Emmy Raver-Lampman and Jemma Redgrave are among the returning cast for ‘The Beekeeper 2’.
Star Jason Statham will also be back as the skilled operative.
‘Nobody 2’s Timo Tjahjanto is in the director’s chair.
While 2024’s Jason Statham-led action thriller ‘The Beekeeper’ saw a somewhat mixed reaction from critics, there’s no denying audience embraced the star’s latest chunk of clash-happy chaos, to the tune of $162 million worldwide.
There is a change behind the camera, however, as ‘Nobody 2’ director Timo Tjahjanto will take over calling the shots for David Ayer, who handled the original.
The 2024 original, scripted by Kurt Wimmer, saw Statham as Adam Clay, a former operative of a clandestine organization called “Beekeepers”.
After his friend and neighbor (Phylicia Rashad) dies by suicide after falling for a phishing scam, Clay sets out to exact revenge against the company responsible.
Raver-Lampman played Verona Parker, an FBI agent hot on Adam’s trail while Naderi was Parker’s partner, Agent Matt Wiley.
Redgrave appeared as Jessica Danforth, the President of the United States, entangled in the deadly scheme. She was also the mother to Josh Hutcherson’s Derek Danforth, the main antagonist of the first film. Irons, meanwhile, was Wallace Westwyld, a former CIA director serving as the head of security for Danforth Enterprises.
Wimmer has returned to write the script for the new movie, but the story is being kept in the hive for now. Mostly we’re guessing it’ll be a fresh excuse for Statham to kick a lot of butt.
And ‘Grown-ish’s Yara Shahidi will also be part of the cast for the new movie in an unknown role.
When will ‘The Beekeeper 2’ be on screens?
With Miramax producing and financing and Amazon MGM Studios once more aboard to distribute worldwide, the new movie is now in production.
We don’t have an official release date just yet, but we could see this one targeting an early-mid 2026 slot.
Ford and Wayne. Scorsese and De Niro. Burton and Depp. Ayer and Statham. Well, okay, that last one doesn’t quite fit with the others, but there’s no question that director David Ayer and action star Jason Statham – working together for the second movie in a row after 2024’s surprise hit ‘The Beekeeper’ – have an intense creative connection, at least when it comes to making numbing, sadistically violent thrillers that fully embrace Ayer’s retrograde macho tendencies and Statham’s stoic, limited-range acting and admirably intense physicality.
In fact, with a few tweaks to the screenplay (co-written by Ayer and, of all people, Sylvester Stallone, from the novel ‘Levon’s Trade’ by Chuck Dixon), ‘A Working Man’ could almost be ‘The Beekeeper 2.’ But it’s not: while ‘The Beekeeper’ was smart enough amid its overall dopiness to deploy a unique villain – those phishing robocallers who bilk unsuspecting grandmas and grandpas out of their life savings – that genuinely touched a nerve with viewers, ‘A Working Man’ falls back on two of the most overused action movie tropes of recent years: Russian gangsters and human trafficking, with a light seasoning of ‘John Wick’-style weirdness to make you think it’s more interesting than it looks. But guess what: it’s not.
Story and Direction
‘A Working Man’ director and co-writer David Ayer.
That’s not to say we weren’t entertained by ‘A Working Man’; like ‘The Beekeeper,’ there’s something about the simplistic nature of its plot and protagonist – at least at first – that sucks us in, helped enormously by Statham’s oddball charisma and the sense that he’s playing the straight man inside his own cinematic joke. This time out, he’s former Royal Marines commando Levon Cade, whose origin story is sketched out under the opening credits: he’s done a lot of tough, sometimes bad stuff in all the world’s hot spots.
After 22 years of service, Levon now works as a foreman for a family-owned Chicago construction company, where the owners treat him like a member of their clan. But Levon can’t quite get the rest of his life together: he’s living in his car and fighting his ex-father-in-law – who views him as dangerous — for custody of his daughter (Isla Gie), following the suicide of his wife.
It’s because he’s trying to put that part of his life behind him that Levon is initially hesitant when his devastated boss Joe (Michael Peña) informs him that Joe’s teen daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas) has been kidnapped during a night out with her friends and begs Levon to find her.
Levon’s reluctance lasts about three minutes, however: after a quick check-in with his former commando buddy, Gunny (David Harbour), who’s blind and now lives out in the woods with a convenient closetful of arms (“I am your weapons sommelier,” Harbour cracks), Levon gets to work. He quickly learns that Jenny has been snatched by members of a Russian crime cartel who plan to traffic her to high-paying customers with perverted tastes.
