Max owns game night. Pick the contest, set the timer and watch him roll. It’s what made him irresistible to Annie the night fate brought them together: two razor-sharp players joining forces to wipe out a bar full of trivia hopefuls who didn’t know the meaning of the word cutthroat. Now married, they host a regular couples’ night to hang with their like-minded friends, break out the scorecards and have some fun.
Comedy actor Jason Bateman (Zootopia, Horrible Bosses, Identity Thief) stars as Max in New Line Cinema’s Game Night (in Philippine cinemas March 14.)
In Game Night, Bateman and Rachel McAdams play Max and Annie, whose weekly couples game night gets kicked up a notch when Max’s charismatic brother, Brooks, arranges a murder mystery party, complete with fake thugs and faux federal agents. So, when Brooks gets kidnapped, it’s all part of the game…right? But as the six uber-competitive gamers set out to solve the case and win, they begin to discover that neither this “game”—nor Brooks—are what they seem to be.
“It’s a real popcorn movie,” states Bateman, who also served as a producer on the film. “There’s a lot of action and nighttime intrigue and, of course, you’ve got the comedy all the way through which makes it fun. There’s even a little romance.”
Addressing the relatability of an evening that starts with promise and then goes horribly, hilariously off the rails, he concedes, “I’m sure I’ve had my fair share of nights that have gone south. And I think all of us have had some experience getting together with friends and playing games. But it’s the escalation that happens here, when it gets out of the house and into the streets, that kicks everything up to another level.”
Bateman’s producing partner, James Garavente, recalls their reaction to the initial pitch. “We loved the cool concept; it really grabbed us. We knew the script was funny, and we felt it should be grounded and not look overtly like a comedy, so the question was only how to get this great mix. What directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein did, which was genius, was take it a step further with all these thriller tropes, and camera movements that heighten a sense of action and danger.”
Game Night is distributed in the Philippines by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.
