LOGLINE

Reunited for a bachelor party drinking game, an uptight successful graduate and his chaotic former friend run afoul of a violent rogue mob enforcer, forcing them to stop their bickering and overcome their differences - all while wearing full chicken suits.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

In April 2023 I found myself in an empty London pub one Sunday lunchtime, nursing a pint during a lengthy lunch break between BAFTA Guru sessions. It turned out to be the most life-changing pint I’ll probably ever have. Everything that follows here is all true.

The pub was more or less empty — all brass taps and oak. An Australian barman served me, and there was one other bloke in there. 

About halfway through my pint, the other bloke ordered one, and the Aussie barman said he had to go change the barrel. As soon as he left — I’m not kidding — two Australian guys dressed in immaculate chicken suits walked in, and started explaining at extraordinary length to the other bloke that they were doing “The Chicken Run” — an Aussie drinking party game where everyone puts money into a “kitty”, and two names are drawn at random to be the chickens. These two are given the bag of cash and sent into the City, wearing chicken suits, with a head start, to find a pub and hide there. The rest of the group have to run around the city to find them — and when they do, they get to drink out of the kitty. 

It was one of the most extraordinary drinking games I’d ever heard of, in one of the most bizarre situations I’d ever been in. And then the Australian barman came back to the bar, took one look at them up and down, and went, “Ah, you lads doing the chicken run?”

I wondered what the fuck this Aussie barman had mixed into my pint, and then I thought to myself…. “what if they went into the wrong pub, dressed like that?” 

We’ve all been in horrible dive bars that felt dangerous, I imagine. I certainly have. One, in particular, came to mind — it was in South Boston. My wife used to play pool in there, and I thought it was a terrifying place. It was right up the street from where the legendary Boston mob bar Triple O’s had been, famous hangout of Boston kingpin ‘Whitey’ Bulger. In fact, it was nicknamed Whitey’s. I’d probably love it now. It’s still there.

Anyway, I knew it was a great idea for at least a short, probably a feature — if it had the right title (I couldn’t call it THE CHICKEN RUN, after all). It was, possibly, a gift from the Film Gods — a whole, complete, perfect premise just waiting for me to pick it up and run with it. Except, what would I call it?

Some months passed, while the idea gestated in my mind. I merged some life experiences in, both things that I’d been through and that I’d seen my friends go through — fallouts and disagreements, often petty and childish. The idea of two grown men in chicken suits, drinking beer and bickering was funny. If they could be faced with their own mortality — and get some blood spattered on those perfectly-white chicken suits — in order to shake them out of their petulant ways, I’d be onto a winner. But what was it going to be called?

I don’t know how “Giblets” came to me, but it did. Another gift from the Film Gods, one day. A “eureka” moment, months later. I laughed out loud at the idea plus that title, and I’ve been laughing about it since. I decided to write a short first, then while that was coming together, write the feature version. At this stage it would still be set in London.

Now I never intended to set out writing or directing comedy — my other projects tend to be thrillers, dramas, the odd creature horror — though I come from animation which usually has a strong comedic element. But I thought I’d strengthen my hand, and recruit two comedians to play the leads, and help make the writing as strong as it could be. 

To play the Aussie lead, Andy, I googled ‘Australian comedians working the London club scene’. That’s how I found Thomas Green. He has an incredible likeability, such that you could write horrific things for him to say and the audience would still be on his side. I went to one of his shows, and waited outside for him. I pitched him the idea and he said, “fancy a beer?” and that was that.

I was planning on doing some virtual location scouting for the short film version —we’d found a London pub we could use and this technique meant I could try out angles virtually rather than inside the location. We needed some actors to wear mocap suits and block out some scenes in the virtual space. Joel and I have a mutual actor friend who brought him along, I asked him to read Dave’s lines and I thought he was great. 

My producer Reine and I attended Cannes 2024 with another feature of mine, DEAD MAN’S HILL, looking for pre-sales to complete the funding for that project. After our meetings about that seemed to go well, I nonchalantly started chatting to U.S.-based producers about GIBLETS. And they all went nuts for it, and we got lots of questions about a feature.

We came home and immediately got to work on the feature version, setting it in a Boston dive bar based on Whitey’s and Triple O’s. It’ll be a raucous, violent, beer-soaked comedy — THE HANGOVER meets HOT FUZZ, with a chaser of COCAINE BEAR.

I don’t know what was in that pint the Aussie barman poured, but I’ll tell you something... I’ll have another one.