Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr. are returning for another (incidental) action-buddy team-up in the Den of Thieves series. This time, they’re going international as their new heist takes them all across Europe for their biggest score yet. In Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, Big Nick (Butler) is back on the hunt in Europe and closing in on Donnie (Jackson), who is embroiled in the treacherous and unpredictable world of diamond thieves and the infamous Panther mafia.
To get a better feeling of what Den of Thieves 2 has to offer, we got to talk with director Christian Gudegast. We cover everything, from Gudegast’s director-actor collaboration with Butler to focusing on emotion to his future project, Empire State. Check it out down below!
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): I just want to start with this: when I originally saw the trailer I was really surprised by how much action is already being thrown at us. I want to ask you, what do you think the expectations for audiences are when they see the trailer and then head into theaters?
CHRISTIAN GUDEGAST: I mean, trailers are a funny thing, right? It’s how much do you put in the trailer? How do you not you know what don’t you reveal? What do you reveal? Of course, the franchise is is built on you know some crazy action.
I think when [the audience goes], they’ll be surprised. They’ll be surprised by the buddy movie concept of it all. They’ll be surprised by the twists and everything. I think we definitely check the boxes of what they hope and expect to see, but I think they’ll be surprised by a lot of the relationships between the characters.
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): I just love all those new relationships. You have Donnie interacting with this new crew and their relationships are just so impactful with all of these certain twists and turns. I want to ask you, how did you come across developing this new dynamic with Donnie and the rest of his new team?
GUDEGAST: It’s the result of research and all the characters are based on real people that I met and hung out with. Then, it’s about figuring out when you insert Donnie into that very closed off world of these expert diamond thieves, what that dynamic would be like.
Bringing Nick, additionally, what would that the dynamic of two Americans in Europe? What does that feel like, what does that mean culturally? What does it mean for the two of them? What does that mean with the group as a whole and just sort of playing with that as we built out the script.
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): Definitely! I know, with all these characters in this entire world you’ve got, I know you must have been inspired by so many different action franchises like Mission Impossible, John Wick, and the Bourne franchise. In developing Den of Thieves, as a whole, were there any specific action or thriller films that stood out to you that helped you envision where you wanted the story of Pantera to go?
GUDEGAST: The real big influences for this one, there’s so many. As any artist, you’re influenced by all kinds of things, but it was really [John Frankenheimer]’s Ronin with [Robert De Niro]. A bit of that, bit of the Gomorrah series, and [Suburra: Blood on Rome]. Not one thing in particular, Bourne certainly, but really if I had to pick one, it would be Ronin.
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): One other scene in this film reminded me of like this one scene from Ghost Protocol where you have Ethan Hunt actually using that entire screen to like block out the vision and I just want to say like that sort of reminded me of that in a really good way.
GUDEGAST: You know, it’s funny as, I gotta be honest, never seen Ghost Protocol. I haven’t seen the last three or four Mission Impossibles. Some people mentioned the Fast and Furious franchise, I’ve seen ten minutes of Fast and Furious 1, I’ve never [fully] seen any of them. Now, the influences are a lot of the French new wave films from Riffi to Le Cirque Rouge. So, none of the more contemporary big action franchises were really an influence, to be completely honest.
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): Before Pantera and your movie making career, you were best known for directing rap music videos in the past. With this in mind, you have this diverse combination of songs with certain scenes and you’ve got like artists like M83 that really allows for these moments to feel really impactful. How do you think your experience with directing music videos has helped you find that perfect blend between visual and auditory elements of Pantera?
GUDEGAST: It really didn’t influence it much at all. It more comes down to my taste in music. When I’m writing a script, I start building the soundtrack, so I start listening to music that I think fits the world and fits the character.
I initially have like a playlist of like 100 songs. I start whittling it down and then, by the time we’re shooting the movie, I often give the actors songs to listen to. I’ve probably got maybe like 20 tracks or something. Then, I work with the composer. We start talking about sometimes other films, other moods and different energy that we’re looking for. Quite frankly, it hasn’t really influenced it too much. It’s more just my music taste and my taste in scores of films that I admire.
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): With your taste in music, was there any specific artist or any specific song that really resonated with you then in trying to envision Pantera?
GUDEGAST: Yeah, it was M83’s Outro. That specific track that plays at the end, that was really the one. Armin van Buuren’s Zocalo because it’s an electronica track but it’s got a very American kind of feel with the guitar. That’s the track that plays when Big Nick walks into the nightclub and we knew that was his kind of his theme going into that nightclub.
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): I was really surprised to hear M83 here because they’ve really gotten popular in, I want to say past few months and just hearing them again was really awesome.
Moving a bit forward, your collaborative relationship with Gerard really reminds me of some of these big collabs with directors and actors like Spike Lee with Denzel Washington, and Kevin Smith with Ben Affleck. How do you think your collaboration with Gerard not only helped you improve your directing style but also where you wanted to take Pantera’s story?
GUDEGAST: It helps enormously when you write something specifically for an actor. When you know who is going to play the role, you write with more specificity. Their voice is much clearer to you, and you have someone to work with to bounce ideas off. You write a scene, send it to them, and talk about it.