The rest of the movie follows a now well-worn formula as Levon blitzes his way through the Russian mob, from its foot soldiers to its captains to the boss’s sons. Also facing Levon’s wrath are a biker gang that deals drugs, a handful of rogue cops, and some genuine freaks brought in by the Russians to put Levon down (Ayer may have failed with his one superhero movie, ‘Suicide Squad,’ but his villains are getting more and more comic-booky).
As is standard, every single bullet fired at Levon misses, while he cuts the opposition down with ruthless machine-like efficiency and barely gets roughed up or scratched. Even one sequence when he finds himself at the mercy of two foppish Russians who wear matching outfits in different colors (“It’s our brand,” one explains) lasts only for a few moments. Levon frees himself and turns them into pulp in one of the film’s best sequences, an exciting brawl in the narrow confines of a careening van that pays tribute to the classic train fight from the James Bond film ‘From Russia with Love.’
But the deeper Levon wades into the world of ‘A Working Man,’ the less interesting it becomes. As we said earlier, the Russian villains and trafficking scheme are overused already, and Ayer’s attempts to make it weirder – such as the main Russian gangster being an almost Dracula-like figure, or the final battle taking place at a hidden casino/brothel where the oligarchal clientele dresses in finery and capes – are more head-scratching than anything else, just like the absurdly large, cartoonish moon that hovers over the film’s closing scenes.
Still, if you’re here to just see Statham kicking butt for the better part of two hours, ‘A Working Man’ remains your jam. Despite the more generic nature of the enemy, the repetitive structure of the screenplay, and the almost callous glee Ayer seems to take in having Statham execute people in some horrible ways (the rationale, we presume, is just how gross these folks are to begin with), this is the kind of mind-free crowd-pleaser that the star has cornered the market on. When you can see it, that is: Shawn White’s cinematographer is often dark and murky, especially during the climactic battles, while the editing tends to get a little spasmodic as well during the action set pieces.
Sure, there’s a cast here and it even includes some name players, but Jason Statham is front and center as always – even if Levon, for all his problems, has no discernible character arc. Like Adam Clay from ‘The Beekeeper,’ he’s outraged by injustice and loyal to a fault, but once he’s committed to his mission, there are no longer any doubts or conflicts and he more or less finishes the film in the same place he started it.
Statham is a little more stone-faced here than he was in ‘The Beekeeper,’ although we do actually get to see him smile once or twice, particularly in the scenes with Levon’s daughter. About that, though: while Statham can kick the crap out of people convincingly all day long, he just doesn’t have the bandwidth to generate true fatherly warmth, as hard as he tries.
As for everyone else, the reliably quirky David Harbour and Michael Peña are wasted in too-brief appearances, with the latter disappearing after the first act and only showing up again briefly at the end (there’s also something vaguely racist with Ayer’s portrayal of Peña’s extended Latino family, who all seem to live in the same house together).
A potentially fun reunion between Statham and his ‘Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels’ mate Jason Flemyng is also woefully cut short, as Statham has many more members of the Russian crime world to plow through. Arianna Rivas’ Jenny explains in some helpful early exposition that her uncle taught her how to fight, so at least she does get to refreshingly push back against her captors. As for those captors, and the armies of Russian mafia soldiers that seem to endlessly crawl out of the woodwork, they range from “over-the-top” to “automaton,” with all of them having the personalities of characters in a first-person shooter.
In a way, ‘A Working Man’ is the cinematic equivalent of a first-person shooter, except you can see your avatar and it looks just like Jason Statham. And while the game can be fun while you’re playing it, you forget all about it as soon as you turn the machine off.
‘A Working Man’ (and other Statham movies) are just like that: a cathartic way to watch hordes of bad guys get killed, only with a slight seasoning of vague social commentary and the notion that Levon Cade or Adam Clay or whatever Statham is called this time has righteousness on his side. In David Ayer, he’s found the perfect partner to get the job done.
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What is the plot of ‘A Working Man’?
Levon Cade (Jason Statham), an ex-Royal Marines commando, leads a peaceful life as a construction worker in Chicago. However, Levon is forced to use his old set of skills to find his boss’s teenaged daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas), who had been kidnapped by human traffickers, and soon uncovers a conspiracy of corruption and government agents’ involvement in human trafficking.
‘A Working Man’ director and co-writer David Ayer.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with director and co-writer David Ayer about his work on ‘A Working Man’, writing with Sylvester Stallone, adapting Chuck Dixon’s novel, why he likes working with Jason Statham, and his philosophy behind shooting action sequences.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interview.
