How David Leitch Made ‘How to Rob a Bank’ on a Budget — and Around Nicholas Hoult’s Torn ACL

Director David Leitch has spent his career designing high-octane action for audiences to enjoy on the big screen. How to Rob a Bank, his sixth feature film since co-directing John Wick, is the first he’s made to inspire audiences to take action themselves.

At a certain point in How to Rob a Bank, the fourth wall is broken to deliver a shot across the bow to those in power: Either fix the broken economic system, or we’ll fix it for you. Nov. 3rd’s midterm elections were Americans’ way of pursuing the latter and taking matters into their own hands by electing candidates who prioritized combating the rising cost of living.

When The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Leitch last month ahead of the midterms, the filmmaker remained optimistic that economic policies, both macro and micro, could still be corrected, starting at the ballot box.

“How to Rob a Bank challenges individuals to change the system. [Our protagonists] are asking you to be proactive in the ways that you can. Go out and vote for what you believe in. We still live in a democracy,” Leitch told The Hollywood Reporter on Oct. 5 in support of How to Rob a Bank’s Nov. 13 theatrical release. “I hope How to Rob a Bank is empowering and inspiring to people.”

The heist dramedy follows a crew of altruistic bank robbers who document their exploits on social media, hoping to galvanize others who share their belief that the American Dream has been hijacked by predatory, merciless institutions.

Led by Nicholas Hoult’s charismatic “The Wolf,” the masked gang behind the wildly popular YouTube channel Who’s Hungry? soon finds itself in the crosshairs of a frustrated FBI agent (John C. Reilly) and his newest ace in the hole, a criminal programmer (Zoë Kravitz) who agrees to help unmask the Robin Hood-esque thieves in exchange for her release from house arrest.

Considering that the film is produced and distributed by Amazon MGM, it’s worth noting that its parent company, the world’s largest by revenue, made no attempt to temper the film’s late-stage anti-capitalist stance.

“The filmmaking core at Amazon MGM are just trying to make great films that have all different types of messages,” Leitch says. “They want things to be provocative, and they want to encourage artists to speak their mind. So there was never any pushback from the studio about what we were making.”

For a film that wasn’t originally scripted to take place in the blue-collar city of Pittsburgh, it became the most Pittsburgh movie since The Dark Knight Rises, only more so since it shot Pittsburgh for Pittsburgh, not Gotham City. The production reportedly poured nearly $60 million into the Steel City’s local economy to qualify for a tax incentive. Still, Leitch describes the film as a relatively modest undertaking compared to his previous feature, The Fall Guy, which carried an estimated budget of $125 million to $150 million.

“We shot this in 40 days, and just to give you context, The Fall Guy was 86 days. So How to Rob a Bank is half the size of that film, and we just had to move quicker,” Leitch shares.

To make the most of those limited shooting days, Leitch deployed a second unit he dubbed the “YouTube unit,” made up primarily of stunt performers tasked with capturing the masked robbery sequences. This allowed Leitch and his ensemble — Hoult, Kravitz, Anna Sawai, Pete Davidson, Rhenzy Feliz, Reilly, and Christian Slater — to concentrate on the characters’ personal lives and the surprisingly dramatic territory the film gradually explores.

To distinguish the world of the anonymous YouTube characters from the real lives of the people behind them, Leitch and his team shot the in-universe videos on prosumer digital cameras, while the unmasked drama was filmed on 35mm film. Given the original film’s mid-budget constraints, Leitch acknowledges that the celluloid format required “a lot of number crunching.”

The second unit of masked stunt performers also proved particularly valuable in light of Hoult’s major injury at the time. Shortly before production began, the English actor tore his ACL while playing basketball. Rather than undergo surgery and drop out of the pic, he committed to intensive physical therapy three times a week to prepare for the demands of How to Rob a Bank. Leitch and his producing partner/wife, Kelly McCormick, nevertheless spared him considerable physical pain by structuring the shoot as they did.

But working around bad knees is old hat for Leitch, thanks to his background in the stunt department. Even Keanu Reeves dealt with a bum knee on the first John Wick — and, for that matter, throughout much of the franchise.

“As much as [Hoult] had trouble with his ACL, he’s a tough cookie, and he did a lot of his own stuff,” Leitch says. “That fight scene in the garage was probably his biggest physical set piece, and it was mostly him.”

Below, during a conversation with THR, Leitch also discusses his next film, Jason Statham Stole My Bike, starring, you guessed it, Jason Statham.

