For years, Bob Odenkirk and “action hero” were mutually exclusive terms never to be spoken in the same sentence.
For most of his career, Odenkirk, 62, has banked on his Everyman quality, most notably in the critically acclaimed AMC series “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” as opportunistic attorney Saul Goodman.
But after Odenkirk’s family suffered a home invasion that fortunately did not result in casualties, he and his agent Marc Provissiero came up with the idea that would become the 2021 action comedy “Nobody.”
In “Nobody” and “Nobody 2,” the sequel out in theaters this weekend, Odenkirk plays Hutch Mansell, a seemingly mild-mannered man who returns to his previous life as an assassin when his family is threatened by crime lords.
“People enjoyed watching Saul Goodman get out of problems with his mouth,” said Provissiero, a producer for “Nobody 2″ who grew up in Marietta and graduated from Wheeler High School in 1985. “Wouldn’t they enjoy watching him get out of his problems with his fist?”
It helped, he noted, that “Better Call Saul” had “global reach. Bob’s brother-in-law was in a factory in China and overheard workers talking about the show. I think that helped the original movie.”
“Nobody,” made for a modest $17 million, came out in theaters in 2021 during the depths of the pandemic and did well financially, generating $57.5 million in global box office revenue. “It did an extraordinary number on pay per view, which is why Universal was all for us to do a second one,” Provissiero said.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
The sequel apes the premise of the first movie but takes Hutch and his family to a fictional blue-collar vacation town called Plummerville, featuring an aging amusement park akin to Valdosta’s Wild Adventures.
Provissiero, in fact, advocated for Georgia as the shooting location for “Nobody 2″ last year, but the film ended up in Winnipeg, Canada. Production largely built a park from scratch. paying homage to the Wisconsin Dells, a popular tourist destination known for its water parks.
Credit: UNIVERSAL
Credit: UNIVERSAL
Mansell, a workaholic, goes to Plummerville as an escape, a way to mine pleasant childhood memories culled from his father, played by Christopher Lloyd of “Back to the Future” fame, who brings his signature wide-eyed kookiness to the role.
Unfortunately, Hutch upsets that town’s local crime lord, played by Sharon Stone at her gleefully over-the-top Cruella de Vil best.
“It’s basically ‘National Lampoon’s Vacation’ meets ‘John Wick,’” Provissiero said. It’s no coincidence that Derek Kolstad, a screenwriter for both “Nobody” films, also wrote “John Wick.”
The film features fun fight scenes on an elevator and at an arcade, a warehouse, a “Home Alone”-rigged amusement park and a tourist duck boat. “Bob loves Jackie Chan movies, so he got to play that on the duck boat,” Provissiero said. “It’s slapstick in a ridiculous setting using the props available.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Provissiero spoke to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution earlier this month before a screening of the film at Merchants Walk Cinema, 2 miles from his childhood home, inviting current Wheeler students, friends and family.
Credit: UNIVERSAL
Credit: UNIVERSAL
His partnership with Odenkirk has been a fruitful one for more than 15 years, Provissiero said, because they connect as friends as well as work colleagues.
“Marc and I have a sensibility match that makes this kind of partnership in making creative work a possibility,” Odenkirk said in a text. “He has spent a career learning the complexities of deal-making which I don’t want to do. So it’s a win-win.”
The early reaction to “Nobody 2″ has been positive. The movie has an 81% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes among critics and a 92% among regular viewers. (That’s comparable to the original film, which received 84% and 94% scores, respectively.)
“People want to have fun at the movies,” Provissiero said. “I don’t want to be preached to. We celebrate family and the foibles of family dynamics.”
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