Moviefone: To begin with, talk about the development of this screenplay and how did the writing process work between you and Sylvester Stallone?
David Ayer: It is funny how life has these circles. As a kid I saw ‘Rocky’ and it made me want to work out and learn to box. But as a young writer, once I heard the story of how he had written the script and been so protective of it and ultimately got the film made the way he wanted on his terms, that inspired me to do the same thing with ‘Training Day’, which came together like a dream for me. Then when the opportunity came up to work with him, when I got this script with his name on it, it just made a lot of sense. I mean, here’s this ’80s action icon, this legend who really understands action. So, the script had a great starting point for me. Then to bring Jason Statham into that, who is really the inheritor of that action tradition from the ’80s and ’90s. I mean, you just don’t have icons like that in the action space like Jason. So, it just felt like a great team up.
MF: Were you a fan of the ‘Levon’s Trade’ before joining this project, and did you read any of the other novels in the series to get a feel the character?
DA: I did. Chuck’s one of those old school, two-fisted writers. He writes action. He writes hard characters. So, it just makes a lot of sense to take his work and bring it into the action cinema space.
MF: Can you talk about the challenges of adapting the book and what were some of the elements you wanted to make sure you included, and what were some of the things that you wanted to avoid?
DA: Well, the idea of this veteran, this highly capable military guy who, like anybody, has now changed his life and he’s working in construction and works for this family and is forced by circumstances to go back and do the thing he’s left. This life he’s left behind, he must turn to it again. So those elements were solidly in the book. Then for me it was just really making sure that the family he was helping was really defined and we love them. When we see Jason smile it just lights up the screen. I wanted to give him a grounded family life that the audience could connect with and really root for when it comes time for him to go to war.
MF: Obviously you worked with Jason Statham on ‘The Beekeeper’, so what do you enjoy about directing him?
DA: Jason shows up to work and he’s really demanding, and he pushes me and I push him. Now that I know him and know what he’s capable of, I mean doing the fight choreography, we’re really connected on that. He does his own stunts, which means I don’t have to cut away to a stunt guy for things. You get to design and build the shots around him and what he’s actually doing. So that’s a treat. You don’t normally get that. I mean, that’s absolutely exceptional. Then, I learned on ‘Beekeeper’ that he has a really big heart and when he brings that heart to a scene, there’s nothing like it. I feel like he hasn’t had that opportunity as much as he should. So again, to just see him in this family environment and see him smile and laugh, and to see him be a dad and to see him struggle with the things we struggle in our daily lives, there’s something so grounding about that that then makes the action play even better.
MF: Finally, as a director, can you talk a little bit about your philosophy behind action, your style, and how you specifically wanted to execute the action sequences in this movie?
DA: I think my action style just simply comes down to telling a story with the action and telling a character-based story. So, I think of it as character-based action. How would this character fight? How does he react? How does he move? How does he use the objects around him? How does he use weapons and what’s he after? When he is on the back foot, how does he react? That’s where good action comes from, is making us care about the character inside of the action.
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What is the plot of ‘A Working Man’?
Levon Cade (Jason Statham), an ex-Royal Marines commando, leads a peaceful life as a construction worker in Chicago. However, Levon is forced to use his old set of skills to find his boss’s teenaged daughter Jenny (Arianna Rivas), who had been kidnapped by human traffickers, and soon uncovers a conspiracy of corruption and government agents’ involvement in human trafficking.
Brad Pitt will star in and produce ‘Heart of the Beast.’
It marks a reunion with his ‘Fury’ director David Ayer.
The story will see him as a soldier trying to survive after a plane crash.
Back in 2014, David Ayer wrote and directed ‘Fury,’ a World War II action movie about a grizzled tank commander who must make tough decisions as he and his crew fight their way across Germany in April 1945.
Clearly, Pitt had enough of a good time working with Ayer that the two are now teaming back up –– albeit 11 years later –– for a new movie, this time a survival drama called ‘Heart of the Beast,’ to which Ayer has been attached since last year.
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According to Deadline, Paramount has snagged Pitt’s services to both star and co-produce the movie via his Plan B company.
What’s the story of ‘Heart of the Beast’?
Brad Pitt in ‘Fury’. Photo: Sony Pictures Releasing.
Written by Cameron Alexander (who is more known as a music video director), ‘Heart of the Beast’ follows a former Army Special Forces Soldier and his retired combat dog who battle for survival after a plane crash deep in the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness.
