How an unknown actor and a luckless director teamed with Nicolas Cage to create 2021’s first cult movie.
“So many amazing reviews and watch parties.
The college kids are loving it.
Screen Media
People watching it three, four, five times.
We have an 81 percent audience review on Rotten Tomatoes.
It’s really kind of cool.
Kyle Kaplan
I’m old school, so I’m aboutSiskel and Ebert.
But now it’s like power to the people.
Audiences speak, and they’ve spoken, and they dig it, and it’s awesome.”
Screen Media
“you’re able to’t take it seriously,” screenwriter G.O.
What’s going on?'"
The release of the film follows a traumatic period for Lewis who was recently diagnosed with COVID.
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“I was very close to not making it,” said the director.
“Those nurses and doctors are the real heroes.
I’m doing a lot better.
Every day I’m getting stronger and feeling more like myself.
It was a life-changing experience for sure.
I was very close to not making it.
I’m talking to you!
And it’s awesome!”
So, I started making the plays events, where you could bring drinks and your friends.
That was really fun.
That was the very start of it, me talking to him in that parking lot that night.
I’ll just have the character be silent the whole time.
And Boomtown had all these animatronics.
KEVIN LEWIS:I hadn’t directed a movie in a while.
Parsons:Kevin is one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever met in my life.
Lewis:A producer friend of mine, Jeremy Daniel Davis, brought meWilly’s.
We just loved it.
We saw the same vision.
We worked on it and we got to Nic.
Parsons:I had given the script to a casting director whose name was Venus Kanani.
On Monday morning I got a call: “Yeah, Nicolas Cage wants to make this movie.”
That’s how miraculously this happened.
Nic is into reptiles, he is into amphibians, and he’s into dinosaurs.
Let’s get a turtle instead of a regular mammal."
Lewis:Nic loved that it had no dialogue.
That was one of the draws for sure.
In fact, in the original script, there was one piece of dialogue at the end.
When he’s going to fight Willy, he says a line.
He and Willy are staring at each other, he goes, “Come at me, bro.”
Lewis:I was really struggling with that.
We would go back and forth with G.O.
I always picture it something like whatBruce [Campbell] says in theEvil Dead: “Groovy!”
It’s got to be something.
But what is it?
Nic and I decided,nolines.
A lot of people would read it and be like, “Why is he cleaning?
Why isn’t he running and hiding for his life?
This is unbelievable, this would never happen.
Nobody is going to watch this thing.”
On Oct. 31, 2019coincidentally Halloween, which was so coolthe movie gets greenlit.
However, Nicolas Cage has only got a month, from February until March of 2020.
If we can’t get it done in that time, the movie ain’t going to happen.
Lewis:We shot it at the beginning of the year in Atlanta.
I did a 70-page shot list.
Everything was on the shot list.
Because I knew, with Nic not speaking, visually I have to make it entertaining and interesting.
That was a challenge, but it was a fun challenge.
You’ve got Willy and his gang.
I call it the Psychopathic animatronic misfits.
There’s eight of them.
Ken Hall was the one who built all the costumes.
Ozzy was a puppet.
We only had one puppet and that was OzzyOzzy the ostrich.
That was a puppet.
We had a couple of puppeteers in green smocks manipulating Ozzy.
But the rest were stunt people in suits.
Nic was a great partner.
The guy worked tirelessly, man.
And he goes, “Well, Kevin, I like to do it in one!”
I was like, “Sounds good to me.”
Parsons:Nic added that dance at the end.
Where he’s dancing and doing the pinball stuff?
Lewis:Oh, that was fantastic.
I had like three cameras set.
The idea was that him playing pinball was like leveling up in a video game.
He’d beat Gus and after he beat Gus, he’d go and play pinball.
Anyway, we let the cameras roll and he did all that himself, man.
It was just incredible.
The crew was applauding him at the end.
We wrapped right before the pandemic hit.
We wrapped, and then I came home, and within two weeks we were in lockdown.
Parsons:The reaction is over the moon.
I never expected it to be as positive and cultish as it was.
It’s so so cool.
it adds that extra level.
Lewis:I’m down for a sequel.
I’m very excited.
I would love to see more adventures with the Janitor.
I was thinking you could go to different amusement parks or you could go to a circus.
I have this great vision of a Frankenstein Willy patched together and going for revenge.
There’s so much cool stuff you could do.
Parsons:That is a giant boulder that falls upon me to figure out.
Like, how do you tell the same joke twice?
Does he take on somebody new?
A new bad guy?
Well, yes, that would be great.
But, then, what about the stars of the show, which are the animatronics?
You’ve got to bring them back.
My wife pitched a team-up where he and Willy have to fight a new foe together.
I have an ideabut it’s only an idea at this stage.
Willy’s Wonderlandis currently available to watch in cinemas (wear a mask!)
Watch the film’s trailer below.
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