Warning: Some SPOILERS lie ahead for The Lost City
Sandra Bullock is back in action with the adventure romantic-comedy The Lost City. The film stars Bullock as a reclusive adventure novelist who is kidnapped by an eccentric billionaire to help him find a priceless artifact in the titular city, leading her dimwitted cover model to set after them in the hopes of saving her.
The romcom saw a healthy box office as the world returned to normal after the pandemic, and now it is experiencing new life on Paramount+ before it finally arrives in physical form when the 4K, Blu-ray and DVD versions release on July 26.
Ahead of the film's digital release, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with co-writers and directors, Adam and Aaron Nee, to discuss The Lost City. They shared the story developing Brad Pitt's hilarious cameo and mid-credits scene, discussed their Masters of the Universe movie, and more.
Screen Rant: I'm excited to talk about The Lost City, it was quite a fun ride from start to finish. This, of course, wasn't your first time behind the camera for a feature-length film, but this was a script that had been kicked around for quite a while trying to get made. What was it about it that really interested you both?
Aaron Nee: I think there are a couple parts to that answer. One is that this tapped into things that resonated with our film experience growing up, those echoes of classic adventure films like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Romancing the Stone. Those things are very appealing to us, because those were formative films for us. But it was also just the right time for this to come around, when we saw this script, it was October of 2020, the pandemic's going on, [there was] political divisiveness, it just felt like the world was falling apart.
Everybody was cut off and closed into their homes and this was that classic escape that I think cinema is so uniquely purposed for. That opportunity to get together with friends and laugh and go to exotic beautiful places, so this was the film that we were feeling, ourselves, longing to see and just trusted that we weren't alone in that.
Adam Nee: I concur.
So I know that you two also had a writing credit on this on, what did you bring to the script that wasn't already there?
Adam Nee: So when we did read it back in October of 2020, it was very funny, it was maybe more in the romantic comedy space — which we love —but our take on it, one of the big things was just, "How do we treat this movie like it's an adventure movie? Take these characters who have no business being on an Indiana Jones-type adventure and drop them into the middle of it in this very fish-out-of-water way but do it where the stakes feel real and the action set pieces have actual danger attached to them."
Just kind of fleshing that out and building that out and taking the adventure seriously was kind of our jumping off point. But we worked closely with Dana Fox, one of the other writers, throughout the process and collaborated in trying to make this a movie that operated really well in three different streams of the adventure, romance and comedy and that we took them all very seriously.
Aaron Nee: Yeah, and our cast had such unique strengths and talents that complement each other. As the cast came together, we also were just refining the parts to set them up to be the what they do best.
Since you do mention the cast, you can't talk about this movie without talking about Brad Pitt's role, that was one of the coolest little cameos out there. But I'm curious, did you have other people in mind for that part or was it always Brad Pitt in your minds?
Adam Nee: We never thought we were gonna get Brad Pitt for that part. So yeah, we did have a list of other guys. Brad was someone that we talked about right out of the gate, but we and Sandy and everyone just said, "No, let's not go down that roadway, it's never gonna happen." Until she did Bullet Train and she was on set with Brad and it became this super organic thing where they share a hairstylist, this woman Janine Thompson.
So Janine was the one who was asking Brad, "Oh, what would we do with your hair on this" and coming up with the idea for his flowing hair that's like the real life Dash and all these things that I think started investing him in the joke of it and it just happened. It was such a surreal thing that Brad Pitt was just then suddenly on a Zoom and then in the Dominican Republic and you're like, "Oh, he's he's here. This is happening." But we never anticipated that we could get him to do this. It was very surreal.
Do you remember some of the other people you had on your list of ideas for the role?
Adam Nee: I think we thought it was gonna be Keanu Reeves initially, but he was was tied up with John Wick and that's where we were like, "Brad was always our first choice," but we didn't think it was gonna happen. Then [Sandra] did Bullet Train and it came together. And I love Keanu, he would've been fun too.
Keanu would have been just as fun, but I think Brad also has that comedic timing that works well. So I gotta say, I was also surprised by the mid-credit scene. Part of me knew going into the movie, "Okay, Brad's got to die, that's just got to be a good little shock," so I was surprised he lived. Was that something that was always planned for his role or was that something that came about in the middle of shooting?
