Pratt eyes blockbuster originality
Chris Pratt may be a loyal star of two of the biggest movie franchises of the moment, between Marvel and “Jurassic World,” but even he craves something different sometimes.
“I heard the grumblings that people were getting tired of those things,” said Pratt. “I felt inclined to try to do something original.”
That’s when Zach Dean’s script for what would become “The Tomorrow War,” now available on Amazon Prime Video, ended up in his hands. It wasn’t based on a toy or a comic book or a theme park ride. There was no “brand” attached to it or even a bestseller sticker.
Then titled “Ghost Draft,” it was a dark and emotional sci-fi action epic about a generation of people who get drafted to go 30 years in the future to fight a losing war against aliens. And the production company Skydance was already on board.
But they needed a name, and Pratt has found himself in a rare position in Hollywood where his involvement alone can get a movie off the ground.
So, he attached himself to star as Dan Forester, a scientist and father of a young daughter, who gets drafted for the dangerous mission. Pratt also decided he would serve as an executive producer for the first time, too, meaning he got to be involved in casting, script notes and some creative decisions.
And there was a problem they needed to deal with immediately: “Ghost Draft” was way too dark.
“It was ‘Children of Men’ and then some,” said director Chris McKay.
“It made ‘Children of Men’ look like a comedy,” Pratt added.
If they were going to
feasibly attract the whole family to a theater, they’d need to lighten it up a little: Less hopeless dystopia, more “Independence Day.”
It’s part of the reason “Robot Chicken” alum McKay cast people like “Veep’s” Sam Richardson, “Mr. Show’s” Mary Lynn Rajskub and The Birthday Boys’ Mike Mitchell in supporting roles. They are, he said, “comedy generators.”
“I like movies like ‘Aliens’ where you’ve got suspense, you’ve got action, but you’ve also got people who are having real human reactions to things and there’s situational or character-based humor,” McKay said.
Pratt is proud of “The Tomorrow War” and being in a position to help films that he wants to see get made.
“I feel a little bit more like it’s my baby in a way than I do on other films,” he said.
“For so long, any role
that I got was the result of someone else saying yes to me. Now I’m in this rare space where if I’m doing a role, it’s because I’ve said yes. And that is really cool. And I don’t know how long that will last or when it will end, but until it does I’m going to do the things that I want to do. And this is a perfect example of the kind of thing that I wanted to do. It’s big and commercial. And it’s fun and it’s moving,” Pratt added. “We want to make a big splash, and we want people to think that this is the coolest movie they’ve seen in years. And I think that’s what we did.”
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