Jack Black plays a video store clerk remaking classic movies after he accidentally erases the whole store in Be Kind Rewind. One of the most elaborate home-made replacement movies is the ’80s sci-fi classic Robocop.
“I play Robocop,” Black said. “It’s all [Michel] Gondry designs, basically car fenders for my legs, a blow dryer for the gun and holster. He’s brilliant in many ways and he thought of all of it. My character works in a junkyard and so all of the stuff was kind of built with junkyard parts.”
A comedy with Jack Black performing in low-tech movie remakes sounds like another big hit, but knowing Gondry’s indie style, even Black expects Be Kind might only reach the same audience as Nacho Libre.
“In the sense of, like, traditional big-budget comedies, you’re going to have all the shots, you’ll cover a scene from all the angles, over the shoulders, et cetera,” Black compared. “He’s not doing that. He has a very interesting way of shooting scenes and not a ton of coverage and also some things fall to the wayside. Just straight up plot and story are not always the most important thing to him as much as a feeling or an amazing image. Very creative and original doesn’t always translate to big box-office gold.”
The entire film was very contained as well. “It was another cool situation where we shot it almost all in this two-block radius in Passaic, New Jersey. I had my junkyard and then right across the street was this video rental store.”
