How did Bangkok contribute to the making of movie?
For me, Bangkok is just where you have to go. We really took a liking to the look and the feel of that area, but Bangkok—as a city—is just a beautiful, unbelievable, cosmopolitan city. I mean, I was there for about three months and still felt like I could’ve stayed longer just because there was so much more to see. But Thailand in general is beautiful.
Was it a challenge to shoot this movie there?
I think in a nutshell, Bangkok is just a very crowded, chaotic and hot city. I think we all just had challenges dealing with the crowds and the chaos, but, ultimately the movie is about mayhem and to make a movie about mayhem sometimes you have to go to mayhem. So, I think it all found its way into the movie and it helped.
How did you decide how to stray or stay similar to the story of the first film?
We thought about that all the time. That was essentially the first month of sitting in a room together—the debate over how different it should be. I mean, we kept saying, “Same, but different. Same, but different.” In the end, people are going to come to a sequel; they want a sequel because of what they enjoyed about the first one, and I think where we landed was right. You stay within the template of what the first one is, but you make the stakes higher and make it a lot darker. And the other thing that we did was to acknowledge that the characters had already been through the experience the first time. So, in the first movie, they wake up, there’s a tiger and a baby in the room. Then they go and have breakfast. They can’t do that this time. They know how bad it could get. So, I think we landed on the right blend.
Any talk of doing a third movie, and if so, what would it be?
Quite honestly, we really haven’t talked about it. We just finished the movie two weeks ago. This is the first time we’ve all been together in a while and if we were to do a third one, if the desire was there, I think we have a very clear idea where that would head. It’s certainly not in the same template that you’ve seen in this movie and, obviously, we always envisioned it as a trilogy, as you can imagine. But the third would very much be a finale and an ending.
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