While at the film's red carpet premiere, Jackpot director Paul Feig casually alluded to wanting Jason Statham to star in a Jackpot 2 if it’s ever greenlit.
Amazon Studios’ latest comedy film—starring John Cena, Awkwafina, and Simu Liu—unfolds in a dystopian alternate reality that has turned the lottery into a Hunger Games of sorts. If a person gets the winning ticket, they have to survive until sundown to get the winnings.
That’s a notable challenge when they’re consistently tracked and hunted by basically all of Los Angeles. If anyone is successful at killing the target, then the killer gets to keep the winnings instead.
[ Jackpot Director Reveals Why John Cena & Awkwafina Are the Best Comedy Duo ]
Jackpot Director Teases Possible Sequel on Red Carpet
The Direct's Russ Milheim was on the red carpet for Jackpot to talk to the stars and filmmakers behind Amazon Studios' latest movie–which also included a possible tease about a hypothetical sequel movie.
When asked how he might survive if everyone in the city of Los Angeles was hunting him down for his winning lottery ticket, Jackpot director Paul Feig made it clear who he was calling for backup:
"I'm calling John Cena or Simu Liu or Jason Statham and saying, 'Help.'"
When asked where Jason Statham was in this film, Feig jokingly exclaimed, "There's always a sequel."
While a sequel is far from a sure thing, the film's premise does set itself up nicely if the creatives wanted to do more. Statham would also make for a perfect addition to the cast, as his action star persona, alongside his lesser known comedic chops, could work wonders with both John Cena and Awkwafina.
Rob Yescombe, who wrote Jackpot, had a different answer for how he would survive Los Angeles after winning the lottery ticket: "Who's to say I'm not going to embrace death?:"
"Who's to say I'm not going to embrace death? Just get it over with. I think that's it. I'm going to look for a person who I think is deserving and try and throw myself onto the stake for them. Sacrifice. They win it that way, straight to heaven. That's way better than winning a billion dollars."
Yescombe was then asked what the most unique moment on the film was for him, to which the creative was quick to praise both Awkwafina and John Cena and how cool it was to see them do all the action:
"Honestly watching Awkwafina and John Cena do the action. Because Cena has decades of experience doing this kind of thing, but for Awkwafina, it's a little newer. And just watching the two of them work in simpatico, not only as a great comic duo but as a great physical comic duo. Because a big inspiration for me and Paul making this movie was old Jackie Chan movies, the joy of that kind of action. So, it's so great to see two great comic actors coming together to do this."
As for whether the writer himself has ever won money from a scratch-off himself, he admitted that he "won $5:"
"I won $5. Used the $5 to buy another ticket. Lost the $5."
Sam Asghari (Senior Agent Ash) felt that the best way to survive a bloodthirst Los Angeles mob would be to "hide in plain sight:"
"I feel like the city of Los Angeles is always hunting everybody down. I love the city of Los Angeles; it's the greatest city on the planet, and the City of Angels, for sure. But if they were coming after me because of a lottery ticket, I would hide in plain sight because that's the best strategy to do. If you want to hide away from paparazzi in Los Angeles, hide in plain sight."
For Asghari, the most unique moment on Jackpot for him was his "fight scene with John Cena:"
"The most unique thing that I've experienced was my fight scene with John Cena and [the] professionalism he has, the comedic timing he has, the professional he is, and the surprise that I got that someone could go from the WWE into the acting world and kill it, that's something that was very surprising for me."
Murray Hill, who plays Johnny Grand, the television personality for the big lottery, had probably the best survival strategy for holding onto a winning lottery ticket in the world of Jackpot: they'd go hide in "the LA subway:"
"The LA subway. So that's what I do. I'd go underground… I don't even know where it is. I don't even know where to go to hide, but that's where I'm going."
Hill then took time to exclaim about how awesome it was to work with a real, working flamethrower for a scene in the film:
"The craziest, most unique thing was working with that flamethrower because that was not a prop. That was real. In between takes, I was holding it to my side, and the gas was coming out, and I was shitting my pants. And I can't wait to see the movie... One false move, I would have gone up in flames because this is a very flammable material."
Out of all responses to surviving a Jackpot lottery ticket, Michael Hitchcock (Ron Wrexler) had perhaps the most relatable:
"I don't think I would. I think I would panic, go eat a pizza, and they'd kill me right away."
Jackpot is now streaming on Amazon Studios' Prime Video.
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