Beck & Woods will be in QC for new film

Nearly five years after Bettendorf natives Scott Beck and Bryan Woods conquered Hollywood with the horror hit, “A Quiet Place,” the filmmakers are back with the big-budget science-fiction thriller “65,” starring Adam Driver.

Written and directed by the 38-year-old QC best friends, the out-of-this-world story centers on what happens after a catastrophic crash on an unknown planet. Pilot Mills (Driver) quickly discovers he’s actually stranded on Earth — 65 million years ago. With only one chance at a rescue, Mills and the only other survivor, Koa, must make their way across an unknown terrain riddled with dangerous prehistoric creatures.

“65” premiered in New York City Tuesday night, attended by the stars and Beck & Woods. They will attend screenings in Des Moines and Iowa City, and will be back home Saturday, March 11, to introduce the 93-minute movie at Cinemark in Davenport, at 7:15 p.m. They’ll just give an introduction for this showing, not a Q & A after, which they did for the spine-tingling 2018 Davenport premiere of “A Quiet Place.”

“There’s nothing better than coming back to the community we feel so supported by,” Beck said Wednesday in an interview with Local 4.

Paramount Pictures’ “A Quiet Place,” based on their original screenplay, stars Emily Blunt alongside John Krasinski, who also directed. Certified Fresh with a score of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film earned over $340 million at the worldwide box office. Beck & Woods served as executive producers in addition to co-writing the screenplay with Krasinski.

“A Quiet Place” was named a Top Ten Film of 2018 by the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review. Beck & Woods’ script earned them the Saturn Award for Best Writing, plus Best Original Screenplay nominations from the Writers Guild and the Critics Choice Awards (its sole Oscar nomination was for Sound Editing). Variety named Beck & Woods to their annual “10 Screenwriters” to Watch list.

Sony Pictures’ sci-fi thriller “65,” with Academy Award nominee Adam Driver starring with Ariana Greenblatt (as Koa) and Chloe Coleman, which will have a wide theatrical release on Friday, March 10, including some Thursday night showings at Cinemark, 3601 E. 53rd St., Davenport.

In the works for over 10 years

Woods said Wednesday they were grateful “A Quiet Place” was such a hit in the era of sequels, reboots, comic-book hero led films and cinematic universes.

“It’s really depressing for filmmakers who came of age in 1999, when bold, innovative movies were seemingly coming out every single week,” he said. “We felt we had the responsibility to come up with cool ideas, and go back to the drawing board rather than triple down on sequels and remakes.”

“65” was an idea they had over 10 years ago, paying tribute to dinosaur movies of the past, culminating with Steven Spielberg’s 1993 “Jurassic Park” (which itself spawned many sequels).

“It was such a brilliant, towering achievement that it scared every other studio out of trying to make another dinosaur movie ever again,” Woods said.

Their idea was to take a space traveler from a “galaxy far, far away” (in “Star Wars” lingo) who crash lands on a mysterious planet, which turns out to be Earth 65 million years ago. He thinks he’s surrounded by terrifying aliens, but they are dinosaurs, before they shortly became extinct.

“Once we got that idea, Scott and I got really excited about it, and started writing it immediately,” Woods said.

“We always compared it to the intro of ‘Star Wars,’ where you see somebody from a different universe entirely, so that’s where Adam Driver’s character is from,” Beck said.

They started writing by 2018, when “A Quiet Place” came out. The success of that film gave the boys confidence to “take a bigger, wilder swing, to get this movie made,” he said.

“65” is their first big-budget, studio project (from Sony Pictures), and was filmed in 2021 and 2022. The project is a reunion for them and Sam Raimi (best known for the 2002 “Spider-Man” and “Evil Dead”), who is also a producer of “65.”

They began working with Raimi with the “Fifty States of Fright” series (on the former Quibi), where Beck & Woods did the Iowa episode and he did the Michigan one. After they showed Raimi the “65” script, he asked to produce it.

“I think this could be something special, combining the B-movie concept, with the idea of family, and a big budget,” Beck recalled Raimi saying. “As a human being, he’s one of the nicest people we’ve ever met. He’s also an incredible mentor.”

“This was our first big studio film, and we could pick his brain about anything and everything,” Beck said. “He was really accessible and we’re really grateful for that opportunity.”

More quiet places

Filming during the pandemic, the crew wore masks and everyone was tested for COVID daily, Woods said.

“It was interesting directing actors with masks on, and it’s hard for them to know, ‘Are you happy?’ ” he said. “We got very good with hand gestures and gesticulating, which fit for this movie thematically.”

“65” centers on two characters who don’t speak the same language and they struggle to communicate, Woods said. “The whole movie is about gestures and what you don’t say.”

Like “Quiet Place” (they weren’t involved in making the 2020 sequel), it was the filmmakers’ “second attempt to do a modern-day silent film,” he said. “We love the silent era so much.”

Beck & Woods wanted dialogue to take a back seat to the “universal language of cinema,” and painting a picture more with visuals, Woods said.

Driver plays the Mills, who is transporting passengers across space, and all of them die in the crash, except a 9-year-old girl, Koa, played by Ariana Greenblatt.

“She doesn’t know her parents have passed away in this crash,” Woods said, noting Mills has to take care of her. “They have to communicate about these deep themes, these feelings of grief, without actually being able to say words, which is kind of where the poetry of the movie lives.”

That’s why they really wanted Driver for the lead.

“We needed an actor who’s as good as Adam Driver – for our money Adam Driver is as good as an actor as anyone working today,” Woods said. “His ability to say a lot with a little, basically communicate backstory, character and intent with just a look is so crucial to his performance in this role.”

