The Big Picture

J.J. Perry’s stunt background shines in his sophomore feature,
The Killer’s Game
, starring Dave Bautista.
The film follows veteran assassin Joe Flood, diagnosed with a terminal illness, who authorizes a kill on himself.
Perry’s action-packed movie was filmed in an astonishingly short 42 days, showcasing his impressive team and expertise.

Director J.J. Perry’s stunt filmography runs back decades. If you’ve seen an action film in the past 30 years, you may have seen Perry get his ass kicked by John Wick, or as Nathan Fillion’s double in Serenity. Most likely, you’ve seen Perry’s work by way of his stunt choreography and coordination from iconic franchises like Avatar and The Fast Films to critical favorites like Warrior and Argo. In 2022, Perry debuted as a director with Netflix’s Day Shift, starring Jaimie Foxx and Snoop Dogg. Now he’s following his vampire actioner with a brand new action-love story, The Killer’s Game, starring Dave Bautista, Sofia Boutella, and Sir Ben Kingsley.

The Killer’s Game follows Bautista’s Joe Flood, a veteran assassin who is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and authorizes a kill on himself. After ordering the kill, his former colleagues jump at the opportunity. But when Joe receives new shocking information, this hit becomes a race for his life.

Collider’s Steve Weintraub was delighted to sit down with director J.J. Perry to discuss working with the same stunt crew for fifteen years, shooting on an unbelievably short schedule, and how he hustled the Eiffel Tower to shoot a stunt 1,000 feet in the air.

J.J. Perry’s Action Film Masterclass Begins With Jackie Chan
Image via Golden Harvest

COLLIDER: I really want to start with congrats on the movie. It is a really, really fun movie. But I want to go on a sidebar if you will. You have worked on so many action set pieces and scenes. What’s an action scene that you have that you absolutely love and you’ve studied — not something that you’ve worked on — that you are like, “That’s incredible?”

J.J. PERRY: For fighting, I would say anything mid-eighties Jackie Chan because that’s the game-changer. Up until ‘82, fight choreography in America and fight choreography in Asia was very standard. But because he was a stuntman who became a star and then he became a director, when he took over the camera, he started putting the camera work together and the editing work together. So if it’s fight work, I would say anything Jackie Chan from the ‘80s — Supercop, Wheels on Meals, Armour of God, mandatory viewing.

Then you get into car work and I would say Bullet and then any of the Fast & Furious movies — and I’ve worked on a few of them — because there is some visual effects there, but every Fast & Furious movie they crash 300 or 400 cars for real. There’s no way to fake that yet. By the time they can fake it, I’ll be long gone.

I appreciate the answer. This is your second film. What did you learn making Day Shift that made you say, “Oh, I need to take this lesson with me to this?”

J.J. Perry Didn’t Set Out To Make An Action Movie, He Set Out To Make A Love Story
“What actress am I gonna get who’s gonna be able to dance?”
Image via Lionsgate

PERRY: I’m pretty good at budgeting my time, but the scripts are quite different. I didn’t set out to make an action movie with The Killer’s Game, I set out to make a love story. It had a train wreck with an action movie, and I needed to get that part right. Because what they’ll say is, “Oh yeah, you can do action, but you can’t do story, or you can’t do characters. He’s a stunt guy — he’s a caveman.” So I really wanted to focus on the characters with Sir Ben Kingsley, with Sofia [Boutella], with Dave [Bautista], and all my friends. I cast all my friends in the movie, like Marko Zaror, Scott Adkins, Daniel Bernhardt, Pom Klementieff. I knew the action was gonna be awesome.

So, that was kind of what I learned, just to take your time a little bit more. I know what to do with the action because I’ve been doing it for so long that I can rush it. I can take that, put my spurs in it, stomp on it, and yell at it. But when it comes to the performances of comedy or drama, I slowed down a little bit, and I didn’t cut. I would do what’s on the page a few times, and then I would just roll, and we would just ad-lib. I had some Post-it notes with different alts. I learned that from Paul Feig, who I did a movie called Spy with, the alt thing, especially with comedy. “Try this, try this,” and it just pops out. I mean, maybe take my time a little bit more is what we did.

Dave and Sofia are fantastic together. Their chemistry is the reason why you’re invested in this film. When did you realize these two are really good?

