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Summary

  • The Nice Guys producers reflect on the challenges of making a sequel in today's film industry climate.
  • Ken Kao and Josh Rosenbaum discuss the need to be budget-conscious in order to make successful films.
  • Some renewed interest in The Nice Guys 2 prompted a discussion on sustainable and responsible filmmaking practices.

The Nice Guys producers Ken Kao and Josh Rosenbaum reflect on the Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe-led black comedy and the surprising renewal of interest in The Nice Guys 2. Shane Black's 2016 action comedy saw Gosling's PI Holland March join forces with Crowe's enforcer-for-hire Jackson Healy in an unlikely alliance to discover the truth behind a conspiracy plaguing 1977 Los Angeles involving murder, the adult film industry, and an automobile industry cover-up. Despite positive reviews, The Nice Guys only managed to gross $62 million on a $50 million budget.

As The Nice Guys 2 potential has been raised, Kao and Rosenbaum addressed the movie's current situation to Screen Rant. Noticing the renewed interest, the producers discussed the original movie's failings and how a sequel would be approached in today's climate: Check out Kao and Rosenbaum's response below:

Ken Kao: Grant, you're hurting my heart right now, man. This drum gets beat all the time. It's like, "We love Nice Guys,"and people always talk about it. Especially now with The Fall Guy coming out, it's almost like it renewed some interest in Ryan's first, I guess you could call it a little bit offbeat comedy. I don't know how you would categorize that, but I feel like I've heard about Nice Guys now more than I have in a few years, because of The Fall Guy. But it hurts my heart, because we were so proud of The Nice Guys, and I think it was such a unique creation, and it was so fun to make. But speaking about this pragmatism, the economics of it didn't frankly work out for everybody.

Funny enough, Joel Silver had reached out to a mutual acquaintance of mine and brought up Nice Guys this past week, and it sparked a conversation about exactly, Grant, what you had just asked. Like, "What would it take, maybe, to get this thing to happen again?" And I think that we just have to make it on a budget. I think that continues to be the producers' challenge and the filmmakers' challenge now. I think the sign of the times is that we've just got to make films in a sustainable and responsible way. I think we can't keep having movies that don't work at the box office, and it seems like the streamers aren't going to just cut blank checks anymore. So I think we've got to figure out a way in this industry to make movies in ways that I think reward the people that make them. That also, I think, are made in a contained way where those that are releasing the films, they can continue to feel incentivized to doing so. And I think that's the task, that's the challenge for us, as producers, to pull that off.

Josh Rosenbaum: No, that's right on. You're seeing it countless times. I think that the response by some of your peers in the press of box office apocalypse scenarios is a lot of fearmongering. But it is like, "These budgets are now unrecoupable." For some of these films, it's like the profit line could be a billion dollars worldwide. It's like, "That's not a sustainable place to be." But there's double-edged swords and catch-22s everywhere. It's more expensive than ever to make a film, but there's also a pay gap that's huge amongst all levels of the business. And how do you make the A+ versions of these films in a contained way so that you don't have situations where you're like, "Oh, well, that kind of movie doesn't work because it couldn't recoup."

Because I remember the calls of — I saw it again online about people talking about The Fall Guy. It's like, "Everyone's always craving for an original film, and then when it happens, no one goes to see it." And look, I think on The Nice Guys, there were a bunch of other things going. It was a really tough weekend to release it when we did, which I think even Ryan brought up in his last interview. But yeah, I think it just comes down to like, "If you're going to do something that original, then at least on the first one, you got to be really conscious about the budget. No more endless checks, very sad."

More to come...

The Nice Guys is available to stream on AppleTV+