BARBARIAN (2022) dir. Zach Cregger

Okay, so I didn't feel well recently, so I missed watching Boy Kills World at the Fantasy Film Festival in Berlin. I gave up hope to see it in Hamburg a week later (today). Sadly BKW doesn't have a release date in Germany, so this might be my only possibility. But I made it! Yay 🥳

And you know what? The director Moritz Mohr was there and answered our questions! Such a nice, funny guy! I'll come to that later.

I enjoyed Boy Kills World. The cast was amazing, the action and fighting scenes were amazing. It was a clever mix out of Karate Kid, Hunger Games, Deadpool and John Wick.

Anyway, under the cut, I'll tell what Moritz told us at the Q&A. I leave out spoilers, one spoiler question, I tell you in a few months, when more people saw the movie. Gonna tag it with BKW spoilers anyway.

So, as I told you, Boy Kills World doesn't have a release date in Germany. The Film Festival fought hard to get it and to show it.

The planning for BKW started in 2016. Through contacts, Sam Raimi got into the project and stayed interested the whole time.

Having Sam Raimi on board, helped massively.

Two studios, who wanted bkw, shut down. One of them cuz of covid, so it was decided to make an indie movie

Moritz enjoyed South Africa and it was the perfect place for the imaginary world the movie takes place in.

He wanted a fantasy world, not something from real life.

Roughly 30 minutes were cut from the movie as test audiences thought it was too long. Moritz and his team didn't want to cut too much, but didn't really have a choice. But he won't release a directors cut.

When casting Boy, Bill came into talks. But he never made action movies. Can he do it? There was no doubt, that he is a fantastic actor and has amazing facial characteristics, especially for playing a deaf/mute character. But the whole training and fighting scenes? Moritz and Bill talked on the phone, Bill promised commitment to the whole project. And in the end, he did it! He absolutely smashed it!

Moritz is excited for to see Bill as The Crow.

Moritz was a bit disappointed with the first box office weekend, but he has more projects planned and is optimistic to realise some of them.

I hope I didn't forget anything 😊

via Unit Photographer @/grahambart on IG

New behind the scenes of Boy Kills World via Yayan Ruhian on ig

via @/denischer_ on IG

via Producer @/alexlebovici on IG Stories

–How involved were you with casting, and what led to Bill Skarsgård getting the lead?

FITZJOHN: We were completely hands-on on all things, including casting. The usual suspects were thrown around by the sales agent saying, “We need to look at…” I won’t mention any names, but we did talk to some of the big A-league boys. I think it was Roy Lee who suggested, “What about Bill Skarsgård?” and when we first heard that, to be honest, that didn’t really strike us. You know, he’s not exactly a boy, he’s 6-foot-4–a pretty significant man. And then the irony of that was it got us talking about, “This kind of reminds me of that story about the baby elephant that’s tied to the stake and pulls and pulls and pulls and can’t get away. And then by the time it’s a big bull elephant, it doesn’t even try to pull the stake, which it could probably do in no time.” And that’s essentially Boy’s story, the way he’s been so programmed by Shaman. He should be the champion, but he cedes the king role to Shaman, who’s about half his size by the time he’s grown up. So it just felt right.

SWART: When we spoke to Bill, he was so excited about playing a true action role. He’s a massive martial arts fan, and so capable. He was like, “Yeah, I want to do the training, and as many of my own stunts as you guys will let me.” We said, “Well, that’s great, Bill, but remember, your character has no lines, you have no dialogue.” And he said, “Yeah, that’s what really gets me about this role.” He studied the old Charlie Chaplin silent movies; he not only prepared his body and learned the martial arts part, but if you look at the range of emotion on his face, there are some little homages to classic Chaplin as well.

The rest of the ensemble was very much the same, finding the right people to bring these wacky characters to life. When we interviewed the actors, as well as our heads of department, we told them, “Wave your crazy flag! However you bring these characters to life, just lean into your creative inspiration.”

FITZJOHN: Getting back to Bill, if you see what he does under all the prosthetics in IT, you still know what he’s thinking and feeling. He’s one of a kind, and if Hollywood hasn’t recognized that he’s a big star yet, I believe they’re going to after this movie.

What went into getting Skarsgård in shape and choreographing his fight scenes?

FITZJOHN: That was a pretty significant task. Our stunt coordinator, Dawid Szatarski, is incredible in terms of how he thinks. He thinks in movement. Dawid basically invented a fighting style for Bill, given his lankiness; he wanted him to move with big sweeping motions, and they spent quite a bit of time in Berlin doing the training. We also hired a really good fitness/strength coach, a nutritionist, who basically lived with Bill for about nine months getting him ready. I didn’t stay too far from Bill during production, and I would watch him do a 12-hour shoot and then go and do a two-hour calisthenics workout on the roof. I mean, the guy would work out during lunch breaks. He never stopped; I’d never seen anything like that commitment. He became Boy.

SWART: Dawid was also our 2nd unit director. I think he has three or four credits on the movie; he actually has a great cameo as VDK Dawe, the one soldier who just won’t go down. Bill’s relationship with Dawid was very special, and there were times when Dawid would go to Bill saying, “So, do you think you can do this stunt?” and Bill would go, “Of course I can do this stunt,” and we were like, “No, you can’t do this stunt!” There were many moments when I would have to tell Bill, “No, no, you’ve got to use a double for this, because if you twist your ankle or something at this stage of the shoot…” But Bill was up for anything; he was like, “Well, then don’t challenge me,” you know? “Don’t dare me.” And we were like, “We’re not daring you!”

FITZJOHN: If we’re honest, Bill did the bulk of it; it’s not a battle we won in the end. Outside of the stupid, crazy stuff, like when we were throwing Boy down from a double-story balcony, he pretty much did everything.

I’ve heard that Skarsgård originally did Boy’s voiceovers himself, before H. Jon Benjamin came in and took over. Can you talk about the reasons and that process?

FITZJOHN: It was always going to be H. Jon Benjamin. I mean, Moritz called it at the same time, when we were casting. The short had this Marlboro Man voiceover that just doesn’t match with Boy. And even with Bill’s versatility, we needed to explore something like that. He did an amazing job, but the audiences wanted the almost bipolar nature of it.

SWART: It’s the absurdity of his inner voice, right? So in the short it’s the Marlboro Man, and Boy gets his voice from an old cigarette commercial. For the feature, we recorded Bill, which did give us a great connection to his character, but we found that we lost the absurdity of where his inner voice comes from. It took something away from the physical performance and the storytelling.

FITZJOHN: And also, given the nature of the story, the humor of H. Jon Benjamin gives us a reprieve, in a good way, from a pretty dark, dramatic and violent story.

🚨🚨🚨

PSA: There is a post credits scene for Boy Kills World so stay after the credits and don’t miss out!

via @carrinskii on IG

via @/carrinskii on IG

Cast and the production team of Boy Kills World shared by @/carrinskii on IG

via @/carrinskii on IG

via @/carrinskii on IG

via @/carrenskii on IG

via @/carrenskii on IG Stories

Bill and Quinn Copeland who plays his sister Mina shared by @/carrenskii on IG Stories