Happy Monday!
They always say, “write what you know.” Which makes total sense when you consider that I wrote two dystopian sci-fi novels about the world ending. Maybe that explains why I’m not a New York Times bestselling author…yet!
Gloomy career reflections aside, here’s how Adrien and I went from making psychological thriller-esque short films to something as absurd and bizarre as Anthony’s Balls (AB).
Let’s rewind to summer 2025. A lot was happening. Adrien had just graduated from university. I’d taken my writing career full-time. My second novel, Serenity, had just been published. We were also wrapping up two films we’d been sitting on: A Single Serving Friend and I’m Not Supposed To Be Here.
It was July, Adrien and I had separated….physically, that is. He was in France visiting his roommate's family. I was in Canada, writing anything and everything that came to mind. We weren’t collaborating much over calls, but we stayed in touch. Mostly through him opening his inbox to find a flood of scripts from me.
One of those ideas came to me from just the daily stupidity I’d see from my close friend group from back home. Thus, in this digital age of absurd memes and dumb brain rot, I put together a story about a friend being excluded from a group chat.
I thought it was stupid and low and behold, Adrien loved it. But, and there’s always a but, he felt it didn’t go over the top enough. If the film was about an absurd argument with a dumb resolution, why not go overboard and write something out of left field? So I went back into writing and I really couldn’t think of anything more that could happen between 3 friends, in a forest, bickering over a group chat.
Then….Balls.
I won’t spoil exactly what happens in the film as it’s not released but I wrote something even more stupid, even more disgusting, and just so insane that I wanted to really show Adrien I could make something even he would tell me is too much.
But, as you’ve read in many newsletters, Adrien said “why not? This is great.” So good in fact, that he was set on us actually filming it. I thought he was screwing with me as I truly didn’t believe he wanted to make this. Next thing I know, he’s sent this script around to our friends and inner circle.
How could someone who writes about such serious topics make something so childish and borderline offensive in most countries? Again to my surprise, others seem to agree that we might have something here. Our DP Marco was interested, our wonderful casting team was into it, and we were assembling a real production team.
Do I regret it? No. Do I still think it’s the dumbest project we’ve ever shot? Yes. Are we going to overmarket it like we’ve never done with any of our films? Apparently so!
Stay tuned for more AB news, announcements, and posts as they come out!
Till our next adventure,
Pat and the Marquet Films team
MOVIE OF THE WEEK:
Pat Recommends: The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
Adrien Recommends: Prisoners (2013)