PERRI NEMIROFF: Im so excited to be talking aboutRedux Redux.
This is one of my favorite movies of the festival!
KEVIN MCMANUS: I love to hear that!
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MATTHEW MCMANUS: Oh, that’s such a great question.
So, for us, our North Star isTheTerminator.
I’m always like, I just want to attempt to makeThe Terminator, or a tenth is good.
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So, Kev and I were talking about that and we were talking about the multiverse.
Then we realized there’s no need.
Every single Marvel movie is just about the multiverse now.
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But it was really just us throwing the ball around, and it came up to us.
I don’t really know where this one came from.
It’s just us talking.
KEVIN MCMANUS: You know whats funny?
You’re watching a process, and you know exactly what the protagonist is thinking at any given moment.
Now, I need the opposite.
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KEVIN MCMANUS: Its 1,000% what we keep talking about.
The 1999 sci-fi classic had an expansive world beyond just the movies.
To start looping Michaela in now, when you two were writing this, were you writing itforher?
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So, first we go through a development thing with studios, and then eventually it occurred to us.
I think she was written to be a grandmother at first, and so we’re chasing after megastars.
Financiers would be like, Yeah, we’ll give you the money if you might get Reese Witherspoon.
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You’re like, Well, okay.
So, it’s one of those kinds of things.
Its been just an absolute joy.
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KEVIN MCMANUS: We just waited until Michaela was grandmother-age.
Many years down the line.
KEVIN MCMANUS: Were really trying to bake in the legacy sequel.
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I wasn’t really at an age where it would make sense even to have a 14-year-old daughter.
MICHAELA MCMANUS: Thank you so much.
And the same thing for you, Michaela, but for the two of them as directors.
We’ve seen her in plays when she was at Ford.
I remember thinking, Oh, man.
It was so exciting to see you get to show off that whole range.
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MATTHEW MCMANUS: I think the thing that surprised me the most was Michaela hates guns.
Whenever I give Nerf guns to her boys, she’s like, What are you doing?
MICHAELA MCMANUS: The first time.
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[Laughs] No, you know what?
They know me as an actor better than anybody.
It was a really interesting dichotomy of sister and actor in the movie.
Did you have that in this case, and if so, when?
I think everybody’s lost somebody really close to them, and what would that be like?
So, it wasn’t actually a hard place to go to when you really go there.
We’re gonna really go for it here.
I’m really pleased with the outcome.
I really feel good about the movie we made.
Again, this is really something else in so many respects.
Another one of those respects is Stella [Marcus].
We pulled Stella from an audition.
She’s like, I don’t want this thing to end.
This is so great.
Let’s keep going.
So, yeah, she was such a spark plug.
We were so grateful we were able to find her.
And then, all of a sudden, she’s introduced in the movie.
When did you first realize, This is going to be someone who I can really play with?
It’s like those opposites attract kind of thing.
She’s just phenomenal.
I adore her as a human.
She’s such a good person.
We were really lucky to get her.
KEVIN MCMANUS: Matt and I do such an aggressive amount of planning for everything we do.
We have a really good idea of how it’s all going to come together.
How do we get an image that makes you get off your cell phone?
Can we c’mon be like, Hey, you gotta start paying attention right now.
c’mon start watching.
This is a thing that people do.
We should be able to do this, right?
So, we talked about putting that piece together, and it was so exciting.
I think that’s definitely the most exciting thing.
So, we were like, It would be great to have more of this.
I don’t know where it’s gonna even land in the movie.
We were working with Hugo Villasenor, who didBone Tomahawkand stuff, as our special effects makeup artist.
We should just give him time."
Kevin and I flipped a coin.
KEVIN MCMANUS: The best day!
I won the coin toss.
We still reminisce about how wonderful the kill room was.
Jeremy coming in, getting murdered, and then taking time to get a new effect done.
That was, like, the most fun making a movie in a long time.
This loose remake twists a classic story into a horror-feeling Western.
MICHAELA MCMANUS: Similar to my brothers, I’m a little neurotic when it comes to prepping.
There are a lot of scenes, so I had a sort of bible to refer back to.
She is not a trained assassin.
She figured it out along the way.
So, however I did that was going to work.
However it works for Irene is how it’s worked for the last several years.
That was a surprise to me at the beginning, and it was really helpful.
Do you know every single rule within this world?
Then, the multiverse got so overdone, we were like, We cant put that in there.
So, that becomes her superpower, right?
I think that’s such a benefit to the film, and it was certainly a benefit to me.
I didn’t get bogged down by all of that.
They’re amazing directors.
I want to stick with the world-building element and ask about your multiverse travel machine.
It’s not just chrome, and it’s sleek, and it’s cool.
He goes, “I think I get it.”
They did an incredible job with it.
MICHAELA MCMANUS: It was hot in there!
[Laughs]
I can’t even imagine.
KEVIN MCMANUS: There’s no faking it.
The thing was as heavy as a refrigerator.
I’m going to end with this particular question.
Can you each isolate the single moment of makingRedux Reduxthat brought you the most joy as an independent filmmaker?
So, it’s a little shoehorned in there.
You might be watching like, “This car blowing up, does this really make sense?”
But we leaned in so we could do the moment.
It literally wouldn’t start, and I was like, “This is a sign.”
So, that was the greatest joy in the world was that Viking funeral.
I love that story so much!
Everybody was just so silent during that whole moment.
You’re just like, “I hope this guy’s okay.”
They go, “You alright?”
And he goes, Yeah, and everybody just exploded with tears.
It was just this very cool moment.
I remember asking Michaela, What was that like looking at Chad while he’s on fire?
She was like, It really felt like I was looking at a dude on fire!
It was really intense.
It was so cool because I’ve been making movies with my brothers since we were kids.
It was an amazing set that they built.
Showing my kid, “This is it!”
I can just see the seeds being planted.
It was just like a real full circle moment for me.
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