Photo: Sunday Times
Keanu Reeves can probably do impossible things.
The people behind the new action-horror comedy Day Shift say the John Wick star helped the new Netflix movie succeed, but he’s not even in it.
Day Shift features Jamie Foxx as vampire hunter Bud Jablonski, who uses his pool cleaning job to raid vampire homes in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley.
The film will feature debut filmmaker J.J. Perry directing and Chad Stahelski – the director of John Wick – producing.
“You’ve got this average Joe, Bud Jablonski, who’s trying to make a living for himself, make ends meet, it’s just the way he’s going it is through a very extraordinary way, by hunting vampires,” Stahelski says.
“It’s your working-class guy trying to keep his family together, trying to pay the bills – rather than some hyper-glorious vampire hunter who’s saving the world. This is a guy who just wants to get braces for his kid, he just wants to pay for her school, he just wants to get his truck fixed. Every one of us can relate to it.”
An Army veteran, Perry has a longstanding connection and professional working relationship with Stahelski, serving as Senior Stunt Coordinator on 2017’s John Wick: Chapter 2.
“Chad Stahelski is one of the first people I met when I got out of the Army,” the Day Shift filmmaker says.
“We came up through the stunt business together through the ‘90s, and I helped him with the action [on] John Wick 1, with John Wick 2. After John Wick 2, a ton of people started throwing scripts at me. They were like, ‘Oh, you’ve got to direct, you’re next.”
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A “Day Shift” in a Night Out
Stahelski took the project as a producer following a night out with Reeves and Perry in London, where Perry serves as stunt coordinator on F9.
“We were all in London,” Stahelski says.
“I think Keanu was doing a little pre-release press for John Wick 3, and we’d all meet up. We were having a little drink in this very mellow lounge-y kind of environment. Keanu’s known J.J. for years. It’s just nice to sit and talk when there’s no press or anything. And then, two scotches in, you start going, ‘oh, that would be great,’ and you literally stop the party, and it becomes this whole creative session.”
At some point in the night, Stahelski queries Perry whether he was in the process of doing any projects which Stahelski could help create. And as fate decided to work its magic, Perry attempted to secure Day Shift’s traction and then shot a few trial action clips.
“I went out drinking with Keanu Reeves and Chad, and he said, ‘Hey, buddy, do you have anything?’ I immediately got sober,” Perry recounts.
“He said, ‘I’m leaving at six o’clock in the morning. They’re sending a car.’ It’s 3 a.m., so I was like, we gotta go.
“We get in our cabs and when I get to my hotel, I emailed him the [footage] of the fight. As soon as he saw it on the way to Heathrow he said, ‘Holy f—, how’d you get those girls to do that? Oh, my god, it’s ridiculous.’ By the time he landed in LAX he was like, ‘we’re f—ing making this movie.”
If Day Shift gets commercial and critical success, we won’t be shocked to see Perry and Stahelski re-collaborating for a sequel and even more.
“Well, this is the Day Shift,” Perry says. “You know we’ve got to do the Night Shift. And then we’ve got to do the Graveyard Shift, baby. You know what we got to do! Come on, bro!”
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