Paul Feig Hopes ‘A Simple Favor’ Can Find a Second Life on Streaming: “I Always Want More”

It would be inaccurate to say A Simple Favor wasn’t a success. The film, a dark comedy thriller starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, made $97.6 million at the worldwide box office opposite a production budget of $20 million. It wasn’t quite the jaw-dropping numbers that Bridesmaids did in 2011, but a solid performance nonetheless. But director Paul Feig still wants more.

“When you make a movie, you always hope that it’s going to make a billion dollars at the box office,” Feig told Decider in a phone call. “Even though you’re happy that it makes a profit and it does well, I’m greedy. I always want more, and I want more people to see it.”

Feig hopes his wish will come true now that A Simple Favor is, nearly a year after its theatrical run, coming to streaming, available on both Hulu and Amazon Prime today. For better or worse, that’s the way an ever-growing population of audiences prefers to consume their movies, and Feig is looking forward to folks doing just that with A Simple Favor. It’s a new kind of film for Feig. Since his 2003 drama, I Am David, Feig has been best known for his broad, audience pleasing comedies. Though A Simple Favor doesn’t feature Melissa McCarthy delivering classic set-up-and-punchline jokes, it is undeniably funny, and Feig has some regrets that he didn’t advertise it that way. “I did want them to be able to experience that and be surprised by it,” he said, “but some people weren’t quite sure what it was.”

Much of the comedy comes from the endlessly fun contrast between his two leads: Lively as Emily, a sexy, confident and mysterious high-powered career mom in sharp, fitted suits; and Kendrick as Stephanie, a dorky, cutesy, mild-mannered stay-at-home mom in lululemon leggings. But when Emily goes missing,—leaving behind her son, her house, and her dreamy husband (Crazy Rich Asians’ Henry Golding)—we learn that Stephanie has a dark side, too. And we wonder just how far she is willing to go uncover Emily’s secrets.

That’s all we’ll say for now, because Feig wants to make sure those who catch the film on streaming haven’t been spoiled. (A note that there is one spoiler-adjacent question in this interview, but we give you fair warning.) The director chatted with Decider about his hopes for A Simple Favor on streaming, his award show woes, his love for great suits, and more.

Decider: A Simple Favor was already a box office success, and a critical success when it came out last year. Congratulations on that. But what are you hoping to see for its second life when it comes to streaming this month?

Paul Feig: I just want more people to see it! I’m so proud of it. In many ways, it’s my favorite movie I’ve made. I was very happy with how well we did at the box office, but I’m greedy. I always want more, and I want more people to see it. I just want them to enjoy it. I always felt like this was a movie that a lot of people were going to catch up with once it got to streaming. So I just really want people to enjoy it, and I hope they haven’t heard any spoilers. Also, we didn’t advertise the fact that it’s also quite funny, darkly so, but still quite funny. You know, all my movies, I try to make them so that they’re a lot of fun at the end of the day, even if they go dark or do other things. This is definitely one that’s in a different genre than I normally do.

How important do you think streaming is to people finding movies these days?

I make my movie for movie theaters, and that’s my favorite way for people to see them. But the great thing about streaming is it’s one of those things where you’re looking at the menu and suddenly going, “Oh, yeah, Simple Favor. I heard that was great. Let’s watch it now.” It’s a lot harder to get people to get up out of their houses and drive to the theater and put down money and get them to sit there, unfortunately. It’s much easier to sit in front of the TV and turn on their favorite streaming service. It’s a lot more convenient way for people to catch up, and so you just want people to be able to access it.

This is a film that you notice new things the second time you watch it—especially when you’re watching it on streaming because you can pause and look at the details. For me, I noticed the video titles and comments on Stephanie’s blog. Are you thinking about these things as a director—that people are going to be able to see it on streaming and notice all these details?

It’s definitely something I’m conscious of. Even with our editing—there are moments where you go, “Oh we know this gets a laugh, so we should open it up, hold, so when the audience in the theater laughs, they won’t miss the next thing.” But then it’s like, well, no you don’t want to do that because most people won’t be watching it with a full audience after its theatrical date. So we just make it as tight as we can, knowing that those are things that when people watch it again, later, they’re going to pick up on that. When they’re home by themselves without people laughing over the joke they’ll go, “Oh God I never heard that,” or “I didn’t realize that.” It’s fun. It’s really just such a fun medium. It’s why it’s my favorite, because you don’t want to make something you’re just going to watch once and then you’ll never watch again.

