Angel Has Fallen

Now, you’re getting involved with a franchise, I guess, directing Angel Has Fallen, the second sequel to Olympus Has Fallen. Did it take a lot of convincing, either convincing yourself or from agents, managers convincing you to take this on?

I mean, yeah, let’s call it what it is — it’s a franchise. The first two movies made 400 million dollars combined, so there’s something built-in there with an audience that has a keen for these things. Where I was really interested in this was after my discussions with Gerard Butler and talking about where he would love to see the evolution of this franchise go and for me to be able to put my stamp on it with the way that I make movies. Make it a more immersive character study of his character Mike Banning and the world that the Secret Service lives in. Morgan Freeman is our President now, and what are the things that he’s dealing with that are relevant today?

Hopefully, I get to do something here where I get my cake and eat it, too. I can give the audience fanbase that are appreciative of the first two movies, that they appreciate that we will bring some of that same sizzle and action and spectacle to the equation, but doing it in a new, fresh, and inventive way that really brings in a lot more character and depth, and things that you get under the belly of these characters and who they are, and what this world is about.

It’s a fun and scary proposition at the same time. Scary, because I don’t want to eff it up. I want to do it right, and so we’re taking it serious. I’m really excited about getting to London and building this out.

As a stuntman, you’ve worked on a lot of these big budget action movies, so is it nice as a director who has been doing smaller indies to have that sort of budget?

I guess because I’ve become such an indie person that I stopped worrying about budget. I just worry about the story more or less, and on a movie like Angel Has Fallen, yeah, you definitely need the tools to do some of the bigger action things, but I think that really, my focus becomes not about trying to be bigger, faster, more expensive than the last one. Hopefully they become more provocative. So to me, yeah, budgets matter, but to me I never really look at that. That’s not really any kind of lens that I’m really looking at. I think probably to the dismay of my line producer and the people where the numbers do matter! But for me I’m really just inside the story and saying, “You can just let me know if you’ve got enough money or what we’ve got to do.”

I think also sometimes when budgets are leaned into a sense where they make you … I don’t like the word “compromise,” but they make you invent. They make you more inventive of ways you need to do things if you don’t have the resources to do it a certain way. I think a lot of really great things come out of that –new, fresh and creative, so we don’t get lazy. Hopefully, I don’t ever get late because I’m late, somebody’s giving me much bigger purse strings to play with.
entire interview here: www.tracking-board.com/director-ric-roman-waugh-on-shot-caller-and-what-prison-does-to-a-man/