"Run Hide Fight: Infidels" Director Kyle Rankin On Hollywood, ISIS & Independent Film

Okay, first, before we give you the facts of the day, Run Hyde Fight Infadels is streaming now only on Daily Wire. It's an ode to the great action movies of the '80s and '90s. There's even a love story which nobody expected. And you can support Daily Wire's mission to continue making movies that people actually want to watch. Go check it out. Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible all-day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. Just plump, dewy, hydrated skin that still feels like your skin. Try new grippy setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Maybe it's Maybelline. What if a few minutes with God could change the direction of your entire day? With Pray.com, you can begin each morning with powerful daily prayers, inspiring Bible stories and messages created to strengthen your faith. Whether you need peace, encouragement, or a fresh start, Pray.com helps you make prayer part of your everyday life. Download the Pray.com app today. We cannot run and hide from what is coming. We have to fight. That was a clip from the new daily wire film Run, Hide, Fight, Infadels, an action thriller starring Jonathan Majors. It's about an ISIS terror group that takes over an American college campus. It's already generated a lot of buzz, or it's very unflinching portrayal of radical Islam and its convergence with the radical left. The director of the film Kyle Rankin joins us in studio to discuss the making of the film. It's charged subject matter, and why he believes Americans are primed for films just like this. I'm daily wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. This is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. We should all be concerned by the rise in Marxist thought in our country to tax the very foundation on which our freedoms are built, and it's already having dangerous effects. Alliance defending freedom is pushing back, protecting your God-given rights in courtrooms across America. They're scoring critical wins for free speech, religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and parental rights even at the US Supreme Court. But they rely on friends like you to keep up their work. Stand for freedom with a gift today. Your gift will be matched by a special grant while funds last. Visit joinadf.com/wire or text wire to 83848 to make twice the impact. That's joinadf.com/wire or text wire to 83848. Getting a flood of holiday orders is a great problem to have, until you actually have to ship all of them. Ship station is built for exactly that moment. It keeps orders from all of your stores together and can compare rates across major carriers in real time, so you're not manually figuring out shipping for every package. More than a million businesses have used ship station to handle their busiest seasons. Several of our daily wire employees have used ship station for e-commerce shops, and say that Shopify integration is seamless. Peak season doesn't wait and neither should you. Get ahead of it today with Ship Station and get 60 days free at shipstation.com with code wire. That's shipstation.com/codewire. Text as you please apply. Joining us now in studio is Kyle Rankin, director and writer of run-hide fight infidel's great to have you in the studio. Excited to talk to you. Thanks for having me here. So we have both seen this film. We're excited about it. Our whole staff is buzzing about this, and really can't wait for the world to kind of see it. We wanted to ask you a bunch of questions, sort of behind the scenes, and also some stuff about thematics, and even sort of fears about the movie. Yeah, please. First, you know, this is a sequel sort of to run-hide fight, which is one of our best performing films at daily wire. Our first official film that we actually launched. Yes. And it's kind of not a sequel. It kind of is a sequel. Yeah. What drew you to this approach to following up run-hide fight? Yeah, I never expected to make a sequel. And it was really Mike Richards, I believe, the CEO here, had what I heard. Mike was very smart about saying, "Let's do more of what's working." And the first run-hide is working very well. And so I got an initial call. I think I zoomed with Dallas Sonnier, my great producer, and Mike, and Mike had kind of a one-line idea, like, which I don't want to spoil, but it had to do with kind of this pro-Palestinian protest, basically being a gateway for real terrorists. I just spoiled it anyway. And I just-- Probably spoiled it already. Sorry about that. And I sparked that. And he's like, "And what I loved about working, making this movie for DW, and for Ben, was a very long leash. I was able to, I feel like if this were a Hollywood movie, I would have had to, you know, meetings upon meetings, I would have had to submit a rough outline, a stripman, a story meant all this. And instead, I was allowed to, you know, that's the one line. I finally decided to go write it. And it was great. And I'm not the fastest writer, so I took, you know, three months to go away and write it. And for me, I have to care about the characters. If I can care about the characters. And there's lots of things I wanted to say in the movie. And I just need that time to find these-- who are these people? Why do I care? I think that's a big problem with modern movies is you just don't care. And you turn it on, you're like-- Or they make movies or TV series where the lead character, you actually hate them. You actually don't like the lead. You know what I mean? Yes. So three months writing. I mean, that's actually-- you say you're slow. That's pretty quick. Turn around to a finished product. I was actually