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Since John Wick, you’ve shot seven films, but you’ve been attached to at least a dozen more movies in development. How did How to Rob a Bank overtake everything else you’ve been juggling?

I love to find action genres and put my own spin on them and turn them on their head. I got to do it in the superhero genre with Deadpool 2. I got to do it in Atomic Blonde where we took a noir and made it a neon noir. I also got to do a romantic comedy with The Fall Guy. But I hadn’t done a heist movie. And when we read the script for How to Rob a Bank, I got really excited about how contemporary it was. It had this social media component, this content creator idea, that was so strong and interesting. Then it had these really grounded characters who were dealing with very timely issues that a lot of people are dealing with right now. So it just felt undeniable, and it moved to the top of the list very quickly.

How to Rob a Bank is a David-versus-Goliath story with an anti-capitalist message, and yet it’s being distributed by Amazon, the largest company in the world by annual revenue. Did they ever acknowledge that irony in your meetings together?

No, the filmmaking core at Amazon MGM are just trying to make great films with good filmmakers and that have all different types of messages. They want things to be provocative, and they want to encourage artists to speak their mind. So there was never any pushback from the studio about what we were making.

The original draft by Mark Bianculli wasn’t fully what you saw at the end of this film. The content creator aspect was more inspired by me and how I felt these characters would really make a show. It was really a nuts-and-bolts how-to in the script, and I was like, These people have an agenda and would need a personal message. They would need to be more evangelical to bring these followers in.

So I put it through that prism of, What’s the message they are really telling? And they started to tell this message about the inequalities that are happening and the systems that aren’t working for them in an edutainment kind of way. The Wolf is having fun while educating you on his worldview.

We still made a movie with characters that are on both sides, and at the end of the day, I just want the audience to make their own decision of how they want to enact change. I certainly do not want them to rob banks, but they can be proactive in a lot of different ways if they choose to be.

The movie demands those in power to fix the broken system. Do you think it’s even salvageable? Is it broken beyond repair?

That’s a good question, and I don’t have the answer to it. I hope it’s not [broken beyond repair]. But I do think How to Rob a Bank challenges individuals to change the system. It doesn’t necessarily challenge the people in power to change the system. At the end of the movie, our protagonists, if you want to call them that, took on something that was extremely radical. But what they’re asking you to do is be proactive in the ways that you can: help your friend, give back, find a charity to work for. There are other ways to change your community. Go out and vote for what you believe in. You can change the systems. We still live in a democracy.

But that being said, it does feel hard. It’s daunting. There’s a big power [imbalance], and the movie expresses a lot of that frustration. Can it be changed? I hope so. I hope it’s empowering and inspiring to people. Get out there and try to do something about it.

Instead of auditioning, did Nicholas Hoult just send you a copy of his recent movie The Order in which he plays a bankrobber?

(Laughs.) First of all, Nick didn’t have to audition. We’ve been circling projects for years. I think Nick is one of the great actors of his generation, and he’s now coming into his own. He really responded to the contemporary material as much as Kelly [McCormick] and I did. It had something to say, and we knew we could lean into that in a fun way. So I can’t say enough about Nick.

His first day on set, he didn’t really understand how I was going to create this content creator world. He got to set late after we’d already been shooting for a week, and dressed as the Wolf in a security guard outfit, he had to deliver this whole monologue about the security guards’ struggles to make ends meet. And he was like, “Wait, what movie am I in right now?” (Laughs.) But he took it all in stride and really embraced the charismatic nature that this guy had to have to create such a successful YouTube show.

Nick had a tough go of it on this movie. He basically had to shoot it on one leg.

Yes.

Did the wolf mask come in handy considering he had a torn ACL?

(Laughs.) Yes, for sure. The Wolf mask did come in handy. But as much as he had trouble with his ACL, he’s a tough cookie, and he did a lot of his own stuff.

The mask actually helped us in a lot of ways. We did this movie at a lower price point. It was a little smaller budget, and that’s partly because you have to make original content for a price. That’s how the economics of film work.

So we had the heist crew, played by stunt performers, out there shooting the [YouTube robbery] stuff on prosumer cameras, including DJI drones and Insta360s. We did that as second unit with stunt people because they were all in the masks, and we could create a lot of footage for the social media content. I could then really focus on the drama with Pete [Davidson], John [C. Reilly], Zoe [Kravitz], Nick, Anna [Sawai], Rhenzy [Feliz]. That’s the other half of the film, and it’s shot in a very different way. So the masks helped.

When Nick’s character is limping in the street, was that his real limp? Or did he embellish it since the character had been beaten up at that point?

