Everything’s coming up Macon Blair.
The filmmaker, who first visited Sundance in 2017 with his incredible debut feature as a director “I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore” (which won the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance before being released a month later by Netflix), returned to cinemas last year with his remake of cult favorite “The Toxic Avenger” after a very long wait. Just a few months later, Blair is back with a brand-new film and has returned to Sundance for its final year in Park City, Utah, this time with “The Shitheads.”
“It’s thrilling because it’s been so fast on this movie, we were basically shooting it over the summer, and so to get to be up here feels like a real pleasant, wonderful surprise. And to come back after the last time, which was totally surreal on its own merits, but to get to be back on the last year, it feels especially special to be invited this year,” Blair told TheWrap’s Casey Loving at the Sundance Film Festival. “There was something about meeting Peter [Dinklage] at the last festival and then staying in touch and him getting on board with this movie, which helped the packaging of this movie, so that there feels like a nice straight line from that festival to this one in that regard, that I love that memory.”
Since meeting Dinklage at the last Sundance that Blair attended, the actor has appeared in “The Toxic Avenger” and the Prime Video movie “Brothers,” which Blair wrote. They also both appeared on FX’s recent mystery series “The Lowdown.”
As for Blair’s latest, “The Shitheads,” which the Sundance program describes as a “raucous and wildly entertaining descent into madness.” The synopsis states: “Dave Franco and O’Shea Jackson Jr. are perfectly (mis)matched as Mark and Davis, the fumbling circumstantial chaperones in charge of transporting the increasingly psychotic Sheridan (a brilliant Mason Thames).” We are so in.
Nicholas Braun, who has a supporting role in “The Shitheads,” first read the script back in 2017. “I just thought it was so funny and unique and insane, and the pace of it is so great and it’s just an explosive script to read,” Braun said.
In order to try and secure the role, he did a bizarre music video where he would walk around the streets of Hollywood, making people feel very uncomfortable. “I rolled up on a girl with her dog and I start dancing on her. And I was just like, ‘I need to get this part. I need to be a ridiculous person and freestyle the bit,’” Braun said.
Braun thought about the movie for years and only later learned that it was finally being made, assuming that he wouldn’t get the part, despite his weird Hollywood sojourn. But – surprise! – he did get up getting it. “Long way of saying, I’ve loved this movie from the minute I read it,” Braun said.
Franco had already been a Blair fan before signing on – and that fandom ended up helping to get the movie made.
“I was obsessed with Macon’s first movie. And since then, I’ve been chasing him down to work with me. We actually talked about ‘The Shitheads’ in 2017 and at the time, we realized that I was too old to play Sheridan, but too young to play Mark, and so we parted ways,” Franco explained. “Then a year and a half ago, I reached out to Macon, and I was like, ‘Whatever happened with the movie? If I can help get it made in any way, I’m here.’ Then I came on board as a producer, and we were like, ‘Let’s try to go find some money and go make this thing.’”
Jackson joined the film at the urging of Franco, in a role that had been earmarked for Tracy Morgan and later Ron Funches in earlier iterations of the movie.
“Dave was telling me, ‘There’s this role in this film that I’m doing and I really think you’d be great for it.’ And so my ears are up because number one, when your friend says, ‘Hey, check this out, I think you’ll be dope,’ now you’re looking for, What does my friend think about me?” Jackson said. “Looking through it, there definitely was a part where I was like, ‘Do I do anything weird?’ And Dave said, ‘I do most of the weird stuff.’ I said alright.”
Kiernan Shipka, who plays a supporting role, said about the production, “Macon has these incredible suggestions that I would never have even thought of. And they are some of my favorite things. I just felt like every day was so surprising on top of the script – very surprising, very original, and also so clear on the page, I feel like I just knew what the movie was, but then it also maintained this element of surprise throughout making it. And there’s like a real magic in those two things coming together.”
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