The Killer’s Game’s Dave Bautista Says Filming Was ‘Hectic’ & ‘Crazy’

Dave Bautista appears in Lionsgate’s latest action comedy, The Killer’s Game, which is based on Jay Bonansinga’s 1997 book of the same name. Revealed by the Guardians of the Galaxy actor, the movie was filmed on a very tight schedule. Describing his production experience, he spoke about doing things he has never done while shooting another movie.

Dave Bautista talks The Killer’s Game’s hectic production schedule

At the red-carpet premiere for the film, Bautista discussed the innovative way the film’s action was shot. He mentioned how director JJ Perry and the action unit involved countered the lack of time to film fight sequences.

Speaking with The Direct‘s Russ Milheim, Bautista said that he sometimes learnt fight choreography on the day of filming:

“The most unique part, I think, was the way we did the action. Because we didn’t have a lot of time to shoot this film, so we shot it in two units, and there was always an action unit going on… A lot of times when I had to kind of fill in the gaps of the action, it was stepping on, it was learning the choreography, like really fast, like on the day, like it’ll be in the moment.”

Talking about the director, he added:

“But JJ was just so prepared and knew exactly what he needed. So I’d step in, and he’d teach me the action like that. We’d knock it out, we’d shoot it, and it was done.”

He further elaborated how his experience of filming this smaller budget action movie was very different from other bigger projects:

“But I’ve never done a film like that because typically, you know, on bigger films, the luxury of bigger films is that you have more money. When you have more money, you have more time, more days, more people, and more time to rehearse and prepare, and we just didn’t have that.”

Lastly, he pointed out the film’s “very hectic schedule” and overall “crazy process” while calling it a “really rough” production.

Bautista’s latest outing is now playing in theaters. In it, he portrays the hitman Joe Flood, who gets diagnosed with a terminal illness. As a result, he puts a hit on himself to allow his girlfriend to cash in on his life insurance.

However, things take a dramatic turn as he later finds out that he isn’t dying and his illness was misdiagnosed. This becomes the root of the film’s John Wick-style action where Flood fights for survival against the very assassins he hired.