I always make my movies so you can watch them multiple times. We like to hide little Easter eggs in there. We leave little clues that you might not pick up on the first time you watch it because you’re just experiencing the story, but I always want it to be a new and fun experience when you watch it a second or third time. My goal is to always make those movies that make people go, “Oh God, every time I’m flipping through the channels and I come upon that movie, I always have to just watch the whole thing.” That’s better than any awards you could ever win…

I had hoped A Simple Favor would get some awards love, but I knew it was a long shot. Awards shows don’t love big genre films, which so many of your films are. Does that ever bum you out?

Yeah. I mean, I was mostly rooting for Anna and Blake to get recognition, because they turned in such amazing performances. I kind of pushed for the people in charge to do more of a campaign for it. But, you know, these campaigns are really expensive and studios will pretty quickly go, “Look, I don’t think we have a real shot,” as much as they loved the movie and loved the performances. That’s just kind of a bummer because you do want people getting recognized. There is this thing that happens in the business where genre movies, like you say, and comedies, or anything that has a lot of comedy in it, are looked upon as not being awards-worthy. As someone who makes those movies, you’re always like, “That’s not fair!”

But at the same time, I wouldn’t trade the person coming up to me and saying, “Oh my god. I loved that movie. I watched it ten times. It makes me so happy when I see it,” versus somebody who watched your movie once and they go, “Oh yeah it’s really good,” and they never watched it again, but you won awards for it. Every time, give me the movie that people watch over and over and it makes them happy. I try not to care about the awards. But awards season you still kind of feel like the outsider sitting there like, “Well my movie was kind of good, too.”

I do feel the Academy is starting to open itself up to different kinds of movies. So maybe someday we can get some recognition up there.

Yeah. Now that they’ve expanded the membership so much, there’s a better shot. There are a lot more open-minded people. Not that the Academy wasn’t open-minded before, but it tended to be a slightly stodgier organization than now. They’ve brought so many young and diverse people into the ranks that I think you will start that reflected in the choices of movies that get picked. So that’s always a nice thing.

**Spoiler Warning: This question contains a spoiler! Skip to the next one if you haven’t seen the film!**

Warning that I’m going to ask about spoilers for one question now—watching a second time, I was struck by how innocent Henry Golding’s character seems, despite how suspicious he seemed the first time I watched it. How do you direct a scene that has to work both ways like that?

You know that people the first time are going to read into everything, especially in the thriller genre. Nobody trusts anybody, because we’ve watched so many things where they pull the rug out from under you and the person you never suspected is the one who did it. So, you know people are going in with that expectation. That makes it so you can play into that even more, and just, “You should act completely innocent. You need to be that way because people are going to suspect you immediately.” But then at the same time, it’s fun to have the moments where you go, “Okay, actually look a little arch in this.” One of my favorite moments for Henry in that movie is when he comes back from finding out that Emily is alive. The insurance agent is in the room and he’s just completely caught off guard, but then he knows that Stephanie is trying to set him up. He just does this one look where he goes, “I hope my wife is still alive. I want her back.” And he just gives the scariest look to Anna of like, “I’m going to kill you.” In the moment, he was just mad at her because he just got this big shock and he thinks she knows about it. It’s those moments where you can really play around, and just know that you’re messing with the audience.

I also want to talk about suits, because there are so many great suits that Blake Lively wears in A Simple Favor, and you’re a man known for your own great suits. At what point in your life did the suits become a part of your identity, and now a part of your art? 

I got my first three-piece suit when I was about eight or nine years old and I wore it all the time. I watched old black and white movies with my mom, and that was when men were always in these beautifully tailored suits. I kind of just fell in love with that and wore that kind of clothing through high school because that was the disco era, so it was a lot of wide lapel jackets and that kind of thing. Then I fell away from it a bit in my 20s and early 30s. It was after I did Freaks and Geeks that I decided I wanted to dress like an adult and thought, “Oh I should go back to the suits.” And I’m just known for it now.

But a lot of my movies tend to be a little more down to earth, so it was only—well, Spy I got to play around a lot with clothing just because [Melissa McCarthy’s character] was going into this glamorous world. But Simple Favor was the one where I was really like, “Okay, now I can go for it. I can really create the visual world that I’ve always wanted to do.” Just the idea of having Blake Lively dressed that extreme in suburbia really… I enjoyed it because then it really pops. And it was really Blake’s idea, too. She was the one who really wanted to go full-on suits. In one of our very first fittings with our great costume designer, Renée Kalfus, Blake just kind of looked at me, pointed and she goes, “I want to dress like you.” Which was music to my ears. We called up Ralph Lauren and asked if they would help us out. They sent us over a bunch of their older suits from their archives, women’s suits, and then Renée and Blake took those and just went wild with them with all the accessories, the tearaway shirts, and the cuffs that come off and the different ties and the way they did the ties with the pins. I just thought it was so spectacular.