It’s benefited both of us because we’ve become close, and you’re able to go deeper into things. You trust each other; he trusts me, I trust him. There’s an emotional depth to his characters, and he has the courage to go places. I know he can execute and perform what I’m writing. I write with confidence that he’s going to deliver the goods. It’s been very rewarding.
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): I can obviously see that with Gerard’s performance! Was there any specific scene that Gerard and sort of came up with envisioning in his mind for Nick that you helped him develop and put into Pantera?
GUDEGAST: Actually, the very last scene. We had several ways to end the film, we even shot a few different things. We had to very carefully plot that out. We needed to sort of calibrate it correctly so he was emotionally, and us as the audience, were emotionally in the right place to send it off into [Den of Thieves 3] just to wrap up the film. That last little little sequence, you know, we came up with that just before shooting, but that was a lot of his input.
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): I love the emotional core as well because you have that scene with Donnie and Nick reminiscing about their lives and the circumstances that led them to this situation. I want to ask you, how do you think those moments of nuance won’t just provide more depth to where Donnie and Nick go from Pantera and even into the future but also get that idea of sentimentality across for the audience?
GUDEGAST: That’s the point of it, right? We wanted to take a deep breath. The thing is, they’re both playing roles: Big Nick’s a cop, Donny’s a criminal, but at the end of the day, they’re all just human beings. They’re off in the strange part of the world and there’s sort of an automatic kind of weird camaraderie that develops.
When you’re off in a strange place together, even if you’re on opposite sides, it’s time to calm down, take a deep breath, and now let them be themselves for a minute. They’re all fucked up and high and then they open up, they’re real with one another. That was really important for all of us to reveal just who are these dudes as human beings who are they really you know as opposed to the facade they put up. We realize they have more in common than they realize and that’s really the beginning of a genuine friendship.
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): The action of Pantera is just wild because at some point you had Donnie and Nick and their team trying to avoid cameras counting down to them just fully drunk and bawling at like this huge party with like, so many extras, by the way! How do you think the action and the cinematography around those scenes not only increases the tension but makes the sequel stand out from the original?
GUDEGAST: We wanted to blend European and American cinema for a different feel. The first was set in Los Angeles; this is set in the Mediterranean, south of France and Europe. It’s meant to match that and take the audience on a journey. Moving to the third, we’ll do the same thing. Everything from the soundtrack to the cinematography to the sound design aims for a European feel.
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): With that European feel in the movie, without giving any specifics away, was there any action scene that you thought would be the hardest to pull off and managed to successfully pull off in the end?
GUDEGAST: The shootout, from the car-to-car gun battle, needed to be tactically correct. Gunfighting from car to car involves different tactics that you see in the scene. We filmed at high speeds, with cameras inside the car, which was tricky with the actors on narrow, dangerous roads. We built pods where the driver was actually on the roof of the car.
Porsche was our partner in this and they had to re-engineer all the cars so the stunt drivers are on the roof our actors could then be in the car driving and performing with the cameraman. Porsche really stepped up, their engineers were extraordinary and it’s really because of them that it was made possible to actually shoot it the way we did. That shootout was just incredible!
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): Outside of the emotion and all the action I also just also love the little gags that you have in this film like Nick not being well adjusted, like not being able to pronounce things correctly. Were there any more gags or bits of comedy that were not in the script but you still have to use them for a later film?
GUDEGAST: Yes! Just because of the mandates that dictates running time of a movie, there are several scenes that actually didn’t make the cut which was really a bummer. There’s one scene particular where I think we’re actually going to release it pretty soon as an extra scene.
There’s a scene where the two of them are stuck in a rent-a-car and it actually happened to Gerard and I when we went on a road trip in Scotland to do a final pass of the script. It actually happened to us! He got stuck in this Range Rover that he rented and it’s basically that scene. It’s pretty hilarious, but didn’t make the final cut. Hopefully people will see it anyway!
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): On the ending of the film, even though I really loved where you place Donnie and Nick, it also feels kind of ambiguous in because it leaves them in these places. Do you think the Den of Thieves films ends off on a high note with Pantera, or are there any specific ideas you have in mind to expand the Den of Thieves universe?
GUDEGAST: It should be a little bit ambiguous because I think it’s even a little bit ambiguous for them right because they’re playing a very dangerous game. We have got [Den of Thieves 3] all mapped out ready to go, even [Den of Thieves 4]. We have plans for all kinds of even talking possibly a prequel for Ray Merrimen (Pablo Schreiber) and Enson (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) going back.
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): I wanted to just ask you about another film because I know you’re working with Gerard again for Empire State! Are there any new details you can sort of tell us about what that film’s going to be like and what the process where you are in the process with that now?
GUDEGAST: We are in, sort of, the end stages of development on the script. It is a action comedy in the vein of Lethal Weapon, Midnight Run. So we’re in the final stages of developing the script!
CHRISTOPHER GALLARDO (THH): I’m really excited to see that! So, with one final question, what was the most important lesson you took away from producing directing and just filming Pantera and the entire Den of Thieves franchise that you’ll apply not just to Empire State but also your future films?
GUDEGAST: Lessons… follow your instincts!
Den of Thieves 2: Pantera releases in theaters on January 10, 2025.
