The Big Picture

Collider’s Steve Weintraub talks with director Doug Liman for Apple TV+’s movie
The Instigators
.

The Instigators
stars Matt Damon and Casey Affleck in a heist-gone-wrong comedy with Hong Chau, Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Ron Perlman, and Jack Harlow.
During the interview, Liman discusses filming in Boston, the challenging car chase sequence, and teases an
Edge of Tomorrow
sequel, as well as future projects, including
Road House 2
,
Everest
, and his space movie with Tom Cruise.

After the success of his other streamer feature, Road House, earlier this year, director Doug Liman returns with the heist comedy, The Instigators. The movie stars Matt Damon as Rory, a discouraged father, and co-writer Casey Affleck as Cobby, an ex-con, brought together to pull off a major robbery that could seriously ease their troubles. Unfortunately, the operation is botched, and the two find themselves on the run from about “100 police cars from multiple New England states” with Rory’s therapist (Hong Chau) in tow.

With The Instigators now playing in select theaters and hitting Apple TV+ on August 9, Collider’s Steve Weintraub spoke with Liman about filming in Boston with the city’s “favorite sons.” During their conversation, which you can watch in the video above or read below, the filmmaker discusses the most challenging car chase sequence of his career to date and how he kept the film concise for a smart audience. He also shares an exciting update for the long-awaited Edge of Tomorrow sequel, talks about taking the lead on Road House 2, and updates us on his Everest project and the space movie with Tom Cruise.

The Instigators (2024) Follows two robbers who must go on the run with the help of one of their therapists after a theft doesn’t go as planned.Release Date August 2, 2024 Runtime 0 Minutes Writers Chuck MacLean , Casey Affleck , Jeff Robinov , John Graham

Read Our ‘The Instigators’ Review

An ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ Sequel Is Still on the Table
“Time travel is really tough.”

COLLIDER: You know how much I love Edge of Tomorrow. Every time I talk to you, I ask you the same thing. Do you think we’ll actually get a sequel to that film?

DOUG LIMAN: Emily Blunt and Tom Cruise have never been more on top of their game than they are right now, so I’d be crazy not to be trying to figure out how to make a sequel. I am spending time trying to crack it. On the flip side, time travel is really tough, like really, really tough. All you have to do is develop a movie with time travel to come to the conclusion that humans will never travel through time because it’s hard to figure out a third act in a movie with time travel. So, I know for a fact that humans are never gonna travel through time, but I am trying to crack it.

So, you’re basically trying to come up with the idea or the actual script?

LIMAN: Both.

Related ‘Edge of Tomorrow’s Grueling Journey to the Silver Screen The sci-fi spectacle had to jump through a number of hurdles, from numerous rewrites to a casting conundrum.

I really hope you figure it out, but at the same time, I really only want you to make it if you have the idea because the first one is so awesome.

LIMAN: No, exactly. Obviously, the system would be like, “Just go make it. It doesn’t even matter because it’s a sequel, and it’ll do a billion dollars because the movie is so popular.” I would never do that, Tom would never do that, and Emily would never do that. We care way too much. We have too much pride in our work to ever, ever take the easy bait.

Totally. And I’m saying to you, as a fan, I only want it if you came up with a really good story.

‘The Bourne Identity’ Walked So ‘The Instigators’ Could Run

You’ve done a lot of cool stuff in your career. What do you consider the toughest scene or sequence that you’ve put on film as a director?

