David Leitch On Brad Pitt’s Superpower, ‘Bullet Train’ And Possible Sequels, Prequels, And Spin-Offs

When Atomic Blonde landed in theaters five years ago, director David Leitch’s debut feature proved his mettle as an action movie filmmaker. He’s consolidated that with a string of wins, but Bullet Train sees him take it up a bunch of notches – and he’s far from done kicking ass and delivering laughs.

Based on the book by Kôtarô Isaka, the $90 million actioner takes audiences on a relentless journey when five assassins find themselves on the same bullet train, and it turns out they’ve got something in common. Bullet Train boasts an ensemble cast led by Brad Pitt and includes Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Michael Shannon, Sandra Bullock, Zazie Beetz, and Bad Bunny, to name a few.

I caught up with Leitch to talk about the movie, Brad Pitt’s superpower, why the film’s exemplary marketing campaign is so important, and why expanding the film’s world is on his bucket list.

Simon Thompson: You continue to bring your stamp to action movies with Bullet Train. What was unique for you here that you couldn’t do previously?

David Leitch: That’s a good question. The last two times out, we were servicing franchises. Deadpool 2 was a sequel, and Hobbs and Shaw was more of an expansion of the universe, so there are a lot of rules, lore, and mythos that you’re playing with. That’s fine, and servicing that is fun, challenging, and fulfilling, and I enjoyed every moment. What was great about Bullet Train is that the IP was relatively unknown there outside of Japan and so I could put my creative input on it and do something that was really from my voice. If you see my work from Atomic Blonde and how it’s evolved, there’s a little bit of all those films and those experiences inside Bullet Train. There’s some beautiful world-building and music like Atomic Blonde, and there are some buddy comedy aspects from Hobbs and Shaw, and some subversive humor like in Deadpool. With Bullet Train, you see my sensibility when unleashed on an IP that’s my own, and here I got to do all of it. We had a great time, and I’m really proud of this.

Thompson: You mentioned Atomic Blonde, and I don’t know if you realized this, but it’s five years ago this month that it was in movie theaters.

Leitch: Is it only five years?

Thompson: Does it seem like a different world?

Leitch: It does, and it has been a whirlwind. We have gone from project to project, and I love it. I don’t take any of this for granted. I’ve fought so hard to be in the director’s chair and to have the blessing to tell these fun stories that I don’t want to stop. I have a lot of them left in me. When I get excited about a script, I’m like, ‘Let’s make it. Let’s do it.’ Five years? Wow. It seems like it was longer. I’m not going to lie; that’s a lot of work done in five years.

Thompson: There is also how the industry has changed a lot in five years. It’s an entirely different beast.

Leitch: It really is. For Sony to support this original IP at this moment in time is incredible. The box office is coming back and having a resurgence, but it’s driven by these nostalgic sequels like Top Gun, which is epic in such a wonderful film, and the Marvel superhero movies, which are servicing fans of a world in a compelling way, but we’re trying to bust out some original IP that can land in the summer or spectacle space. That would have been fine five years ago; you could have more room for movies like Bullet Train, but then they disappeared, and Covid almost crushed them. Now we’re back, and it’s the perfect window of time for this movie to come out and test the waters, and hopefully, people will respond.

Thompson: The intense action sequences keep coming in Bullet Train, but there are beats for breaths. Filming this, did you ease the cast into this and start filming things that were a little bit easier or go off the deep end right away and plunge them into the action?

Leitch: I think we did start out by easing them into it. Outside of things like Brad walking in the street, we shot the movie pretty much in order. We knew this was a movie about discoveries, and we had a great script, but I knew we would have all these beautiful improv moments because of the cast I had. I could feel from the crew’s energy and creativity that we would be finding these special things. When you shoot a movie out of order, that gets more complicated because you can’t serve those unique things downstream, and I didn’t want to approach that movie this way. Momomon was a beautiful discovery. It was not in the scripts in the way it turns out in the final film and has a way more impactful role in this, even in the marketing of this movie now. It was just the germ of an idea like, ‘Hey, let’s have a mascot train car that we can have a fight scene in because we’re trying to diversify our locations,’ and then, ‘Oh, what do these plushies look like? What if a big, huge plushie was a mascot?’ and it snowballed. I want it to be more of a process of discovery, and I was going to aggregate all the beautiful moments.

Thompson: Not wanting to give too much away, there are a couple of real surprises in the movie. How difficult has it been to try and keep those surprises under wraps in a world where everyone is dissecting trailers and trying to guess, break or straight up spoil things online?

Leitch: It is hard. I have to give it to the marketing team on this. The rule of thumb in today’s marketing is that the more content is out there, you’ll get more audience, and they want more. It never used to be like that. It used to be the case that less is more, but I think the Sony marketing team has done a brilliant job. There are a lot of pieces of the movie out there, a lot of content, and sometimes I’m like, ‘Oh my God,’ but the shocks and awes are really reserved. The big surprises are not in the materials, and I hope that that drives word of mouth after people see it and go, ‘Oh, God, you’ve got to see this.’

Thompson: There are so many great performances from a top-notch ensemble cast, including Joey King. She has owned several genres over the years, from horror to YA and romantic comedy and dramas, and now she’s really forging her path as an action star. Tell me a little bit about what you saw in her that we’re not getting to see.