Also on the behind-the-scenes team for the movie is ‘La La Land’ and ‘Babylon’ director Damien Chazelle, who signed a first-look deal with Paramount last year and will produce through his Wild Chickens banner, which he runs with wife and fellow filmmaker Olivia Hamilton.
What else is David Ayer working on?
Director David Ayer talks ‘The Beekeeper.’
Ayer, who has been campaigning for years to get his director’s cut of 2016 superhero outing ‘Suicide Squad’ out into the world, has otherwise been keeping busy directing the likes of ‘Bright,’ ‘The Tax Collector’ and last year’s surprisingly successful ‘The Beekeeper,’ which starred Jason Statham as a former member of a shadowy group known as the Beekeepers, who are brought in for extraordinary missions.
Ayer and Statham have already teamed back up for a new offering, ‘A Working Man,’ which will see the actor playing a retired counter-terrorism expert who now works in construction, but who calls upon his particular set of skills when a local girl goes missing.
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That movie will be in theaters on March 28th.
What else is Brad Pitt involved with?
Brad Pitt in ‘F1’. Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures.
Pitt was most recently seen in Apple TV+ movie ‘Wolfs’ opposite old friend George Clooney. Directed by Jon Watts, the film saw Pitt and Clooney as two lone-wolf fixers who are forced to team up on the same job.
The film was controversially given an extremely limited one-week cinema release before showing up on the company’s streaming service, and despite performing well there, the rumored follow-up has quietly gone away.
Despite that, he’ll be back on screens this June in ‘F1,’ the Joseph Kosinski-directed movie about a Formula 1 racing driver who comes out of retirement to coach a younger driver –– only to get back behind the wheel himself.
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That movie boasts a giant $300 million budget and has been shooting at various Formula 1 races around the world. It should be in cinemas for a little bit longer than ‘Wolfs’…
The actor is also aboard Jeff Nichols’ next film, ‘Land of Opportunity’ and has a wealth of other potential projects on his to-do list.
(L to R) Brad Pitt and Ziggy Marley attend the Los Angeles Premiere of “Bob Marley: One Love” at the Regency Village Theatre in Los Angeles, CA on Tuesday, February 6th, 2024. Photo: Alex J. Berliner/ABImages.
Outside of his acting work, Pitt, though his company, was an executive producer on recent cinematic titles including ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ and ‘Bob Marley: One Love,’ as well as RaMell Ross’s ‘Nickel Boys,’ adapted by Amazon from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, which yesterday landed Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Coming up, he’ll also carry the same producer title on Bong Joon-ho’s ‘Mickey 17,’ which releases on March 7th following a Berlin Film Festival premiere, as well as the upcoming ‘Hedda,’ Nia DaCosta’s feature take on the Henrik Ibsen play for Orion.
When will ‘Heart of the Beast’ be in theaters?
With filming yet to start, Paramount hasn’t handed out a release date for ‘Heart of the Beast’ just yet. It may well depend on Pitt’s schedule as for when it’s ready to head to theaters.
Director David Ayer on the set of Netflix’s ‘Bright.’ Photo: Matt Kennedy.
There’s more than meets the eye in the word ‘The Beekeeper.’
In the Jason Statham-led action thriller, it isn’t just about someone who tends to the bees but about a powerful and clandestine organization known as the “Beekeepers.” When Adam Clay’s client and friend fall for a phishing scam that leads to her suicide, the former operative sets out to bring her death to justice.
The movie premiered on January 10, 2024, in London at Leicester Square, released in the United States on January 12, 2024. ‘Beekeeper’s theatrical release included showings in IMAX and Dolby Cinema for audiences to get a more immersive experience. The David Ayer action thriller has grossed over $63 million domestically and over $149.6 million worldwide.
‘Beekeeper’ has a runtime of 1 hour and 45 minutes. If you missed the movie in theaters, don’t worry. As of January 30, 2024, it is available to rent or purchase on VOD platforms such as Apple TV, Prime Video, Google Play, YouTube, and Vudu. Prices range from $19.99 for rental or $24.99 for purchase.
Since the film was released under MGM, it will likely end up streaming for free on Prime Video subscribers. However, no official streaming date has been announced by the studio or Prime Video. If you’re a Sky Cinema subscriber, the movie will be available to watch at no additional cost on March 8.
