The Tomorrow War Director Chris McKay on Film's Unusual Structure and Not Overthinking Time Travel
31With The Tomorrow War now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, I recently spoke with director Chris McKay about making the time-traveling alien apocalypse blockbuster. During the interview, McKay talked about what people would be surprised to learn about the making of The Tomorrow War, how the film pulls a Bad Boys 2 in that you think the film is over, but it’s just the end of the second act, why he wanted the film to only focus on what Chris Pratt’s character sees, not diving too deep into the time travel mechanics, why he was disappointed to cut out a great scene between Betty Gilpin and Pratt’s character about their backstory, and more. In addition, he reveals what happened to The LEGO Batman Movie sequel, the status of his Jonny Quest movie, and how his next film could be Renfield which will focus on the titular Dracula henchman.
Written by Zach Dean, The Tomorrow War is about a group of time travelers that arrive from the year 2051 to warn humanity that 30 years in the future a war is being lost against a deadly alien race that could signal the end of all life on our planet. This leads to the world banding together to send both soldiers and civilians to the future to join the battle. Pratt plays a former member of the military who is one of the many drafted into service. The Tomorrow War also stars Sam Richardson, J. K. Simmons, Jasmine Mathews, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Theo Von, and Keith Powers. The film's producers are David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Jules Daly, David Goyer, and Adam Kolbrenner, with executive producers including Pratt as well as Rob Cowan, Brian Oliver, and Bradley J. Fischer.
Chris McKay:
What would people be surprised to learn about the making of The Tomorrow War?
Why he was disappointed to cut out a great scene between Betty Gilpin and Chris Pratt about their backstory.
Why do the streaming companies never release deleted scenes?
Why they don’t spend a lot of time getting into how time travel works.
How the film only gets into what Pratt’s character sees.
How long was his first cut?
How he had a cut that was close to three hours but that was before VFX were finished.
When did he decide to have Sam Richardson set the new record for a character saying shit in a movie?
How the film pulls a Bad Boys 2 in the way you think the film is over but that’s just the end of the 2nd act.
Whatever happened with The LEGO Batman movie sequel?
How his next film could be Renfield which will focus on the titular Dracula henchman but in an original story not set in the same world.
What’s the status of the Jonny Quest movie?
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