Leitch: I just saw a really mature and disciplined actor. As a director, I’ve never gone wrong by betting on great actors. I remember hanging the seven-minute stairwell scene in Atomic Blonde on Charlize Theron and saying, ‘Here’s the deal. I need a big idea in the middle of this. I’ve never taken the camera off her for seven minutes. You won the Academy Award, so we’re betting on you.’ Seeing Joey’s performances in the reading was like, ‘Oh my God, she’s a seasoned and mature actor who is making great choices, taking notes, and making changes that are really sophisticated and not even seasoned actors can do.’ She did a scene in this with Michael Shannon, one of the best actors of his generation, and even he was blown away by the mechanics of Joey’s abilities. She’s been doing it a long time since she was a child and has continued to work on her skills. I believe in my heart of hearts that she’s going to be one of the biggest actors of her generation because she’s that talented.

Thompson: I know you’ve got a long-running relationship with Brad, but it’s not very often you’ll find someone who is the star of a movie, and yet, when he’s on screen, he’s more than happy to let someone he’s sharing a scene with steal it. It’s a humble way to perform.

Leitch: It is something that is unique to Brad, and I think it comes from his confidence as an actor and his giving nature. It’s one of his superpowers. He creates these bold and original characters with such confidence, knowing they don’t need to occupy the screen to have an impact. I think that comes from his experience but also as an artist. He’s really giving; it suits him and these crazy characters. Maybe some of those heightened performances wouldn’t have been impactful if it wasn’t tempered.

Thompson: Let’s talk about the hat he wears. Was that something he came up with? Was that a $1 store wardrobe wonder?

Leitch: (Laughs) We were in the first costume fitting, and Kelly McCormick, my creative producer and wife, and Sarah Evelyn Bram, our costume designer, had a rack of clothes. I had this idea that Brad’s character is Three Days of the Condor Robert Redford; he’s more of a bookworm. Brad was like, ‘I think he’s more like Gone Fishing,’ and I was like,’ What?’ So Brad was going, ‘Yeah, it’s like he’s come back, he doesn’t want the hassle, he’s all about comfort. What’s that Gilligan hat?’ and Sarah goes, ‘A bucket hat?’ and Brad’s like, ‘Yeah. A bucket hat.’ The next day, we brought in a bunch of bucket hats, and I was like, ‘Oh, God, is it really going to be a bucket hat?’ but then I realized the genius of it. We’re creating an underdog character, someone to root for, and a beautiful Brad Pitt at the beginning of the movie is maybe harder to root for. By the end of the film, Brad’s disheveled, his hair is back, he’s this likable guy, but he’s Brad, but he’s looking good, he’s sexy, bloody Brad, so we had someplace to go with him. Again, it was just this thoughtful character development from one of the best actors of our times.

Thompson: If I had any questions about Thomas & Friends, could I now come to you for help? There is so much detail about Thomas the Tank Engine lore in Bullet Train.

Leitch: (Laughs) There is, but I don’t know if you’d come to me. I think Zak Olkewicz, who wrote the script, and Kōtarō Isaka, who wrote the original book, would be the ones to talk to. They must have researched it hard. I know the basics from their work, but I didn’t go down the research rabbit hole. Maybe Brian Tyree Henry went down the deep rabbit hole for his character, but I know I’m not a diesel. I might be a Henry because I’m hardworking, but I’m not a Percy.

Thompson: Sometimes things are in books, and then when you want to put them in a movie, but there are rights issues. Did you have any problems using Thomas & Friends in Bullet Train?

Leitch: Early on, you go through clearances when you have a script and the clearance department of the studio is combing through it looking for problems. We had conversations with the Thomas people and came to some really civilized agreements. We got to use some of the more vintage characterizations of the train, we had a limited number of references that we could use in our clearance, but we did have to get clearance, rightfully so. Sometimes when you have a brand, and you’re applying that brand is something that’s so irreverent as us and this, it’s hard. They were game, and we tried to do it within the confines of what they felt they could get away with.

Thompson: We started by talking about IPs, and obviously, you were previously picking up IPs and franchises that were already out there. Bullet Train is something new based on the original book, and I’m assuming you’ve thought of it as a single product. Now you’re finished with it, do you see this as a potential franchise?

Leitch: I do. I see it as a universe. I know that’s the buzzword that everybody uses, and they’re like, ‘We want to build a universe and all the spin-offs,’ but organically, on the page already, you had that. Not everybody’s left at the end of this, but that doesn’t mean we can’t explore different times and places when these fun characters existed. All of us had such a wonderful time making it, with Brian, Joey, Hiro, Andrew, Brad, Zazie, Michael, and everyone I’m missing, and I think we all want to come back. It was a joy to make with such beautiful people, and it is definitely on my bucket list to revisit this Bullet Train world.

Thompson: Could you cross over worlds? Could we see Brad Pitt’s Ladybug and Nobody crossing paths?

Leitch: I don’t know. I think it might be challenging because of the tone of this movie. It’s really its own thing and has this broad comedy. It has some of that ultra-violence but also has a lot of feels for sociopaths. We landed the plane, not the train, on that one. We created and found humanity and relatability in these unreal and unredeemable types. That was no easy task, but it was definitely something we set out to do so that you could go on a real emotional journey.

Thompson: I would love to see Brad’s Ladybird character return and maybe have an equally chaotic plane journey.

Leitch: There you go. Bullet Plane? Why not?

Bullet Train lands in theaters on Friday, August 5, 2022.