Films that influenced Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett’s ‘Ready or Not 2'

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett share the films that influenced their new film. Make sure to read the notes to learn more about their inspirations. Midnight Run The pitch perfect tone Martin Brest creates in both this and Beverly Hills Cop has been huge for us since we started making shorts together almost twenty years ago. He’s so adept at grounding thrills and humor through character and it all holds together in such a perfect way. Fantastic characters at the center of a thrilling and offbeat journey. DeNiro as Jack Walsh and Charles Grodin as Mardukas give performances that are so natural, so fun and that hint at a very full off-camera life and story. Their relationship is so rich and nuanced. Complex, hilarious and deeply emotional. They’re both right and they’re both wrong. They’re both flawed. And it’s because of this that we love them. Along with Thelma & Louise, Midnight Run was the gold standard for us while making our movie. Thelma & Louise A lot like Midnight Run, Thelma & Louise is the other movie we discussed the most while making the movie. We love everything about this movie. We love Thelma and Louise as characters, we love the characterizations and the ebbs and flow of their relationship along the road. They’re both such complete characters that push against each other but also complete each other. They make mistakes but they’re just trying to do their best, like all of us. They’re guided by something deeply human the entire time and it makes you root for them and love them. They’re good people in a bad situation but they’re not perfect people. They’re both so fully human and the love you feel between them the entire movie is palpable. We wanted to make sure Grace and Faith had similar traits, that they were coming from an understandable but flawed place. That they could be in real conflict but no matter what, through anything, deep down they truly love each other and will go to the end of the earth for each other. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Like Thelma and Lousie, Butch and Sundance have their differences but when threatened from the outside they’ve got each other’s backs no matter what. Them against the world. The adventure is fun and thrilling but the reason we watch Butch and Sundance over and over (and this is true for almost every movie on this list) is because we love the characters so dearly and want to spend time with them and we want to go through it with them time and time again. Characters like Butch and Sundance (and Thelma and Lousie or Walsh and Mardukas) illuminate something about how we exist in our own relationships and how we’ll fight for someone we love. Each in their own way, the characters ground their movies and are the gravitational force of the tone. They’re what holds the whole thing together. Die Hard With a Vengeance The original Die Hard was one of our biggest influences while we were making the original Ready or Not, but the third Die Hard was a huge inspiration for this Ready or Not. Like everything on this list so far, it’s in large part because of the character dynamics. Samuel Jackson and Bruce Willis and their evolving relationship throughout the insane peril of the movie are so fun to watch. And the action is fantastic. It’s one of our favorite sequels ever. Aliens Along with Terminator 2, Aliens sets the bar for what a sequel can be. There are lots of incredible sequels, but Aliens and Terminator 2 evolve the world and a character in such an exciting way, while also shifting tone just enough to feel fresh without abandoning what made the original feel special. We thought a lot about Ripley’s introduction and evolution in Aliens while figuring about how to introduce Grace in this movie. Terminator 2: Judgment Day Similar to Aliens, T2 is a touchstone for us in so many ways in terms of its expansion of the mythology and characters. Now that Sarah Connor has been through it, her son grounds the movie’s point of view to the real world and audience reaction. Their relationship and dynamic is something we thought about a lot while figuring out how to keep Grace at the center of the movie while also continuing to ground it emotionally to the real world through Faith and her reactions and introduction to the heightened world of the movie’s mythology. True Romance Tony Scott has always been a massive influence on us and we reference his movies a lot. His use of atmosphere is unrivaled and the way he naturally interweaves music into his films is something we’re always chasing. But paramount for this movie was the fight scene between Patricia Arquette and James Gandolfini. While we were crafting ballroom and hallway fights, we constantly turned to that scene for guidance. How do you make something simultaneously difficult to watch and also entertaining? We wanted to cross the line without making the audience turn on the movie and the North Star for us was that fight scene. Friday Friday is one of our all-time favorite two handers. The interplay between Craig and Smokey is so relatable, natural and hilarious. They feel like best friends and despite the drama between them they’re there for each other at every turn, even when it’s their own fault they're in the mess they’re in. Making sure Grace and Faith’s off-camera relationship felt as real and complete was incredibly important to us, its one of the key ingredients that we hope will make you want to revisit the movie, and Friday is one of the most rewatchable movies ever in large part because of the Craig and Smokey relationship, that lived-in nuanced relationship. It’s something we really tried to emulate with Grace and Faith. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Spielberg again. And another one of our all-time favorite movies for a million reasons. The introduction of a co-lead who has to stand by and go toe-to-toe with Indiana Jones, one of the greatest characters ever, is no small feat. And to do it in a way that feels so effortless and like a natural evolution for the story is incredible. The set pieces are amazing, we have turned to many Indiana Jones set pieces over the years to study how they evolve, how to continue to up the ante and twist the knife while always keeping the focus on the characters and their peril and relationships. Also, the look of the Holy Grail influenced the rundown look of LeBail’s ring. And them riding off into the sunrise was a feeling we wanted to capture at the end of our movie. This is a movie that is so deeply embedded into our DNA that there are probably countless influences from it that work their way into our movies both conscious and subconscious. Saving Private Ryan Spielberg movies have always been a big part of our lives and we reference them often (Jurassic Park in Scream VI for the bodega scene there’s even a “clever girl” nod in this movie) but we discussed Saving Private Ryan a lot while we were designing the Ingancio sniper sequence. How to make it feel visceral and terrifying for the MacCaullay sisters.