Director David Ayer leans into the mythology behind bees – the idea of taking care of and protecting the hive and turning it into how a powerful secret organization would operate. The director also found Statham to be the perfect actor to express that mythology. With that, Ayer used the opportunity to try something different from his usual dark drama style
“When I read this script, it was this fascinating look into the world of the beekeepers. It was the right amount of, just enough to know what’s going on, and not so much that you don’t lose the magic and mystery of it. In that script, I saw an amazing role for Jason, he came attached to it, but also, I saw an opportunity for me to do something a little bit different. It’s really a classic action, escapist, thrill ride. Normally I do a lot of dark drama, and so to have the opportunity to make a fun movie that I know an audience is going to love was something I couldn’t say no to.”
We’ve seen Statham in plenty of action movies, everything from the ‘Transporter’ franchise to ‘Fast & Furious.’ Aside from delivering on the action front, Statham is the kind of actor who can make any dialogue work – even ones that feel a bit over-the-top or ridiculous.
In ‘Beekeeper’, you’ll see plenty of Jason Statham putting his martial arts skills to use as he sets out to take down the Danforth corporation. Ayer worked with stunt coordinator Jeremy Marinas on the film and mentions that Statham does his own stunts, “you present him a scene, he’s the guy that’s going to do everything, and he has a loud vote, he has a voice.”
“So, we had this great stunt coordinator and choreographer, Jeremy Marinas, who comes from the 87eleven school, and his understanding of human kinetics and how people just move was educational for me. Then with Jason, I mean, he’s an action icon, he’s a legend. He does his own stunts, so it’s interesting because you present him a scene, he’s the guy that’s going to do everything, and he has a loud vote, he has a voice. He’s probably forgotten more about action than I’ve ever known. So, it was really challenging, I always bring my A game to set and Jason taught me that there’s an A+ game when it comes to action.”
Watch the official trailers for ‘Beekeeper’ below:
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The official synopsis for ‘Beekeeper’ is below:
In The Beekeeper, one man’s brutal campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after he is revealed to be a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as “Beekeepers”.
Opening in theaters on January 12th, ‘The Beekeeper’ is the latest tough guy outing for Jason Statham, playing another variant on his former-intelligence-operative-called-back-into-action character that appears to make up half of his cinematic resume.
But does this new film, directed by David Ayer (‘Suicide Squad’, ‘Fury’) make for a worthwhile addition to that canon? The answer might depend on whether you have a tolerance for the most basic version of this movie.
‘The Beekeeper’ exists in one of those movie worlds where former intelligence operatives are all over the place and there is a massive conspiracy to be sorted out. And one where Statham grimaces his way through the emotional moments and lets loose during the set pieces. For the most part, though, ‘The Beekeeper’ is found wanting.
This stretches credibility so many times, your enjoyment level is likely to sink quickly as the movie uses the same tired action beats and flies towards an extremely predictable outcome. With this type of outing, you need a truly outstanding layer over the basic concept to make it work, and again, on that front ‘The Beekeeper’ lacks any real sting.
The script for this one comes from Kurt Wimmer, whose name is likely to give plenty of people pause. While there is plenty of love for some of his previous work –– ‘Equilibrium’, for example, even if it pushes far into ridiculous places as it goes along –– he’s been responsible for some truly dreadful scripts in the past, including ‘Ultraviolet’ and the remakes of ‘Point Break’ and ‘Total Recall’.
If you’re no fan of Wimmer’s work, ‘The Beekeeper’ is unlikely to move the needle into a positive zone since it features some utterly dumb dialogue and situations. Lines such as “if there was a back entrance, I’d have used it” are likely to make you laugh more than engage with the action.
And don’t get us started on the multiple, honestly exhausting uses of bee terminology. Every single character, it seems, says some version of “protect the hive” or “queen bee” and if you were to start a drinking game for each time someone says a bee-related word, you’d fall out of your chair completely out of your gourd by roughly 30 minutes in. Which might be the best way to experience this movie.
As for Ayer, who has proved he knows how to make action movies in the past (there are plenty of people who still want to see his version of ‘Suicide Squad’ after the studio reportedly edited its own version), but here he’s strictly on autopilot.
The set pieces are perfectly adequate, but how many times can you watch Jason Statham act like a human bulldozer, ploughing through baddies who stand in his way. We don’t know if it’s in his contract that he must always look like a total badass, but here none of the people who stand in his way prove to be much of a threat until one near the end. It’s like watching someone play a video game on the easiest mode, which just becomes numbing after a while.
We mentioned above about Statham’s character, and the actor plays him just like every other role of this sort. You could interchange him with the Transporter, ‘The Expendables’ Lee Christmas or Chev Chelios from ‘Crank’ (and even both ‘Crank’ movies had some gonzo action to make up for him). Here, he goes through the motions with all the charisma of a garden gnome, clearly uncomfortable in quieter character moments such as those with co-star Phylicia Rashad at the start. When it comes to the action, he’s always been competent, but just offers up his usual martial arts style, kicking and punching his way through swathes of villains and henchmen.
