In December 2021, Jon Watts found himself at the back of the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard on the opening night of his latest film, Spider-Man: No Way Home. The film was one of the first major studio releases after the pandemic shutdown, and audiences stood, screamed, cried, and generally behaved in a way that, even for the first screening of a fan-favorite superhero film, was a spectacle in itself.
“That was such a specific moment in time, and the response to that film was just incredible,” Watts recalls. It was at this point that the director came to the conclusion: “It will never be like that again, ever.”
No way home grossed nearly $2 billion at the worldwide box office, the sixth highest-grossing film of all time and one of the best Marvel films, trailing only the last two Avengers films. Watts has decided not to return for a fourth Spidermanand in 2022 he stepped out as director of another Marvel property, Fantastic Four. In any industry, it’s hard to walk away from something that’s successful. In modern Hollywood, where even Robert Downey Jr. is making a comeback as a superhero, it can be career-threatening.
Watts left his home cinematic universe to pursue an original concept that had been in his mind for years. Inspired by films like the beloved French crime thriller The Samurai and the duet between Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin Midnight Runhe turned his attention to something a little riskier: Wolvesan action comedy he wrote himself (read: without any intellectual property) about two rival fixers forced to work together.
The concept, as Watts describes it, is simple enough: “For these two too-cool-for-school kids, what could burst their bubble more than meeting someone who’s basically exactly like them?” he says. But in today’s Hollywood, even a killer premise requires star power. In Watts’s mind, the only two actors who could fit the mold, simultaneously being the coolest kids in the room and the butt of the joke, were George Clooney and Brad Pitt.
Clooney and Pitt at the Venice Film Festival in 2008. Wolves will debut at the Lido and will then be streamed after a week of programming in theaters.
Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
While it is still being modified No way homeWatts connected on Zoom with Clooney who, along with his longtime producing partner Grant Heslov, was taking to the digital airwaves to hear a pitch for Wolves. “It was a very easy pitch for George: it's like having two Michael Claytons,” Watts recalls. Clooney and Heslov were sold, but they warned Watts, telling him, “Brad is going to be tough. He's very picky about his projects.” [Clooney] it's like saying, 'You really want this to be very clear when you talk to Brad.'”
Watts, ready to pitch Pitt the next day, didn’t sleep that night. Exhausted and preemptively starstruck, he was preparing his pitch when Pitt appeared on screen. “Two fixers. Same job. I get it, man,” Watts recalls Pitt saying. The director asked if Pitt would still like to hear the pitch: “Nah. George told me the whole thing. It’ll be fun. Let’s do it.” Clooney had called Pitt the day before. “And that was my pitch to Brad Pitt,” Watts says. “They were just kidding me from the beginning.”
Filming took place primarily on location in New York City in December and January. The film takes place entirely at night, meaning that the approximately 60-day shoot was mostly in 60-degree temperatures. The conditions didn’t seem to bother Clooney and Pitt, who hadn’t shared the screen since 2008. Burn after reading (in which they don't actually share the screen that much, for that we have to go back to 2007) Ocean's Thirteen). On set, when they weren't reciting their lines or sharing anecdotes from past projects with an enthusiastic cast and crew, Watts found Clooney and Pitt showing each other funny things they'd found on the Internet.
“One of the great delights of the film is that they both embrace their age. There are subtle, sweet nods to back pain and the need for reading glasses,” says producer Dede Gardner, an Oscar winner and partner in Pitt's Plan B company.
Aside from the gravitational pull of Clooney and Pitt, a central element of Wolves It's a colossal chase scene that winds through Chinatown and ends at the Brooklyn Bridge. Despite the spectacles Watts had previously directed, filming it proved to be a new and welcome experience.
“Sometimes you make an action movie and all the action fun is given to the second unit director,” Watts says. “On Marvel movies, you divide up the work because there's so much to do. You rarely get the Christopher Nolan opportunity to do it all. In this case, I was like, 'I want to shoot every single shot.'” From a tire squealing to a stop to star Austin Abrams flipping onto the roof of a BMW in a practical effect that saw the Euphoria actor hanging from various supports in his underwear, Watts was behind the camera the entire time.
“It's the only time in my life where you hear a logline and then he says what he's going to write and then he writes it,” Gardner says of Watts' tenacity. “Then he goes and shoots, and then he goes and cuts, and then he goes and delivers. It was just the straightest line.”
Wolves bows at the Venice Film Festival before heading to theaters on September 20 in a limited release and then streaming a week later on Apple. Ahead of its Lido debut, Apple announced a Wolves sequel. Luckily, Watts knows a thing or two about making a sequel.
When Watts directed his first film Spiderman registration, Coming homehad one independent film under his belt: the 2015 crime thriller starring Kevin Bacon Police car“I was just starting out and Marvel came along, and I take full creative ownership of all those movies, but Spiderman will always be a Stan Lee and Steve Ditko creation,” he says. “This was a chance for me to get back to my voice, my vision and my style. Wolves It's mine, and it feels really good.”
This story originally appeared in the August 21 issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Click here to subscribe.