Because the movie is set at college, and where else would you escalate the insanity of college, “22 Jump Street” ends with an epic sequence set at Spring Break. But as it turns out, the movie’s depiction of the neon-colored fantasy could have been very different, if directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord hadn’t first seen “Spring Breakers.”
“I watched it again, and was reminded how bleak and depressing that movie is, and not glamorous about Spring Break at all,” Miller told MTV News about tackling the sequence.
“If anything we would have gone further, and darker if they hadn’t done that so well,” Lord added. “It’s impossible to beat that movie for what it is. We had the movie version of Spring Break.”
That doesn’t mean the duo didn’t lean into the yuckiness of paradise, at least a little bit.
“We had some things about how gross and smelly, and just how disgusting Spring Break really is, but they never stayed in the movie,” Miller noted.
Also, sadly, not making the movie was “Spring Breakers” standout character Alien, or at least the human being who portrays him in that movie, James Franco.
“It occurred to us at some point that he should be a professor, that was our dream,” Lord recalled. “But it wound up being that we didn’t spend as much time in classrooms as we thought we were going to.”
Hear that? You almost had Alien welcoming everyone to claaaaaassss.
“22 Jump Street” is in theaters now.
Alex Zalben
No Comments