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ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke with Accident Man: Hitman’s Holiday directors George and Harry Kirby about the action sequel and the brothers’ love of Dragon Ball. The film is now available digital and on demand
“The Accident Man is back and this time he must beat the top assassins in the world to protect the ungrateful son of a mafia boss, save the life of his only friend and rekindle his relationship with his maniacal father figure,” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: George, you’ve both had this awesome YouTube channel for years now. Now you’re working on a feature film together. Talk me through this transition of all these years of doing these fan films, paying off, and doing such a larger project.
George Kirby: Yeah, it’s been a long 10 years I suppose. We’ve managed to create a lot of short films where we learned our craft and learned our skills as filmmakers and directors. I think that, ultimately, is what led us to getting Accident Man, as the final short film that we made was a proof of concept for a feature film that we wanted to make and that we wanted Scott [Adkins] to be involved with. We sent that to him. He really loved it, and then off the back of that, he offered us Accident Man 2. So I think that transition from making short films, learning how to make films, how to direct, how to do action — all those things eventually culminated in getting Accident Man.
Harry Kirby: Yeah, in our heads we were going to make YouTube videos for like a year and then be big feature film directors. It took 10 years, but in the end, in the end, it did pay off. Funny enough, George had worked with Scott on a stunt project on Doctor Strange, but Scott had also, over time, actually seen some of our short films on YouTube. So when we came to Scott with our proof of concept, he was like, “I’ve actually seen some of your stuff already,” so that was a help. He really liked the proof of concept and that’s how we got this film. If we hadn’t been out there making those shorts, doing that practice, then this film never would have happened. So, as George said, it all paid off in the end. So, yeah, it’s worth it.
Harry, coming into a sequel, how do you try to balance staying true to what fans liked about the original while also making it your own because you don’t want to do a copycat?
Harry Kirby: So it’s a bit of a balance. We’ve got some characters coming across. We’ve got Fred returning from the first film. We’ve got Ray returning from the first film, and obviously Mike Fallon as well. So we don’t want the people that watch the first film and enjoyed it to come into our film and be like, “Wait was going on? Its completely different characters.” So we’ve got to maintain some similar things from the first film. I’d say the biggest change we made was probably the tone. We wanted to make it a bit more fun, and lighthearted … these characters are all, if you stop and think about it, terrible people. They’re killers, they’re assassins, that kind of stuff. So we wanted to make sure that while you’re along for the fun, crazy ride, that you actually like the people you’re following.
We just wanted to make Fallon a bit more of a character that you can, even though he’s a crazy murderer and assassin, that you could have a bit of a connection with him and root for him when he’s doing his crazy fights and stuff. So I’d say that one of the biggest changes made was just making this more of a comedy. More fun, more lighthearted, and then also just trying to up the action. I think we’re pretty proud of the fights. We got some crazy cool fights. So it’s a bit of a balance, but I think people will be happy. I think if you were a fan of the first one, you’ll still get the stuff that you want, but you’ll also get a whole lot more.
George, Scott Adkins is such a great action performer and he also worked on the story for this film. How much easier does it make your job when the lead actor not only has that stunt experience but also knows that character so well and is so in tune with where the story should be?
George Kirby: Absolutely. Scott is absolutely professional. He’s been doing this stuff for years, you know? Amazing martial artist, actor … he can switch on like that and he knows what he’s doing. He knows how to make it interesting, he knows where the camera should be, he knows the rhythm of the fights, he loves 80s and 90s action-style movies, which we also love. I think, in terms of the character, he knows Mike inside out. He read all the comics when he was young. He loves his character and it’s a passion project for him. So I think you can definitely feel that passion for Scott.
He loves the character, he loves this world that they live in. That makes it so much easier, as directors, to have someone who really embodies that character and wants to bring the most out of that character. Like I said, with the action, you know you’ll not have a problem with Scott. You know you can point the camera at him and he’ll give you exactly what you need. All our performers are great. All the assassins and stuff are martial artists or fighters in some respect as well as actors. So it just made that whole process of shooting the action and getting the most out of it actually quite — not easy, because we had such a short amount of time to do it — but having them know their stuff and know how to do it and know where to be on camera and know where to put their fists to cover the shots and stuff made it so much simpler and more effective and efficient for us.
The action came across so great in this movie. Harry, what was the most difficult stunt to pull off from a logistics standpoint?
Harry Kirby: Not necessarily a stunt, but there were two fights that we were filming simultaneously. So this was one of the advantages of having two directors, is that George had a team off working with the Poco and I was off doing a Siu-ling fight. That was quite different for us. We’rebBoth simultaneously off shooting stuff and with George [Fouracres]’s fight with Poco fight, we’re wrecking the sets. Poco’s getting put through walls and all this stuff. So on those days where it’s nonstop stunts, it’s quite intense because you’ve got a lot of action scenes to get.
Then stunts obviously slow things down because you’ve got to make sure that you are safe and everyone’s prepared. So in something like that where we’ve got two fights being filmed and in both fights we’ve got stunts going on … those days are quite like full-on intense but really fun, because it’s basically like being a big kid. We build a set and then we smash the whole thing up and have a killer clown running around all that kind of stuff. So it’s hard work but it’s really good fun at the same time.
