Boy Kills World Director On 7-Year Journey To Make Action Comedy & Casting Skarsgård As Titular Hero

Bill Skarsgård becomes an action hero with a little help from Archer‘s H. Jon Benjamin in Boy Kills World. The Swedish actor is better known for his work in the world of the horror genre, namely playing Pennywise the Clown in Andy Muschietti’s IT duology, as well as Netflix’s Hemlock Grove and Hulu’s Castle Rock. In recent years, he has been expanding his filmography to include more action-oriented fare, including playing the villainous Marquis Vincent de Gramont in John Wick: Chapter 4 and the titular undead vigilante in the upcoming The Crow reboot.

In Boy Kills World, Skarsgård stars as the titular deaf and mute man living in a dystopian city lorded over by a rich family, the Van Der Koys, who host an annual event known as The Culling, in which people are rounded up for a televised execution. Traumatized by his family’s murders at the hands of the family’s matriarch, Hilda, Boy sets out on a quest for revenge against her and all involved, hoping to finally bring some order back to the city and get closure for his family’s deaths.

In addition to Skarsgård, Boy Kills World‘s ensemble cast includes a unique twist as Archer‘s H. Jon Benjamin plays the inner voice of the titular character, having come from an arcade fighter video game Boy and his sister used to play together. The movie hails from director Moritz Mohr, who developed the story with co-writer Arend Remmers based on their proof-of-concept trailer pitched to producer Sam Raimi.

Ahead of the movie’s wide release, Screen Rant interviewed director Moritz Mohr to discuss Boy Kills World, the seven-year journey he took from its proof-of-concept trailer creation to a feature-length project, crafting its action sequences, his initial reservations about casting Skarsgård and why Benjamin was at the top of his “very short list” for Boy’s inner voice.

Boy Kills World Became “Weirder” & “Crazier” Over The Years

Skarsgård and Benjamin’s joint role as the titular protagonist isn’t the only unique element of Boy Kills World, with Isaiah Mustafa’s incomprehensible resistance fighter Benny, Brett Gelman’s aspiring writer dictator Gideon, and Sharlto Copley’s fast-talking dictator mouthpiece Glen all adding to the wild tone of the movie. Having first begun as a proof-of-concept trailer, Moritz recalled how the seven-year journey ultimately led to the project becoming “funnier, weirder” and “crazier“:

Moritz Mohr: We started this seven years ago as a proof-of-concept trailer, so we built this world and the story from scratch, piece by piece. Over the years, it just became funnier, weirder, crazier, so it was not really a choice of like, “Oh, this is gonna be my big feature debut.” It was just like, “Yeah, it’s not really a question.” Or it wasn’t a conscious decision, there was no other movie out there that I was like, “Oh, I should do this before.” No, we really worked on this for a long time, so that’s the main reason.

When it came to the actual action of the movie itself, Mohr worked closely with his action designer, David Szatarski, to similarly find the right tonal balance of “crazy and violent” for its bloody set pieces, and even cast Szatarski in one of the movie’s more gut-busting sequences:

Moritz Mohr: Our action designer and director, David Szatarski, who was Dave in the factory fight. I’ve known him for 12 years, and we like the same action movies, we sort of have the same weird taste and keeping the fun in there.

We talked through all the scenes in a way that was like,”Alright, what does the scene need here? Does it need to be serious? Or can it be fun? Does it have to convey another feeling? Should it be crazy and violent, or just violent, or just crazy?” You treat them a bit like musical numbers, and make them in a different way, different tonalities, and achieve different things with them. That was a long conversation over the years. In this case, that’s how we did it. [Chuckles]

H. Jon Benjamin Was At The Top Of Mohr’s “Very Short List” For Boy’s Inner Voice

While Skarsgård is an acclaimed actor in his own right, Boy’s status as a deaf-mute protagonist left Mohr with the opportunity to get creative with who voices the character. In crafting the list of just who should play the hero, the director not only had a “very short list” of names he hoped to get, but Benjamin was ultimately at the top of it:

Moritz Mohr: It was a very short list, and Jon Benjamin was on top of it, because I love him for the same reasons you love him. I’m a big Archer fan, I’m a big Bob’s Burgers fan. We knew that the comedy would be an important part of this, and most of the comedy of this movie — or a lot of it — is in Boy’s head, because the world and the story itself is serious. But yeah, so that was the reason, and it was literally, “I love H. Jon Benjamin, he would be a great voice for this.” And that’s why we chose him.

Mohr & His Team Had 1 Main Concern About Casting Skarsgård (& He “Overdelivered“)

Boy Kills World continues one of the best recent trends in the action genre of seeing a movie’s star take the reins and do the majority of fight sequences and stunts themselves, with Skarsgård following in the footsteps of Keanu Reeves in John Wick, Bob Odenkirk in Nobody and Charlize Theron in Atomic Blonde, among others. For Mohr, he initially was reluctant to cast Skarsgård solely for the reason of being unsure whether he would be able to deliver on this front, only for the star to be “really committed” in his preparation:

Moritz Mohr: Bill is a terrific actor. The only thing we weren’t sure at that point was, “Can he deliver on the action?” He basically just promised, “No, I’m gonna put in the work, I’m gonna get ripped, I’m gonna train, and I’m going to learn the choreography.” Which is a huge commitment, because it’s just months and months of training and rehearsing, and I’m so glad that he did it. He overdelivered sometimes, he was really committed to it, and I’m very lucky that he was, because I think the results are just phenomenal.

About Boy Kills World

Skarsgård stars as “Boy” who vows revenge after his family is murdered by Hilda Van Der Koy (Janssen), the deranged matriarch of a corrupt post-apocalyptic dynasty that left the boy orphaned, deaf and voiceless. Driven by his inner voice, one which he co-opted from his favorite childhood video game, Boy trains with a mysterious shaman (Ruhian) to become an instrument of death and is set loose on the eve of the annual culling of dissidents. Bedlam ensues as Boy commits bloody martial arts mayhem, inciting a wrath of carnage and blood-letting. As he tries to get his bearings in this delirious realm, Boy soon falls in with a desperate resistance group, all the while bickering with the apparent ghost of his rebellious little sister.

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Source: Screen Rant Plus

Boy Kills World

Boy Kills World is an action thriller film by director Moritz Mohr, released in 2024. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, a young man simply known as “Boy” lives through terrible trauma after his family is killed by a woman named Hilda Van Der Koy, who currently rules the land. Now older and more bloodthirsty than ever, Boy heads into the fray to claim revenge while liberating the world from her tyrannical grasp.

Director

Moritz Mohr

Release Date

April 26, 2024

Studio(s)

Nthibah Pictures , Hammerstone Studios , Ventaro Film

Distributor(s)

Capstone Global

Writers

Tyler Burton Smith , Arend Remmers , Moritz Mohr

Cast

Bill Skarsgard , Famke Janssen , Jessica Rothe , Michelle Dockery , Brett Gelman , Isaiah Mustafa , Yayan Ruhian , Nicholas Crovetti

Runtime

115 Minutes