LIMAN: Certainly, the car chase in Instigators was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done because it’s a giant car chase that we’re doing for real in Boston, which by the way, if you got Boston’s favorite sons in the movie, it’s a little easier to get the permissions you need. The thing about The Instigators is that I set a goal for myself that I wanted what was happening inside the car, which is a four-page dialogue scene, to be more exciting than what’s happening outside the car, and to do a really fun, funny argument in the car. Because Casey Affleck’s character is discovering that Matt Damon’s character has suicidal fantasies, so he doesn’t think Matt should be driving because if you’re at a high-speed car chase, you do not want the person driving the car to possibly fantasize about suicide. And they have Hong Chau in the car, who’s Matt’s therapist, and she’s trying to talk Matt into slowing down or stopping. If you’re Casey, you don’t want Hong Chau to convince Matt to stop the car because then the police will catch you. So, I love the dynamic of what was happening between these three characters, but I was like, “How can I film a dialogue scene while outside the car, they have 100 police cars from multiple New England states chasing them and smashing into each other?”

So, trying to make that work took everything I’d ever learned as a filmmaker up until Instigators to figure out how you could even conceive of combining car chases, which I’ve learned how to do during The Bourne Identity, and how to shoot a dialogue scene in the middle of that. Usually, in a car chase, people are just reacting to the car chase, and it’s a little yelp here or there. It’s not like the in-depth kind of scene that we had in Instigators. So, that was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done. But pretty much every film I do, I try to come up with something that I don’t know how to do on day one so that I’m properly terrified of the film.

It also helps with this film that Matt and Casey are just so good together. They are just so good that I’m sure, as a director, you’re like, “Oh, thank you, God.”

LIMAN: That’s good for everything else, but in the middle of a car chase, thank God you have that, but it still doesn’t get you the scene. But if I didn’t have the three people with the acting chops that Hong, Casey, and Matt have, I would have just had a heart attack long before I ever finished the scene.

I love talking about the editing process because it’s where it all comes together. Were there any big changes that happened that you weren’t expecting going in?

LIMAN: Not really. It was more a process of, “How tight can we make the film?” In general, I have a short attention span, and I like my films to clip along. I don’t think I’ve ever made a film that’s more than two hours. I think audiences are getting smarter, so you can shortcut some things the way on your computer keyboard you have shortcuts to do things. I feel like audiences are getting smarter, so they can catch up to certain things that maybe an audience 40 years ago could not have, so I like taking advantage of that and telling the film in as tight a way as possible. Maybe it’s because I used to make commercials. I still do occasionally, but you gotta figure out how to pack all that story into, like, 22 seconds.

Will Doug Liman Return for ‘Road House 2’?
“Jake Gyllenhaal’s a good friend…I hate to leave him hanging.”
Image via Amazon MGM Studios

I thought you did such a great job with Road House, and I just want to give you props for it and also for the huge success.

LIMAN: Yeah, I think 50-plus million people saw it.

Exactly. They’re making a sequel. Do you think you’re gonna go back, or do you think it was a one-and-done?

LIMAN: I don’t know. Jake [Gyllenhaal]’s a good friend; I love him dearly. It’s hard for me to imagine leaving him hanging because it was a really special collaboration to pull off that character. That’s not the kind of character Jake normally plays, and we really came up with a special way together to pull off that character, so I hate to leave him hanging. But also, I’ve never done a sequel. Not that I don’t talk about it because, obviously, Edge of Tomorrow, there’s not a day that goes by I don’t think about how we can pull that off.

Doug Liman’s ‘Everest’ Is “On the Back Burner” For Now
Image via YouTube

One last thing: I read that you’re filming Everest. What’s the status of that project?

LIMAN: That’s a film I’m desperate to make. It’s a brilliant script about George Mallory climbing in 1921, back when no one had climbed Everest—the map wasn’t even filled in.

It’s just a moment in time when
there’s no business model for that film to make money
, so I have to sort of bide my time. I know that the business is cyclical, and it’s a great script.

I feel like movies happen when they happen, but it’s unfortunately on the back burner. Lots of movies I’ve made have been on the back burner and then they come to the front.

I’m out of time with you, so I can’t ask you about going to space with Tom Cruise unless you want to answer it real quick.

LIMAN: It’s still a dream and a plan.

The Instigators is in theaters for a limited run. It will be available to stream on Apple TV+ on August 9.

Get Tickets