The Big Picture
- The upcoming R-rated comedy Strays focuses on foul-mouthed dogs seeking revenge against an abusive owner.
- Director Josh Greenbaum discusses the challenging “ball-breaker” scene, which involved a slow-motion, chaotic shot that took over four hours to film.
- The film’s visual effects team played a crucial role in creating the jaw-dropping climax, which relied on layering real elements rather than CGI.
Everything in the upcoming R-rated comedy Strays revolves around its quartet of foul-mouthed dogs. Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher, and Randall Park get the spotlight as Reggie, Bug, Maggie, and Hunter as they go on a quest for sweet revenge against Reggie’s garbage can of an owner Doug by ripping off his favorite below the belt appendage (hint: it’s not his legs). Will Forte, who plays the abusive jerk, may not be one of the dogs, but he still deserves plenty of kudos for his work on the film in director Josh Greenbaum‘s eyes.
During an interview, Collider’s Steve Weintraub asked Greenbaum about the biggest “ball-breaker” scene they had to film. Fittingly, the shoot that came to mind revolved around the film’s ultimate goal — Reggie giving Doug a bite he’ll never forget. “I hope there are no kids here,” he said referring to the film’s R-rating and the gruesome nature of that particular scene. “My kids still think it’s about Reggie [wanting] to bite Doug in the butt because they’ve been watching me work on the movie for like a year. They’re like, ‘So what’s it about, Dad?’ They’re gonna find out at some point.”
Greenbaum and the crew went all out for the big climax with a very technical shoot involving multiple takes, slow motion, and a particularly long shot that shows the chaos unfolding as Reggie gets his revenge. The greatest burden, however, was put on Forte who the director says was on the ground for over four hours while filming the pivotal moment. For his dedication to the shot, Greenbaum had nothing but praise for the Saturday Night Live alum, saying of the experience:
“There’s a lot of difficult shots. I’ll answer for Will Forte; the shot that you just saw at the very end, it’s in super slow motion. We shot it at 1000 frames a second, which creates a very, very, very slow frame rate. We use a [motion control] machine where the cameras go from here to here, and it moves super fast. We did a bunch of different takes and it layers all of it up. So this is a shot where it’s panning across Doug, he’s on the ground, the dogs are pulling the legs, there’s fire in the background, Reggie’s going crazy on Doug’s crotch, and then you see Hunter (Randall Park) turn around. It’s like that one long shot. That shot was incredibly difficult, but it took over four hours to shoot, and Will Forte, god bless him, laid there for four-plus hours. I think we could have used a double. I kept saying, ‘We have your stunt double,’ and he’s like, ‘I’m fine!’ He’s the sweetest man ever. That was a very difficult shot to pull off.”
As such an effects-heavy film, Strays spent a lengthy period in post-production to perfect its visuals and Greenbaum gives plenty of credit to the VFX team for making that family jewel-tearing climax work. “Then our incredible VFX team kind of comped it together,” he said. “Although it’s really more of a traditional shot where it’s just actual all-real elements, there’s no CG, but they’re all layered together from every time you move the camera, and then you kind of layer them together.” Trailers show how the film gets creative with its sequences including a gnarly hallucination scene that sees the film switch up styles completely. Regarding everything they filmed though, Greenbaum asserted regarding that climactic end, “That’s one. I’m sure I’m forgetting… but that was a big one.”
Who Else Helped Bring Strays to Life?
Strays featured a high-profile production team including Academy Award-winning duo Christopher Miller and Phil Lord along with Fast X director Louis Leterrier, Aditya Sood, and Erik Feig. The script Greenbaum directed from was penned by American Vandal creator Dan Perrault. Capping off this riotous R-rated talking dog comedy is a stacked cast of supporting actors including Josh Gad, Harvey Guillén, Rob Riggle, Brett Gelman, Jamie Demetriou, Sofia Vergara, and Dennis Quaid in a cameo appearance as himself.
Strays arrives in theaters on August 18. Check out the trailer below.
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Khushi Patel is a science fiction author who lives in Austin, Texas. She has published three novels, and her work has been praised for its originality and imagination. Khushi is a graduate of Rice University, and she has worked as a software engineer. She is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, and her books have been nominated for several awards.
