In select cinemas and on digital now is new action thriller The Big Ugly. The film boasts an impressive cast that is led by legendary British actor, and one-time equally legendary footballer Vinnie Jones. He stars alongside Hollywood heavyweights like Ron Perlman, Malcolm McDowell and Bruce McGill and it is a film which reteams him with the director of the 2007 ensemble actioner The Condemned, Scott Wiper.
Earlier on this week, we caught up with Scott to talk about the film, which he writes and directs, producing alongside Vinnie, and about production company 4G Vision whose first big release is The Big Ugly.
Let’s start at the beginning to talk about the origin of The Big Ugly. How did the story come together?
It was really born out of friendship. Vinnie and , over the years, have formed a unique friendship – almost a brotherhood. We were both working in Australia and I got to know his entire family – he met my family. He and Tanya, his wife, took really good care of my older parents, when they were down there. You don’t get that in making movies. Then it translated to when we got back to Los Angeles. I think we both wanted to do something a little bit different. A bit of a common love of the classic films from the late ‘60s early ‘70s. You know, we joke that you can’t get movies like that made anymore – they’d be considered too character driven.
It all starts with the script and we started kicking this thing around, and we hit a certain point in the summer of 2017 where we [said] let’s go to West Virginia and go feel this movie. We had nothing. The next morning we both bought tickets and drove around. [Following] this journey that went on the summer of 2017, within seven weeks we had a big chunk of money.
He’s a great actor. He’s my favourite man because he’s so damn interesting to write for. But he also has – there’s a working class guy in there – and that was how to get things done in a very grinded out kind of way.
I love the idea of being in a truck rolling around West Virginia with Vinnie Jones. That sounds really appealing to me. Obviously, we’ve got a bit of a history with him. And I remember the football days or soccer days – many years ago before he even stepped on a film set. So as a producer, and you sort of touched on it briefly there, what does he bring to the table?
A common passion for the material and the story. Personally, I love having a producing partner like Vinnie. It’s a very long, amazing list of what he brings to the table. A lot of it is some of the basic filmmaking stuff, you know, grinded out, and he’s always there for me. Then some of the big stuff comes through all the time. So there’s a lot of mystery behind filmmaking. If you wanted to put up a condo, you know, 20 units, build it from scratch and rent them out. Making a film, it’s a lot of work – you’ve got to go from A – Z. You’ve got to go from script to raising money. Like building a house. It comes down to putting on the doorknobs, and the latches and the paint and the tiniest details. It has been the best producing partnership that I’ve ever had.
Vinnie is the kind of guy that would have tonnes of connections if he was just driving a truck. He chit-chats, he talks to people. Everyone has a limit for how long they can go over budgets from working on movies and a lot of tedious, boring stuff. We were about 20 minutes into a chat about the budget, and Vinnie said to the UPM ‘the only numbers I do are cell phone numbers.’ I’ll do about an hour of that as a director, but Vinnie tapped at about 17 minutes. But he has this magic cell phone. He had Ron [Perlman’s] number right in his phone from golfing and charity events. Malcolm [McDowell – above] – he got the script right to him. It just never stopped.
The film’s obviously out there now – it’s on digital platforms, it is being released in some cinemas in America, bit it’s hitting at a time when we’re watching more films at home. So do you think this is the way the business will go forward?
You have the question of what will happen with the tentpole studio movies that are a quarter of a billion investment plus marketing. That’s another story. I think all of us with 4G vision feel very good that we can make movies for relatively small budgets and we could do well. I mean this week in America we are in 67 theatres and have the highest average. We’ll come out on VOD in week – so we’ll see how well it pans out. We don’t have that much to make back. I think years ago, I guess there was something about filmmakers always wanting a big theatre. I’m finding myself watching a lot of movies because I’m travelling – hotels; I mean, I’m watching movies on my iPad. I’m as guilty as the younger kids, you know, just because I can’t always make it to a movie theatre. It’s something that I’m embracing. To go back to your original question, I did an exodus from Los Angeles for many reasons. I saw change coming, nd something Vinnie and I talked about which if the goal is making old school movies that feel like Steve McQueen in The Getaway, Michael Caine in Get Carter. If you want to make movies with that kind of tone, to have that freedom to kind of go different places because you keep your budget reasonable.. I’m very excited about what is happening. I think with COVID and the lockdown and everything that came with it… things just sped up. It was headed there.
Yeah, I agree. Going forward, you’ve obviously got plans for more films. How is it gonna work? And what sort of genres are you looking at?
We’ve got character driven genre films with heart and soul. Again, going back to that era – late ‘60s or early 70s. Those we love. I love writing for Vinnie. I’ll gladly write him any role he wants. We will continue to produce together and listen to each other. I’ve been working on prepping a movie in Puerto Rico.There’s two great two leads. I can write things quickly, so basically it’s Vinnie’s choice as to which one wants to play. We have something in the works that is something that I would not direct. Vinnie would act in it and we would both produce it.
The Big Ugly is out now on digital and in selected cinemas.