shocked. I mean, just to be honest, I was shocked at how fast we made this. Yes. When I heard the timeline of first announced, I thought, what were we going to-- When was it announced? I mean, when was this decided? It was like the end of last year. Yeah. I first received the call September of last year. Okay. So the last quarter of the last year. So it's exactly a year. Yep. And I also didn't-- you know, when I heard the proposed timeline, to deliver a full feature, you know, to nuts writing to the premiere within a year is very rare. Yeah. And I didn't know if we could do it. But Dallas really-- you know, my producer just kept in a good way, cracking the web. Like, I think I handed it in the script right around Christmas. And by January 5th, we were flying to different colleges. We had to find kind of a defunct college. A college that had gone out of business turns out about half a dozen-- Half of the market. Yeah. About half a dozen go out of business in America every year. So we had plenty to choose from when we found this wonderful one in Gaffney, South Carolina. Yeah. The location is great. So you guys had full access to total control of that campus. Yes. Which I'm sure helped speed up the process, too. Did it help that you and Dallas had worked together before? Oh, without a doubt. Yeah. We have a shorthand. And I think we kind of-- we butt heads in a good way. I think we are you in a productive way. Yeah, he's coming from the practical money side, as it should be. And I'm coming from the-- sometimes I'm more like, feelings don't care about your facts. But that's kind of my job to bring that. Yeah. Now, you mentioned that this is different from working in Hollywood. There's a lot of things that are different. The whole premise of this film is kind of a lightning rod. You touched on it. This is this pro-Palestinian protest that became a gateway for terrorism on campus. Are you-- I mean, is that a risk for you to do a film like this? Or have you kind of already decided that you're going to take risks in your career? And you're not so worried about that? Yeah, I think the latter. I'd much rather take risks. And I think you get in trouble doing half measures. That's a great way to not have a career. So I just think if I truly believe in it, I just want to go for it. And yeah, the bad guys in this movie are, you know, are Islamic, Islam jihadist. And it's kind of like, I think Hollywood is running out of-- we're running out of made up bad guys. Yeah. And like, guys, white guys with Eastern block where you can't tell what country they're from. I'm like, Hollywood, if there's an action movie, it's always that. And it's like, eh, how about statistically, we do what is much more common nowadays, unfortunately. Do you think there's anything changing in Hollywood where there might be an openness to do plots like this? Are things still the same as they were five years ago? Or do you think they're seeing that there's these outside outfits that are competing with them? And they're maybe willing to maybe work with those more? Yeah, maybe it is opening slightly. It seems a lot slower than I kind of thought it would be. I mean, you can even look at what is it, what's going on with Paramount and kind of, you know, with Ellingsson, is that his name, or David? Paulison. Yeah. But like, and you know, people only because he might be right leaning. It's like, how dare you, you know, but so the very-- the Hollywood establishment is very tense to be very liberal. And so they're kind of, I mean, Paramount might end up moving to Texas, you know, the same way like-- Or maybe not. - I thought here, yes. - And that would be so silly. There is, it's that kind of, I don't know, it's a, it'd be really stupid to kick Paramount out of Hollywood, but they might end up doing it. So I do think it's, I hear privately all the time, you know, like I kind of agree with you. I've just, so worried, you know, but I don't know. - Does it make it challenging to recruit talent to work with you? Or are they more, is the Hollywood machine more forgiving of talent that's maybe gone astray with different companies? - I think it can make, it can be challenging, not on the cruise side, I find, thankfully, because maybe someone doesn't care, you know, who was the cinematographer, who recorded the sound, but I do think, you know, some of the actors get skittish, but at the same time, I'm so proud of this cast that we assembled, so we just found the right people. And we were very honest, you know, David Guglimo, our casting director and all the, when he put out, you kind of do the breakdown, they call it, and to the, you tell actors that you're casting and casting directors, and it was, they were very clear. Like, hey, this could be seen as a political movie. Like, I mean, I think it's just a big, fun action movie that could have been made in the 80s or 90s. - Right, yes, and that's what it feels like. - That's exactly, you nailed it. So you've worked with some major stars. Jonathan, Jonathan Majors is a huge star. And that's one of the things me watching this. I've always appreciated his work. I appreciate it even more when it's one of our projects. - Yeah. - But he is electrifying. What's it like, how different is it on the set when you've got somebody like him in the mix? - You'd, well, first of all, Jonathan was lovely because they call it like, you know, taking the idea of being number one on the call sheet seriously. So someone like Jonathan took that seriously, and was like, I set the tone. I'm going to befriend all these potentially unknown actors and young cast. I'm gonna be very cool with them and give them tips and eat with them. Same with David Lucas, you know, who is, you know, known as a comedian