In the Driver’s seat

Driver (whose recent credits include “White Noise,” “House of Gucci” and “Marriage Story”) was always their first choice.

“He was phenomenal; we’ve been fans of his for years,” Beck said. “It felt like a shot in the dark, are we even going to be able to entice him?”

“He really grasped on to the challenges of this role,” he added, noting the actor did all of his own stunts.

“His attention to detail and the commitment to his craft is unparalleled,” Beck said. “For us, it was almost like a masterclass to sit back and see how he worked.”

The filmmakers worried that audiences might think “65” is a “Kylo Ren origin story,” which it isn’t.

Beck loves incorporating childlike perspectives in their stories. He called “Quiet Place” and “65” both “family films.”

While the new one is about dinos, it’s also about “the deeper undercurrent of what does family mean in all shapes and sizes?” he said.

“65” is their first full sci-fi film, which was a challenge to build this world, Woods said.

“From the ground up, you’re inventing a world, inventing a mythology,” he said, noting some of their crew worked on “Blade Runner,” “Avatar,” and “Star Wars” films. Driver famously played Han Solo’s son Kylo Ren in the recent “Star Wars” sequels (released 2015-2019).

“To create something from scratch that doesn’t exist is the fun of sci-fi,” Woods said. It has action and thrills, but they also build “quiet and nuance” into “65,” he said.

“I don’t know that people are expecting that; the trailer is very bombastic,” Woods said. “Scott and I kept joking while making the movie, it’s a Roland Emmerich disaster movie meets a Terrence Malick film. It’s an odd concoction.”

It was filmed in Louisiana (forests and swamps), and coastal areas in Oregon and Ireland. The story is set in the Pacific Northwest, Beck said.

“We were able to find a really nice blend among the various locations,” he said. They were fascinated by the theme that dinosaurs were on Earth so long, disappeared, and then Earth continued. In “65,” Mills and Koa have to work through grief and loss and “rebirth themselves, too,” Beck said.

Adapting Stephen King

Also on deck for Beck & Woods is “The Boogeyman,” based on Stephen King’s iconic short story of the same name. They wrote the screenplay and serve as executive producers on the film, which is in post-production for 20th Century Studios with Rob Savage directing and set for theatrical release on June 2, 2023.

The short story, first published in 1973 and later released in King’s 1978 collection Night Shift, followed a man who’s recently lost all his children to a creature lurking in the closet.  King himself gave his endorsement of A Quiet Place, tweeting that the film “is an extraordinary piece of work.”

Other credits for the filmmakers include 2019’s acclaimed thriller “Haunt,” which they wrote and directed ​for producer Eli Roth, Sierra/Affinity, Broken Road Productions, and Nickel City Pictures​. The film had its world premiere as the opening night at the Popcorn Frights Film Festival, then its international premiere at FrightFest in London. Momentum Pictures released “Haunt” in theaters in September 2019, and that month Beck & Woods also appeared at a Davenport screening at the Putnam Giant Screen Theater.

They wrote “Boogeyman” and “65” around the same time, and “Boogeyman” will be released June 2 in theaters (it originally planned to be released on Hulu). The pair prefer to have their flicks screen in theaters.

“ ‘The Boogeyman’ is a horror film, and a horror film is great when it provokes en masse in cinemas,” Beck said, noting it performed well in test screenings.

“For us, especially in the age of cell phones and social media, it’s great to go to a place where you tune in and you’re just there for the movie,” Woods said. “There are no other distractions; you get to take that ride.”

“There’s nothing better than going on that roller-coaster ride with 200, 300 different strangers,” he added. “It really brings out the best in everybody. I love seeing a movie where people are jumping and screaming and laughing together. It’s hard to describe.”

There is no substitute for that communal theatrical experience.

“I feel like our favorite theaters, you’re enjoying and being moved by the film in unison and there’s such a connection to that,” Beck said. Afterward, people talk about the movie.

Building a QC movie showplace

The busy pair are also pumped about building a new world in downtown Davenport. Their planned two-screen movie theater (The Last Picture House), at 2nd and Iowa streets, won $600,000 in state funding last October to support the $3.72 million project. It was among four Destination Iowa projects announced by Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Renovating a building that’s been vacant four years, it’s across from Bechtel Park and next to Half Nelson restaurant. It will be the home of first-run movies and independent films, exclusive events featuring actors alongside local filmmakers and film screenings. The space will also include a social lounge, cocktail bar, and a rooftop bar with another movie screen.

Construction should be starting soon, with a projected opening by early fall 2023, Beck said Wednesday. “We’re super excited about that.”

They want The Last Picture House to create the same communal vibe – not only a place to see films, but a community center to socialize, bring guests and hang out, Beck said.

“There’s such a community aspect to cinema that we absolutely adore,” he said. “Any movie we’re writing, we’re writing for the big screen.”

They plan to install props from “65” and “Boogeyman” in the Davenport theater. Beck & Woods directed “65,” but not “The Boogeyman.”

“The nice thing about not directing is, you get more sleep. You’re not just getting four hours a night,” Beck said. “There is something we absolutely adore about directing, because you get to collaborate with so many different artists and people who are creatively inspiring.”

“We do love having the variety between the two different jobs,” he said of writing and directing.

Married with a five-year-old daughter, Beck bought a house in the QC this past year, but travels a lot. “Being back in the Quad Cities is phenomenal,” he said, praising growth in the downtowns.

They hope to make a major film in Iowa at some point. “We’d love to – that’d be a dream come true,” Woods said.

To learn more about “65,” visit the movie website HERE.