CraveOnline: There must be a good blooper reel on The Boy Next Door.
Rob Cohen: Oh, there were several.
There’s a lot of intensity and sensuality. It’s hard to imagine there not being a lot of giggles.
Well, there were. There laughs. John Corbett kept everybody in stitches. He’d tell everybody these jokes. Right before I’d yell “action” and everybody would have their attitude set and Corbett would go up and everybody would just go up. [Laughs.] Corbett was the big jokester.
CORBETT!!!
Sometimes I just wanted to kill him! I’d worked so hard with Jen and Ryan and Ian [Nelson] to get this tension, and John would come on the table and be like, “Did you ever hear about the one with the headless whore?” And he would tell this story and the whole mood would go away! And we’d have to start building it up again. So finally in the barn I just knocked him out and tied him up and said, “This is your punishment! For all your disruptions” [Laughs.] Even though he would hang like that, I’d go “Cut” and he’d go, [sings] “I love a parade!” He’d just start clowning around. He was irrepressible.
“Vin [Diesel] and I and Joe Roth are talking ‘xXx’ again.”
What’s next for you? Is xXx 3 finally going to come together?
Well, we are talking. Vin [Diesel] and I and Joe Roth are talking xXx again. It got really screwed up at Paramount, which was a great shame because it went from having a green light to no light. There were a lot of political things going on, and I think they wish they had it now. But Joe has made a new deal and he wants to approach the sequel in a different way.
Entirely different? Like without Vin Diesel again? You’ll bring Ice Cube back?
No, no. That wasn’t me! That wasn’t me. I went away and was doing Stealth in Australia when I got a call from [producer] Todd Garner going, “Joe had a genius idea, and we made the deal and you’re movie’s happening.” And I go, “What’s the genius idea?”
“Well, no Vin. We’re going to go with Ice Cube.” And I go, “Oh, that’s a funny joke. So what are you telling me?” “No, that’s not the joke. That’s the truth!”
It’s not really a lateral move from Vin Diesel to Ice Cube. I like Ice Cube a lot, he’s a cool guy and I think he can be a great actor…
Don’t put him in a black action suit. [Laughs.]
“[My ‘Marco Polo’] is a fantasy action film.”
Especially now. Maybe in 1993 I could have bought it. So Vin would be back…
Oh yeah, it’s Vin. It’s Vin. But the thing that’s closest to going for me is a thing called The Adventures of Marco Polo with Paramount.
Has the Netflix series affected that in any way?
No, it’s only made everybody more eager to make mine, because mine is a fantasy action film.
How much fantasy are we talking about?
Like real fantasy.
Like, China is actually Narnia? How does this…?
No, China is historical but the events behind Kublai Khan and Marco are more mystical. There’s much more chi magic, is what I call it.
Are we talking about wuxia, people flying around?
No, not flying people but the nature of the way chi can get expressed. Like, there’s a character who’s an assassin who has snake energy, and she has these serpent energetics that she sends at people. So they act real. They kill. So it’s like people have powers that are not real.
You’re taking a few liberties with history is basically what you’re saying.
Yeah, but carefully because it’s a movie about a real political situation that grew up around Kublai Khan when he turned 65, when people started thinking… He lived to be over 80 but they began to think at 65 he was over the hill, and he was also opening up China to the west and there were those conservative elements that said, “You open up the culture and next will come the armies, and you’ll guide them right into our midst.”
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
