With Bullet Train opening in theaters later this week, I recently got to speak with director David Leitch about making his fantastic new movie. If you haven’t seen the trailers, Bullet Train was adapted from the Japanese mystery-fiction book Bullet Train written by Kōtarō Isaka, the Japanese best-selling and award-winning novelist. Just like the novel, the movie takes place in Japan on the titular bullet train on a trip from Tokyo to Morioka. On the train there are a number of assassins whose assignments are very much interconnected, though they don’t know this until things start to go haywire when the assassins start trying to kill each other.
Loaded with inventive action set pieces, a script that will keep you guessing, and fantastic performances from the entire cast, Bullet Train is absolutely worth seeing in a movie theater. The film stars Brad Pitt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Joey King, Andrew Koji, Hiroyuki Sanada, Zazie Beetz, Michael Shannon, Logan Lerman, Hiroyuki Sanada, Masi Oka, Sandra Bullock, and Benito A Martínez Ocasio aka Bad Bunny.
During the fun interview, Leitch talked about what it was like finding out Pitt wanted to do the movie and what it’s like behind-the-scenes when trying to cast him, how they filmed most of the movie on a soundstage on the Sony backlot (you won’t believe it after you see the film), filming the action sequences, and what he learned from test screenings. He also provided updates on the Nobody sequel with Bob Odenkirk and his next movie, an adaptation of the Lee Majors TV series, The Fall Guy, with Ryan Gosling.
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