move you ended up dying.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
A Musical Adaptation of The Oregon Trail in the WorksA musical adaptation of the iconic computer video game The Oregon Trail is in the works from the team behind the recently released Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile.
Read more »
Review: 'Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile' is a croc that doesn't exactly rockCaught between warm and whimsical family adventure comedy and hallucinatory fever dream, you may have to trust your kids on 'Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile.'
Read more »
Movie Review: Lyle, Lyle, CrocodileMOVIE REVIEW: Where's the beating heart in this adaptation of Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile?
Read more »
Box Office: ‘Smile’ Outpacing ‘Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile’ for No. 1 as ‘Amsterdam’ BombsThere’s one key question gripping the world this weekend: will the box office be smiling, or will it be Lyling? Sony’s “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” had hopes to challenge for the…
Read more »