He was leaning into it. He was embellishing it. He was embracing the beating that he took in the garage and pulling his character together. It wasn’t an extension of reality.

Keanu had a bad knee on the first Wick, though not torn-ACL-level bad. It’s actually been a recurring issue on all of them. In any event, you’ve probably got a playbook for this sort of thing, right?

Yeah, I do. There’s a lot of ways to shoot action, and there’s a lot of movie magic that can happen in that space. It’s all about how you choose to choreograph something and how you choose to capture it. Fortunately, Keanu is another person who’s probably the toughest human being on the planet. He just powered through it. We were able to film those sequences with him really doing the action, and the first Wick was 99 percent Keanu.

With Nick and How to Rob a Bank, there’s not as much action, but there is that fight scene in the garage. It was probably his biggest physical set piece, and it was mostly him, barring a crash into a window where someone could get really hurt.

You mentioned that you shot this movie for a price, but you still managed to capture the real-life drama on 35mm film and the Who’s Hungry? social media material on digital. How much arm twisting did you have to do to pull off a dual format?

It was a lot of number crunching, as you always have to do. No matter what size budget, there’s always number crunching, and it usually ultimately comes down to days. We shot this in 40 days, and just to give you context, The Fall Guy was 86 days. So How to Rob a Bank is half the size of that film, and we just had to move quicker. There was a little more planning involved, and we chose a style that required less coverage. So all those things were put through the prism of making a film of this size.

It’s expensive to shoot on film because we generally no longer shoot on film. It’s kind of a bespoke process, so there’s less people doing it, and it’s just more expensive. It’s a bummer because it’s a great format with such a beautiful aesthetic, and it just reacts to light so much differently. I grew up shooting film as a second unit director, and it was right around the time I started directing on the first Wick where digital just basically took over. So it has always been a financial matter, but it was really fun to go back to it.

Early on, Zoe’s character speaks on behalf of her guinea pig named Morpheus. Was she upset that you dubbed over her voice with your own voice?

(Laughs.) She was not upset because she didn’t know about it. During the mix, we were limited in terms of time. We were running out of mix days. So Mark Stoeckinger, who’s a great sound designer that I’ve worked with since Wick, was like, “We need something for the guinea pig. Just get on the mic. Let’s go.” So he put my voice through his beautiful machine, and next thing you know, that’s my cameo.

Zoe is in for a big surprise at the premiere.

(Laughs.)

The John Wick documentary, Wick is Pain, revealed that the Wick choreography was originally intended for Jason Statham in Safe, but the final product only has a small trace of it.

Yes.

You are now in post on a movie called Jason Statham Stole My Bike. Is this Jason’s way of saying he regrets not utilizing that style way back when?

(Laughs.) I don’t think it’s his way of saying that. Jason and I have had a longtime friendship. We go way back to my time as a fight choreographer and a stunt performer on Ghosts of Mars. He was the third lead in that film. I did some stunts for him on that, and then we did a lot of choreography together in other films along the way. So we’ve offered up a lot of different styles for him, but he’s made his own brand. It’s been working pretty well for him, so he’s going to be okay.

Is this movie even more meta than The Fall Guy?

It’s its own thing. It’s very different from The Fall Guy. The meta of The Fall Guy was really reflective of the industry, and it was ultimately a romcom surrounded by a meta action film. Jason Statham Stole My Bike is as unique as the title itself, and it is an entertaining ride that’s going to hopefully be a fun four-quadrant film with a lot of twists and turns that people aren’t going to expect.

The last four movies of yours, counting Statham, have been original or semi-original. The Fall Guy and Bullet Train were based on existing works, but they’re first-time adaptations on the big screen. It seems to me like you’re happier in this realm, but are you still open to franchises if they come your way?

I’m open to all of it. I also did a lot of franchises as a second unit director. I spent a lot of time working in a world to amplify a director’s vision or even support studio notes inside of a big franchise. I would shoot that stuff as a second unit director.

But as an artist, I love original material. I love to be allowed to create the world and set the aesthetic — and not have the expectation of what the IP brings to it. It just allows you to have a truer voice of who you are as an artist, so I appreciate you thinking about that.

Original material is harder to get funded, though. It just is. That’s again why we had to do How to Rob a Bank for a smaller price. And Jason Statham Stole My Bike is even smaller in the sense that it’s such a bold idea. But it doesn’t bother me. It’s a problem-opportunity. So, at the end of the day, it’s more fun for me to be original.

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How to Rob a Bank opens in theaters Nov. 13.