Monkey Man was originally expected to stream on Netflix — but Jordan Peele gave Dev Patel‘s feature directorial debut a different fate, and sent it to the big screen.
The Slumdog Millionaire actor was aglow about Peele at the Los Angeles premiere of Monkey Man Wednesday night at the TCL Chinese Theatre.
“He took us from this thing that was brushed under the carpet to putting us on top of the mantel piece,” Patel said yesterday.
How did Monkey Man go from $30M Netflix pick-up to the big screen? Sources tell us the streamer after buying the movie found it too gritty for the Indian market, and was quietly shopped it around. However, then Monkey Man‘s co-financier Bron Studio was hit with bankruptcy, which held up the movie from finding a home until Peele rescued it.
Patel spoke about how Peele wasn’t simply defined by TV comedy, and was able to bust out of that box to smart genre feature filmmaking. Similarly, Peele noticed that Patel wasn’t just a star of arthouse fare, rather a gritty action star and filmmaker.
Says Patel, “He saw the film; Jordan saw me as a filmmaker, someone broken out, like what he did with his amazing comedy show and became this filmmaker.”
“He understood the strength of using genre to talk about more interesting motif things, societal issues, using it as a trojan horse,” added the Monkey Man multihyphenate.
“I haven’t seen someone such as myself expressed in this manner (on screen),” Patel continued, “Normally we’re given the roles of comedic relief: The guy who opens that laptop and hacks the mainframe type of thing.”
Patel shot Monkey Man against all odds during Covid calling it “the hardest acting I’ve ever done.” More ot the point, he broke his foot two weeks before shooting, and during production, broke his hand. He even lost his gaffer during production from a heart attack.
Kudos to mom.
“My mother managed to channel a lot of this energy and ADHD through martial arts and Taekwondo,” he said, “It’s pretty crazy to think that this kid who wet himself in his first karate class because he didn’t know his right from his left is standing here with his own action film.”
Universal acquired Monkey Man for under $10M. The movie is looking to open around $12M this weekend at the domestic box office.
