The sci-fi action movie The Tomorrow War premieres on Amazon's Prime Video, heading into the July 4th weekend with all guns blazing.
Initially intended for theaters, the streamer acquired it from Paramount Pictures for around $200 million. With the fate of humanity in the balance because of an alien invasion many years in the future, Chris Pratt plays a father drafted to travel through time and play a vital role in the fight for survival.
I caught up with Pratt, who gets an executive producer credit, and director Chris McKay, to talk about The Tomorrow War, the movie's influences, and their creative shorthand.
Simon Thompson: The Tomorrow War is a great genre movie. In terms of influences, what was on your creative mood board when you were putting it together?
Chris McKay: There's a lot in there, and the movie has distinct stages that it goes through. In the beginning, there is a little bit of The Terminator with people coming from the future, and then it gets into Children of Men, a little dystopian, and so on. When Chris and I talked about things, we keyed into creating a world that was a little bit like the one we live in but tweaked. We wanted it to feel like this could happen to ordinary people in this world, but then it gets a little more sci-fi. Honestly, everything with this is going to sound like a crazy reference, but we were inspired by anything from old Spielberg movies to Enter the Void. Spielberg movies are definitely in the mix as we're capturing that sense of wonder, tension, and suspense.
Chris Pratt: For me, it was about trying to ground everything in a sense of reality. The Tomorrow War is a big movie, it's got aliens and time travel, so you think of something fantastical like Independence Day and that kind of movie where you have to suspend disbelief all over the place. For me, it was like, 'Okay, time travel is real, these aliens are a real invading force, and in 2051 we're fighting against them, but other than that, everything else is real.' Everything was happening in this world and not some elevated world where people get away with saying one-liners and doing crazy s**t that you can't really do.
McKay: Also, at times, we were trying to evoke war movie motifs, and there was a whole thing with this band of somewhat ordinary people like you had in Alien and Aliens. That's why we cast some of the people that we cast. They brought some fun. Chris is always going to bring levity, but he's playing this average guy in an extraordinary situation. Chris was going to bring something funny to the table and bring observations that I think were really smart. I also wanted other people to pick some of that up, so Chris didn't have to do that all the time. When it pitched it to the studio, and I pitched it to Chris, I said I wanted Sam Richardson to play Charlie. He was literally in the f**king pitch packet. I was like, 'I want this guy.'
Thompson: Chris, you get an executive producer credit on The Tomorrow War. How involved were you?
Pratt: Whether I've had an executive producer title or not, over the last few years, I've always had the hubris to give my idea whether it's a good idea or not. Most of the directors I work with are patient with me and are like, 'Okay, cool, let's listen to that.' Maybe one out of ten of those ideas works, but I told Chris early on that I would throw a lot of ideas at him; most of them would suck, but some of them might be good, and he might want to use them. He was very gracious in allowing me to be as big of a part of the collaborative process as I wanted to be. Yes, I got the executive producer title, but that can be that can mean a lot of things. It can be very vague. It can mean anything. It can mean you're the guy who signs the checks and makes all the phone calls. I'm not that guy. If you're going to hire me to do the administrative work, you're really going to be shooting yourself in the foot. That is not my strength. I know how much I have to learn, and I don't have that much experience. I have a lot of experience on set, showing up on the day to shoot, and I got a lot more experience in the pre-production process and the post-production process on this one. It's just a learning experience and another opportunity for me to march slowly and closer towards the goal of being a filmmaker. I got to help in casting for this too, which was cool. I've always auditioned for things, but I've never been a part of the other side of the scenario. That was edifying. Now I hunger for even more power. Soon I will be executive producer Chris Pratt, and everyone will have to do exactly what I tell them. Oh, man. They've created a monster.
McKay: We used a lot more of Chris's ideas that he is giving himself credit for. As a first-time live-action filmmaker, Chris was instrumental in helping and just talking about your commitment to realism. We spoke about stunt coordinators, and guns, and the aliens, the White Spikes. For me, having Chris Pratt as a producer, as somebody who had all this experience working with all these filmmakers on all these different sets at all different levels, was super valuable. I couldn't have done the movie without Chris being an executive producer.