You’re working again with Henry Golding in your next film, Last Christmas, which I couldn’t be more excited for. You’ve described it as “a romantic comedy plus.” Can you expand on what you mean by that?

It’s romantic and it’s definitely got comedy—it’s got some really big laughs in it—but it’s quite dramatic, too. It’s a very full-rounded experience because it also deals not only with this relationship that happens, but also with this family that’s in turmoil. It’s very much an immigrant story about the immigrant experience for people who came here years ago and who are having a hard time. It also touches on aspects of homelessness, but all in a very lovely way that is not ham-fisted and is not preaching. George Michael’s music is such a big part of this movie and he knew Emma [Thompson, who wrote the script]. They talked about the movie when she was starting to write it and one of his big causes is homelessness. He said that he hoped that could be in the movie. So that’s in there. So there’s just a lot more weight in this. It’s not just a frothy romance, romantic comedy. If anything, we’re almost calling it a dramatic romantic comedy. But I think romantic comedy plus sums it up pretty well.

I’ve heard rumors that The Heat 2 and Spy 2 might still be happening. Can we get an update on those?

All rumors. All rumors. The Heat 2, Katie Dippold wrote the script for it right after we finished the original Heat, that’s really funny and very dark and very crazy. But there seems to be no appetite for anybody to make that. And then Spy 2 is something I wanted to do, but again, there was no appetite for it at the studio. But that could change. I would love to make another one of those, but at the moment there are no plans whatsoever.

I was also holding out for a sequel to Ghostbusters and I was a bit disappointed when I heard the new film wouldn’t have Erin, and Abby, and Holtzmann, all my favorite characters. Was that a disappointment for you as well?

Oh, yeah. We had so much fun making that movie and I love those characters. And I love playing in that world. There’s a comic book based on our Ghostbusters, and there are the comic books based on the original Ghostbusters, and there was a comic book that took the two worlds and combined them and they went through a time shift portal or whatever and were all together. So never say never on that. But I loved those characters. I would love to make another one of those. That would be really fun, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I’ve also been keeping up with your work championing emerging and underrepresented screenwriters—recently you produced Jenn Kaytin Robinson’s film, Someone Great, for Netflix, and you currently have a teen movie contest going on. Why is that important to you?

Because we need new voices. There are so many voices that aren’t being heard and when we get to let the people we’ve worked with take a shot and have a shot at it, they’ve just delivered just hugely. Jenn Robinson’s movie was great. I absolutely loved it, loved her voice. She had written this amazing script and she wanted to direct it and I was like, “Yeah, you should direct it.” Now with our company, Powderkeg, we just did our first web series that’s going to be coming out soon called East of La Brea, that came out of a program we have called Break the Room. [East of La Brea creator] Sameer Gardezi, he did this thing where he assembled a writers room of brand new, Muslim-American women to break and write this six-episode [web series]. They came out great, and that got made.

We also had a thing called Powderkeg Fusem where we had six, brand new female filmmakers write and direct a short film about L.A., and we got six completely different voices and points of view and types of comedy. That’s when you just go, “Oh my god, it’s just criminal when new voices aren’t allowed to take their shot and let their stories be told.”  Hollywood has excluded women and people of color from behind the cameras for so long, or the opportunities just haven’t been there, that it’s so far beyond due. I’ve always been fighting to get more women in front of the camera, so there was a natural extension that—once you start seeing the numbers of how few women are directing—that you try to make that happen behind the camera. We’re just having such an amazing time doing it through Powderkeg and through FeigCo and all that. It’s a real passion for all of us there.

What advice would you give emerging and underrepresented screenwriters who are looking to get their foot in the door through one of these initiatives from Powderkeg? What gets your attention?

Just great things. Great, unique things that are your voice and are a unique perspective. Every person’s perspective on the world is unique if they really bring their own perspective and don’t just try to copy things that they’ve seen—or just try to chase a superhero movie, just chase a genre just because they’re trying to sell something. I always say, “Small stories written large.” You could write a sci-fi thing. You could write a big, superhero thing. That’s great. But the story you’re telling needs to be something that’s either very personal to you, something you know very well, or something that’s meaningful to you. Tell it in any way you want, but the core story has to be interesting and different and about characters that we haven’t seen before. Hone your voice and make your voice original, but also try to think of what’s the most entertaining way to tell that story. That’s going to get our attention.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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