Aaron Nee: That's something that we intended to slip in from the beginning, but wasn't officially in the script. So we had some side pages that we wrote that we talked with Brad about and it wasn't even officially in the shooting schedule, either. We had to find how we're going to slip it in there, but we loved his character so much and felt like the movie is such a non-cynical, warm embrace of adventure that makes you feel good and we want the audience to leave the movie feeling good. We also just love the idea of him being such a Zen master in control of his mind that he can just switch which 10 percent of his brain he's using after getting shot.
Adam Nee: I think one of my great memories of this process was slipping Brad the pages for that scene. There's a couple versions of that scene, there's like a five-minute version of that scene, we shot a lot of crazy stuff, and him being like, "What is this?" [Laughs] But being so game, that was what was so crazy about him and the entire cast is that we would ask them to do such crazy things and everybody played along. They all brought such positive, playful energy to the process and it never felt like, "Oh, we're making a movie with movie stars and they're difficult." Everyone was just like, "Let's do it, that sounds amazing."
Aaron Nee: The movie never would have worked if the stars weren't open and willing to play and try things and put themselves at risk. Because as an actor, when a director is throwing lines at you and saying, "Try this" and "do that," you're vulnerable in that moment, because you may be putting yourself permanently on a video record of doing something that just doesn't work and makes you look bad. But the fact that they were willing to play and open to that exploration is what makes the movie work.
Speaking of making movies work, to look away from The Lost City for a moment, I do have to ask about Masters of the Universe. This is something that you guys have been working on for quite a while now. I know when Kyle was cast, it was reported that it was gonna start filming this summer. Is that still sort of the timetable you guys are looking at, how's that coming along?
Adam Nee: It's coming along great, it'll be next year. Coming right off of Lost City was too tight, it's such a huge beast of a movie that it needs real prep time. So we're working on it now and working towards it starting next spring.
Aaron Nee: Yeah, it's so important to us that we don't shortchange this material. This is a huge movie, but it feels like it's our baby. It feels like we've got the the kind of closeness and affection that we would have for an indie project. It's so important to us that we get to take the audience to Eternia in a way where it feels like a rich, well-developed real place, like you are going to a real world and experiencing a real culture. Then also just having the kind of attention to detail for the adventure elements and all of those things and the costuming and the build time for all of those things, nothing is rushed, it's [being] done right.
Well as someone who grew up with He-Man, I do love hearing that passion. For my final question, going back to The Lost City, I love how much music plays a part in this film, especially the Brad Pitt action scene with "Red Right Hand," I'm a huge Scream fan, so that immediately clicked in my head. Did you originally have that song in mind when you were crafting that sequence or did you have other tracks in your minds?
Aaron Nee: That is the song that we cut the stunt vis to. When we did the initial cut of this sequence with just stunts, not when we shot it, but it's like pre-vis in a warehouse with stunt actors blocking it out and figuring it out, we were cutting it to that song.
Adam Nee: That's probably one of the rare songs in the movie that we kind of always knew was the one that we wanted to use there. There was a lot of talk about whether or not we could because it's obviously a song we all know from other things, but like, for me, it's Dumb and Dumber. It's so funny, I always think of Dumb and Dumber where it's that great moment of, "Don't spend any money" and they have these hats.
So it just was like we couldn't replace it, we tried a million different things, and we couldn't replace it. The vibe is just perfect and it actually sustains the whole sequence and creates such a weird cowboy tone to it that it just worked perfect with Brad's character.
What was it like finding his intro song too, because I personally also associate that as the True Detective opening?
Aaron Nee: That's actually one that we very early on used, but then went through an exploration with lots of different songs and kept coming back around to that one again, because it had that sort of loner man, mystery kind of vibe that we wanted to establish for his character.
Adam Nee: It's funny too, because we're sensitive of like, "Oh, well, that song is in this and that song is in that," but the general audience, I feel like they just don't really think about that. Also most movies just are using the same five songs over and over and over again, so like I love those songs, I'm happy to get those guys a licensing fee, because it's so amazing and I think it just fits the character perfectly.
The Lost City is now streaming on Paramount+ and is available to purchase on digital platforms. The adventure rom-com will also hit shelves on 4K Ultra-HD, Blu-ray and DVD on July 26.