THN were fortunate enough to put some questions to 21 JUMP STREET co-writers and directors, Chris Miller and Phil Lord. The duo seem to thrive on creating challenges for themselves; not only were they making their first foray into live-action filmmaking (after cutting their teeth with the animated comedy CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS), they decided ‘that’ first attempt, would be an update of an American teen-cop show that ran between 1987-1991.
21 JUMP STREET may not be as iconic as THE A-TEAM or MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, which have also made the transition to the big-screen, but it did feature a young Johnny Depp, swaggering and giving moody looks throughout. It also starred the equally-lusted after (at the time) heartthrob Richard Grieco (who left the show early to star in the likes of TEEN AGENT and MOBSTERS), before eventually seeing his career flounder, while Depp’s flourished.
The show was actually thought-provoking and unique at the time; wresting the idea that a hand-picked team of ‘baby-faced’ police officers were placed undercover in high-schools, making them ideal to pass as students; all to aid investigations into violent thugs, drug dealers, pimps and other degenerate scum-bags preying on the young and innocent. It was a serious show that delved into how people, who at a crossroads in their lives, could become involved with dangerous individuals or themselves in the beginnings of a path to crime.
So for the big-screen version the guys who directed a monster animated hit seemed a peculiar choice to remake Stephen J. Cannell and Patrick Hasburgh’s original show. After the confirmed casting and hilarious trailer, we immediately knew a change of direction was on the offing, which may have led to legions of fans of the original series feeling spurned, even though the film’s heart is firmly in the right place. However, a new beginning could mean a whole new set of fans and with that, new ideas, new direction and possibly a new franchise… and Hollywood just loves a franchise!
Check out our interview with Miller and Lord.
How much responsibility did you feel to the legacy and fans of the original 21 Jump Street?
We felt actually a great deal of responsibility towards the fans of the original show, even though the movie has a very specific tone that is not the same as the show. We wanted to make sure that we weren’t mocking the show itself or goosing it. We wanted to do something that was respectful and would honour it, and had as many details from the show as possible for the original fans. We both grew up watching the show, so that was important to us. Luckily we first of all met with Steven J Cannell – who unfortunately passed away before the movie came out – but he was very very supportive of the movie and very excited about it. He thought it was a fun and fresh way to invigorate the brand, so that gave us all the confidence that what we were doing wasn’t a huge mistake. I think if we made the movie entirely earnestly it would have seemed weird and so we felt like we were doing a service to the whole concept, whilst keeping it fresh and when you’re doing a film it’s a whole different animal than a TV show. It sort of has to be its own thing, and the thing that’s most appealling to us was the universal concept of ‘what if you got to go back to high school? Would you still have the same insecurities or would you use your wisdom to change the way that you behaved?’, and all of the questions that would bring up.
The film draws strongly from both the teen comedy and the action film – how difficult is it to strike a balance between both without compromising either?
(Both laugh) Its hard… when we were shooting the action scenes we wanted to make sure we never did just a straight action scene, and we always wanted there to be a comic premise, and to be inherently funny and have jokes nestled in. That way, even the action felt consistent with the tone of the movie. In that you didn’t feel like you were switching movies half way, you know.
21 Jump St plays around with traditional conventions and stereotypes – such as the nerds now being the school’s cool kids and jocks as the outsiders – how much of the film’s success lies in its subversive approach to genre and stereotypes?
Certainly every review has called out that amazing joke – that we did not write – when we got the the characters in, called out the lack of originality in remaking an 80s TV show. That mood that will buy you a lot of goodwill with the audience, because you’re telling them, ‘Look, I understand what your thinking going into this movie!’ Understandably, they feel cynical and the minute they hear that dialogue, they feel like they’re in better hands… okay, they know, we know, we all know we know… its out there so we’ll just watch the movie. Throughout we were obviously trying to make comments on cop movies in general and their conventions, but we were always trying to do it without completely breaking that fourth wall. We tried to keep it sitting within an actual narrative structure so that it didn’t turn into parody. We were playing both offence and defence. Your offence is less used as a platform to tell a human story about a real relationship, and there have to be emotionally grabbing performances in it. We do our best job of executing a real story possible, so that you feel like you’ve been taken care of by the film, that you haven’t been let down, and that someone took the care to make an enjoyable film-going experience.
