Dev Patel’s Monkey Man has raised a lot of chatter worldwide for its hardcore action sequences. The film is set to be deep-rooted in Indian culture and take action to the next level. The film had to go through an intense production process before it was picked up by Jordan Peele. Patel admitted that felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman when his brainchild was picked up by the Get Out fame.
Monkey Man will mark Dev Patel’s feature-length directorial debut. The actor who has been spotted in some of the critically acclaimed films like Slumdog Millionaire and Lion will try his hands at action with this upcoming film. However, it was a grueling journey for him and the obstacles faced in the production are as interesting as the film itself.
How did Jordan Peele give Dev Patel his Pretty Woman moment?
Monkey Man presents the classic trope of revenge drama in a highly stylized manner. The film features an anonymous man named Kid who goes on a journey to hunt down the powerful people responsible for his mother’s death. Although the film’s theme has led many people to label it ‘John Wick in Mumbai’, the people who saw it at SXSW insist that it’s more than that.
During his latest interview on Today, Dev Patel shared various insights into his film. Speaking about his collaboration with the Nope director, the actor explained that he felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman‘s iconic shopping moment when Jordan Peele took over his film from Netflix.
“The film got dropped by our first distributor so I was getting ready to say goodbye to the dream. And then I was shooting a low budget film and my producer said Jordan [Peele] wants to talk to you… He is like ‘I hope you don’t mind, I have shared it with Universal and we’re going to make it theatrical’. I talk about the moment from Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts goes into that shop and she’s like ‘Big Mistake’.”
In the iconic Pretty Woman scene, Roberts’ character Vivian Ward goes to an expensive boutique on Rodeo Drive and gets turned away rudely by the saleswomen for her outfit. However, following a lavish makeover when she revisits the store with numerous shopping bags in her hands, she goes to the rude saleswoman and states that she made a “Big Mistake. Huge!”.
Dev Patel also spoke about this experience during Monkey Man’s premiere at South by Southwest. He was elated that Jordan Peele understood his vision of adding more depth to the action genre. Peele and Universal liked the perfect amalgamation of emotional depth and action in the high-octane film and went on to give it a theatrical release.
Monkey Man was a catastrophic experience for Dev Patel
The Dev Patel action brainchild was welcomed at SXSW with a standing ovation. The story and the action received praise from the audience and it presently holds a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It was an incredible moment for the Hotel Mumbai actor who gave a lot to the project. He had to go through a “catastrophic experience” to make the film.
Recently, Patel held a Reddit discussion with his fans to answer several queries about the film. There he revealed that he had one of the most challenging experiences making Monkey Man. It was the most demanding thing he had done.
“Everyday we faced absolute catastrophe – I begged our financier not to shut us down a few weeks before principle photography – We were meant to shoot in India then covid hit – I lost, my initial production designer and DOP and the film was basically dead – then we pivoted and went to a tiny island in Indonesia where we could create a bubble in an empty hotel for the whole crew of nearly 500 people.”
The problems did not end for the Monkey Man team as Dev Patel broke his hand, filming equipment broke, and they even ran out of funds to make the film. However, nothing could stop the 33-year-old actor and he continued filming. He also added at SXSW that recently the action genre has not been done properly so he tried to infuse proper emotion in his project along with the violent action.
Monkey Man will be released on April 5, 2024.
