Paul Feig is a little surprised to be here, too. The director of fan-favorite films like "Bridesmaids," "Spy" and "The Heat" — as well as, of course, the creator of the beloved TV series "Freaks and Geeks" — had long resisted the Hollywood imperative to franchise every blockbuster, sticking to a "pretty hardcore" policy against sequels. But there was something about the twisty alchemy of his 2018 surprise smash "A Simple Favor" that made him want to come back for more. "I love these characters and I love Blake [Lively] and Anna [Kendrick]," Feig explained during a recent Salon Talks conversation. So he and the team decided to take the women and throw them this time into a "very high stakes, glamorous, high money world" — with an inevitable body count — for a wedding in Capri for "Another Simple Favor."
Though Feig has of late carved out his turf as a director of thrillers — his next in the genre, "The Housemaid," comes out this fall — he's still most associated with his broad slapsticks. "I still consider all my movies to be comedies," he told me. "Just some are really, really dark comedies."
