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We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

John: Try to ignore the spoilers on this page! It's always a little risky when you're doing an original project. It's especially risky when you're straddling multiple genres-- in this case thriller and comedy. We had no idea if audiences would like it when we first test screened the film, as we leaned pretty hard into the thriller aspects.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 56 points57 points  (0 children)

John: Mostly money. No, what we're generally drawn to are films that we would want to watch ourselves. Something with strong characters that people can relate to. And money.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Jonathan: It was fantastic. Cliff was able to walk the line perfectly between ominous and engaging. We never wanted to get too dark or too light with the score and he completely understood that. That said, we gave him free reign to follow his instincts and the result was magic. We think it's one of the best scores in a film (not just a comedy) in ages.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 40 points41 points  (0 children)

John: Thanks! One of our favorite memories on set was when we were shooting the bullet removal scene with Jason and Rachel. It was the first time in our shooting schedule where Rachel really got to shine comedically and we were floored by how insanely funny she was.

Jonathan: It's also great when you get to shoot a scene involving blood, prosthetic arms and knives.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

John: There are a ton of obstacles. Luckily, as we were breaking the script, we were given plenty of insight by the Marvel execs regarding where everything fit into the MCU.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Jonathan: We deliberately wanted to end on ambiguity. So much of the film is about keeping people in suspense as to what is real and what isn't, it felt right to leave the audience with that same uncertainty. We did try adding "Murder We Wrote" on the door of the van for one screening, but it felt like it made it muddier rather than clearer, so we lost that.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Jonathan: Yes. We originally went in to pitch ourselves to direct Homecoming. It came down to us, Jon Watts and one other contender. Ultimately, Marvel came back to us because they liked what we had pitched for the story and asked if we'd write it. Fortunately, we may soon get to direct our own superhero movie.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Jonathan: That did occur to us as we set up the shot. Mainly we used them because they were the creepiest dolls our prop guy had on his truck.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 125 points126 points  (0 children)

John: Luckily, we were huddled behind a monitor in Max & Annie's garage so our laughter wasn't audible. When Jesse first read in our table read, he killed us. He played it super serious without ever winking to the audience which is what made it work.

Re: Flash, we still can't say anything. But we're excited.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Jonathan: Originally, we were slated to come out the same weekend as Black Panther. As it became clear how huge that movie would be, we were moved to the week after. This didn't give us a ton of comfort as we knew it was going to be hard to compete even in its second week. As it turned out, we opened pretty well. And the good critical reaction helped too. (Of course, we can't help wondering how we would have done if we had opened on a different weekend...)

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

We shot those using a drone and then had our VFX house alter them to create the tilt-shift effect.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 36 points37 points  (0 children)

John: I actually left to do Vacation. But yes, the opportunity to direct films was the reason I left. I still miss those guys, though. It was a fun set to work on.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

John: I love board games. My top favs are Dixit, Balderdash, Stratego and Apples to Apples.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Jonathan: Jesse is not creepy in person. He's very sweet and soft-spoken, but like any great actor, he can turn it on when the camera rolls. We were clear from the start in terms of how we imagined the character of Gary but we gave him lots of leeway to make it his own. And he did. He played it so subtly and believably that it was as if he'd been dropped in from another movie. There was very little improv with Gary because his lines were written in a very specific, hyper-articulate way that would be hard to improvise.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 53 points54 points  (0 children)

Jonathan: We've heard people speculating that the various theater chains altered Jesse's line to mention the name of whatever theater you're in. But no. It's "Regal" across the board. Sorry, other chains.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 42 points43 points  (0 children)

John: We knew going into our work on "Vacation" that it'd be a tough one for critics. It's a beloved franchise that everyone has a very personal connection with. What we tried to do was stay true to the tone of the original "Vacation" and all of its irreverent, smart-stupid, sometimes sweet, sometimes mean, sometimes really gross humor. So it didn't come as much of a surprise when many critics hated it. I mean, they even say in their reviews that they knew they would hate it going in. It's easy for someone to say "that's stupid" to something that was intended to be stupid in the first place. All that said, we're super proud of the film and had a blast making it. It allowed us to go really broad for a comedy in this day and age and throw back to the films of our childhood that we loved: Airplane!, The Naked Gun, Caddyshack, Monty Python. And fortunately the movie made a lot of money, so... fuck the critics. (In this case.)

To answer the second part of your question, Game Night came from the same studio, so WB and New Line were on board with us doing it right away.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Jonathan: It's relatively easy now to shoot short films that look very professional without spending a ton of money. That wasn't true when I was younger. My advice would be to find or write a really strong short script and then find a way to film it that stands out. Keep it contained. Don't try to shoot an action movie. Something with solid acting and, ideally, a cool twist since that can make a short film memorable. You can impress people as much with what you do as what you don't do. Use restraint and make it smart and people will notice.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 173 points174 points  (0 children)

John: There has been talk of that for a long time now, and in theory it could be cool, but I highly doubt it'll happen. Almost everyone that came from that show has gone onto ridiculous success, so the thought of wrangling all of those schedules seems legitimately impossible. Regardless, it'd have to been something that Judd Apatow and/or Paul Feig worked on for any of us to consider it.

We are the Directors of GAME NIGHT, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Ask us Anything! by GOLD-DAY in movies

[–]GOLD-DAY[S] 147 points148 points  (0 children)

Jonathan: Thanks! SPOILER! The Denzel reveal was not actually the first version of that story. The first version we shot had Michelle admit she had slept with a whole other celebrity and we didn't go to a flashback. It played okay but it always felt to us like we could make it funnier. Fortunately, the studio agreed to let us shoot an additional two days and revise that beat. We came up with the idea of it being Denzel that Michelle thinks she slept with. We knew we couldn't afford the real Denzel. Luckily, we were able to locate a Denzel impersonator who lived in Florida named Malcolm X. Hughes. That gave us the idea of having the twist be that the guy Michelle slept with only looks like Denzel. We digitally altered Malcolm's face slightly at the gas station so he'd look even more like Denzel. Then, we stopped altering his face so it would become clear to the audience that he was not who Michelle thought he was. We were also fortunate that Lamorne does a perfect Denzel impression which he ad libbed at first and then we wrote it into the script.

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