The Wrecking Crew Director Shares Sequel Dreams

[This story contains spoilers for The Wrecking Crew.]

The Wrecking Crew filmmaker Angel Manuel Soto has entertained plenty of viewers on Amazon Prime over the past few weeks, as his new action comedy has routinely been among the streaming service’s most watched films since its launch on Jan. 28.

Among the viewers of the Jason Momoma-Dave Bautista starrer was It and The Flash filmmaker Andy Muschietti. Both filmmakers have a few things in common, including working in the DC universe. Soto’s previous feature was DC’s Blue Beetle, while Muschietti’s The Flash briefly featured Wrecking Crew leading man Momoa, who plays Johnny Hale, the estranged half-brother of Bautista’s James Hale, as they seek to solve their father’s murder.

Muschietti agreed to interview Soto for The Hollywood Reporter in a conversation that took place over Zoom in Spanish (Soto hails from Puerto Rico and Muschietti is from Argentina) and was later translated into English.

Below, Soto discusses where a sequel could go and answers some of Muschietti’s other burning questions, including Soto’s most challenging action scene and the musical cue that got nixed.

ANDY MUSCHIETTI First, I wanted want to say congratulations, Angel, because the movie was great.

ANGEL MANUEL SOTO I didn’t disappoint, that’s the important thing. (Laughs.)

MUSCHIETTI How much improv did you do for this?

SOTO We always did the page, but we also found opportunities to let the jokes come out, to let them flow and come from the characters as well. 

MUSCHIETTI You also have to find the vulnerability in these guys. So I imagine you had something to do with that, right?

SOTO The script says the two brothers don’t get along, they want to solve the mystery [of their father’s death], and there’s the plot and all that. But in the end, after reading the script several times, it became very clear to me that all of that was really an excuse for these two brothers to have this moment of reconciliation, to take off their masks and be vulnerable. Yes, it’s about two brothers looking into the mystery of their father. But it was always really about two brothers dealing with their own baggage.

MUSCHIETTI I want to know who killed the mother.

SOTO There was a written version where they found him, and along the way, we realized that that gesture of letting go, even if only for the moment, was the step to take  for his healing process.

MUSCHIETTI I saw it as an open ending. When he puts the paper on the barbecue, did he let it go in order to heal? Or did he memorize the name?

SOTO In my mind, he memorized the name, yes.

MUSCHIETTI I think that’s what everyone wants. I want to see more of this. I want to see the second part, the two of them teamed up.

SOTO There are several things that seem interesting to me [for a sequel]. That’s one of them. If there’s a killer on the loose, are they really going to let it go? I think there’s a good beginning for the second one there. And the other thing that seems interesting to me is that the yakuza that they kill, Nakamura (Miyavi), he’s not the boss, he’s someone’s son. It seems to me that there’s material there for a sequel.

MUSCHIETTI  I found the action scenes, and the fights, very, very inventive, and very creative.

SOTO I have the luck of having worked with Jon Valera on the choreography. We have a dynamic — from the beginning we understand each other. He knows how to complete what I want to do and knows how to solve things in the moment, which is also something that really helps when there are so many moving parts in such a big movie.

MUSCHIETTI What was the most challenging?

SOTO The highway chase scene. That ending went through so many versions almost up to the last minute, because we had one location and then, at the last minute, they cancelled the location and we had to see how we could solve it — then we played the rain, no rain. And then, “okay, blue screen” — which was not planned. Then it was, “Look, we can’t do the ending the way we wanted.” And that’s when [DP] Matt Flannery proposed: “We show the helicopter [blow up] in the tunnel and that’s it?” And it was like, “Yeah, that’s the best idea — you don’t have to keep stretching the gum.”

MUSCHIETTI  The helicopter went into the tunnel before?

SOTO It was like a chaos theory — it was really going to be interesting. It was going to be really badass if we did it. But I said, “No — we’ll hold that for the sequel.”

MUSCHIETTI The scene was very successful.

SOTO Thank you. The movie rests on the shoulders of Lethal Weapon. It rests on the shoulders of all those body-cop movies that we grew up watching. They were dark, they were smart, they were funny.

MUSCHIETTI At the end, that one with the aerial shot is very good. And then Phil Collins [“Take Me Home”] takes you to that feeling of the movies that we liked from the ’80s. There’s a very good handling of the editing and the use of the music. Like like the first fight that Momoa has in his apartment.

SOTO I give credit to Ted Caplan, the music editor, because at the beginning, I wanted to use “Les Fleurs” by Minnie Riperton, and when we designed the fight, in fact everything went with Minnie’s beat. It was beautiful. And when we went to ask for permission, they told us no, because they didn’t like that there was so much violence. That was very, very painful. Until suddenly Ted comes in. He didn’t even ask me, because he knew I was already pretty beaten up, and said, “Listen to this.” And honestly it turned out better.

MUSCHIETTI That is what’s fascinating about the calibration you do in post-production. In The Flash, when Michael Keaton fights in the kitchen with the two Barrys, you have no idea the number of tracks we went through. We tried everything. We tried “My Sharona,” I don’t know what. The Chicago song [we used] is a song I had used in a pilot a long time ago. Going through so many things, you realize whether there’s chemistry or not.

SOTO When it clicks, it clicks. Well, it means a lot to call you my friend. I appreciate everything.

MUSCHIETTI Me too.

SOTO The city can be very lonely — and you’re family.