Even when we’re asked to believe that Statham; Adam Clay is an inventive badass, that only goes so far. Sure, the script gives him one or two cool moments, but they’re still few and far between. And don’t get us started on his standard accent, which is mostly British but does venture towards the States occasionally. The movie does at least nod to that, with the revelation that Clay was born there, but it makes it no less ridiculous.
Beyond Statham, there is a gaggle of British actors slapping on slightly fake American accents to play the baddies, including such respected thespians as Jeremy Irons and Jemma Redgrave who are clearly in it for a mortgage payment more than a satisfying acting gig. And pity poor Minnie Driver, who pops up for one scene that could have been given to anyone to play. Was she in the movie more before the editing stage? It’s a mystery.
Josh Hutcherson tries to make a stock spoiled rich guy role work, but he rarely makes an impact, while it’s left to Emmy Raver-Lampman, who understood assignment, to bring some life to her dedicated FBI character, who at least has a hint of character motivation.
‘The Beekeeper’: Final Thoughts
‘The Beekeeper’ is likely to be viewed in the “so bad it’s good” category, something to throw on if you and your friends want to have fun mocking it. But it falls short of the “it’s good part” too often to really be one we can recommend.
This is less a bee-movie, more a D-movie.
‘The Beekeeper’ receives 5.5 out of 10 stars.
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What is the plot of ‘The Beekeeper’?
Adam Clay (Jason Statham) is a former operative of a clandestine organization called “Beekeepers”. After his friend and neighbor (Phylicia Rashad) dies by suicide after falling for a phishing scam, Clay sets out to exact revenge against the company responsible.
(L to R) Josh Hutcherson and director David Ayer talk ‘The Beekeeper.’
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Josh Hutcherson and director David Ayer about their work on ‘The Beekeeper,’ their first reaction to the screenplay, exploring the mythology of the Beekeepers, Ayer’s approach to the action sequences, Hutcherson’s wild character, and working with Jeremy Irons and Jason Statham.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch the interviews.
Moviefone: To begin with, David, what was your first reaction to the screenplay and the opportunity to explore the mythology of the Beekeepers?
David Ayer: I mean, you nailed it right there. When I read this script, it was this fascinating look into the world of the beekeepers. It was the right amount of, just enough to know what’s going on, and not so much that you don’t lose the magic and mystery of it. In that script, I saw an amazing role for Jason, he came attached to it, but also, I saw an opportunity for me to do something a little bit different. It’s really a classic action, escapist, thrill ride. Normally I do a lot of dark drama, and so to have the opportunity to make a fun movie that I know an audience is going to love was something I couldn’t say no to.
MF: The allegory of the movie seems to be that the Danforth Corporation has kicked the hornet’s nest, and Adam Clay (Statham) is the bee that is going to sting them. Do you agree with that?
DA: That’s it. There’s a lot of cool allegories and this very interesting mythology behind bees, and this idea of taking care of the hive, taking care of society, protecting the hive and protecting society. Jason was the perfect person to express that mythology because he is so iconic, and he does feel so larger than life that it really helps elevate this movie into something I think none of us were expecting. It’s hard to make a movie, and it’s hard to make a good movie, and you never know how these things are going to come together. I trusted the script and I trusted Jason and I trusted myself, because again, it’s like a new language for me, like a real true genre picture that’s fun and doesn’t take itself too seriously. To find those new muscles as a director was a fantastic exercise for me.
MF: Josh, what was your first reaction to reading about your character in the script? Why did you want to play him and what was your approach?
Josh Hutcherson: When I first read this script and read a bit about Derek, I was surprised that I was the person that they were calling. It’s a departure for me. He’s a scumbag. He’s a very powerful, rich crypto bro who is out of his mind on drugs and alcohol and just spiraling. I jumped at the bit to play it. I think that it was something for me that was a big departure and really taking a swing at something different. It was so much fun to do. As far as the approach goes, I mean, David and I just had a lot of conversations about who is Derek at his core, what does he really want, what’s his life been like with his mom, with his dad and his money? We landed on this idea that he’s wildly insecure and trying to prove to his family that he is powerful, and that he is valuable. Because he’s never had to deal with any consequences his entire life, and had no accountability for anything, it creates a monster. As the film progresses and the walls start closing in on him, he becomes more and more unhinged and out of control.
MF: Can you talk about the illegal business that your character oversees and how it affects his family?
