After six seasons of Workaholics, best friends and longtime comedy collaborators Adam DeVine, Anders Holm and Blake Anderson (not to mention director Kyle Newachuk) have just released their first feature film. Landing on Netflix on Friday, March 23, Game Over, Man is an extremely violent Die Hard homage complete with celebrity cameos and plenty of blood and gore. It's also got some of the most jaw-dropping jokes we've ever seen from the gang.
Holm wrote the screenplay based on an idea that he developed with DeVine and Anderson between seasons one and two of Workaholics. For him, the extremes only work if they serve the story. "As long as you do it in a coherent and tasteful way," he tells Exclaim! "Well, not a tasteful way, but in a way that makes sense for the project. In Apocalypse Now they killed that cow in real life, live on film, and watch it bleed out on film. Did they have to? No. But that was the movie, and it was part of it. It was real and it kind of set the tone for that movie.
"So as far as pushing the envelope here, we didn't kill any cows, but we had some pretty crazy violence. We had some characters that were unsavoury. But I like to think that the violence made you jump out of your seat. It made you think the stakes were high. I would like to think the unsavoury characters got their comeuppance."
Devine agrees, pointing out that Netflix was extremely hands off in their production of the film. "They read the script and gave us money and helped us when we needed help and took a step back when they knew that we had it," he recalls. "It was kind of a dream scenario for us, and to have our first movie go this smoothly was a dream for us. Because we've heard [from] people working in the studio system — you're shooting, and one executive gets cold feet about a bit, and they start pulling things."
The only note Netflix had, in fact, was to leave in a controversial twist. Following a scene involving two gay hitmen, the film's climax also includes the revelation that one of its main characters is gay. "I also remember when we would initially do table reads, we'd have the initial note, 'Well, you've got the two gay goons and then you've got this [other] character being gay, is that too many gay people in the movie?'" recalls Anderson. "No, I don't think so. That's what I like or what's refreshing in the movie."
"Their one note was to leave it in," Devine adds. "At one point, we were showing it to family and friends, and we also did some test screenings, and it's a real PC world right now, and we got a little bit of pushback on this big reveal. To me it was silly, and there shouldn't be any…. People are so scared to even mention that there's different types of people out there or to comment one way or the other…. Netflix was like, 'No, it is what it is and it's a good turn and we like it.' All hail king Netflix."
For Holm, the idea is to try and represent all walks of life in an honest way. "Whatever your background is or sexuality or disability, people want to be treated normally," he says. "There are some people that want to be treated differently, and I don't know if that's because of their difference. I think it just might be them. And then there are people who have differences that want to be treated like a normal person and made fun of… and not treated with kid gloves, as if they're some victim. So if you kind of just talk about people, include them in a movie as a character, address the difference but just gloss over it and have fun with it, that's fine."
Game Over, Man is out today, March 23, on Netflix.
Holm wrote the screenplay based on an idea that he developed with DeVine and Anderson between seasons one and two of Workaholics. For him, the extremes only work if they serve the story. "As long as you do it in a coherent and tasteful way," he tells Exclaim! "Well, not a tasteful way, but in a way that makes sense for the project. In Apocalypse Now they killed that cow in real life, live on film, and watch it bleed out on film. Did they have to? No. But that was the movie, and it was part of it. It was real and it kind of set the tone for that movie.
"So as far as pushing the envelope here, we didn't kill any cows, but we had some pretty crazy violence. We had some characters that were unsavoury. But I like to think that the violence made you jump out of your seat. It made you think the stakes were high. I would like to think the unsavoury characters got their comeuppance."
Devine agrees, pointing out that Netflix was extremely hands off in their production of the film. "They read the script and gave us money and helped us when we needed help and took a step back when they knew that we had it," he recalls. "It was kind of a dream scenario for us, and to have our first movie go this smoothly was a dream for us. Because we've heard [from] people working in the studio system — you're shooting, and one executive gets cold feet about a bit, and they start pulling things."
The only note Netflix had, in fact, was to leave in a controversial twist. Following a scene involving two gay hitmen, the film's climax also includes the revelation that one of its main characters is gay. "I also remember when we would initially do table reads, we'd have the initial note, 'Well, you've got the two gay goons and then you've got this [other] character being gay, is that too many gay people in the movie?'" recalls Anderson. "No, I don't think so. That's what I like or what's refreshing in the movie."
"Their one note was to leave it in," Devine adds. "At one point, we were showing it to family and friends, and we also did some test screenings, and it's a real PC world right now, and we got a little bit of pushback on this big reveal. To me it was silly, and there shouldn't be any…. People are so scared to even mention that there's different types of people out there or to comment one way or the other…. Netflix was like, 'No, it is what it is and it's a good turn and we like it.' All hail king Netflix."
For Holm, the idea is to try and represent all walks of life in an honest way. "Whatever your background is or sexuality or disability, people want to be treated normally," he says. "There are some people that want to be treated differently, and I don't know if that's because of their difference. I think it just might be them. And then there are people who have differences that want to be treated like a normal person and made fun of… and not treated with kid gloves, as if they're some victim. So if you kind of just talk about people, include them in a movie as a character, address the difference but just gloss over it and have fun with it, that's fine."
Game Over, Man is out today, March 23, on Netflix.