How often do you guys film separately like that?
Harry Kirby: This was a first. It’s just because we wanted to put so much action into this film.
George Kirby: Just for the schedule, you have 22 days for the whole shoot. Trying to fit that much action in those days is really tough. So we decided to do split units where you do one, I’ll do the other, and we’ll film at the same time so we’re getting a two-for-one sort of thing.
Harry Kirby: There’s only a couple of times where we could do that because Scott is involved in pretty much all the fights. There are only a couple of times where there are other fights going on with different characters.
George, these movies are such a blast — sometimes literally. What was most fun about working with this script and heightening the fun involved with the film?
George Kirby: I think that was what interested us most about it … the almost over-the-top caricatures of these killers and stuff. So I think I was trying to re-push that fun element. That was what made it fun for us as well, coming up with all the new accident kills for Fallon and Fred … testing out all these new ideas to kill people, which, when you actually stop and think about it, it’s pretty horrific but was kind of fun to do. I think that was what made it really fun for us.
Harry Kirby: Also, the design, like Poco was a character that took us a while to lock in what he was going to be. Me and my brother are big anime fans, so we were like, “we want the big anime-style weapon like a brick on a stick for him to be swinging around. Basically, if your day job is to come up with weapons for a killer clown, it’s a fun day.
I saw you guys did these awesome live-action Dragon Ball trailers. Obviously, Dragon Ball Evolution happened, so there’s a big stigma, but would that be a dream project of yours, working on a live-action Dragon Ball?
Harry Kirby: Yeah, absolutely. We started our filmmaking in making live-action Dragon Ball Z adaptations. Dragon Ball Evolution is pretty largely responsible for starting our focus because we were so upset with that film. We were like, “Right, we’re going to do it ourselves,” kind of thing. So we went and made those short films. That would be the dream. Work our way up, and then someone gives us a Marvel-level budget and we go and make a giant Dragon Ball movie. Like yeah.
George Kirby: That’s the dream.
Harry Kirby: That and, it’s not an anime, but that and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles … that would be like our dream projects to work on.
George, I’d love to know about your favorite Dragon Ball characters.
George Kirby: I’ve always loved Trunks. When he turned up and slashed up Frieza … that was the coolest moment ever for me. I was just like, “Oh God, I love this guy. He’s so good.”
Harry Kirby: Especially at that point because you’d only just had Goku turn Super Saiyan for the first time. Then this cool young Saiyan just turns up out of nowhere.
George Kirby: Definitely. Tien too, always loved Tien as well. He was underused, but …
Harry Kirby: Yeah, the smaller characters that don’t get enough love anymore. If we were to make our Dragon Ball movie, it would be Saiyan Saga so that we could have all the other Z-Warriors fighting, as we those smaller characters.
Harry, I saw you guys did some cool virtual reality videos and there’s still so much more space to explore within that tech. Would you want do more in the future in the VR space?
Harry Kirby: Yeah, we love that kind of thing. In Accident Man, we used the 360 camera a few times so that we could be on Fallon’s face on the motorbike and then zip around to the speed dial and zip up to that kind of stuff. So yeah, VR, 360 cams, all that stuff. We’d love to push some of that stuff. I think there’s so much room. I don’t know if you saw a film called Hardcore Henry, remember that? First-person?
I haven’t seen it.
Harry Kirby: It was like a whole action movie filmed in first person.
George Kirby: With a GoPro camera, basically.
Harry Kirby: It’s all from the hero’s perspective. It wasn’t seen by many people, but it was great. You should watch it. We love stuff like that. So I think there’s definitely a VR movie where you’ll come on the rails in the scenes. I think there could be some cool stuff there. So yeah, we’d love to do some of that.
George, working with your brother and living your shared dream has to be an incredible thrill, but you guys can’t always see eye to eye 100%. What’s the most difficult about working together as a duo for so long?
George Kirby: Obviously, we grew up together. We shared a career at the same time. We worked in TV at the same channel and stuff. We started a company together, we used to do wedding videos and stuff like that together. We pretty much speak to each other every day in some capacity, even if it’s just a message or something. I think we’re just at that point where there’s not much left to argue about, you know? We both love making films. We’ve spent the last 10 years making films together. We know where our strengths are, what our weaknesses are, and that definitely helps. I’m a bit stronger with the action stuff, Harry’s a bit stronger with the storytelling and things like characters. So together we sort of balance other stuff.
Harry Kirby: So we never truly argue, do we?
George Kirby: Nah, we bicker.
Harry Kirby: Yeah, we bicker a lot. He gets upset because people always think he’s the older brother, even though I’m the older brother. On the start of this film, we said to everyone on set on the first day, we said, “we’re going to bicker, but don’t worry, it’s never serious. We’re never going to shout at each other or anything.” So we just … then we take a few seconds and then we’re like, “ok,” one of us wins —
George Kirby: Usually me!
Harry Kirby: Yeah.
Okay, good. So we won’t have an Oasis situation?
Harry Kirby: No, no, not yet. We’ll see. Maybe 30 years down the line, we’ll do that, where we make our own movies and compete with each other.
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