Having previously collaborated on Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs, what are major challenges with directing live action such as 21 Jump St?
It was definitely a little challenging to learn the pace of the lingo of the film set. It’s a quicker pace than during animation, which is very still a lot of the time. There’s all the same things, you’re still picking the same camera angles and you’re looking at actors and you’re trying to get the right lighting. It’s you trying to judge between funny and real performance: it’s all the same, it’s just a lot more drawn out… no pun intended!Obviously you’re fighting against daylight and trying to get through a scene on a live action set, and the decisions have to be a lot quicker, so that was the biggest change. Everything was more similar than you might imagine: you’re still human beings, and an animated film still has 500 human beings involved! The biggest difference is that in animation you can go to lunch and deliberate and argue about it. You just can’t burn that kind of time on a film set, you make it work and you just do it. The other big difference is obviously that you edit the movie before you shoot it in animation, and you’re really only producing a finished shot. In live action you get extra coverage to sort of protect yourself so that if you need to make editorial decisions afterwards that you have some flexibility. I think in a way we had a little discomfort on set in not knowing exactly what the finished scene was – when you’re doing the expensive parts in animation, you have already figured out the movie more or less, at least you’ve figured out the scene, but in live action it’s a case of ‘I think we have enough to cut it together, fingers crossed’. That’s a very scary feeling!
The excellent chemistry between Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum is one of film’s major strengths – how much freedom did they have to improvise and make the film their own?
There was a lot of improvisation in the movie. The story was originally hatched by Jonah and Michael Bacall, and Michael wrote a script that was very funny. We came on and we all worked on it together, and we all got to a place where we were all really happy with it. We felt like it was strong and it was a good launching-off point, but we intentionally cast actors who were all good at improvisation so that they would have a spontaneity, a looseness, be able to try things, and use the script as a springboard and narrative spine. We tried to build in a lot of looseness when we were shooting it, and we were working with very talented actors who are really funny. Channing was no different – he was a really great improviser as well, and I think Jonah and Channing really respected each other and what they each brought to the table. They ended up actually becoming friends in real life whilst shooting the movie, and we were the beneficiaries of that as their real-life chemistry just showed up.
And were there other actors considered for the roles?
Jonah was on the project when we came. We considered other actors but we didn’t think it was a good idea (laughs), but obviously Jonah is amazing. He’s one of the main reasons we wanted to do the movie. We looked at other people for Channing’s part and we kept talking about like a ‘Channing Tatum type’, and then we thought well lets just meet Channing Tatum, and it really demonstrates our own prejudices that we were pleasantly surprised to find out what a powerful actor he was, and what a neat person he was. We just felt like dumb-dumbs that we hadn’t thought of going to him sooner.
Do you see the officers from 21 Jump Street returning for another case?
Y’ know, the movie is getting a good reception so far, and hopefully when it comes out in theatres, the rest of Planet Earth agrees! If everybody goes to see it and it does well then hopefully it will continue, we certainly set up for a sequel at the end of the film.
If you go back to your school years and meet your teenage self, what advice would you give you?
I’d like to think if I went back to high school I’d like to think I could do it better, but I know in reality that I would just go back to the exact same insecurities that I had the first time. I was so worried about getting a job and what I would do with my life, I guess I would just tell myself not to worry about it because I felt like I went to work right away after college – I should have just bummed around Europe for five years and then gone to work, it really was ridiculous!
21 JUMP STREET hits cinemas Friday 16th March and stars Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Brie Larson, Ellie Kemper, Rob Riggle and Dave Franco.