PERRY: Again, getting this movie for me was a win. Getting Dave Bautista was a huge win, like the lottery. The thing that scared me in prep was, “What actress am I gonna get who’s gonna be able to dance? I’m gonna have to put a mask on someone. We have to do it with costume.” And Dave goes, “I know this girl, Sofia Boutella, that I did Hotel Artemis with,” and she just turned out to be amazing. They were friends. We spent a lot of time in prep hanging out and eating together and letting them spend a lot of time together. So, it was evident immediately in the first read-through. It was like, “Wow, there’s something there.”

A Bottle of Old Scotch Allowed J.J. Perry To Film A Stunt On The Eiffel Tower
Image via Lionsgate

Which shot or sequence in this film was the real pain in the ass, and in your career, of all the things you’ve worked on, is there a shot or sequence that you still can’t believe you pulled off?

PERRY: The second question was on Murder Mystery 2 on the Eiffel Tower. They let me film Jennifer Aniston’s double 1,000 feet up countering. They let me go on the Eiffel Tower — nobody’s ever been up there before. It cost me a bottle of Macallan 30, to give it to the guy who runs that tower, to let us do that. He was like, “No!” And I saw that he had a battleship sewn into his jacket, and I was like, “I was in the army.” “I was in the Navy.” We started talking. He goes, “I like old Scotch,” so I sent my assistant to go get a bottle of Macallan 30. He goes, “I’ll give it to you for three nights,” and he sat next to me and I helped him drink that bottle after we did it. On The Killer’s Game, I don’t think any of it was a pain in the ass. We shot the movie in 42 days…

That’s actually insane. I had no idea. I have to pause there because the amount of action in this movie looks like a 75-day shoot, or way more than 40.

PERRY: My brother, listen, I need you to produce my next film. Give me 75 days. Day Shift was 42 days, this was 42 days, and I just finished Afterburn four weeks ago, and that was 42 days. I don’t know what I’d do with 75 days, but I sure wanna try.

I’m really impressed that you did this in 42 days. It’s insane.

PERRY: Thanks, man. Listen, I had an amazing action team with me — Justin Yu, Troy Robinson, Felix Betancourt. They run ahead in the action. We do stunt vis in prep, when the sets are built I have them go in and vis on the set so we know, “Wait a minute, we can’t do this because the camera won’t fit here.” All the wires are pre-rigged. There’s a team that I travel with as a second director, as a stunt coordinator, that have been with me 10 or 15 years, guys that I came up with that, that do the reconnoiter for me while I’m doing it. So, I can’t take all the credit for the action. I’m super grateful for my action team. With the action, having to rush is always the hard part. At the end of the day, nobody got injured or hurt. Some people got their feelings hurt, including me, but other than that, everything worked out okay.

‘The Killer’s Game’ Hard ‘R’ Brings Audiences To The Edge Of Their Seats
“I love it when it’s over-the-top, where it’s shock value.”
Image via Lionsgate

I am a fan of ultraviolence. Obviously, I’m sick and twisted, but you have some shots where bones are going the wrong way and stuff like that. There are other scenes where that’s not as excessive. How did you decide where and when you wanted to be extra violent?

PERRY: It was all based on schedule. I had a lot of other plans. Again, there were other things we wanted to do, but we had to fold it into our schedule. But I’m a fan of that, too. You and me are cut from the same wood. I love it when it’s over-the-top, where it’s shock value. Anytime you’re a hard R, I can rely on shock to get them on the edge of their seats. So, hopefully we did a good job there.

J.J. Perry “Tore Shit Up” With Dave Bautista

You mentioned Afterburn . A lot of people won’t realize you shot that with Dave Bautista back-to-back. What can you tease people about Afterburn and why we should be excited to see it?

PERRY: The action is going to be outrageous. We’re cutting it together right now. All I can say is I’m super excited about it, as excited as I’ve been for Day Shift or The Killer’s Game. We shot it in Slovakia. The last big movie they shot there was Enemy at the Gates in 2001. They probably won’t let me back in that country. You should understand what I did there. By saying that, you know I tore some shit up.

Do you know what you’re doing next, or are you still figuring it out?

PERRY: Hopefully Killer’s Game 2, my brother. [Laughs]

The Killer’s Game tears into theaters today.

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