JH: He has this little side business that he’s set up that basically is a call center, multiple call centers, that go and scam, especially elderly people out of their savings and bank accounts. It’s a nasty business. It’s gross. I think that in my mind, how I justified him starting this business is that it’s twofold. One is that he’s doing it out of a sense of rebellion because he must live a certain kind of life and keep things clean because of his family situation. Then the other part is I think that he, and this happens a lot, I think, when people have so much money, they dehumanize people, and you don’t view them as actual human beings. So, I think those two factors allowed him to create this thing that turns into an absolute monster.
MF: David, can you talk about the unusual partnership that Derek and Wallace have together and working with Josh and Jeremy Irons?
DA: Josh is a real actor and just, I have to say it, Derek is not Josh, he’s playing a role, that’s not who he is in real life. He’s a very nice guy. To take this wild, crazy character with the green jackets and the snakeskin and the crazy hair and then pair him with Wallace Westwyld as envisioned by Jeremy Irons, it’s a great alchemy. It’s a great relationship they have, and it helps make the bad guy world a lot more fun.
MF: Wallace seems reluctant to help Derek with his Beekeeper problem. Was the character written that way originally, or is that something Jeremy Irons brought to the role?
DA: It’s something we worked on with Jeremy and it was also in the script too, this idea of, what happens when you get compromised, what happens when you say yes to the wrong thing, and then do you have to keep saying yes? If you do, what does that mean? You can feel that he knows what is happening isn’t right, but you can also feel how trapped he is by the circumstances.
MF: Josh, how would you describe Derek’s relationship with Wallace?
JH: Jeremy Irons plays Wallace Westwyld, and he’s kind of like Derek’s right-hand man sort of. He does Derek’s bidding, protects him in ways too. He’s a former CIA director, and now he’s kind of been placed here to watch after me, but I treat him like absolute garbage. I’m a total douchebag to him. It’s a fun dynamic, especially, I mean, having Jeremy Irons be this guy that I’m treating like trash. It was a lot of fun. It’s a very good dynamic. David gave me a lot of space to play and improv and kind of throw a bunch of stuff at him, so we had a good time.
MF: Most of your scenes in the film are with Jeremy Irons, what was he like to have him as a scene partner?
JH: He’s amazing. I mean, he’s just got such a weight to him, and his voice and his presence is just intense. But he’s the nicest guy, very funny, and very relaxed. But when they say action, he turns it on, and he clicks it into gear.
MF: Josh, what was your experience like being on a David Ayer set and working with him as a director?
JH: David runs an amazing set. He’s extremely collaborative. He works very fast, and he really marries the worlds of action and choreography and stunt work and big set pieces with more intimate, personal, grounded character stuff. He does that incredibly. For me, having the confidence with myself to play this character that’s so different for me, I needed to just give myself over to it and trust David and let my instincts kind of take me to where they may. It worked out. I loved working with David. He’s fantastic.
MF: David, can you talk about crafting the action sequences and working with Jason Statham?
DA: So, we had this great stunt coordinator and choreographer, Jeremy Marinas, who comes from the 87eleven school, and his understanding of human kinetics and how people just move was educational for me. Then with Jason, I mean, he’s an action icon, he’s a legend. He does his own stunts, so it’s interesting because you present him a scene, he’s the guy that’s going to do everything, and he has a loud vote, he has a voice. He’s probably forgotten more about action than I’ve ever known. So, it was really challenging, I always bring my A game to set and Jason taught me that there’s an A+ game when it comes to action.
MF: Finally, Josh, you don’t have many scenes in the movie with Jason Statham. Did it feel at times like you were making two separate movies?
JH: The truth is, I think I only have one scene with Jason in the entire movie. But just watching him, because there were many days where I was around and they were shooting other things, just watching him work, the guy he doesn’t miss. He’s so on top of it and consistent, professional and the choreography that he keeps in his head, and the fact that he’s able to do that, and have his lines and nail his mark every time. He’s a fine, fine, fine-tuned machine.
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What is the plot of ‘The Beekeeper’?
Adam Clay (Jason Statham) is a former operative of a clandestine organization called “Beekeepers”. After his friend and neighbor (Phylicia Rashad) dies by suicide after falling for a phishing scam, Clay sets out to exact revenge against the company responsible.
And though it sounds like the new project, ‘Levon’s Trade’, will share some distinct sensibilities (both feature the story of a man who left a life of violence behind for a quieter existence, only to be drawn back into taking out bad guys), Ayer will surely find some way for the new movie to be different.