also is in this movie. And he was very similar. He just gathered this young cast around him. He wanted to learn from them. So he had a lot of give and take, but it's not a lot different giving Jonathan direction for me compared to like giving it to the young cast 'cause the young cast was so, we were kind of talking on that same emotional level. And, but yeah, was Jonathan impressive to watch? Yes, and maybe I had to say less to him, yes. But, and that was a joy, but really, I loved directing him and I loved directing the rest of the cast. I guess I'm trying to say. Yeah. How long did it take to film? We had, I always wish we had more time. I think, I think we had 26 days. Wow. It could have used 35 maybe because it's ambitious. There's a lot going on. It's a big ensemble picture as you guys know. So I wish I had more time. So it was, it felt like we were running and gunning and moving very quickly. But yeah, it was 26 days, Monday through Friday. Yeah, with weekends off, which was very civilized. Sometimes you don't get that. Sometimes you get six, eight weeks with only one day to kind of stumble around as a zombie and you're back into it. But, yeah, I liked, I think it's the hardest. For me, it was the hardest movie I've ever made. Just, maybe I'm just getting older and it was rough, but it was just, and it was just a lot to keep in my head and keep going. But, I mean, I will go to the premiere tonight and I'm incredibly excited for the world to see this movie. Yeah, yeah, me too. I mean, honestly, I'm really excited to share this with people, just being totally frank. Yeah. Part of it, I don't know if maybe this is false, but when a film is made with a sense of urgency, a lot of times you do feel it in the movie. Like I do feel like this movie has an energy about it. That's very good. And maybe that plays some sort of role in it. The editing process, how long was that, how difficult was that, how involved were you on that process? Very involved, yeah, I'm there for every shot, the editing, and Jared Bentley was our editor. He was amazing. We got along great. It's funny when you've written and directed a movie, the process accordions out because you write, it was just me and my brilliant wife, I'd show her pages. Does this any good in the beginning? And then you become a circus of 100 souls, just being crazy together for six weeks. And then it goes down, there's me and Jared editing together in a room. And then Dallas really came in for the last kind of two weeks and kind of, I thought I had a great cut. And it was wonderful. That's where Dallas is a great producer because we kind of stress test. Do you need this thing? Yes, I need this thing. I would get very indignant. And he'd be like, are you sure? And we'd kind of go through and tweak. And sometimes we would shave out one word or one phrase, but it's better. So that was, yeah, it was great. It was about three and a half months to four months post, I think. What was the budget? I think I was told that we were around six million. It's good. Sometimes as a creative, you don't want to see the budget. That way you can just complain about it. And you can just be like, I can't get this crane another week. Oh, man. Because there was like the whole carnivals. Yeah. I mean, there were a lot of large aspects to the set and even just the background. Yeah. Yeah, and a lot of that was, it was, you know, Dallas. And his kind of cadre of producers, they were very good. That was just one guy who does, you know, local kind of carnival circuses. And he had all that machinery. And since it was early spring, we kind of were, we just made it under the wire where he didn't have a bunch of jobs coming up. So he was like, yeah, I'll bring my, I'll bring all my equipment to this little parking lot. It was kind of perfect. So there was many, many happy accidents along the way. There's lots of practical effects. And it's moving. Yeah. Do you enjoy making action films? Very much. Yeah. Yeah, there's a kind of a clockmaker, watchmaker aspect to, oh, when that explodes, he falls back and hits him. Yeah, I love the, I guess, the, the Rube Goldberg of it all of the, of some of the action set pieces. Yeah, really like that stuff a lot. And especially if you can give it kind of an emotional feeling as well. Yeah. So emotionally speaking, you say you need to really feel emotionally connected with the lead characters. What are some of the emotional through lines for you in this film of the characters, I guess, yeah, giving, it was important to me if I'm going to do an ensemble picture. I didn't want just some, I wanted to limit the amount of like, oh, throw away. That's just, she comes in for one line. I tried to give an arc. I guess you would say to each person kind of meeting them. Maybe there's a desire. There's a struggle. And then there's kind of a, some kind of day new man or a wrap up to, I guess it was important to me, especially with the young kids. The college kids who are fighting back that they would each grow as people, they would. The first one I'd fight to me was very, what can I do? What can I do to keep my community safe or my school safe? If God forbid, there's a school shooter. And this to me was a very, what can we do as Americans and as people together and as friends and as a group? What can we do to save our country and protect our country and protect our campus in this case? Now, with an ensemble cast and with all these simultaneous stories going on, I can imagine that it's a lot of actual, like just organization behind the screen, behind the scenes to plan out how you're going to shoot this scene that has elements that maybe tie in with all these different. I mean, how do you even organize the order in which