Paul Feig does not appear to be exaggerating when he talks about the pains of making Another Simple Favor.
The sequel-averse filmmaker has discussed his apprehensions before, noting after Friday’s South by Southwest world premiere that he feared disappointing fans of the first movie — an absolutely bonkers comedy thriller that proved to be a real showpiece for Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively and their undeniable onscreen chemistry.
He doubled down on his reservations during a conversation at the Austin Convention Center on Saturday afternoon. “We worked this script forever,” Feig said. “I tried to kill that project many times. It was terrifying.”
It turns out Feig and producing partner Laura Fischer even 86’d an approved version of the film when Feig started having apprehensions.
“We threw out a whole script that was greenlit,” he explained. “I was reading the response from people who were so excited for a sequel, and I thought, ‘This is not what they want.’ So, we got together with the writers and threw out that 70 percent of what we had and then made it into what it is — only because Laura just kept saying ‘We have to do this.’ I didn’t want to fuck it up. So, I’m really happy about how it came out.”
Feig brought up another time he was afraid of fucking up — namely the pressure put on Bridesmaids in the lead up to its 2011 premiere. “So many female writer friends of mine were going out and pitching female led comedies,” he said. “They all heard from the studios, ‘We have to wait and see how Bridesmaid turns out.’ Fucking hell. Don’t put that on me. I was going to ruin movies for women if we didn’t do well.”
It’s funny now, considering Bridesmaids‘ $306 million box office gross. But there remains more skepticism on female-fronted films than male-fronted. It’s among the reasons why Feig’s resume is filled with female-led features — Spy, the maligned and trolled update of Ghostbusters, A Simple Favor and upcoming Amanda Seyfried-Sydney Sweeney thriller The Housemaid among them. By his estimation, he’s still earning the studios’ confidence.
“It takes a lot of trust and, fortunately, my movies have made people money over the years, so that gets you a little more leeway,” he said. “But they never stop thinking that you’re going to screw them on this one. Never.”
Returning to the topic of Another Simple Favor, Feig talked extensively about Lively taking the lead on her character’s attire — flashy in the first movie and even more over-the-top in the second where her character is sprung from prison for reasons explained in the film. “Her ideas on wardrobe are spectacular,” said Feig. “When when she first shows up [in the movie], Blake was like, ‘I want to show up in a suit that looks like a prison outfit.’ It’s one of these things that when somebody first says it, you’re like, ‘That’s weird.’ Then you realize it’s actually brilliant.”
Lively also sourced the cartoonishly large sunhat that briefly makes an appearance in the film’s teaser trailer.
There’s a store in Capri called Fiore, and she went in and they had this big-ass sunhat,” he recounted. “She came back and said, ‘I just bought this hat. Can we put it in the movie?’ That’s definitely going in the movie. You kidding me? And my favorite thing is how she navigates the street with it. There’s one shot where she’s walking past the camera and, as she goes by, she lifts it up so you can see her face. I’m like, ‘You are such a fucking movie star.’”
The topic of Lively’s legal battle with It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni did not come up — which is fortunate, because the people in her orbit have probably been asked to chime in quite enough already.