Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Another Simple Favor’ Director Paul Feig on Reuniting With Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively and Plans for a Third Movie: ‘There’s More Fun Stuff to Be Done With These Characters’
Paul Feig returns to SXSW for the third time Friday night. Following his previous premieres of “Bridesmaids” and “Spy” at the festival, the director will open this year’s SXSW at the Paramount Theater in Austin with “Another Simple Favor,” the sequel to his 2018 hit “Simple Favor.”
Anna Kendrick returns as Stephanie Smothers with Blake Lively as Emily Nelson. Murderous mayhem ensues when Stephanie travels to Capri, Italy, for Emily’s extravagant wedding to an Italian businessman (Michele Morrone). “I always remembered how much I loved working with Anna and Blake, and how creative they both are, and how collaborative they both are,” Feig told me Thursday shortly after he landed in Austin. “It was really like old home week. We all challenge each other with new things and some outrageous things to do and we had a blast. It was like putting on a pair of comfortable slippers.”
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Returning cast includes Henry Golding and Andrew Rannells with Morrone, Allison Janney and Alex Newell joining for the sequel, which debuts May 1 on Prime Video.
“At the end of the day, it’s a fun, twisty, stylish and sexy thriller in a sort of Hitchcockian way,” Feig says. “They can be funny, and they can also be scary and intense. You get a full range of emotions and you have a good time.”
This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
This isn’t your first South by Southwest premiere.
We did “Bridesmaids” as an unofficial premiere because we were supposed to be a work-in-progress. But then I went up on stage, I said, “Oh, it’s actually pretty much finished.” They reviewed it, much to the consternation of the studio. Then we did “Spy” here, which was really, really great. I’ve been dying to get a movie back here ever since, but our release dates never seem to work out. I tried to get “Jackpot!” here last year, but it was just too far from the August release date. I’ll do anything to have a have a movie playing here. I just love it so much.
Why do you love it so much?
It’s not a snooty film festival. The audiences love movies and they love entertainment. And the fact that it’s music, television and movies means that people are coming to celebrate arts and entertainment fun. I don’t need to be at one of those festivals where you get a standing ovation.
But you wouldn’t mind a standing ovation, right?
As long as it’s not a performative one.
Did you have a sequel in mind when you were making the first “Simple Favor?”
No, but then the movie really took off on streaming. My producing partner Laura Fischer and I were like, “Maybe these characters can come back and do something else.” I love these characters. I love Anna and Blake so much. Then I thought about Capri and what if it’s a destination wedding? It’s fun taking Anna’s character out of her suburban comfort zone, as much as she’s comfortable anywhere, and putting her in a completely different world with opulence and over the top rich people and over the top beauty and money. It just seemed like too much fun.
Did you just want an excuse to get a free vacation in Capri?
What I’ve discovered is don’t make movies where you like to vacation because your brain goes, “Oh, I’m on vacation.” But then it’s like, “No, no, no,” because I’m dealing with people on the island who are now mad at us because we’re blocking the traffic.
What was the most challenging part of making the movie in Capri?
It was navigating Capri. It’s such a small island. There are roads that go up and down from the marina, but otherwise, it’s just a walking city. You realize there are not that many routes around the property. If you’re shooting in the main square and you have to hold pedestrians and traffic, it piles up so fast. We weren’t even there in season, but was madness. You’d stop traffic for like a three-minute scene, and suddenly you look up and there are 1,000 people on the road and a million cars stopped, and everybody wants to kill you. That was tough.
The first trailer includes Stephanie reading from her new book, “Was she a glamorous PR executive? Or a cold-blooded killer?” Did that come about before or after the Blake controversy?
That was always in our script.
Are you already thinking about a third movie?
It would be fun. We’re definitely set up for one. There’s more fun stuff to be done with these characters.
The first movie had a theatrical release but this is straight to streaming. Why?
It was always going to be a streaming movie. There was never talk about theatrical. Does a filmmaker want their movie on the big screen? Of course, but all the deals were made to be streaming. But that’s why I cling to things like coming to SXSW and all the test screenings that we do. We’re going to do a ton of word-of-mouth screenings, and I’m going to be at the Miami Film Festival showing the movie. That’s where you get to let people have that group experience. But then it’s also going to be really fun for people to watch at home. I can almost guarantee you that people are going to put together parties to watch it together because there’s so many people that are fans of the movie. It’s going to be a big party no matter where you watch it.
The second season of “The White Lotus” also took place in Italy. Were you worried that it would be too similar, being a murder mystery and all?
The irony was we kind conceived this way before “The White Lotus” came out. But when I saw “The White Lotus” was going to Italy, I thought, “Oh, shit, I hope people don’t think we copied them.” But I also think entertainment should be aspirational in some way or another, whether it’s just the characters you love or the situation they’re in that you love or it’s the fashion, location and all that stuff, you’re transported to another world. And today, we need nothing more than to be transported to another world.
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