you shoot things when you have all these different story lines that will converge on certain points, but they each independently have their own story. Yeah, hopefully you understood that question. Yeah, well, I guess that is where the screenwriting starts with the screenwriting, where you're like, as a document, you should read that through and you should get all the same fields and like, so that becomes the blueprint and the map. And then in pre-production, they call it kind of that time before the actors show up, where we're at this college. I would walk around daily with Christopher Chris Kimlin, who shot the movie, he was amazing, and I would describe the scenes and he would be like, oh, we could start here on a kind of push in. And so he brought all these ideas of how to shoot. I brought my ideas out of how to shoot. We would come up with, we'd sometimes write a shot list. We would sometimes, we had some production assistants that were like, we basically almost did living story boards, which were just photographs. But it allowed Chris to like try out different lenses. And yeah, if that's here and here. And so sometimes we had kind of, it was a very basic way to kind of pre-visualize it all, the shooting of it. And then as a director, sometimes you get thrown the schedule. It's never, you wish you could shoot things in sequence, because then you can, then it's easier to work with everyone's arcs. Sure, yeah. But what happens is actor availability, location availability, weather, everything gets screwed up. So I've had several movies where I shoot the action climax at the beginning, which luckily I didn't need to do fully on this movie. And that's the job of the assistant director, which is a whole, it's kind of a misnomer. They're not my assistant. But the assistant director comes up with the schedule. And they kind of run the whole set. They make sure, we need that actress. Is she out of makeup yet? She should be traveling to set, because we're coming up on their shot. So that's what the assistant director does. But yeah, a lot of pre-planning. When you're in production, you're shooting that day, here. you're not getting a lot of sleep because then after wrap you're talking about the next day and you're you're planning all that out so yeah so it sounds like you had to be really flexible though because of the quick the crunch timeline yeah to move things around as pretty organic in terms of your shot list and everything yeah and it is it is then and the emotion of it those arcs that I mentioned that is the job of the director to keep all that in your head because that's a lot of what a director does is tell an actor shows up on that and maybe they haven't worked in a week and they're you know still eating their breakfast in front of you and you're like okay remember you're at the top of the shot when you enter the room you're coming from that big speech that just oh right right right you're constantly reminding everyone of the what is happening in the world of the movie in this moment that's a big job of directing for the audience what what is your hope that they take away from the film big picture what do you hope they walk out of the film thinking first and foremost I hope they are entertained I hope they forget their troubles for for two hours that's really my number one job and then secondly there's just lots of things in there that I think that I love about movies that Hollywood hasn't been doing lately I don't know why I'm so maybe if someone is you know right of center or conservative or Republican I want them to they're not gonna just see nothing crazy and woke is gonna pull them out of it like at the same time I think the movie forces you to hear some of that from a different perspective but then you know it plays with it a bit but I don't know it's just it's crazy to me that you know in the 90s I would have just said that I was a liberal but now the line shifts shifted under all of us and now I'm about I'm Lenny reef inch dollars and I'm just a Nazi filmmaker this might be two on the nose political one of our members asked specifically you know with particularly with from the democratic side of the aisle there's the potential for blowback against this film is high because of the nature we just saw this with 9/11 and the the actual controversies around some of the celebrations in New York and how much does that worry you or do you see that actually is part of the purpose here to challenge people's perspectives I mean sure I would love for people just to watch the film for its own I think it's object I think it's sort of objectively a good movie the same way I've felt about the first one I'd fight I'm like but I really like this not I just think it's a good movie and all the the critics went after it for like it's a good person with a gun fighting back it's back people the gun I'm like yeah isn't that also just an action movie and we did it you know how dare you use for the first one the the school shooting victims to make entertainment we're at the same time you know so you know a member of our cast got an email from you know a woman who's son had been in columbia thank you for making that you know so you can't who I I don't know I don't it's funny I don't read good or bad things about my movie I just make the movies that I believe in and and I hope as many people watch them as possible and enjoy that but well I hope you are satisfied and very happy with the film you made we certainly are thanks so much we appreciate you so much joining us in studio and we're excited for the world to see this movie same thanks for having me that was Kyle Rankin director and writer of run hide fight infidels and this has been a weekend episode of Morning Wire