Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
This was kind of our response to that.
Were a throwback, if you will, to the days where comedies were crafted.
What genre is it?
Am I supposed to be laughing?
Am I supposed to be … uneasy?
He called me up and goes: Game Night.
I was like, Fuck, that is a good title!
He didnt have an idea, really.
But hes like, What if everybody got together and something happens over a summer?
I sat with it for 30 minutes.
Im like, No, it happens over one night.
What if its a murder-mystery party, everyone thinks its fake, but someone actually gets killed?
Hes like, Thats it!
We saw the potential to do a movie that could cross genres, Goldstein says.
We also knew there was a bad version of this movie that could exist, Daley says.
To head off that bad version, the directors set about deconstructing every aspect of the original script.
We changed the characters pretty considerably, we changed the third act almost entirely, says Goldstein.
I would say 99.9 percent of the dialogue changed, adds Daley.
Gary the cop was a loudmouth brash asshole in the original draft.
We turned him into this strange, polite, overly articulate weirdo.
There was a muscle-bound boss character who we eliminated entirely.
But we felt that did a disservice to the characters.
We wanted there to be a consistent through line that audiences could look back and see.
Oh, it all tracks and makes sense.
The wife part, a lot of the time, is not the best part in the movie.
But shes a peer in this, says Perez.
And usually the woman in these movies is like, Youre a loser.
Im mad at you.
Our relationship is on the rocks.
And by the end of the movie, were going to come together as a couple.
But these two are already a team.
Were going to figure it out together.
It was crucial to us to have a strong, comedic female lead, says Daley.
Too often we see the wives rolling their eyes at the funny shit that husbands get to do.
We wanted to make her be the one that makes the mistakes and gets the laughs.
A lot of the casting we did were not your typical comedy people.
Our production designer was a guy known primarily for dramas.
Our composer had never done comedy.
They kind of had to take a leap of faith with us.
You could lift that guy and put him in a horror movie and it wouldnt change anything.
Never wincing at the audience and saying, Arent I a riot?
I think that was crucial for this film.
It definitely sets the tone for everything that follows.
Theyre probably going to hate it, says Daley.
We were confident in making it, not in the reception.
We were writing the headlines before the movie came out: Game Nights a Loser!
Game Over, says Goldstein.
And it could fall on its face.
Those headlines, of course, never materialized.
People always ask me, Were you mad?
Were you insecure that they hired directors who are writers?
No, he says.
They hired directors who wrote a ton of funny shit!
They took scenes and made them better.
But it was all within the confines of what the script was and wanted to be.
Its just an indicator of laziness on Hollywoods part, says Goldstein.
Its not like were inventing the wheel here.
Were just listening to what audiences are tired of and giving them something different.
