Shooting King of Killers was murder

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This article was published 25/03/2022 (1383 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The action movie King of Killers wrapped its Winnipeg production last week, and it’s doubtful the city has seen a more intense shoot.

On March 16, the day after it wrapped, one producer on the film joked that it was a 25-day production obliged to finish in just 15 days.

Almost all of that shoot took place in the Millennium Centre on Main Street, which proved conducive to the film’s closed-world premise, in which the world’s greatest hit-persons gather for a challenge to take out the mysterious titular master assassin. The cast includes action movie heavyweights including Frank Grillo (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Purge) and Stephen Dorff (Blade).

Despite the building’s contemporary moniker, it’s a very old piece of heritage architecture at Main and Lombard, and the director could be heard to complain post-wrap that the old stairwell took its toll on his legs. Every day is a leg day when you’re working at the Millenium.

Kevin Grevioux wrote the screenplay in addition to directing, and also signed on to play one of the assassins, Dyson Chord. Grevioux is is also a comic book creator who landed on Hollywood’s radar as one of the writers of the 2003 hit Underworld, in which vampires and werewolves are engaged in an ancient secret battle. Grevioux also appeared in that film as the fearsome werewolf Raze.

For Grevioux, the movie is just one of a three-pronged incursion, including a video game and an upcoming graphic novel, all part of the same I.P. (intellectual property).

“This is the second time I’ve done something like that,” he says in an interview at producer Juliette Hagopian’s McGee Street Studio. “I, Frankenstein was the first time and this is the second attempt. I think this will be my modus operandi from now on: create the comic, video game and screenplay and market it that way. Since you’re the creator, you can have more control over the I.P.”

Given the tight shoot, Grevioux enlisted the film’s star Alain Moussi to help stage the movie’s array of fight scenes. Moussi, a martial arts star in his own right (Kickboxer: Vengeance, Jiu Jitsu) is also an accomplished action double, standing in for the likes of Hugh Jackman in X-Men Apocalypse and Henry Cavill in Immortals. He is also no stranger to stunt work in Winnipeg. The last time he was here, he was getting his butt kicked by Bob Odenkirk in the 2021 movie Nobody as one of five “bus thugs,” in one of the film’s standout action set pieces.

“I had a good time on that,” Moussi laughs, adding that what might have been a throwaway role gave him maximum visibility.

“I got smashed in the head with a bottle and that piece ended up being in every promotional piece that went out on Nobody,” he says. “Every single time, they would either end or start with bottle hit on my head.

“I would get messages all the time. Sometimes it was how come you’re a thug? You should be starring.”

King of Killers gives him that opportunity. Moussi plays the film’s hero, Marcus Garan, a government asset whose life takes a tragic turn when his wife is killed and he must come up with a way to pay for a heart surgery for his young daughter.

“He gets visited by a man who offers him a contract for $10 million to go kill the best assassin in the world,” Moussi says.

Moussi signed on knowing the number of shooting days would be few.

“To me, it’s always more important to make the film than to delay the film and that’s where we landed,” he says.

He already had the task of designing a series of fight scenes, so he decided that each fight would be shot in advance as a “pre-viz,” but those scenes, shot by local cinematographer Paul Suderman, could also be used in the final cut.

Taking that initiative meant gaining the confidence of the director with a solid philosophy of how to shoot action.

“Early on, Kevin said, ‘Alain, I’m going to trust you,’” Moussi says. “I came in as the action director and to me, action has to be driven by character and story all the time.

“It’s not about length, it’s not about how many beats. It’s about telling a story between two characters that are at odds and that are battling each other,” Moussi says. “And if you succeed in telling a good story that has an emotional arc in a fight, all of a sudden the audience will get on board and they don’t feel like they’re disconnected from the story.”

Grevioux says he hopes King of Killers will get a limited theatrical release later this year.

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