The Big Picture · Interview
August 2, 2019/ 39 min/ Sean Fennessey
Sean Fennessey talks to director David Leitch about building Hobbs & Shaw as a comedy-first summer tentpole, coming up as a stuntman, the John Wick credit the DGA wouldn't give him, and why the Oscars still leave stunt work out.
10 films across 1 segment.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
David Leitch on stunts, credit, and comedy-forward action
The movie at hand. Leitch pitches it as a comedy-first summer spectacle built on the family-and-emotional-stakes earnestness of the Fast series. It used more stunt performers than anything he'd directed before: a 96-day shoot with roughly 1,600 VFX shots crammed into five months of post.
Co-directed with Chad Stahelski for about $28M, sold on foreign pre-sales via Lionsgate International. The DGA let the pair co-direct and watched them do it on set, then denied Leitch a credit, calling the arrangement unprecedented. He's declined to fight it in court.
Stahelski stayed on the Wick train for the sequel; Leitch passed to chase Atomic Blonde, the point the two began working solo.
Stahelski's; Leitch notes his partner had been on the show a few weeks earlier to discuss it.
His first solo feature, from the graphic novel The Coldest City. He rewrote it toward 'neon noir' with a heavy music sensibility and calls it still the best filmmaking experience of his life.
The 'beloved franchise comedy' on his resume, proof he could do more than straight action. He was still in post on it when Hobbs & Shaw prep began.
His early break, doubling for Brad Pitt. Almost no stunt work in it (mostly photo-double bits), but he and the team trained Pitt and Edward Norton in basic fist-fighting for Fincher.
Cited as the turning point for his second-unit career: a 35-to-40-day all-fights shoot handed to him and Stahelski by the Wachowskis, who they'd long mentored under.
Joss Whedon's film, named as the pair's pioneering 'stunt-vis' job: shooting and cutting their own fight previews to show directors and studios.
One of the credits where their stunt-vis approach became their calling card before it was industry standard.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Touchstones and comparisons The Fast and the FuriousLethal Weapon
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV BarryGame of ThronesBuffy the Vampire SlayerBaywatch
Video games / unmade The Division