What’s the story of ‘Levon’s Trade’?
Jason Statham as Lee Christmas in ‘The Expendables 4.’
The movie will chart how Levon Cade (Statham) left his past behind him to go ‘straight’ and work in construction. He wants to live a simple life and be a good father to his daughter.
But when his boss’s teenage daughter Jenny vanishes, he’s called upon to re-employ the skills that made him a legendary figure in the shadowy world of black ops. His hunt for the missing college student takes him deep into the heart of a sinister criminal conspiracy creating a chain reaction that will threaten his new way of life.
‘Levon’s Trade’ has its origins in a book by Chuck Dixon.
Sylvester Stallone as Barney Ross in ‘The Expendables 4.’
‘Levon’s Trade’ has an even more famous name behind its script –– and it marks the other reunion for Statham. Sylvester Stallone, who guided and starred in ‘The Expendables’ franchise (which Statham now mostly leads) adapted the script from Dixon’s book.
It’s a title in which Stallone has showed interest before; the book is the first of eleven in the popular Levon Cade thriller series. Stallone’s Balboa Productions previously developed the project as a TV series.
Stallone has quite a history of screenwriting –– he was nominated for an Oscar for 1976’s ‘Rocky’ and most recently scripted ‘Rambo: Last Blood’.
Producer Bill Block, whose company BlockFilm is backing the new movie, had this to say about it:
“I am thrilled to be reuniting with some of my most talented and longstanding partners on ‘Levon’s Trade’. I first worked with David Ayer on ‘Fury’ and it was immediately clear that he is a director at the very top of his game. Jason and I have worked together on a number of films, and most recently the three of us collaborated on ‘The Beekeeper’. ‘Levon’s Trade’ is going to be another spectacular action movie and I’m confident we’ve assembled the dream team to bring the first novel in this celebrated series to the big screen.”
When will ‘Levon’s Trade’ be in theaters?
Given the fact that ‘Levon’s Trade’ hasn’t even started shooting yet (it’s aiming for a March start in London next year) and has its rights on sale at the AFM market this week, the movie does not yet have a release date.
‘The Beekeeper’, meanwhile, will be out on January 12th.
Director David Ayer on the set of Netflix’s ‘Bright.’ Photo: Matt Kennedy.
The movie, which featured the likes of Margot Robbie (in her first outing as Harley Quinn), Will Smith and Viola Davis, arrived in theaters and was quickly given a drubbing by critics. It went on to earn a respectable $746.8 million worldwide at the box office, but when you factor in budget (around $175 million) and marketing costs, it wasn’t seen as a big success. Ayer attributed a lot of that to the studio interfering with his vision, demanding a new cut and releasing an inferior version.
You can find his statement on that via twitter here:
Viola Davis as Amanda Waller in 2016’s ‘Suicide Squad.’
For years, the director has stoked the fires of support for what he calls the “Ayer Cut” of ‘Squad’ to see the light of day, and smacked down detractors who wish he’d stop, especially in light of Warner Bros. and DC moving on with James Gunn’s 2021 effort ‘The Suicide Squad’.
Here’s what Ayer said to someone who questioned his ongoing crusade:
“There’s a genuine curiosity and interest from a lot of people. And I’m aware there is another group of people that have fun mocking the film. Your comment is a perfect example of how many are magnetically drawn to the 2016 film in a negative way. Have you ever had an experience in life that didn’t until the way you wanted, that dragged you, that made you rethink everything? I have.”
He then went on to drop Gunn’s name as a supporter of the film after reportedly having talks with the man in charge of the current iteration of the DC universe on big and small screens:
“All I know is my unseen film plays much better than the studio release. The interest in my cut being show seems real and organic. And Gunn told me it would have it’s time to be shared. He absolutely deserves to launch his DC universe without more drama about old projects. In a way I’m chained to this thing. I’m riding a tiger here and navigating this situation the best I can. Life is a very strange journey.”
You can find Ayer’s full statement on social media here:
Whether the director’s preferred cut ever actually comes out is another matter. There is certainly interest in seeing it, but Gunn’s reassurances do feel a little like a parent telling a child they can have that candy if they behave. Still, there were plenty of naysayers when Snyder was talking up his ‘Justice League’ cut, so stranger things have happened.
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The cast of director David Ayer’s 2016 ‘Suicide Squad.’ Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.
In this exclusive interview with Made in Hollywood, ‘The Tax Collector’ star Bobby Soto and writer/director David Ayer talk about the film’s exploration of loyalty, and they also discuss how the South Los Angeles locations reflect their own personal experiences.
